Hybiscus

 This week, this week.  It was a pretty normal summer week at our house.

Arlo had a fever earlier in the week and I wasn't sure what was going on because he wasn't teething.  At one point I gave him a cool bath, acetaminophen, and put him to bed in only a diaper and he was still hot.  The fever broke and then on Friday I noticed he had a pink rash all over his torso, neck, and face.  I was concerned that it was a food allergy since he's been eating lots of new things, but I think its Roseola, which is  a viral infection, it will work itself out.  He's been riding in shopping carts and interacting with the outside environment more when we're out, so he probably picked it up from that.  He's been ever so irritable though.  His fever is gone now and the rash at this point has lightened, we didn't take him to church on Sunday so as not to spread the love.  I hope he's feeling better by Monday, otherwise, Jeff will take him into the pediatrician.

Helen fell asleep on the couch in her dress up with her lunch still in hand

I was so grateful it was an "off Friday" week.  There is something magical about having every other Friday off.  I have an extra day to get things done.  With Jeff working on Saturday, its hard to get out and we don't do errands and such on Sundays, so having that day off on Friday is great.  I made cupcakes and went visiting teaching.   I took the girls school shopping, and it really seemed like supplies were a lot more expensive this year compared to last.  I spent close to $100 and didn't even buy any new clothes or shoes, which I'll need to do before 6th.

 

 I also got some sewing in this weekend too!  I made a romper for Arlo out of one of Jeff's old T-shirts which turned out really cute.  I had to make my own pattern, but it was fun.  I've saved a lot of Jeff's shirts with the intention of making a quilt for him when I had collected enough, but I think I'll make some more rompers/onesies for Arlo before they make it into a quilt.  I also had several yards of tropical fabric in my cache (or horde as Jan would call it) so I made the girls a sundress each and a little tie for Arlo.  You would think that years of sewing would teach me that patterns always seem to run big, but alas, the dresses did end up being a little too big.

Jeff is still enjoying his summer class, he has only two more weeks.  I can't believe that the school year is upon us already.  We're excited to meet Felicity's first grade teacher and get Jeff back into the swing of full time classes.  I can't wait until he is done, I'm so proud of all the progress he's made toward achieving his goals.

I'm looking forward to the last official week of summer and getting Felicity ready to go back to school.  We have Helen's birthday coming up soon and I'll be making her a Scooby Doo cake, and probably doing pizza.  I'm also looking forward to getting in more exercise this coming week too.

Golden Rod

We had a very nice week at Casa de Davidson.  Little Arlo is loving his new place at the dinner table, using his dexterity and new teeth to enjoy the variety of flavors and textures that the table has to offer. The girls are enjoying barefoot, Popsicle-eating summer days and the lushness of the grass in the back now that we’re well into our summer monsoon season.

My back has been feeling much better, although with Jeff gone in the evening we haven’t been getting out as much to exercise together.  We had Jeff’s sister, Tracy, and her husband and baby stay with us for two days this past week.  Unfortunately, I had to work so I didn’t get much visiting in.  They did go down into Madera Canyon for a hike and the splash park in Tucson.  It has been a couple of years since we had seen them, other than via Skype, so it was a nice visit.  I left Jeff in charge of taking pictures since I was at work most of their visit, and needless to say, didn't get very many usable ones! 

Here's the girls after their hike in Madera Canyon

Jeff worked on Saturday at the estate sale and I had a cake to make.  I don’t think I’ll ever take another fondant cake order during monsoon season, the humidity made it very difficult and challenging.  I literally had the top two tiers fall apart on me when I was covering them.  I had to bake four additional layers about half way through the day.  Helen has asked for a Scooby Doo cake for her birthday which is coming up in about three weeks, so I’ll have to figure something out. 

We’re hoping for a nice quiet week.  We’ll need to do school shopping already, how quickly the time goes!  I’m hoping that I will have some time for some crafts, maybe coming up with plans for the kids Halloween costumes; I have some material that I would like to make the kids some matching outfits.  We hope that everyone else has a productive, happy week.

