Who Let the Cows Out?, Rock Band Family Style, Squishy, Dirty Swim Diapers--YUCK!!

The other day Sarah wandered upstairs to the toy room and was up there awhile.  Next thing I know she was hefting the top part of the drum set to Rock Band down the stairs.  She finally got it to the coffee table and 'set it up'.  Then she started rocking out to whatever music was in her head.  Josh saw what she was doing and came over to be part of her band.  He was on the drums while Sarah tried to sing the song Dynamite into her plastic Easter egg microphone.

Then she decided that she wanted to dance.  And if you were wondering she does do her own wardrobe with the lovely tutu, pink shirt, bed head, red beads and mismatched princess shoes.

After she was done dancing she picked up her baby and smelled her bum deeming her very stinky.  She proceeded to use half my baby wipes to clean off her bum and totally saturate her cloth skin.  Isn't pretend play fun (or funny to watch)?!

Monday and Tuesday were such warm and beautiful days!! Monday we had a water party at Daniel's friend's house.  They had a blow up water slide and a huge yard with grass (something we are very greatly missing at this point in time).  Sarah is supposedly potty trained, but just in case I threw a swim diaper on her.  Good thing I did because by the time we came home she had 'taken care of business' if you know what I mean.  Let me tell you a very soggy, dirty swim diaper is NOT a pretty site!!  I did have to put her in her car seat to come home.  I tried to cover her car seat with a towel to protect it, but she thought the towel was for laying across her lap and not sitting on.  She had already sat down on her bare car seat with the towel laying across her lap before I could stop her.  DOH!!  She got her car seat good and soaked with her squishy swim diaper contents so every time we get in the car it STINKS!!!  I will need to figure out a way to wash the car seat cover, but it is one of those that don't come off the base, unfortunately.  Here I thought she was doing so well, too.  She actually went #2 in the potty not just one, but TWICE last week so I thought we had overcome this hurdle.  **SIGH**.  Tuesday we went to another friend's house for lunch and a water day, too.  I put Sarah in a swim diaper just in case and just like the day before she loaded it down by the time we were getting ready to leave.  Again she refused to sit on the towel across her car seat so her car seat cover got soaked again with squishy, dirty swim diaper contents.  **DOUBLE SIGH**  At least we had fun playing in the water!  Here's Noah having fun swinging on the swing set. 

We all enjoyed running around ON THE GRASS again, too.  We had lots of fun (minus Sarah's nasty swim diaper, of course).

Daniel has been working on trying to get a cold this last week.  Tuesday night it hit him full force and we had to start breathing treatments on him.  I haven't seen him have an asthma exacerbation this bad for a few years so it has been a little concerning to me.  I gave him the breathing treatments as well as some Benadryl and Zyrtec to make sure the asthma flare up wasn't because he got exposed to something he shouldn't have, but it didn't help.  He came up to my room Wednesday morning and said he was too sick to go to school--something he never does.  He didn't have a fever, he was only having trouble breathing.  He spent the day at home sitting on the couch watching TV and getting breathing treatments every 2-4 hours.  This is a small sample of how you can tell he is struggling to breath: 

(When you watch the video you can see his whole chest sucking in to breath.  He is using his accessory muscles between his ribs, and tummy as well as slightly flaring his nostrils in trying to get enough breath).  This of course isn't as bad as he got, but this was taken when he was starting to feel better. If you got up close enough to him you could hear him really wheezing as well.  I have a hard time watching this and not taking big deep breaths in trying to breath for him.  And who says I am not using my nursing skills at home!!!  My kids sure keep my skills in use--that's for sure!!!

He was quite upset he didn't get to go to school Wednesday so he was pretty insistent that he wanted to go to school on Thursday, but he was still needing breathing treatments so I didn't let him go.  He was mad and tried to sneak past me out the door to go anyway--the little stinker!!  Luckily, his breathing got a little easier as the day went on.  That afternoon he was getting a little tired of being stuck in the house so he came outside to help me plant the garden.

Here I thought we were doing good in getting a good headstart on our garden, until I talked to my Mom and she told me we aren't supposed to plant the non hardy plants like tomatoes, watermelon, bell peppers until after Mother's Day when there is no more threat of frost.  DOH!!!  There was a huge storm last night and the temperatures have definitely cooled off so I hope I don't lose all the plants we just planted!!!  Keeping my fingers crossed!!!

