24 Feb 2013

We had a great week.  Everyone seems to be on the mend and we had a four day weekend, so how could you go wrong?  Arlo is into everything as he has found that he is tall enough to open the doors now.  The first day he jumped and fell off my bed no less than three times.  I also found him fishing in the toilet, literally.  I wish I had taken a picture but I was too irritated with him.  He has a bath toy that consists of plastic fish with hooked tails and a fishing pole with a hook on a string.  He had tossed his fish, an unholy amount of toilet paper, and some hair from the garbage can into the toilet and was dipping the fishing pole in and out of the toilet, ahh!  The day after Arlo discovered his new talent, we bought locks for the outside of the doors.  To give him some good credit, he is also now folding his arms when its time to pray and giving high-fives.

Felicity's field trip was cancelled on Wednesday due to the blizzard warning.  I rolled my eyes and scoffed, I joked about not going to work for fear of the blizzard, to which Helen promptly went over to the sliding glass door and said, "I don't see any lizard".  Low and behold, it starting snowing while I was at work, really snowing.  It was melted by the time that I got home, but it was pretty cold and windy the rest of the night.  I'm actually glad we didn't go to the zoo, although it meant I didn't have an excuse not to go into work!

I took Thursday off since the kids were out of school for rodeo break, but as it turns out, they spent the night at Nana and Papa's on Wednesday night in order to play in the copious amounts of snow that did stick and stay at their house.  I had all day Thursday with Arlo.  He helped me clean, do laundry, go grocery shopping, make a cake, and make dinner.  He was quite the helper and we had a fun day together.  We had Family Home Evening on Thursday night after the girls came home and really enjoyed Jeff's lesson on the the plan of salvation. We had a connect four tournament for our activity, Helen won.

On Friday we had a birthday party to go to in the morning while Dad was at school.  We went to Pump It Up, which is basically a warehouse with brightly colored walls and filled with enflatable obstical courses, slides, and juping castles.  Ok, that was a brillant idea, because while it was slightly hot and slightly stinky (think Chuck E. Cheese on a Saturday night) the kids had a blast and they were worn out by the time we were through.  We spent time over at the Bryson's after the party and then headed home in time to make dinner and have game night.

Jeff had another long day of homework on Saturday.  He's working so diligently at school and I always pray that his grades will be a reflection of his effort, because he works so hard.  He has a tremendously challenging course load this semester with projects almost weekly.  He did take a break to lead the family in some good old fashion yard work.  All five of us were in the front yard pulling weeds and pruning and raking.  I love the winter clean up of the yard because it means that spring is on its way.  I haven't even started plans for my garden seeing as Jeff hasn't been available to help me on the weekends.  In the afternoon Felicity asked if we could go for a bike ride, so instead she and I went out and I ran while she rode.  She's getting more and more confident and she set a good pace for me to keep up with her.  We ran down to Anamax park and got a drink and then came back, about 3 1/2 miles.  The other day I caught her mimicking me while I stretched after a run and I felt so good that I have been a better example to them this last year.  I lost 4.2 pounds this week and ran 17 miles.  I'm getting ready to run my first 5K race in March and will be excited to mark it off my things I want to do, but was previously too fat to do list.

We had our family movie night again this Saturday and it was Felicity's choice, she picked Puss in Boots, meh, but it was uninterupped cuddle time with the people I love the most.  We had a nice Sunday, I had 11 kids in my Primary class this week as they needed a last minute fill in for the eleven year old boys class.  We had fun and I think we learned something too.  I worked on family history in the afternoon while Jeff was home teaching and found some information in the 1910 US census record that has just been recently released.  Felicity stood over my shoulder and asked me questions as I added things to my personal ancestry file and I got to tell her stories of many of the people I've loved and lost.  She was exicted to learn that Grandma Lo's real name is Jenny, that Nana wasn't born in Arizona, and that Helen has the same name as Papa's mom.  It was fun to share that with her.

So if you're reading this you've probably been made aware that I've made my blog private and to be honest I put this off for a long time.  I really didn't want to do it.  I love that people can wander into our lives and back out.  I know there are many friends and acquaintances that access my blog from Facebook and probably wouldn't ask permission to see it if it weren't public, but on the other hand, I noticed traffic from a pornography site accessing my blog and it sickened me to the core.  I foolishly perhaps, post way too much personal information and pictures, but that's what I want my blog to be.  A place for family to see what we're up to, for friends to giggle at our adventures and misfortunes, and a place for me to bare a little bit of my soul and share who I am.  For those reasons too, I guess it needs to be private to protect my family.  I tried to take the pressure off a little by inviting everyone I had an email address for, thank you for those of you who still ventured out to see what was going on at Casa de Davidson!

17 Feb 2013

I feel like after this week I need a vacation, but that's not going to happen as I missed work most of this week.  Arlo is teething again, getting his molars this time.  I figured that was the cause behind his runny nose and fever, but unfortunately it was a cold accompanied by conjunctivitis.  I was home with him on Wednesday and then took him to the pediatrician on Thursday.  Now that he's on antibiotics, he seems to be feeling like himself again.  Felicity and Helen were also home sick on Wednesday, but they were feeling better by Thursday morning.

