School is OUT, Everett turns 7
Evelyn is such a strange breed of kid. She stuffed a ball in her pants, I found her admiring her big, huge wiener in front of the mirror. I read long ago that gender experimentation is quite normal at her age, the less fuss made then the child will just move on. I totally botched it...laughed my head off because the sight and her words were so unexpected. She also held a Barbie hair salon this week. I'm glad her Barbie's got hair cuts and not her sister. We did have a chat about how the barbie's cannot grow new hair and will now have crazy hair until they get recycled. She claims her dolls now look amazing. She sensed my disappointment so tried to repair the damage by cutting strips of white paper and taping the paper to her doll's heads. I like her creativity. I am still uncovering piles of doll hair under other toys, stuffed inside boxes, and hidden about the toy area.
I ordered an outdoor shower so the kids can rinse off and shampoo chlorine out of hair this week. We set it up and gave it a try! I love it! It's so nice to allow the kids to clean off outside instead of tracking water and such upstairs. Plus it saves time! Josie was quite enamored with the foot washing spigot. I set it up to spill into her wading pool. She acted like a cute little dog playing in the water.
I spent most of my "free time" editing the wedding photos. Friday I was in the process of backing all those files plus this week's photos up to my external drive when all my photos were hard deleted, meaning not in the recycle bin. Not sure how I managed to delete files, I certainly never meant to. Justin helped me find a recovery program to find the files through a deep scan. The files were eventually recovered but to my dismay more than 75% are corrupted. I lost mostly photos from this week, like Everett's doughnut party at school, Amelia's Golden Scholar Award, and Josie playing in the water. I also lost all the edited wedding photos, over 20 hours of computer work, poof! Gone. Gratefully, I still have the images on camera CF cards. Now, just to cull, lightroom, edit, and such all over again. Makes my stomach roil with anxiety. I have the worst luck with weddings, something always goes wrong for me. I will have to retake the last day of school photos, not a huge deal.
Monday Mrs Lasky had time for us to bring doughnuts to celebrate Everett's coming birthday. We spent recess with his class chatting and enjoying his birthday treat. Josie got lots of attention! Everett chose his favorite doughnut first, a chocolate log! Soon Phillip's class also came out so we stayed a while longer to visit with Phillip as well. I snapped the cutest photo of Josie's face after Phillip caught her at the bottom of the slide. Pout.
The kids bought home loads and loads of paper, binders, folders, and school junk. I immediately weeded out the important stuff and trashed the rest. All their folders were mangled and deserved a rest in the recycle bin. We spent the first few days of vacation cleaning up the kid's rooms and sorting through their old toys and papers. I should say we only got through the boy's room. Took me forever to gather all their stuff and organize their books. The boys helped for a couple of hours but soon lost interest. Amelia's room will be this week.
I tortured all the kids with an early morning visit to Dr Auxier. Amelia and Everett had their well-child visit at 8:20. The kids missed 30 minutes of the last day of school. I am happy to report Amelia and Everett are in good health. Everett has asthma, triggered by seasonal colds. The Dr prescribed him some albuterol. Dr Auxier asked Everett to tell Justin that he had to turn his head and cough. Ha ha ha ha. More like Everett wiggled his lead and laughed. Amelia was beside herself when it came time for shots. I went ahead and got her the gardasil shot as well as the regular 11 year old immunizations. Amelia was awarded a Golden Scholar Award. Apparently, this award is quite prestigious and can earn the student full-ride scholarships to Arizona universities if the student earns the award year after year! Students earn the award when their GPA is straight A's, one B is allowed. My memory is terrible but it seems like 20 students earned the award from her school. We are quite proud of Amelia, she is a wonderful scholar. Justin attended the ceremony with the little girls and I. He left right after the awards. I left with the kids from school! Bam! Summer began. Chloe came with us for her piano lesson. We celebrated with lunch at Cafe Rio, gotta love those free kid's quesadillas. After piano the kids spent a good while swimming with Chloe and later Jacob Godard. I am loving our pool! Keeps the kids busy for hours and hours.
Thursday was another boring day. I finished working on the boys room and finished editing the wedding photos. The kids spent a good 4 hours in the pool again. Due to my negligence we forgot sunscreen. Amelia and Everett's shoulders were quite sunburnt by 5 pm. Chloe and her brother Ronald came over to play from 10-2:30 pm. Jacob came over again for more swimming as well. After dinner we all went to Skateland for night skating. It was also dollar night and incredibly busy and packed. The line alone took us 45 minutes to get inside. We had less than an hour to skate. Justin tried skating a bit but found the skates hard to manage, all the roller blades were rented out in his size. I enjoyed zooming around the rink, dodging slow kids and falling obstacles. Amelia and I both squealed when Greatest Showman songs started playing. Evelyn and I got our skates tangled up, her skate gave me a huge, gnarley bruise on my shin. Phillip found a friend from school he tagged along with for the evening. I forgot to mention Josie woke up barfing early Thursday morning. When I walked in to her screaming "Mom! Dad! Mom! Mia! Phillip! Eberett! Lelyn! Mouth! Poop! Arm"
Indeed, her mouth pooped all over her arms, belly, bed, blankets, and floor. She used the best words her limited vocabulary allowed. Poor kid was quite sick the rest of that day.
