Winter Fun Day 2009

Gage had his basketball game this morning. His team won; however, they don't keep score. He has alot to learn about basketball. It just doesn't come natural for him. I enjoyed watching them all play though, it's pretty cute when they dribble a few times and then run with the ball.

After Gage's game we drove to Mandan to pick Emma up from her sleepover. Jen was pretty excited that she got Emma to sleep at 10:15p! LOL! That's still later than I would like, however it was WAY BETTER than 1:30a! She wasn't too terribly cranky today, so that was good.

After lunch we headed over to Hillside Park for the Cub Scout Winter Fun Day. It was pretty darned cold out. It was definitely too long to stand outside for 3 hours when it's 20 degrees. If I am going to participate in these type of events, I'm going to have to get some snowpants AND some warmer boots. The kids seemed to do well. They both have been outfitted in new winter gear within the past couple of weeks. We've been finding stuff on sale for the end of the season and thought we should buy them now instead of waiting until next fall when they are full price again. I had been searching the internet to find some snowpants to match Emma's coat and there are absolutely no brown or blue Columbia snowpants ANYWHERE! I ordered some snowpants from LLBean thinking they were close to the same color and it was totally off. I sent those back and found a couple of pair on LandsEnd.com. They will send you fabric swatches so that is a great way to check out the color without having to order something and then send it back if it doesn't match. Once I got the fabric swatch, they were no longer available on the web-site so I called them and they said it was very low availability, but I did get them in the size and color I wanted. They aren't an exact match, but they are closer than I am going to find anywhere else. After today, I see that the blue probably wasn't the best route to go colorwise. They are going to be hard to keep clean. Anyway, both kids stayed warm AND dry. Because their new snowpants fit right and could be tucked into their boots, their feet even stayed dry. Emma had to get some new boots too because she said that her old ones (Gage's hand-me-downs) were too tight on her feet when she wore thicker socks.



Gage and Emma showing some good teamwork! I couldn't believe how well they were getting along. I thought Gage was going to get pretty tired of her because she was sticking to him like glue. However, that wasn't the smartest thing to do because when they were numbering off the kids in a 1-2, 1-2 fashion, she always got a different number than Gage. She was a pretty good sport about it though and would go onto the other team.



Gage and Emma hopped on this sled to take a ride instead of pulling the other sled with all of the Scouts. It was supposed to be Scouts against parents. I can't blame them for wanting to ride instead of pull!

Hot chocolate is always a welcomed beverage when the temps are in the 20's!

Emma testing out the snowshoes. She did pretty well with them. I could have benefitted from a pair of snowshoes myself. The snow was knee-deep thoughout the entire park and everytime I tried walking I would break through the snow up to my knees! That's quite a workout!

Gage takes his turn with the snowshoes.

Emma taking a little break. You can already see those dirty knees! Oh well!

Snowshoeing is a little more difficult when you're trying to roll a tire in front of you! :-)

Our last event of the day was sledding. The kids just couldn't wait to do this and they were upset that they couldn't do it until last. I think part of the reason they wanted to do it so bad is because Gage's school teacher was running that station. Her older son is big in Scouts and I think she is a den leader? The older Boy Scouts were manning most of the stations along with their den leaders.

Walking back up is never as fun as sliding down! It was really getting cold at this point and I was begging the kids each time time to make that their last!

Gage is sliding along at a pretty fast pace! He nearly knocked the guy over at the bottom of the hill. They had spotters catching everyone before they came to the end of the hill so they wouldn't faceplant on the concrete path.

We had to stop at Starbucks on the way home to get warmed up with some coffee and hot cider. The kids were thrilled that they got to get something too!

I decided I didn't want to give Emma her melatonin tablet tonight until I have a chance to read more about it. I read to her, then read to Gage and when I went back into her room after reading to Gage, she was hiding a pen and her journal she had in bed with her. I took them away and she told me she can't sleep if she doesn't write. I told her I was going to lay with her until she fell asleep and she replied, "Well, I guess you're going to be in here a long time then!" Boy was she WRONG! She was out in 15 minutes after I said that. I'm sure she was exhausted from being up so late and then being outside all afternoon being active. I nearly fell asleep in bed with her. I suppose I should get myself to bed since we lose an hour of sleep tonight. I'm not going to want to get up for church tomorrow!

