Come Play in the Rain

We enjoyed a quiet President's Day. Chloe and Ronald came over to play for the day. I laid down a fire towards the evening for S'mores. While sitting around the fire Josie requested story time games. We were all a bit sad and down due to Justin leaving again for Idaho.

Josie had her well-child visit for the year. She was quite worried about getting shots, thankfully those were delayed until next year. Josie weighed in at 35 lbs, 47.3% and measured 39.75 inches, 45.2%. Confirmed the visual image of Josie: short and skinny. She told the doctor about eating lettuce wrapped in turkey...didn't mention that was once. She counted to 12, said her version of the alphabet, hopped on one foot, and told us about her talents (biking, drawing, coloring, snuggling, and taking naps).

Evelyn came down with an ear infection so we went back to the clinic two days later. Evelyn was scared the medicine would be gross like the tamiflu. She loved the medicine so much that she reminded me twice a day with a grin and a handful of the medicine bottle and syringe. She stayed home two days until her ear started to feel better. Phillip and Evelyn both came down with ear infections recently due to nasty coughs and congestion. I ended up crushing Phillip's large "horse-sized" pills and mixing the powder with chocolate syrup.

Anson spent Friday afternoon-evening with us. Everett created some game challenge in MineCraft to play with Anson (or anyone really interested in playing). I picked up some tacos for dinner as a special treat for me...a kitchen break in all reality. We cleaned up the house on Saturday just for kicks and giggles. I started the major task of rifling through ALL our items. I started the shakedown in our master closet. Took me most of the weekend to sort through the closet, the cupboards, and the rest of our room.

Saturday morning we woke up to a nice gentle rain outside. The rain continued, it built up to a nice steady rain perfect for playing in. The gutters and streets were flooded with the rain! We donned our patchy assortment of rain gear and headed out for jaunt. Several folks stopped their cars to tell me how refreshing it was to catch an adult outside in the rain with the kids. We had a marvelous time. The best part was when a car zoomed through a massive puddle throwing a wave of water on the kids. I can still see their smiles and laughter! We warmed up back in the house with hot cocoa. Most kids layered up in 2-6 layers of PJs just for the warmth. Sigh, I love the rain...don't you?! Later that day the skies cleared up a bit to let the sun peek through and dry up all the remaining rain. We were bored by 3 pm so went on an adventure to IKEA. Most of the kids did not remember our last trip so this was a real treat. Somehow I made it through the massive store with all the kids tagging along. My purpose was to get a large cube bookcase, 5 down and 5 across to put in our new toy room. I found a lovely large table for a really good price. I talked myself out of it as the materials were not solid wood and adding benches put the price out of range. We spent a couple hours meandering through the store. I did not buy the actual unit since the boxes would not fit in the van. I did get several large umbrellas, the storage boxes, and 5 door inserts for the unit. I am quite excited.

We are collecting squishmallows right and left lately!! I found some for Valentine's day, each kid got a cute little mini one. Josie really wanted  "HUUUUUUGE" one. Found the largest size on sale for $11 at Walgreens plus free shipping. I spent the kid's allowances to get them each a large squishmallow. We now have EZ the unicorn, Damien the Dragon, Ellie the Elephant, Mr. Moo-Moo, and Monkey. These little stuffies are the cutest, so soft and squishy. I even got a small chicken and goat for myself. Who needs bean bags when you can fill a corner with these cute things.