Wordless Wednesday -Jumping Round & Round

She's First Again

I understand that kids are very competitive in families. Everyone always wants to be the first to do everything. In this family, the oldest is NOT necessarily the first to do something. She has some competition. Jaquelyn has beat her out on several big firsts. Jaquelyn was the first to break a bone...her leg in Oct 2007. Jaquelyn was also the first of the kids to get stitches...June 2008.
Today Jaquelyn again beat the other kids and was "first" at something...the first to have a positive strep test. WooHoo...What a kid! I guess the streak was just too good to last.

Wordless Wednesday

It's About Time

There's nothing like spring to see kids playing outside, having fun, rollerskating and riding bikes. That is, except in this household. What is a great birthday present when you are 8 years old? A brand new pink bike with streamers and everything...unless you are my daughter. Then it's the worst present ever. You see...Jaquelyn, my ten year old, has never wanted to learn to ride a bike. She has had this great, NOT a hand-me-down bike for almost 3 years now and refuses to ride it. It didn't matter that all her friends in our neighborhood would ride past our house without her. No matter how much I begged or threatened or tried to cajole her, she had no interest. Until today...
This morning she hopped on Rebecca's little bike and rode it down the driveway...by herself...with no prodding, or begging, or bribery attempts. She simply said, "I think I am ready to learn how to ride my bike". So I put air in the tires and after school she put on her helmet to try it out. It was amazing. In less than 10 minutes, she was riding down the street. She doesn't have it completely mastered but if she keeps trying she will have it down in a matter of days.
All I have to say is...It's about time!

Softball Saturday

It is officially softball season. Both Rebecca and Jaquelyn had their first games of the season yesterday. Here's the beginning of several months of super early dinners, multiple trips to the ball park and being up way past bedtime.
Rebecca's t-ball games are all on Saturday mornings...at 8am. What fun. She had lots of fun at her first game. She did a very good job and did well hitting too.










































































Jaquelyn's team is a little different this year. They are working on building up the girls' pitching skills so the innings start with them pitching and then if they are having trouble, the coach comes in and takes over. It makes the games take a lot longer. So in the two hours allotted for their game they played 4 innings. And Jaquelyn only got up to bat once. And she was hit by the first pitch thrown. So I didn't even get a good picture of her at bat. Bummer. She did much better in the field this year than she did last year. No playing in the dirt/grass at all.

Wordless Wednesday

Poor Rebecca

We had quite the eventful day here yesterday. Rebecca has not been feeling well for several days and I decided yesterday that she should visit the doctor to make sure that all the snot from her allergies hadn't morphed into a sinus infection...which happens often for her. Her docs office is just over an hour away from us.
We left here around 10:30 which was plenty of time to get to an 11:45 appt. Unfortunately, there was an accident on the Bay bridge and they closed down all lanes. It took us an hour and 10 minutes to get to the other side of the bridge..normally a 1/2 hour trip. Not ok. When the traffic first stopped, I called the Bay Bridge line so I knew what was going on. Then I called the Dr. office to let them know we were never going to make our appt. They were able to reschedule for 2:30. Not a great time for us but doable just the same. I was glad I had not decided to bring Taylor with me because we would have never made it back in time for her track practice.
So now we had time to kill before our appt. We did an errand or two then I let Rebecca decide where to eat lunch. I, of course, was hoping for El Salto's but she voted for Wendy's...woohoo..:-(. As we are driving over to Wendy's, she was starting to breathe faster. She said she wasn't very hungry and I just ordered her fries & a jr. frostie. She was not even able to finish them and started really complaining about her breathing. She was crying and saying we needed to go to the Dr. right now! I thought they would be closed for lunch but we went over anyhow to see if they could fit us in early. I was starting to freak out a bit at this point. She really couldn't breathe well at all. As it turns out, they don't close for lunch anymore. Good to know.
They took us in almost immediately and started Rebecca on a nebulizer treatment. Her pulse ox was down to a 93. Not so good. She was wheezing very badly. The medicine started working very quickly and she was able to talk again. I guess this is what an actual asthma attack looks like. The doctor said "You can't let it get to this stage. She needs her inhaler sooner." I said...she doesn't have asthma. We have her sisters inhaler that she has used but she wasn't like this when we left the house 3 hours ago so it didn't occur to me to bring it. Well...she has been "officially" diagnosed with asthma. She also has an upper respiratory infection. She now has her OWN inhaler and an antibiotic. I guess we can keep one in the car and one in the house now. OH...and to top things off, she didn't feel like holding the puke bowl we brought with us on the drive home so she ended up throwing up all over herself when we were about 15 minutes from home.(she has a tendency to cough so much she gags herself to the point of throwing up...hence the puke bowl in the car) So I got to spend what little time I had left before picking up Taylor and Jaquelyn, (who AGAIN wasn't told by her school office about going to after school clubs!!!) cleaning the van & her car seat. Just what we needed...the van to smell like puke again. We had finally gotten rid of the smell from Jaquelyn throwing up several months ago. Febreeze is my friend.

So all's well that ends well. She is fine and I will be giving her 2 puffs every 4 hours for the next 24 hours and doses of the Z-pack once a day.

Bloggy Re-Do

I decided it was time to shake things up a bit. So I scoped out LeeLou blogs and found this one. What do you think? I like the colors way better than the pink...pink is so not my color. I am a blue person. Preferably navy blue but that's not very springy so I decided this would work for a while.

Our Little Altar Server

Today was a big day here. Of course only those Catholics out there will really get it. Jaquelyn had her first day as an altar server. She attended the classes back in October and November but hadn't made it on the schedule yet.

She did very well and seemed to enjoy herself. She rang the bells during the gospel and carried the wine. She should be in the rotation more regularly now and get comfortable with all of the different tasks. We are so proud of her!

Taylor's Track Meet

Taylor had a track meet on Tuesday and it was here in town so I was able to go and watch her. Wow was it hot to be outside running!! We set a new high yesterday and beat the last record by over 5 degrees. This is the first time I have gotten to go see her and she did very well. She set her own PR(personal record) for running and shot put.

Wordless Wednesday

Easter Sunday

I know it's a day late but here are some pictures from our Easter. Although we did celebrate Easter last Sunday while Dan was still here, the girls still got their baskets yesterday. We enjoyed a nice dinner with our neighbors and it was a very relaxing day. The younger two played with the neighbor kids all afternoon, Teresa had her friend Kelsi over for awhile and Taylor went to the movies with her boyfriend Peter.

Family Fun Night

Before Dan left I wanted to do something nice all together as a family. After wracking my brain for days, an awesome idea finally came up. We are lucky enough to have a Medieval Times fairly close to where we live and Dan just happens to love the place. We went many years ago in Florida when the kids were small and it was so fun. Of course it costs an arm & a leg but the special right now is buy one get one free...so it only cost an arm. It was supposed to be a complete surprise but he of course figured it out way ahead of time (pain).
So last Saturday we loaded up the kids and headed over there. They were surprised (a bit) and excited (a lot). We got there ages early since seating is first come first served. We walked around and checked out all the gift shop items, yk since you just spent a fortune to get into the place you are obviously looking to spend another $200 on some memorabilia. I did break down and buy the entrance photo they took of the whole group with the King and Princess.
We had the Black and White knight and were there early enough to have a front row seat in our section. Rebecca and Teresa were lucky and got flowers from our knight. I still have the flower that Jaquelyn got when we went many years ago. I will press Rebecca's into a book also.
All in all it was a fun day and hopefully a happy memory for Dan to keep while he is away from us.