Lavender

So I felt entirely useless this week.  As mentioned last week, I hurt my back.  For the past three weeks Jeff and I have been exercising every day, it’s been great.  I’m not sure if it was the insane running that has been making me hate the treadmill, the tame game of volleyball where I may have seriously overestimated my vertical leaping ability, or the bike ride that made me feel as though bikes should have tractor seats, which caused the agonizing pain in my lower back.  At first it was only a twinge so I did some aerobics anyways thinking I just needed to stretch, and then I couldn’t stand anymore.  I basically spent the week on the couch.  The first part of the week I sat against the heating pad until Jeff noticed I had these horrible marks up and down my back, evidently the prolonged exposure to heat ruptured several blood vessels just under the skin, yeah, so I have what look like bruises/hickey in coil patterns on my lower back…sigh.  I’m grateful to have the type of job where I can work from home, because that is precisely what I did this past week.  I also didn’t get to exercise all week which was discouraging.

Now on to more light-hearted weekly fare.  Arlo is the light of my day.  That little guy always has a happy smile and a giggle.  He’s enjoying exercising his new big boy teeth and has really liked the new food and textures they have afforded him.  I gave him crackers and cheerios and little cereal puffs that melt in his mouth.  He’s working on his fine motor skills, learning to pinch food between his finger and thumb.  He sits up when it suits his fancy, but he’s most happy when army-crawling around the family room searching for a stray toy or cord to chew on.  He is still taking good naps during the day and amiably goes to sleep when we put him down at night.

Felicity is anxiously awaiting the arrival of the new school year; she has missed school a lot.  Helen has enjoyed having her home and again having an all-day play companion.  Jeff started his summer class this week and seems to be enjoying it, although he has to drive to the north side of Tucson every day.  His grants don’t cover summer classes and the class is exceptionally expensive at the university, so he’s taking it at the community college.  Like I said, the time that best fit our schedule was for a class offered at their north campus, which is about an hour away.  I’m glad he’ll be one more class closer to being finished!

We did continue to exercise as a family, but since my back was so soar we mostly stuck to yoga.  The girls were excited to do yoga with us and Helen was pretty good at it too.  I'm so glad to have such a loving and supportive family.  Jeff really doesn't have a weight loss need, but he's embraced becoming more healthy and has really helped me a lot.  He's given up drinking soda and has been working out right along side me.  He's such a great companion.

I got the purging bug on Friday.  Every now and again I get to feeling a little claustrophobic in the house, like we have too much stuff.  I went room by room and over a few days this week cleaned and de-cluttered each room.  I collected 6 big black trash bags of things to donate and it felt good!  We went to visit some friends in Red Rock on Saturday night after Jeff got home from working at the estate sale.  We really enjoyed visiting and playing some games.  We enjoyed a beautiful, peaceful Sunday at home.

I’m hoping that I’ll be back to normal come Monday.  We are having one of Jeff’s sisters coming to stay with us for a few days in the coming week and are excited for that.  We hope everyone has a great week, and we're hoping for some more monsoon rain!

Red White & Blue

I’m thinking of this week as two short weeks in one. Half of my work team was out on Monday/Tuesday, the other half out on Thursday/Friday so it made for a pretty quiet week at work. The day off in the middle was nice, I had two Monday’s, but also two Friday’s, so I can’t complain.

 Arlo spiked a fever this week and was ever so snotty, and low and behold, two adorable little teeth appeared mid week. Now many of the “experts” say that babies don’t get fevers or runny noses in response to teething, but I think they’re full of you know what, because all of my babies ran low-grade fevers and had runny noses when they got their first teeth. He’s getting to be such a big boy already! I can’t believe how much time has gone by, it seems like he was only just born. Alas,he’ll be 7 months old on Monday. He’s getting much better at sitting up, and he waves bye-bye, which is the cutest darn thing ever, he is so ready to crawl that is frustrating him to no end. He lies on his belly swimming madly, growling like a little bear. Eventually he gives up and rolls to wherever it is that he wants so desperately to get to. The scary part is that the girls are not at all careful with what they leave laying around on the floor,and a lot of their little toys are sure-fire choking hazards. Arlo’s hair has also grown back (he rubbed most of his new born hair off in the first few months) and it needs a bit of a trim around his ears.

