Phew. It was a busy weekend.
Saturday, I took the boys to a birthday party for one of Jacob's friends who is moving to New York later this week. This is the friend that one of my friends has been helping to raise. My friend planned his party for him and it ended up being a Nerf war party. I stayed to help my friend supervise as this boy's dad doesn't do anything except sit there. The boys had fun. The weather was warm but there was a nice breeze. There were 4 other parties going on at the same time at the local park. Thank goodness my friend had reserved one end of one of the shelters.
Sunday, we went to PSR (I taught my class), church, home to change, ran through McDonald's for lunch, and out to Utica. My parents wanted me to learn how to give my nephew his insulin and check his blood sugar. He and my niece got back around 1 from his visitation with him mother. I learnt how to figure out his dosage and gave him his shot. He said I did a better job than my mom! LOL
After my niece and nephew had their lunch, we headed out to Legend Hills Orchard to pick apples. My niece has been wanting to go for a while and we usually go at least once a year. Each cousin picked a huge bag full. In all total they picked a tad over 100 pounds.
We brought 3 bags home so we have a tad over 60 pounds of apples to process. I have a batch of crockpot applesauce going as we speak and I made a quick apple crisp this afternoon as well.
Today the kids have had the day off of school for teacher in service. I tutored this morning, babysat this afternoon, am doing laundry, processing apples, etc. I thought I would take a moment to type up a short post and rest for a moment.
Well, I think my moment is up. I just heard the dryer go off so time to flip laundry. Hope everyone is having a good Monday and last day of September. :)
It's been almost 3 weeks since I have updated this space of mine. I have been reading blogs that I follow, but that is usually done on my Kindle and I hate typing on that thing. I have a few moments to write a quick update over the last few weeks.
Like normally, lots has been going on.
On September 13, the kids' caterpillar came out of it's cocoon as a gorgeous monarch butterfly. That morning I was able to show the kids how they could see the wings through the shell of the chrysalis. It came out while the kids were at school. We let her go in the afternoon and she flew off. The boys cried.
On September 14, the kids and I worked some service hours with their AHG and Trail Life troops at the Brown Family Environmental Center. They seeded plants, picked up nuts and pinecones off paths, and weeded and mulched around new saplings on the property.
On September 17 Bill hurt his back at work. He ended up in the ER diagnosed with a strain and was put on light duty and had to go through worker's comp. He was cleared to go back to full duty this past week.
September 20 through the 22nd, Bill and the boys went camping on a Father/Sons campout with the boys' Trail Life troop. Ben said his favorite part was fishing (even if he did hook his arm once when he was casting). Jacob said his favorite part was learning to shoot a bb gun. (Bill didn't take any photos, so I had to "steal" some from our troops Facebook page...LOL)
That same weekend, Rebecca's American Heritage Girls Troop held a bake sale. So on Friday night I helped her make no bake cookies and we played Monopoly.
Saturday we spent the morning and afternoon at Rural King at their bake sale booth. The girls made $350 which is good.
On Saturday night, we ordered subs from Marco's Pizza and rented 2 movies--- "The Greatest Showman" and "The House with a Clock in it's Walls."
It was a very enjoyable mother/daughter weekend.
This past week has been stressful. Ben needed to have one of his blood pressure meds refilled. I called the doc on Monday and left a message for the refill need. Tuesday the pharmacy still hadn't received the prescription. I called doc again on Wednesday. Well the doc finally called it in on Wednesday and the nurse called and apologized about not calling it in sooner. I called the pharmacy Wednesday to see when it was going to be ready only to be told that they were no longer allowed to make it on site and that they would need preapproval from insurance for the new commercialized version. This is a compound medicine that we have had to drive 45 minutes 1 way to get. After numerous phone calls to the doctor (who is part of Children's Hospital) we figured out that the restriction had went into effect THAT day. The medicine was now going to be commercially made. Thankfully, insurance put the preapproval through on Friday and we are able to get it our local Walmart pharmacy literally 5 minutes from our house. The insurance wanted extra documentation about how Ben can't take pill form and when I picked up the prescription tonight I figured out why... a month's supply of this med (10ml 1 time daily) is $1105! Crazy. However, we are blessed that insurance is covering it.
My nephew ended up in the hospital this week. This is the nephew that my parents have custody of. They med-flighted him from our local hospital to Children's Hospital in Columbus and he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. So now my parents have to learn how to check his blood sugar, figure out his carbs, give him insulin 4 times a day, etc. Thankfully, Ethan was able to come home earlier today and my mom said he is doing a lot better. I will see him on Sunday when we are going to go apple picking and celebrate his birthday a little early (his b-day is next Wednesday).
Last night, we attended a Unified Arts night at the boys' school. The music, gym and art teachers had different activities planned for the families to do all based around a super-hero movie theme. There was super hero gym activities, the boys had to use their music knowledge to save 2 trapped super heroes in an escape room scenario and they painted rocks with super hero themes. It was a lot of fun!
Finally, tonight was the first middle school dance of the year. The theme was the 80's. Here is Rebecca's interpretation. She had her ponytail up higher but her hair is so thick and long that it kept sliding down. LOL She said she had fun at the dance.
So there you have it. If you made it through this really long post, you now are pretty updated on what's been going on around here (or at least the highlights and lowlights). I am going to try to be better at keeping this space updated in October but I make no promises. Hope everyone has a great weekend!
First off I wanted to say thank you for all your well wishes for Bill. He is doing 100% better. He had a follow up with his gastroentrologist and was given the all clear to resume work and normal activities. His numbers are down to near normal and Bill says he feels pain free for the first time in a really long time. So YAY!
So what else has been going on?
We celebrated my dad's 60th birthday. He said all he wanted was a cookout with his favorite people--- his kids and grandkids there. We made that happen. My youngest brother and my sister were even able to surprise my dad by coming home from college and grad school respectfully for that night.
The kids began another year of Trail Life USA and American Heritage Girls.
At their first meeting the AHG girls were learning about the program theme for the year-- the chrysalis-- and they each got to take a monarch caterpillar home. Rebecca gave hers to the boys and they named the caterpillar "Ric Flair Jr." About a week after we got it, it turned into a cocoon, so we are on butterfly watch. (We had to keep it outside in the window as GusGus likes to eat bugs and we didn't want him to try to get at the caterpillar.)
This past week I have been busy getting my tutoring ramped up for the school year. Also helping Rebecca with a fundraiser for her "Principles of Food" class-- they were selling candy bars and chocolate covered almonds. Thankfully she sold her goal of 2 boxes so we are done with that.
I did a bunch of cooking this week. I made a homemade fried rice that was super yummy and used up some stuff in the fridge. Saturday I made a homemade chicken avocado salad after being inspired by a post on Facebook from a local restaurant about their new salad item. It was tasty. I also made 2 loaves of pumpkin bread (we only have 1/2 of one left as of Sunday night!) and a batch of buckeye brownies using ingredients in my pantry.
I am trying to do a low spend month on groceries/household items since Bill missed a week of pay when he was in the hospital. I am trying to use what we have here. I am also trying to only go grocery shopping on Friday. This past Friday I only spent $63 on groceries! That is about half what I typically spend.
This coming week gets even busier... the boys are joining a youth choir that practice on Monday nights. I have more tutoring scheduled. Rebecca starts back to her book club after school and has an extra AHG meeting. We have a service day project to do next weekend with both AHG and TL. It is a busy time that is for sure. I hope to get back to blogging more as I enjoy having this space as a recap of our life, but I make no promises! LOL
Have a great week everyone!