Phillip's friend Ryan came over for a long afternoon play date. The boys played a bit of Roblox until I finished putting Josie down. They amused themselves in the pool and then playing legos and Clue the rest of the time. Ryan is a pretty good kid, he is so polite and a good friend for our Phillip. Amelia pestered me until I about snapped. She was borrrrrred. I hate that word. I ignored her until she found something to do. I need a bored consequence! I went to make pizza for the kids only to find all my flour infested with weevils. Gross little bugs. The dough finally got made and then I cooked the pizzas on the grill, on my hot pizza stone. The kids all complained because the pizza tasted amazing, grilled perfection with little tasty "burn" marks on the crust. Justin and I felt quite cheated with our pizza topping Keto pizza. One day, one day the kids will realize how good they have it. Everett and I went out on a date after dinner. I took his 7 year old photos until dark at Riparian Preserve. He would comply to my poses then make up his own poses. I tried to yank out his snaggle tooth but it was too stubborn, hanging by one thread. I even tried to bribe him with $5 if he would let me yank it out. He is such a funny little guy, the entire time he continued a barrage of shooting sounds fighting enemies in his head. Things got real when he encountered a gaggle of geese/ducks, one even let him pet it's side. We continued our date at Bahama Bucks, a shaved ice joint. He ordered jolly rancher with sour sprinkles. I told him his birth story and we laughed over photos of himself as a newborn. I forgot how wrinkly his huge forehead used to be! He seemed a bit disturbed to be on a date with his mother, since "only people who are deeply in love go on dates!" I explained that indeed I am deeply in love with him as my son.
Everett woke up a 7 year old on Saturday! He wanted to stay in his PJs as long as possible. Amelia and Justin wrapped up his gifts which he opened right before lunch. He requested a laser tag set, which he got. I also found his favorite game, Perfection, and a new swim mask. That kid was so excited about the laser tag he was hopping around the boxes like a rabbit. So hilarious. Everett's wiggly tooth was sideways in his mouth. I made him open up and let me try to get it out with floss. I tried once and while he was blubbering. He clammed up and refused to reopen his mouth, only to realize the tooth was already out! He did not feel a darn thing. Love our little hypochondriac. I redeemed my Mother's Day present with a 3 hour appointment to get my eyebrows microbladed and shaded. Alex drew on my new brows with pencil first making them fuller and symmetrical. I almost freaked out when she started to shave off my left eyebrow tail, it probably won't grow back. She numbed my brows before starting in with the shading pen and powder. The sound reminds me of the dentist's drill, sets the nerves on edge. Thank goodness for the numbing! After the numbing wore off my brows stung for a few hours. We continued birthday fun with an excursion to Cabela's out in Glendale, quite a long drive away. Justin wanted to spend his points on hydration packs for the kids and new kid's rifle. I must say being in the store felt surreal and gave us more than a few pangs of sadness. Everett decided on enchiladas for his birthday dinner. Justin found a Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives restaurant nearby called La Santisima. They served street tacos and Tex-Mex fare. The restaurant inside was completly reserved by a wedding party. Luckily, there was a spot open on the patio. Everett ordered shrimp tacos. His plate came out with a serving appropriate for two adults. That kid was in heaven gnawing on his shrimps, beans, and rice. Amelia and Everett realized that together they form 7-11 (age wise). We ended his special day with a family game of night laser tag in the front yard area.
Evelyn continued the barf trend...this time on the family room carpet. She lost her cookies 4-5 more times because she kept eating apple sauce, chocolate cake, and such even after several explanations that she would continue to barf until her tummy was empty for several hours. She just could not understand how she could be ravenous and sick at the same time. She was so sad to miss Everett's favorite spaghetti dinner and double chocolate cake with mint ganache. Yum. Love our Everett boy so much. Phillip and Justin have swimmer's ears to boot. Phillip's is pretty bad! I found some drops to help but his ear will hurt badly for a few days. We are using hydrogen peroxide, rubbing alcohol, pain relief, and hot presses to help with the pain. Our Memorial Day plans went out the window! We planned to hike Tonto Natural Bridge and picnic with my cousin Amber and family. Bummer. I am still trying my manage my panic over losing so many valuable edited photos. That entire situation is ever so stressful.
***Newsflash!! Josie went pee in the potty for the very first time. She made it on quite a whim. As she went potty her face was priceless! We celebrated with a dance, clapping, and video calls to Grandma! The end of diapers is finally in sight.
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