I’m grateful that Jeff is such a good sport. I invited some friends over Tuesday night for dinner, but got stuck at work which meant Jeff had to get dinner going for me. We had a nice visit and a yummy BBQ dinner. We had a lot of fun for Independence Day too. We enjoyed a relaxing morning together and then had lunch with the Bryson’s and another family. Then we headed over to Mom and Dad’s to eat again and play. We forgot Arlo’s diaper bag, so we had to cut our visit a little short, but it also meant that we got to go back over to the Bryson’s for games. We are so incredibly blessed to have so many great friends around us, we have an awesome ward full of awesome families that we enjoy spending time with. 

Jeff decided we needed a date night this week, so on Thursday night after work, I met him at Pei Wei and we had dinner. It was delicious, we don't get to go there very often because of the kiddos. Then we went to the movies and saw Moonrise Kingdom. It was a bit strange, along the same vein as The Royal Tennenbaums, and the Fantastic Mr. Fox, but we enjoyed ourselves, and some one on one time.

 We've been very faithful at our daily exercising and I've re-started the couch to 5K program I started several months ago. It has been kicking my butt! I managed to hurt my back at the end of the week and I'm not even sure how. I think it may have happened playing volleyball, but basically I woke up and my back seemed a little stiff so I figured I'd exercise anyway to work out the kink. I was doing aerobics and some resistance training with weights and got about 30 minutes in when I realized I couldn't stand up straight. So I've spent a couple days on the couch with the heating pad on my backside. I wish I could say it was better today, but no such luck.

Jeff worked at the estate sale on Saturday and we went to dinner Saturday night since I didn't get off the couch all day.  We had a nice week and I hope I'm feeling better by tomorrow.

Taupe

This was a rough week, for me at least.  Work seemed really stressful and man was it hot!  On the other hand, Jeff and I had some great success at making some positive health changes.  We got up early every morning to exercise which was fun.  We also got out after dinner as a family and took walks and took the kids out for bike rides twice this week and they really enjoyed themselves.  Helen and Arlo rode in the trailer and Felicity rode her own bike in between Jeff and me.  

Felicity went to spend a couple of nights with Nana and Papa this week and Helen enjoyed some alone time to play.  Jeff has had a relaxing summer thus far working on projects around the house while I'm at work and I'm grateful that he had dinner on the table every evening when I got home.  He will be taking his second ASL class starting July 9 in the evening, so I won't see too much of him for a few weeks, but it will be nice to be getting yet another class out of the way!

It was my off Friday and after a run on the treadmill, Jeff and the kids and I went into Tucson and had breakfast with my mom and grandma.  We did a little shopping after that and then went to the theater to see Brave.  We really enjoyed the movie and thought it was clever, insightful, and without thinly veiled adult humor.  It did have some pretty intense sequences for my girls who are not what I would say overly sensitive.  I also have heard from a couple of friends that they found a scene offensive where some de-kilted men walk out of the frame bare bottomed, but I laughed out loud and thought it wasn't terribly out of taste; then again I don't take myself too seriously!

Jeff worked at the estate sale on Saturday and the kids and I relaxed and did nothing.  We had dinner out in the evening and just had a really low-key Saturday.  Sunday was pretty laid back as well.  Church was very nice, Jeff bore his testimony in sacrament meeting which I really enjoyed and since the young lady I interpret for has graduated from high school, I get to interpret in Relief Society.  It's been a long time since I got to regularly attend Relief Society.  We had dinner with friends which was a lot of fun too!

Wow, it seems like a really boring week compared to the past few weeks.  I'm looking forward to a calm work week with the Independence Day holiday in the middle.  It was really tempting to take time off on Monday and Tuesday, but I'll have to save some time off for fall break and our anniversary week.  We hope everyone has a happy and safe 4th of July!