Happy April Fools day!

This morning Ashley came to me whispering how Megan told her that she would give Ashley twenty pieces of gum if she picked up the dresses that were all over Megan's room in five minutes. Ashley said, "I picked them up in less than five minutes and Megan said 'April fools!'". Hehe, I couldn't help but laugh.

The girls continued with their April fools jokes--Nicole excitedly told Ashley (poor girl to get tricked again), that she made her lunch. "April fools!" Hannah decided to get in on the action when Megan suggested building a snowman where their dad parks. Hannah pretend-climbed her ladder to build the snowman "to the sky". So I joined in--"here Hannah, put the hat on the snowman's head". She wouldn't take it--being a pretend hat, I couldn't just drop it on the floor-someone might trip on it. So I tossed it at her and told her it bonked her nose. Then she came and whispered to me, "say 'Christmas eve' or something like that". Cute girl. Laughing I said "Christmas eve!", but I guess the joke was on me because no one else had heard her whispered comment.

Connie and kids

Connie came and visited last week. We all had lots of fun. Sweet picture.

4th grade program

Ashley's Indian costume. I didn't want to spend a lot of time or money on her costume, so I found a brown dress, bought a lighter brown fabric which I sewed to the bottom of the dress, sewed the turquoise rick rack on, gave it some fringe, she added feathers to her braided her hair and voila, done. She did a great job with her speaking part. Cute poser.

:-) I braided Emily's hair.

Strep and viruses

Jess checked Nicole out from school after the donuts for dads program and took her to the driving range where they wacked a large bucket of balls. She wasn't feeling well when she got back, so I took her temperature. She had a high fever, and later,a cough and snotty nose (viral symptoms) for the next several days. She missed Monday and Tuesday (St. Patricks day, poor girl) of school. She had no fever Wednesday morning, went to school, had a fever that night. No fever Thursday morning, went to school, crashed on the couch when she got home, had a fever, so I took her to the doctor. They did a strep test. While we were waiting for the results the doctor came in and started checking her out. We were both surprised when the test came back positive for strep. The doctor had initially though she might have a sinus infection because she was so snotty and under her nose was raw from her frequently wiping/blowing her nose.

Emily started getting sick Tuesday night with a fever and congestion. Hannah started Wednesday. Hannah was fine Thursday. Hannah's fever was back and Ashley threw up Friday morning, so I took all three in to the doctor. Strep for Ashley and Hannah, they didn't test Emily. Ear infection for Emily. Although Hannah threw a huge fit getting her flu shot (kicking, crying and she grabbed my hair and took me down to the table :-) ), and would start crying when we talked about her upcoming five year old check up (where she will get 3-4 more immunizations), I was able to convinced her to get the shot of antibiotics. She agreed mostly because she watched Nicole earlier gagging (little actress) on her pink medicine and I told her she would have to drink twenty doses of that or get one shot that hurts for a little bit. She sat so still (yea), and kept her face neutral. The nurses were very impressed. Hannah got the shot in her thigh. Ashley had to get two (hehe) shots in each upper "hip" as Ashley wants it to be called, (because its thick and a large amount--not her hip, the shot). :-) Emily had to take the oral antibiotics. She seemed to get worse (really tired, cuddly, cranky) for the next couple of days and then finally started getting better. I had a cough and something going on with my throat--it didn't hurt, but I didn't sound good. Megan stayed well, Jess's throat hurt, but got better quickly. Ashley and Hannah were sore where they got the shot for the next couple of days, but everyone is better. Ashley did have an all day soccer scrimmage the next day--although she tried hard, there was a noticeable difference in how she played.

Hannah's Egyptian party

I made rice krispies and Jess formed the pyramid for Hannah's party cake. I could have just left it like that, but since it was for a party, I poured ganache over it and smooshed vanilla oreo crumbs all over it. Quick and easy.

The kids decorated treasure boxes with jewels and Egyptian heiroglyphics that I printed, cut and taped to the inside so they could trace. I also printed their name in heiroglyphics that they traced on top.

They played a matching game and with each match got jewels (jolly ranchers), jewelry (gold, silver and bronze bracelets I found on sale after Christmas, party necklaces, a ring and a ring pop), gold (Hershey's gold wrapped nuggets and rolos) and silver (Hersheys kisses) that they put into their treasure boxes.

We also had lunch. We were going to play tape the beard on King Tut (a poster of King Tut that Megan did a great job drawing for Nicole's party), and a dress-a-teammate-up-using-fabric-and-other-miscellaneous-stuff-game, but we ran out of time. The kids had fun, yea!

Cute picture

Donuts for Dads

The second grade classes at Nicole's school invited their dads for a show and donuts. Nicole had a speaking part that she wrote and memorized: "I love my dad because he takes me to work sometimes and buys me and my family ice cream cakes on special occassions." Cute girl!