First real week of School

So to catch you all up, after the storm hit us last Tuesday and Wednesday, it stuck around for the rest of the week keeping us home from school for FOUR days. On the Third canceled day of work, and since our cable was down for the morning, Doug decided to get busy and get something done around the house. He painted Max and Jack's room Blue (was purple, from Mer's era). A task that we have been promising Max for a year and a half. Mer even helped do some edging.
The kids were having a great time, of course, with an extra week of Summer but by Friday they really wanted to go back to school. So we played school. Complete with a cafeteria style lunch, which included the necessary cookie and chocolate milk.
School started up again on Monday and the kids have loved being back (even Max). Jack and I have done a lot of playing. I also spent the week gutting the children's closets. This is something that I always seem to be doing (mainly because my previous organization failed) Ugh... the endless chore of organizing children's toys. This time I put a whole lot more in the trash, giveaway box, and attic. I'm going for the goal of everything having a specific place and am even going see if extra labeling helps. I'll let you know.

Here's a cute pic. of Jack on his "motorcycle.
It appears that we live in pajamas all day at our house.

Luke and Jack at naptime

Here's photo of another little milestone. Luke tried rice cereal for the first time this week. He seemed interested at first, but after attempting it for a couple of days, he clearly is not interested. On our next attempt I try to get a movie and figure out how to post it for you grandmas.

I took Luke for his 6 month checkup yesterday. He weighed in at 17lbs, 1oz and was 27 1/4 inches long. (both 50th percentile) Way to go Luke. He also had a budding ear infection. So that's why he was up about 5 times Monday night. He is doing much better now and thankfully back to a much better sleep schedule.

Our Storm Update

We woke up today at 4 am to rain pounding loudly against our windows. Work was canceled again. It rained most of the day yesterday but nothing like it has today. The winds were really blowing throughout the morning but eventually they calmed down enough where we let the kids play in the rain in the back yard and make a mess of our porch sandbox that was full of rain water. They spent the afternoon baking Easy bake treats and then the adventures really began.
After learning that quite a few people in our ward had water seeping into their houses we decided to take a drive and see what the neighborhood looked like. We made it just past the play ground and then found a couple of roads we weren't sure we should drive through. This is the road just across the street from the neighborhood playground. Doug and the kids got out to wade and see how deep it really was.
As you can see..up to the kids knees. Behind them you can see a guy on a tube floating around. They walked around to the front of the neighborhood and found catfish swimming on the sidewalk. Mer also caught a rock in her shoe.

This is the road leading out of our neighborhood. You can see the water comes up to our neighbor Dave's bumper.

They made it back around the circle to where I was sitting in the car. Doug said max was pretty much swimming a lot of the time.

Since they were soaked through, and were having so much fun, they decided to walk the rest of the way home.

The trip proved to be exhausting for Jack who fell asleep watching a show afterward. It is still raining outside now but not as hard as it had been earlier. The news reported that the center of the storm parked over our area of the county for most of the day with out moving. Some areas near us reported over 2 feet of rain. After driving the neighborhood and seeing the flooding that can occur in less than 2 days of rain I can see how the earth could have been flooded in 40 days. School is canceled again for tomorrow. Were not sure about work yet. We've heard from others that you can't get to the main roads from our little streets and they said John Rodes (the street we take to get to the highway is waist deep in one place. We are pretty much locked in for the time being, thankfully still dry. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

First Day of school followed by No School

Monday was the First day of school. Max and Jack both did their own hair . Mer and max carried their tadpole bowls and in they went to their new classrooms. Jack and I went to a little parent breakfast at the school and then we came home and Luke took a three hour nap. Jack and I took advantage of some much needed one on one time and spent the whole day playing together. After school Max reported that it was no fun..."all we did was talk about the rules." Meredith got into the car beaming saying she had a great day and she loved her new teacher. After school we made Chocolate Banana Smoothies that turned out to be a lot like Wendy's frosty. This was Max's favorite part of the day. After they all had been playing for a while, Jack announced that he needed a back pack and lunchbox like everyone else..We dug one out for him and then he asked where his school was. Your not old enough was definitely not what he wanted to hear so I set him up with Mer as a teacher at a pretend school. Here he is modeling his back pack just like his big brother below

After dinner we found out that School was cancelled the next day due to Tropical Storm Fay heading our way. The joys of living in Florida. We don't get snow days but everything shuts down for Severe Weather. There was also a Tornado warning for our area so we moved the kids to our room for the night (they have a very large tree over their back of the house) They were excited to to wake up and realize they were camping all night.
Doug woke up and went to work but came home again because it was cancelled too. The weather wasn't that bad, just a blustery drizzling day. Doug ended up taking the kids to a movie and we went shopping in the afternoon. It seemed to be that the only places closed were school and work. Target was open but I think there were about ten cars in the parking lot. Most of them employee's. I've never seen it so empty. The rain finally started coming down hard at about 6 pm and we continue to have a pretty good downpour going on outside. Oh yeah and schools cancelled again for tomorrow too. Nothing like starting school and then getting two days off.

