SPRING: The Good, The Bad and The Ulgy

Spring has arrived and with that comes blooming flowers and trees, and green grass.
I saw the first couple of pear trees starting to bloom as I was driving around today, ours will follow in about a week, they are a little slower.

However, it also includes Spring storms complete with thunderstorms, hail and tornadoes. Tonight was the first storm of the season. Emily, Danielle and I went to a make-up class at River City Gymnastics. We had missed class on Monday because I was recovering from being up all night with the deathly stomach virus that I got from Brian. Eddie took Brian to the Webleos den meeting with him.

Class had just started when the announcement was made about tornadoes, and to take cover. Everyone in the gym was led to foam pit for safety. Eddie called to make sure we were alright, they were sitting in the library at church. There were tons of people sitting in the pit waiting for the storm to pass. We spent almost the entire hour in the foam pit. So much for the makeup class tonight, I guess we will try again on Saturday.

Fire In The Hole

I took Brian to Joylynn's birthday party today at The Painted Pig. It was a fun party and the kids had a great time selecting their piece, and painting it. Brian immediately picked out a dog, and did a great job painting it.

I love how cute this is, and how creative Brian is getting, one ear is black, one brown and he has blue eyes.

Eddie called while I was at the party to tell me about a fire in the backyard. Wow, I miss all the fun stuff! When I left, I smelled lighter fluid in the backyard, and figured someone was getting ready to grill.

Eddie was in the bathroom, when the neighbor from behind us came knocking on our front door to tell us about the fire. Apparently, the kids had started the grass in their yard on fire messing around, and the wind was blowing in our direction. When Eddie walked outside, our next door neighbors grass was on fire, and the fence and it caught the woodpile on fire too. Behind us, the flames were as high as the roof. Eddie and our new neighbor, John got the hoses and started putting out the flames as the fire department had not arrived.

Scary! I am glad that I missed it. My girls watched safely from the deck as daddy battled the flames. Once again, I feel blessed that we were home and able to protect our property. No one was hurt, and the damage was minimal.

Clean-Up--Isle 5

Brian has been having some behavior problems at school this past week including being on red twice (mostly for silly things) and I wanted to get to the bottom of things. I thought Eddie should go to school and have lunch with him, perhaps he needed some additional attention.


Eddie called me to confirm the time and went through the Chick-fil-a drive thru to pick up lunch. He arrived at the school a few minutes late because he had to wait in the drive thru, because they had not started serving lunch. Brian eats super early, at 10:30 so the Kindergartens can have the playground to themselves.


Eddie walked into the cafeteria to find Brian cleaning up his own vomit, and being told by the aid to go get more paper towels. He told Brian to go sit down and then proceeded to clean up for him. Then another aid told Eddie that he didn't need to clean up that "they had someone to do that." Weird...they didn't have someone before Eddie arrived. Eddie checked him out in the office, collected his belongings from his classroom and took our sick son, covered in vomit home. Then he called me.


I was beyond upset. Brian is my baby, and I was scared, hurt and mad all at the same time. I made two hysterical calls to his teacher and the principal, Ms. Carter. A few hours past and I finally received a call from the principal. We met her in her office 15 minutes later. She had investigated the situation and assured us that there is a policy in place for handling sick children, and that this happens everyday. Obviously, today policy was not followed!! I believe that Ms. Bealer the aid, who also helped in Brian's classroom, was punishing Brian for something. She had worked at the school for several years, and obviously was aware of the policy and for some reason did not follow it today.


We were assured by the principal that Brian would be in a safe and secure environment and to send him back to school. Personally, I wanted the aid out of Brian's classroom, and no longer supervising him in the cafeteria or on the playground. I did not figure that would happen, so I asked for an apology. I assured Ms. Carter that Eddie and I would be dropping by frequently.


After reflecting on this incident for a few days, I now see this as a blessing. I felt prompted to check things out at school and figure out what was going on. We were in the right place at the right time. If Eddie had not walked in when he did, we may never have gotten the truth and found out there was a potential problem at school.


**Update: Ms. Bealer has not been back to school since this incident. She has been "sick." I hope she continues to be "sick" until school is out in June.

First Signs of Spring

Spring is really late this year, but I spotted the first sign out on my new hill today. When mom my was here in the Fall we planted lots of bulbs on the hill, and now we are seeing the "fruits of our labors."

I saw this post today that one of my friends wrote, and I liked it so much that I am borrowing it.

"Daffodils and crocuses and hyacinths and tulips...Kind of makes me wonder what I'm doing now that I won't see the proof of until the time is right. I guess I had better keep plugging away."

So This Is What All the Fuss Is About

Symptoms:

Runny Nose
Diarehea
Crankiness
Waking often at night

Can you guess? Yep, Danielle is getting two new molars on the top. She still only has her two teeth on the bottom, and now this will make six on top. Weird!

What's This

Daddy...what is this?

Eddie's mom brought him over one of his old records and when Brian saw it this was what he asked. We also have some old records and a broken record player in the garage. It is funny how in only one generation technology has moved so quickly that our children don't even know a record when they see one. Someday we may fix the record player, and show the kids how they work.

Busy Saturday

As usual we are on the go go go today. First thing in the morning Emily and I went to her gymnastics for a makeup day since classes were cancelled this week because of the snow. When we arrived home everyone was starving and we decided to have lunch at Cheeseburger, Cheeseburger. They have great hamburgers, and the kids like the meals that are served in a classic car box. It was busy, so there was a little bit of a wait, but we all survived and had a nice meal.

Then I had a couple of errands I wanted to get accomplished before the evening events. We went to the Target in Bryant to see if I could find some of the additional pieces for my new play room organization. I got a few more things I needed, but I am still missing some fabric baskets, so I will have to keep checking. Then a quick run to the Zoo for a Cupid surprise.

I really like how the playroom is coming together, these cubes are great.

Emily had a birthday party at Millennium Bowl, for Lily, one of her friends that she used to go to Gymboree with. This party had also been rescheduled because of the snow. The whole family went, and Brian and Eddie got their own lane and bowled a few games while Emily and the birthday party friends played a few lanes away. I even bowled a game on the adult lane. It was fun, although I am not sure that 4 year olds can really appreciate bowling? I took no pictures of this, I think I must be in a camera funk, but you can check out the link above, although there is no proof that Emily was there from the posted pictures.

Later that night, Jenna brought the kids over for us to watch. Her and James wanted to go out and see Avatar, and so the kids watched their own movie, ate popcorn and fell asleep on the floor.