Sickness, Fun Days, Ice Cream, Awards

I have been slacking in the blogging department.  We have been busy and had sick kids so here's a quick catch-up.  A few weeks ago Sarah was assigned a day to bring an item that started with an 'L' for show and tell.  I forgot about it, but Sarah took care of it with using her imagination.  The room mom told me about it afterward.  Sarah got up for her turn and started explaining that her item was brown.  She also said that she wears it when it is cold.  It is soft.  Then she pulled out her coat, but she called it her lemon coat.  Lemon coat?  That's one I have never heard of because her coat is brown and looks nothing like a lemon, but I guess it worked.  Pretty creative imagination.  I really need to start writing these things down because trying to remember 5 kids different schedules is getting harder for me.

Two weeks ago Matthew got to pass the sacrament by himself for the first time and he did great.  He has been shadowed by one of his fellow Deacons, up until now.  For his first week on his own he did awesome. I nervously watched him the whole time, but he knew what he was doing. Yay, Matthew!

In Daniel's school class they earn class bucks for incentives.  Then occasionally they hold a class store in which they can use their class bucks to buy things.  At this last class store, Daniel bought 4 Famous Dave's kids meal coupons so he could take our family out to dinner.  So Two Saturdays ago We dropped Sarah off at a birthday party and took everyone else out to lunch at Famous Dave's.  Daniel was so proud to be able to do that for his brothers.  He made sure everyone told him thank you.  It was funny to see him.  Anyway, it was nice to go somewhere else besides McDonald's or Burger King that Daniel can eat something off the menu that he's not allergic to.  Wahoo!

A few weeks ago all the stars lined up where in the evening Aaron found ourselves with one hour with only Sarah and Noah at home with us.  Things like that don't happen very often so we took advantage of the situation.  We took Sarah and Noah out to get some chocolate dipped ice cream cones.  With Daniel and his dairy allergies we never get to eat much ice cream so we really enjoyed ourselves.

 Noah is quite the mamma's boy.  He loves to go with me where ever I am going and he likes to be just like me.  He went with me to pick up Josh from piano and had to put on his (Aaron's sunglasses) so he could have some, too.  He thought he was pretty good looking and unbiasedly (is that even a word?) I had to agree.

 Speaking of Noah he is quite particular in everything he does.  Before I go to bed I check on the kids and Noah always lines up his cars really nicely before he goes to bed.  The other night this is how I found his cars lined up:

If he wasn't so socially appropriate I would be more worried about the car lining up, but I am not for now.

 For Martin Luther King Day we celebrated by taking everyone up to Hardware Ranch up in Cache county to see the wintering elk.

 Surprisingly for a holiday it was a bit busy.  After standing in line for a bit we finally got our turn to go on the sleigh ride out to see the elk.

 It was nice to get above the nasty air by where we live.  It was even warmer as well, too.  It was a blustery 34 degrees.

 It is really neat to see them so close.  They are a lot bigger the closer you are to them.

 Afterward we headed up to Casper's ice cream shop and got everyone some yummy and cheap ice cream.
The whole trip over to Casper's from Hardware Ranch we were serenaded by Sarah and Noah.  Aaron videoed the kids singing their made up ice cream song.  Let me tell you we heard this the WHOLE way over to get ice cream which was a good 40 minute drive.

It reminded me of my own family growing up.  My brother would make up songs like this all the time when he was little.  The only one I can think of is the Timpanogos Cave Song.  Bryan would sing about how the cave was dark because they turned out all of the lights amongst other great lyrics I am sure.

Before we left for ice cream we stopped at a gas station and let Daniel pick out a big size candy of his choice so he could eat that while the rest of us were eating our ice cream.  When it was time to pick our ice cream Noah picked his flavor according to color--orange.  Sarah used the same strategy and got pink which happened to be watermelon flavor.  Matthew was not too adventurous and got plain old chocolate with m&ms on top.  Josh tried the cotton candy and cookies and cream.  It was pretty good and pretty cheap--double bonus for our big family!

 Noah figured eating his ice cream with two spoons at the same time made it taste even better.

 The next morning Josh had his first orthodontic work up where they made his mouth molds.  In three weeks Josh will be getting his braces on and couldn't be more excited about it.  We will see what he thinks after he starts getting them tightened--ouch!

