Thinking Outloud

I feel so bad for  my little guy.  Every time you turn around he is getting sick.  Most of the time it’s just a simple cold that he needs to work through but lately these colds have been turning into so much more.  In December he started out with a cold that turned into an ear infection, then in March he had a cold that ended up being phenomena.  Well here it is the first of April and he has another cold.  Because his colds usually end up becoming a more serious problem, I have made him a doctor’s appointment for later this afternoon.  Better to be safe than sorry.  Hopefully he can get some medicine and be on the road to recovery soon.

My  daughter  is really starting to enjoy her violin lessons.  They have now begun working on the fun stuff like playing songs so she is really starting to get into it.  Getting her to practice at home is still requiring a lot of patience on my part, but things are starting to  improve.

In the month of April, she has three different violin events coming up and she has one more performance event in June.  She has her fiddle-a-thon, a competition and the spring extravaganza in April and then has a retirement party for a teacher to prepare for in June.  With all these concerts and events coming up in the near future it gives her a purpose to practice hard.   And now that she it totally caught up with her class (she missed a lot of time before Christmas due to a serious illness) and can play everything they can, she is having the time of her life.  So much in fact that she has decided to stick with it for many more years to come.

I can’t be more proud of her than I am right now and I am really looking forward to seeing all her performances.

I don’t know what I was thinking a few months back.  I decided that I would finally use up all my scrap pieces of yarn and make my daughter a homemade knitting afghan.  It was a great idea at the time.  But, I never realized what type of work would go into one of these and I honestly have to wonder if I’m ever going to get it done.

I usually knit in the evenings while I’m watching TV.  The particular pattern I chose was to make 70 individual blocks of six and a half inch squares.  One square (if I knit constantly) takes me a day.  Then I have to sew all the pieces together and then crochete a border.  I think when it’s finally completed it’s going to be a very funky and interesting piece.  My daughter loves it already.  But, I am still wondering if I’m ever going to see a completed product.  Then my son wants one for his bed (all boy colors) as well.  So even when I see the end of this project.  It’s really not the end.  But I have been making some progress and here are some pics so you can all see how far I have gotten.

Although the kids are just getting over a long weekend, my youngest son was looking forward to another long weekend next weekend.  This coming Friday the kids were supposed to be home from school due to parent teacher conferences.  But, because they have missed so much school time over the last few months due to bad weather, the schools have decided to cancel all parent teacher conferences for Friday and have a regular class day instead. 

This information has been on the radio all day and I just received a talk mail confirming it.  Needless to say my youngest son was not impressed and still has a sour look on his face when I remind him that he has to go to school on Friday.  This information did not bother my daughter, but it sure did bother him.

The kids have been invited to a birthday party afternoon.  We are going, but this really isn’t a party I am looking forward to.  The party is for a one year old that obviously the kids don’t play with (they are 7 and 9).  But, they are our neighbors so that is why I’m taking the kids over. 

The one thing I don’t understand is why do some parents insist on inviting every child in the neighborhood even if the kids aren’t friends or don’t play together.  I have to wonder if this mother expects that when it’s my kids birthdays that I will invite her kids to their parties.  I don’t really think that is going to happen.  But, the kids did hear her invatation and they do want to go, but I think this will be the last one of these kinds of birthday parties that they will be attending.

Happy long weekend to you all.  Today is Good Friday, but there really isn’t much going on in our household today.  My husband, who was supposed to be off, was called out to work this morning.  And, as he had to travel quite a distance to the job site, he will proablybe gone most of the day.  So that leaves me and the two kids home alone all day.  So I think we will have a quite day today doing crafts and playing around on the computer.  Although this may sound quite boring, sometimes having days like today can be an excellent day to just unwind and recharge the batteries.  We do have quite a busy weekend ahead of us, so having a quiet day sounds like a great idea to me.

Having two young kids at home, it’s starting to get pretty expensive for all the birthday parties that they get invited to. One of the kids is in grade 4 and the other is in grade 2 and both get invited to a lot of birthday parties in the run of a year. Then you have to account for neighbors parties and family birthdays as well. This can begin to get quite expensive as you need to purchase a gift, a gift bag or wrapping paper and a card. So I have been looking at possible sites where I could purchase some personalized birthday cards for these numerous parties.

One area where I can save some money but still give out acceptable birthday cards is by ordering personalized Birthday Cards from cardsdirect.com. While visiting their site, I discovered that they have a lot of ready made cards available, but they also give you the option of having your cards personalized as well. Their prices are extremely competitive to other sites that sell similar products and their site is extremely user friendly. If you find yourself purchasing a lot of birthday cards in the run of year and would like to check out a site where you can purchase fairly inexpensive personalized birthday cards, then I highly suggest that you check out this site. Just check out the following picture of a card that you can order from their site.

My youngest son got off the school bus this afternoon extremely excited. One of the programs that he’s involved with ended today and they had a pizza party. I really wish that I had of known that the teacher was going to do this. I wouldn’t have sent a lunch today had I known. But, he seemed to enjoy his party. He had three pieces of pizza, two cookies, three pieces of licorice and five glasses of pop. I guess you now know why he got off the bus bouncing. lol

This is one of the reasons why I love this school so much. It’s because of all these little surprises that they are always bestowing upon the kids for a job will done. And, as an added bonus, I didn’t have to make him any supper tonight, he ate his school lunch.

Well March break for the kids is almost over.  Only today and tomorrow left and then everyone will be back to work and school.  And yes, that means me as well.  Having the kids home for the past week has been “fun”, but I haven’t really been able to keep on my working from home schedule with them around.  We’ve been doing a few things as a family and they have been keeping me busy, so my crafting and Internet activities have slowed down quite a bit.  But hey, that’s what March break is for right??

So, come Monday morning I will put them both back on that school bus and then I will get back to doing what I should be doing.  But the break was nice for all of us.  I just wish my husband could have gotten some extra time off to enjoy this time with the family.  Oh well, our batteries are recharged and now were all ready to get back to business.

Yesterday my youngest son got off the school bus complaining of an ear ache.  He claimed that he had the ear ache for most of the day at school.  And honestly, he didn’t look real good.  Now this did concern me quite a bit as when this child is sick or in pain, he never mentions it.  For him to complain of a sore ear,  I can almost bet that he has another ear infection.  So this morning I kept him home from school and I will be making him a doctor’s appointment for later on in the day.  I think when we are in there I am going to mention to the doctor about him seeing a specialist as he gets ear infections a lot.

The good thing about all this (if you can find the good) is that today was his last day of school before March break.  So he will only lose one day of school and not a whole week like he normally does.  The bad thing about this is the kid is probably going to be sick for most of his  March break.  But if I can catch this sooner rather than later, maybe his whole week off won’t be a complete bust.