Felicity and I made Valentine's together for her to give out to her friends at school.  They were really cute and a lot of fun.  The kids came home from school/preschool on Thursday all sugared up and bouncing off the walls.  I enjoyed my new Valentine's gift all week, I ran in the evening on the treadmill Jeff got me. Felicity lost her remaining front tooth and was so proud of herself.  She is doing very well in school and I am amazed at her reading, she's reading her own chapter books in addition to the Little House series we're reading together.  

The only good thing about being home with sick kids this week was being able to get the house properly cleaned up.  I Clorox-ed every surface in my house and washed all the bed clothes with hopes that I can rid our home of germs.  Wishful thinking on my part perhaps, but at least my house is clean!  I also took some time to work on a sewing project I had been wanting to do.  I took some of Jeff's old T-shirts and made two rompers for little Arlo.  I forgot to include a seam allowance in my first pattern, so the first one I made turned out to be sized for a baby around 0-3 months old.  I made it into a sleeper instead, and maybe I'll get to use it someday.  The second and third attempts yielded more satisfactory results. 

Jeff is having a very hectic semester and this was the third weekend in a row that was spent in front of his lap top.  I'm proud of all his hard work, we're looking forward to spring break in another couple of weeks.   I'm not sure what we're going to do for spring break this year.  Unfortunately, Jeff's break and Felicity's are a week apart.  We were thinking of taking what is becoming our annual trip to Disneyland over the break, but I also have so much I want to get done around the house.  We'll just have to see how things turn out.

I'm hoping that I'm feeling better tomorrow, as I did end up catching Arlo's cold.  I am working Monday and Tuesday and taking Wednesday off to accompanying Felicity on her first grade field trip to the zoo.  I also plan on taking Thursday off in addition to my already "off Friday" to be home with the kids for rodeo break.  I wish Jeff had rodeo off, it would be the ideal weekend for a get away.

10 Feb 2013

Ahh!  The week is already gone and another upon us.  We worked, we went to school, we lived, we loved.  Felicity is anxiously wiggling her only remaining front tooth, hoping it will pop out at any second.  Helen made stone soup in preschool, whatever that is.  Arlo is into everything and cutting molars.  School has been quite feverish for Jeff, but he is keeping up and enjoying.  Work is going well and I'm awaiting my 2012 performance review.  I've also been looking at potential conference to attend this year.  There is one in Boston over our anniversary weekend that is tempting.

We had our third certification class on Monday, we left the kids with a babysitter.  Jeff bought be an early Valentine's day gift, a new treadmill.  He set it up for me on Tuesday, and I have really enjoyed running inside again.  On Friday, I went with my mom and grandma for breakfast and shopping.  I finally bought myself some proper running apparel.  I bought Nike socks, pants, shirt, and sports bra for under $20, and it made a difference when I ran Friday night.

We cleaned and did grocery shopping on Saturday, Jeff worked on a school project.   It was Helen's turn to choose the movie for our family movie night, and she picked An American Tale.  We had a nice time together and we let the girls stay up late after the movie.  Felicity and I made Valentine's for her classmates this week along with some melted bead refrigerator magnets, we really enjoyed being crafty together.  It was a pretty quiet week.

03 Feb 2013

 What a strange week it was.  Arlo was sick on Monday so I stayed home with him and by Wednesday I was sick myself.  Luckily nobody else got it.  It did give me the opportunity to clean my house, prepare dinner for my family, do the laundry, and a myriad of other things I love to do, but don’t get a chance to. 

Jeff had a bit of a rough week as well.  He had several homework assignments that had him burning the midnight oil.  He was triumphant in the end, but it meant he spent the entire weekend in front of his computer.  On Saturday afternoon he took a break so we could go for a bike ride.  We rode to the park with Jeff pulling Helen and Arlo in the bike trailer and Felicity and I behind him on our own bikes.  It took Felicity awhile to get comfortable on her bike again, but she was confident by the time it was time to ride home and was trying to pass Jeff.

We’ve started a new tradition in our house, or really a new weekly scheduled event.  We’re doing a movie night.  We first started doing breakfast for dinner on Sunday nights and the kids were so excited about knowing what to expect that we’ve repeated a few regularly scheduled things.  Family Home Evening on Mondays, Pizza on Friday, Game Night on Friday night, Movie Night on Saturday night, and breakfast for dinner on Sunday.  This week it was my turn to pick, so after popping the popcorn and dividing the candy, we watched Mary Poppins together.  It was great fun!  Jeff and I ended up staying up until about 1AM so he could finish his project. 

My parents invited us over for dinner on Sunday and we had a nice time.  I even ended up watching the football game with my dad.  We typically don’t watch TV on Sundays but I enjoyed chatting with him about the plays and strategy while Jeff continued to finish his project.  I spent four years of high school and four years of college watching football from the stands while in marching band, so I do know a thing or two about football, although on the whole I could take it or leave it.

The great thing about being home with a sick baby this past week was the opportunity it afforded me to run in the morning before Jeff left for school.  It was cold some mornings, but I got out there and did my best.  Progress has been slow since I stopped running regularly in December, but I’m committed to getting back my stamina soon and it paid off, I lost four pounds this week!

The bad part of this week, I didn't take a single photo!  I did manage to "interview" my children on video, which was a hoot, I'll be glad I did that some day.  I’ll be getting back to work on Monday and we have smooth sailing with no upcoming events for awhile.  We hope everyone is enjoying life!