 Last Wednesday night was Pack Meeting for Josh and Daniel.  I felt horrible that I couldn't go, but Matthew was having an extremely rough day.  He was in the middle of a massive meltdown so I had to stay back at home with him.  At Pack Meeting Daniel received his Bobcat award along with a few others.  Aaron was there to help him in getting it which was fun.

And, of course, in Cub Scouts you can't get an award without choosing a cheer:

 Here's the proud Daniel showing off his Bobcat award:

 Josh passed off a bunch of things as well and got a few awards.  He was pretty excited.

 He got to choose a cheer as well:

Last Thursday I got to watch some little girls to help a friend out.  Noah was excited to have a friend over, but he has a hard time sharing his cars.  He wanted her to play cars the same way Mom plays cars which is just sitting there and doing everything Noah tells you to do.  Shockingly enough, Emma didn't want to play that way, but they eventually worked things out.  

 The next day Sarah woke up feeling pretty crummy with a 103 degree fever.  As the day went on she felt worse and worse.  Her fever got up to 105.3 degrees and I was starting to get nervous.  I had already given her Tylenol and ibuprofen and her fever still wasn't dropping.  I ended up taking her in to the doctor to rule out strep.  They tested her for Strep, Influenza A and Influenza B all of which came back negative.  So they used the most common phrase in medicine, "It's a virus."  As soon as we got home from the doctor's office Sarah threw up.  Great.  However, she only threw up twice, but then nothing.  Also she only threw up after I had given her an ibuprofen tablet on an empty stomach, too.  So I didn't know if she had a stomach bug or something else.  Whatever it was she felt pretty miserable.

We have managed to get her fever down to 100 to 101, but not much lower. The bad thing is we are going on day 5 of this sickness with no other symptoms besides a high fever with malaise and lethargy.  Here's what her temp was this morning (and yes I checked again with a different thermometer just to make sure)  YIKES!:

 No good at all.  I was a little nervous yesterday morning because Noah threw up, but he didn't act sick at all otherwise.  He is still fine today so I am thinking it was a random puking....weird.  Anyway, I was snuggling with Sarah on Sunday afternoon when she looked at me and said, "My tooth feels weird."  I had a look and it was only hanging on by a thread.  Yuck!!  I HATE teeth.  Aaron came over and pulled it out without too much effort.  Even though Sarah felt pretty yucky she was excited to lose her first tooth and get a visit from the Tooth Fairy.

 The next morning she was excited to get up to see if the Tooth Fairy had visited which she had--phew!  Sorry about the bedhead, but that's what happens when you don't feel well.  Wahoo a dollar!  She then told me she can't wait to lose even more teeth.  Hopefully she won't pull hers out with a balloon string like I did....

 I hate that Sarah's feels yucky, but Aaron and I don't mind the snuggles, though.

 Hopefully she gets over this 'virus' soon because she feels awful--poor thing.   Even Noah will sit next to her and rub her head.  It's sweet.

Noah is a little spoiled and a lot of times gets his way.  For example this morning he insisted that Josh and Daniel play Ring Around the Roses with him.  He wouldn't take no for an answer and finally Josh and Daniel gave in.  It made Noah's day.

Famous, Nerdy Boy, Bird Refuge, Dance Recital

Sometimes Aaron and I get a minute when all of our kids are playing nicely together.  We then overwhelmingly think to ourselves, "Wow they all belong to us!!  When and how did we get old enough to have five busy kids?!"  Even with all the craziness that five kiddos bring we wouldn't change our cute family for anything!!

Sarah got an alarm clock for Christmas.  Her friend had one so she just had to have one, too.  The only thing is the one that Santa brought is it is incredibly cheap which means it is very difficult to work.  I can't figure out how to set it without the instructions.  However, Sarah has figured out how to set both alarms for in the middle of the night.  I have tried to turn them off, but again in order to do anything with this stupid clock you need the instructions and a degree from Harvard.  I HATE this clock!!  I thought I had fixed the problem only to find Sarah was incredibly grumpy the next day and told me her clock kept beeping at her all night long.  She has been going on very little sleep because she insists on having the clock plugged in every night before she goes to bed.  So I plug it in and turn off the alarms (or so I think) only to have her come tell me again the next morning that her clock kept beeping all night.  I think the 'NOT ME' ghost will have to pay a visit and make that clock disappear one day in the very near future while she is at school.