And here is Luke just as cute as ever seemingly unaware of all the hubub that goes on around him. He just happy to roll around on the ground and be played with.

Beach day and Tadpole Surprise

We went to the beach this week and the water was so calm again. The kids had so much fun it was almost like swimming in a lake. There were occasional waves of course but not a lot of them. It made for a very relaxing day even for me. I was not planning on doing the beach much this summer with baby Luke and all but it turns out that it hasn't been so bad. The kids do most of the carrying and I hold Luke in the sling (thank you Ronnie). Thank you to all our friends who've helped me out while we were there. We've loved the beach so much this summer I hope we continue to go occasionally once schools in session.
I went out to dump the water out of the splash pool so Doug could mow the lawn yesterday and I found thousands of tiny Tadpoles swimming around. The pool had been sitting out a little over a week and I guess that was enough time for them to hatch. Mer and I spent an hour tyring to catch those little guys. We also called our tadpole loving neighborhood friends to get some too. We collected a bunch of them to take to the kids school classrooms, and maybe we'll keep some for Jack to watch them grow. Mer was sad to have to dump out the rest. I can just imagine thousands of frogs jumping around our back yard.
Doug let the kids try atomic Fireballs today. I think he just likes to see how thay react to things, so it was as much for his amusement as for theirs. Max could take it. Mer couldn't. Jack said he liked it but promptly spit it out.
School starts Monday. We dropped off our school supplies yesterday and the kids were able to meet their teachers. Now Mer can't wait to go on Monday, and Max isn't quite as nervous as he was.

Pretzels at the Mall

Yesterday we took a short field trip to the mall to redeem some pretzel coupons the kids got for the summer reading program. I let them play at the indoor playground for a while and then they took a ride on a tiny carousel...Quite a treat, since we haven't played at the mall in over a year. We also finished shopping for their school supplies and laid them all out on the counter. One week until school starts...the countdown has begun.


Almost immediately after dinner every night Doug has a bowl of cereal. The kids hate it cause they want cereal after dinner too, but are not allowed. So last night Max asks again why Dad gets a bowl and he doesn't. Doug gave him the same answer as always, "because I'm the dad and I get to do what I want." So Max, after grumbling about being the dad leaves the room...He comes back asking about Doug's old wallet...After a while we here all this giggling coming from the kids and Max comes out wearing Doug's clothes and giggling. "Now I'm the dad" he says, holding up his pants and the wallet, he pointed to everyone and said "Now you go to bed, and you go to bed, and you go to bed" Of course this brought down the house and everyone was laughing. Mer and Jack ran to get Mom and Dad clothes on and they dragged it out as far as to stuff their shirts and say they had to go feed the baby now. Now that's some Markos mischief for you.

Friday Night PIzza and a Movie

We had another fun week swimming, beaching, shopping, and playing with friends. Here's a picture of the two little boys just hanging out. I can't beileve Luke is almost 6 months old

Something fun we do probably about once a month is Friday night pizza and a Movie

We get a show, usually from the library, and we all eat dinner in front of the TV. The kids think this is wonderful. Friday we watched The Original first Star Wars movie. Jack lost interest after a while of course and Luke rolled around trying to grab everyone's plates. He is getting quite mobile. He's not quite scooting yet but he rolls back and forth inching forward until he reaches his goal.

Here's a picture of Dad and the big boys.

A Finished Project and a Growing Boy

This week Meredith worked hard on her first sewing project. She made a purse from a pattern she got for her birthday. She Finished it Thursday and her face say it all. She loves it a is so proud to have finished it. She has taken it everywhere we've gone this weekend.
This is a cute picture of Jack practicing his dance moves for the Dance, Dance Revolution, Hottest Party Game Max just got for his birthday (Thank you Mike and Sher).

and here he is playing it with a little help from dad.

Jack is growing right up and is always tagging along trying everything the big kids do. He's almost 3 now and he talks really well but there are still some things he says incorrectly or pronounces funny. With the older kids I think I used to gently correct them if I thought they were old enough to get it right. Then I realized that they eventually corrected themselves as they got old enough to notice. So I haven't really tried to correct Jack much...He says things like "I want a drink from the "water mountain", and "Bill Bodder" for Bob the Builder, Well... for "Mickey Mouse" Jack always says "Mickey House", and yesterday in the car he corrected himself and said Mickey Hhhh Mouse. With some disappointment I realized he's growing up. I guess not too fast though because he still wanted to sleep holding "Bill Bodder" last night. And you bet I am enjoying every minute of those mispronunciations.