Grand Theft Bicycle

So far my little goal to spend time outside every day has been really easy! And we pretty much spend hours out there instead of just 15 minutes.

Yesterday we started in the backyard, where Paige made Gia wear her medal. Ha.
But then they wanted to play on the swingset, and I realized it's become a lot of work now that Neely's wanting to walk all over while the big kids are swinging. She kept wanting to walk right in front of them while they're swinging, so I convinced them to move to the driveway and ride bikes.
Neely got pushed around in her stroller, watching them ride.
Gia prefers the backyard, or at least for us to be IN the front yard with her.The older two pretended to steal each other's bikes and scooters. Cason climbed onto Paige's bike, which is a LOT bigger than his, and I came over to help, but he immediately started riding it around no problem. I bought the bike that was recommended for 6-8 year olds, and it took Paige a little getting used to, but Caso must be a natural, because he was cruising around on it at 3 years old. Ha. With Paige in hot pursuit.
It of course ended in his first REAL crash, with scraped knees and everything. He took it like a man.
Neely watched it all go down.
Mostly with amusement once I'd helped him up and taken his tough guy picture.
Later, Cason found "a piece of rainbow"
and Neely did a pretty cool dance while snacking on a tortilla.

Love Letters and Pranks

Jess stayed home sick yesterday, and I took Neely to the doctor. Thankfully she didn't have strep throat, which I was starting to worry about.

Paige was feeling all better, and spent her day playing all alone inside the puppet tent from Aunt Mollie...
...and writing little love notes on sticky pads she stuck all over the house for the recipients to find.
Neely still wasn't quite herself, but was playing some more. Like with one of her recent favorite toys-the Little People barn. She noticed me taking her picture so I got a profile shot of the "cheese" smile.
She's starting to do funny little things like Paige did at her age, like trying to balance her toys in strange places.
The boy played his first prank yesterday.
I walked into the living room and Cason said "Mama, take a drink of your water." For some reason I didn't notice it was weird for him to want ME to drink up, so I grabbed the glass. RIGHT before I took a swig, he threw his arms up to the side in a kind of "taDA" gesture and goes "There's a rock in it! HAPPY NEW YEAR!" I said "Oh MAN!" and he goes "It was a joke. That was awesome." Haha. Paige heard him and goes "Is it May 1st?" Haha, they're so funny. She knows about April Fools, but apparently forgot which month it's in.

Leaf Girl

This illness is being ridiculous. I thought we were pretty much over it and then suddenly Neely and Cason, who both seemed to have been sick and gotten better, are sick again. They get a fever, it goes away, it comes back. Lame. In the last 2 days there were 3 times that Neely has coughed so hard while trying to nurse, she ended up puking all over both of us.

But Paige seems to REALLY be better now. And Cason and Neely still feel well enough to be up and playing. One of my New Years resolutions is to spend at LEAST 15 minutes outside every day this year. We're always happiest outside, but sometimes too lazy to get out there to begin with. If I tell myself to at least get out there, I think we'll probably end up spending a lot more than 15 minutes. So far, we've stuck to it, even though we're sick. The fresh air feels so nice after a week-long quarantine, especially since it was close to 70 degrees today. We emerged from our cave like a bunch of troglodytes, blinking in the brightness of the sun. Ha.
Cason insisted on bringing his robot bedspread.
And we had a mini berry muffin picnic.
Paige saw a little girl and her brother, and she introduced herself. She found out the girl's name was Abbie. So when she walked by again, all the kids (and Gia) had to talk to her. Neely kept standing on her tiptoes and yelling "HI!"
Then they played "Leaf Girl". Paige was the leaf girl who lived inside the bushes, and was helping Cason find his lost ball.

Happy New Year

Well, we've spent pretty much the entire 2nd half of Jess's vacation at home, all of us getting sick one at a time. Spent our days the way Gia always does, only she does it without feeling crappy.
Jess felt fine up until yesterday though, so he's been quite productive. He and Neely seem a little sicker today, but the other kids seem to finally be starting to improve.
My mom moved to North Dakota this morning. I'm just assuming she'll hate it and come home in a couple weeks, that way I don't get too sad. We had a going away dinner last night. Since the kids were sick I went and Jess stayed home with them.
I guess they napped while I was gone, and woke up right before I got home around 10. So all three kids were actually up at midnight.

We had a pretty wild time when the clock struck 12, as usual.

Jinxed

Trudi's sister Amy and her family are in town, so we visited them for a while the first night they got here. We also played Michigan Rummy, once Neely woke up from this late nap.
We liked how she was holding her toes while she slept. Don't mind my ladylike pose. Jess thinks I look like a frat guy with a beer. But it's no beer. I DO look like a frat guy though.

Paige seemed really tired the whole time, and a little bit grumpy, but I figured she was really tired. She hadn't had enough sleep the last couple of days, so it made sense. But by the time we got them in their pajamas to drive home she felt really warm. When we got there Cason felt hot too, and even Neely seemed like she didn't feel too great.
I jinxed us by telling Skifter we have built up all our immunity these last couple years so we will never get sick again.

Everyone got some ibuprofen and went to bed. Since then we've been getting it, one at a time. Paige seemed better for a day and then got really bad again. She has been on the couch most of the day today. Neely had a rough night last night, really hot and sweaty, and fussy.
The couple of days we felt okay we spent enjoying all the new stuff from Christmas. Cason and Jess set up some of the old and new robots, and got the new nerf guns out.
Cason's funny, he blows on his gun BEFORE he shoots.

Neely was most interested in the dollhouse.
She always likes playing with it, but especially now that it has two newly furnished rooms-the living room and a bathroom.
Paige says the two that are still empty need to be a kids' room and a playroom, and we'll be set.

Vacation Days

I LOVE having Jess home with us.

Last night we played the new Busytown Mysteries game the kids got for Christmas. (Thanks Grama) It was fun to play with them, and it's a team game, so we either all win or all lose. Pretty cute.
Today Cason's sounding a little stuffy, but other than that they seem to be feeling better. Jess made a fort with them.
And we all colored together.
Neely was WAY into it today.
I baked us some chocolate chip cookies, and we finished off the night by eating them while watching the Jingle movie Neely got for Christmas. (Thanks again Grama)
It was really cute, and they loved it. Neely especially.
When Jingle barked or did anything cute in the movie, she'd go find HER Jingle.