Yesterday I was making bread and Noah LOVES it when I make bread.  No it is not because he likes to eat it, it is because he likes to play the drums on all my ingredient cans.  His preferred music to play his 'drums' to the oldies song Sugar Sugar by the Archies.  Rock on Buddy!

Here's a snippet of part of his actual drum performance along with some dancing:  

What a funny boy!

He has also been around the kids and their spelling words.  He thinks he has learned how to spell his name--'thinks' is the key word there.  He says, "M-O-A-H spells Bubba!"--according to Noah.  Don't try to correct him either because you will never win an argument against a 3 year old.  

His nickname is Bubba, but he thinks that is his real name as well.  The first week the new sunbeams were in primary the presidency had the Sunbeams each introduce themselves.  When it was Noah's turn he said, "I'm Bubba!"  The primary presidency didn't think they heard him correctly so they all looked at me.  I sheepishly said his name is Noah, but his nickname is Bubba. He's been called Bubba or Bubbas ever since he was a baby in the NICU because he was so much bigger than all the other babies.  The nickname just stuck.  Too bad all his siblings call him and introduce him as Bubba as well.  Maybe by preschool he will be able to introduce himself as Noah.  We will see :).

As for teaching Sunbeams--it will be an interesting year.  We have 9 in our class and 7 of them are active.  Two of them are REALLY wiggly during class and unfortunately one of them is mine.  Noah can be a little stinker in Sunbeams.  I don't know if he likes to be a stinker because I am the teacher or if he likes to be the stinker because he is a stinker.  Oh well he's not too bad so I hopefully can deal with it as the year progresses.  Also in church stuff I got a new calling in addition to primary.  I get to be on the Enrichment Board or relief society meeting planning board.  I got asked clear back in November and never heard anything about it afterward.  Well we had our first planning session Sunday after church.  It seems like it will be a fun calling/assignment.

 Saturday the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge was having a Huge Owl day event so we decided to go.  On the way in walking through the parking lot there were lots of snowpiles that Noah took advantage of.  In this picture he had a snowball in his hands that he was running with to throw at Aaron.  

When we walked in there were quite a few people there.  We first stopped at the stuffed bird station with the magnifying glass.  The kids all took turns looking at the feathers and reading about the birds.

Sarah's checking out the feathers with her magnifying glass.

 Noah thought if he used two magnifying glasses at the same time he could see better.

Next we got the awesome opportunity to dissect some owl pellets.  A pellet is the mass of undigested parts of a an owl's food that it can't digest (bones, fur, claws, etc.).  So before the owl needs to eat again, it regurgitates this pellet to make room for the new food it will be eating.  So by looking through the pellets you can see what the owl has been eating.  Aaron was pretty grossed out by this so he was more than willing to keep track of Noah while the rest of us were able to look through our sterilized owl pellets.  Josh was the first one to get started.  We found all kinds of bones mostly from a vole which is an animal like a mole.

 Here's half a skull from a vole we found:

 Then it was Daniel's turn.  Daniel got a HUGE pellet so we found lots of things.

 Sarah helped Josh finish looking through  his pellet.

 Matthew looked for a bit then quickly lost interest and went to help Aaron with Noah.

 Daniel and I found almost a complete vole skeleton in his pellet with a few extra vole skulls.  All in all I thought it was fascinating stuff, but Aaron and I have differing views on that.  That's why he's the Engineer and I am the nurse, I guess.

 They also had face painting.  You had to pick an owl to be painted after.  Josh, Daniel and Sarah were interested, but Matthew and Noah had no desire to get their face painted.

 Daniel the owl:

 Josh the owl:

 Sarah the owl:

 They had a glass corner where they had binoculars you could look for different birds.  Since this is a bird refuge they have a lot of land with lots of birds that migrate through during the year.  We didn't see too many, but the kids had fun looking for different birds.

 Matthew liked looking around at the pictures and displays talking about the different bird varieties.