Yesterday morning the Relief Society President stopped by for an impromptu visit.  As she sat down and we were visiting she looked outside and said, "Oh I can't tell which side of the fence that cow is on."  I got up and looked and sure enough, our cow backyard neighbors had escaped out of their fenced field.  They were getting awfully close to our grass seeded backyard, too.  Aaron called about that time to talk and I told him what was going on.  Luckily he had already gotten to know the farmer the cows belonged to and he hung up with me to give them a call to let them know their cows had escaped.  

We got to watch them round them up from our window.  It was pretty interesting. They also left behind some good fertilizer for our yard :P. 

Too bad they got out AGAIN this morning.  Maybe having cows as back yard neighbors isn't such a good thing... 

Since we do have cows as back yard neighbors, the kids like watching them.  However, they are allowing some educational opportunities for my kids.  Josh came up to me the other day and told me how he saw the cows 'wrestling'.  One cow would hop on the other cows back...and, well you get the picture.  Josh just thought they were wrestling.  I will just let him think that for a while at least.  I am not ready for the full on birds and bees talk yet.

Aaron finally got a calling for our ward.  Since he got released as the membership clerk 8 months ago he has been staying under the radar.  Well they finally caught him and we got a call to meet with a Stake Presidency member two Sundays ago.  UH OH!!  Luckily, he just got called to be in the Elder's Quorum Presidency.  However, that will be interesting for Sundays since Noah refuses to go to nursery by himself.  Aaron spends every Sunday hanging out with Noah in nursery because if he tries to leave, Noah will scream and not calm down.  The nursery leaders eventually have to bring him back to Aaron because they can't get him to stop crying.  This should be very interesting in how this will play out since I am in primary and can't go to nursery to help out.  I am sure we will figure something out eventually.  Anyway, Aaron got set apart in Elders Quorum this last Sunday.  I came in to listen and to hold Noah during the blessing.  There are only about two other babies in Elder's Quorum so it is so quiet.  Noah took it upon himself to liven things up during the blessing by blowing huge raspberries on his arms and saying, "LIGHT, LIGHT, LIGHT!" because he wanted to play with the light switch.  He also kept screaming, "DOWN, DOWN, DOWN!" after I wouldn't let him play with the light switches.  What a stinker!!  After the blessing I tried to go back to primary, but Noah wouldn't let me give him back to Aaron.  I decided to take him back to primary with me because they just had singing time left and how hard could having him be??  Let me just say I will never do that again!!  Noah was a little turd!!  He wouldn't stay in my lap and he kept trying to wander around the room.  Then at the very end of primary Matthew insisted that he knew how to play the piano and forced his way over to the piano to play the songs for everyone.  I was trying to talk to him telling him to sit down because he does not know how to play well enough to have the kids sing along with him. He wouldn't take no for an answer.  Luckily the primary chorister struck a bargain with him and told him that he could play the postlude music as everyone was leaving.  Matthew thought it over and decided that it would be ok.  As soon as everyone said amen to the closing prayer Matthew raced up to the piano and sat himself down and began to attempt to play Book of Mormon Stories.  I had to stand right there with him to make sure he would behave himself all the while my kids were running rampant around the primary room.  It was utter chaos for me. Of course Elder's Quorum went long so I didn't have an reinforcements come to help me in the form of Aaron.  The primary chorister started talking to me telling me that when Matthew got good enough at Book of Mormon Stories she would let him play for the primary while they sang.  We were talking about this for a few minutes when I looked down to see the primary room was empty and all of my kids were missing.  Insert big sigh right here.  I quickly extricated myself from the conversation as politely as I could and headed out the door in search of my children.  Of course Matthew was being the door holder as always.  He loves to be the door holder for everyone and as they pass through his open door Matthew reminds them how they need to tell him thank you for opening the door for them.  It's pretty awesome (not really).  However, in being the door holder, he allowed Sarah and Noah to escape out to the parking lot of the church.  I ran outside to find Sarah and Noah wandering around the parking lot.  Luckily another family was trying to keep Noah by them until they found the missing parent of a wandering 2 year old boy.  I grabbed Noah and Sarah and called to the rest of the kids to go get in the car.  About the time I had buckled up Sarah and Noah in the car Aaron showed up.  Hey better late then never, right?!  It was crazy!!