 They also had a 1/2 mile nature trail you could take to try and see more birds.  Noah did not want to do this so he screamed the whole time we were on the walk.  Because he was so loud the only birds we saw were these three owls:

 They had more activities to do there, but Aaron HATES birds and has a little bit of a phobia about them.  I didn't realize about the phobia until were had only been there for about 60 minutes when Aaron said he was done.  I knew he has always hated the aviaries and such, but now I know why.  He told me he had seen enough bird stuff to last him a lifetime and then some.  So we left shortly after.  While we were there the local news station came out to tape some of the days' activities.  We didn't get interviewed, but we got to be in the background of quite a few scenes on the news.  Here's one shot of Sarah (pink coat), Daniel (back of his head), Josh (sitting at the table), and me bending over helping dissect Daniel's owl pellet.  Wahoo we are famous ;)!  Josh was so excited because this is the second time he's been on TV.  He wants everyone to know he will be around to sign autographs later, the goof!

 They did an interview of one of the workers and Aaron and Bubba were in the background, too.  Noah is on Aaron's shoulders.  This was before Aaron had had enough of the pellet dissection.

Yesterday was a busy day so when I found five minutes to sit down I was bombarded with Sarah and Noah needing lubs.  By holding still for two minutes Noah quickly fell asleep which trapped me there for a few minutes, but I wasn't complaining.  Sarah and I played around with the camera on my phone and then we watched a movie.  It is times like this that I will sorely miss when all my kids will be in all day school so I am trying to take advantage now ;).

 We have been having some issues on Sunday with getting ready for church and actual church behavior so we decided to have a family home evening lesson about it.  Meet nerdy boy:

Nerdy boy is a kid who doesn't have his tie on correctly, doesn't have his pockets tucked in, doesn't have his shirt buttoned up correctly, he has his pants tucked inside his sock, he doesn't have his pants zipped up, he doesn't have his shirt sleeves buttoned, he doesn't have his shoes tied or even on correctly, and he has mismatched socks on (all of which we sell all too frequently on our boys every Sunday morning ).  Aaron dressed up like this because he thought the kids would think it was funny to see him dressed like how they dress sometimes.  I also got dressed up in my skirt, but there's not too much you can get wrong wearing a skirt other than tucking it in your undies which I did.  After dressing up like this we walked out to a waiting couch full of kids.  They thought we were hilarious.  Then they helped us get dressed properly for church.  Then we had a demonstration of what's appropriate church behavior and what wasn't.  Aaron and I fought over a toy, we argued, we sat on books, etc.  The kids thought it was hilarious, but they also were the teachers to teach us what was ok and what wasn't.  It was a different kind of lesson.  The kids seemed to have fun with it, but we will see Sunday if anything sunk in.  I am keeping my fingers crossed.  We are also telling the kids not to be like 'Nerdy Boy!'

Sarah's dance recital was last night.  She was so excited for it until it was time to do her hair.  She HATES hot rollers, however, I bribed her with putting on make up if she let me put hot rollers in her hair.  She agreed.  I was so glad there were no tears this time!

 Here's my pretty girl all dolled up.  I am glad I got at least one girl to play dress up with!!

 The makeup was good bribery as well when it was on.  I had put some mascara on her and I told her after I put it on that she couldn't cry or she would make her face all black.  That worked great.  If she started getting upset I said, "Now Sarah, remember you can't cry!!"  and she could turn off the water works pretty fast.  Hmmmm-is she too young to wear mascara every day?!  Haha just joking!

G&G T came up for dinner then to come and see her performance.  With Sarah on stage the boys each got an adult to themselves.  However, Aaron and I were chopped liver because they all chose G&G T to sit by and waller.  Later in the performance Matthew even fell asleep on Grandpa's shoulder.

 Here's Sarah's first dance:  She is the only one with black dance shoes because I bought the wrong ones.  Whoops--however, it makes picking her out easier.

Here's the second dance:

Here's my pretty girl afterward with her roses.

 When we got home it was way past bedtime so Noah immediately grabbed his pillow and followed me around because he wanted lubs.  How can you resist a face like that?!

 I am a horrible flower arranger so don't judge me, but the roses are starting to bloom this morning.  They look so pretty!