Is no news good news?

Emma had her 6-year-old well check at the doctor's office this afternoon, right after school. She was so excited about the 2 birthday parties she was going to this evening that she spoke right up to the receptionist and was telling her all about them. It was pretty funny. She doesn't usually do that with complete strangers.

The only thing I had listed as a concern with Emma is getting her to sleep. As I figured, the doctor thought that was quite ironic since she's always quoting me and my sleep book to other parents with kids and sleep problems. She asked if either Scott or I was a night owl and I had to confess that yes, I am. Apparently it's genetic and I get it from my Mom, who I can always count on being the first person to read my blog post since I typically do it before bed and she's still awake playing on her computer til weeeee hours of the morning. Anyway, the doctor recommended drugging Emma up. Yep, you heard right. However, she wasn't talking about your typical sleep aid medication. She suggested we try giving Emma some Melatonin, which is a hormone your body naturally produces to aid in sleep. Melatonin is a "darkness signaler" that tells the brain it needs to prepare for sleep. I'm guessing Emma has no melatonin in her body. LOL! I bought some at the store, and am going to read a little more about it before I start giving it to her. I didn't want to start tonight because she is at a sleepover and if she reacted badly to it, I didn't want her to be away from home. Speaking of sleepover, I'm hoping that no news is good news. I haven't heard a thing from Jen, the birthday girl's Mom, so I'm hoping that means Emma is asleep! I told her to call me if she needed anything and warned her of Emma's sleep issues. I'm hoping all is well! It will be a bit of a pain if I get a call to come get her in the middle of the night. Since Scott is out of town, that means I would have to wake Gage up to drive to Mandan to pick her up. Hopefully that won't happen. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

Emma had 2 parties to go to this evening. The first one was at Claire's Boutique. Thankfully she didn't come out with a pierced tongue or ears. However, she did come out with dark blue eye shadow and Gage said, "it's freaking me out!" It looked awful and if she were 13 or older, I would have made her wash it off before we left the store! She had orange streaks in her hair, (which she had to point out to me since I didn't even notice with her red hair) glitter in her hair and all over her face and she also had her fingernails painted. Emma had alot of fun at the party and it was funny when we walked up to the store front. She was standing in the windows blinking her eyes very dramatically showing us her eye shadow. All of the girls even got gift cards as part of the party and got to go shopping. You'll never guess what Emma bought! MORE MAKEUP! UGH! She has 3 new containers of glitter eye shadow and lip gloss. Just what we needed! It was easy to get her out of the store because she was anxious to get on to her next party. There are 7 girls spending the night and the only girl Emma knows is the birthday girl. I thought that might be an interesting mix. I'll be interested to hear how it went. Sometimes it's hard for girls to play with more than one friend at a time, and I'm guessing the birthday girl won't be giving Emma her full and undivided attention. Maybe Emma will come out with 6 new friends? Who knows? We'll be picking her up after Gage's basketball game which starts at 8:30am and we'll know whether our day is going to be painfully cranky or not.

I suppose I should get my butt to bed so I can deal with her crankiness a little better by not being cranky and tired myself!

Clutter

Today, on my day off, I tried to remove some clutter. Specifically Emma's clutter. Her room was a mess and I have been ignoring it too long. I think that may be part of the reason she has been wanting to sleep in the guest room for the past week, because her room is (was) so messy she can't (couldn't) even stand it. It took me 2 solid hours to declutter and reorganize her room. I had a grocery sack full of paper and candy wrappers and all sorts of garbage that she just leaves lying around her room or tucks into her purses and bags. I can't really blame her for not wanting to be in there, because I didn't either! What I don't understand is why she doesn't try a little harder to keep it picked up? Emma is the packrat queen and it's almost like a treasure hunt when I dig into her room because I never know what I'll find. Apparently all that work paid off because when she came home from school today she went down to her room with our neighbor-girl and she came back up and thanked me for cleaning her room. AND, she even wanted to sleep in there tonight! I am now convinced that it's the clutter that Emma dislikes, not her room. I wish I could get those organizer people off the HGTV channel to come to my house and help me get organized. I really am anal about that kind of thing, but I've been slacking in that department for quite some time. I guess I'm alot like Emma, in that I get overwhelmed and don't even know where to start. I suppose it's that time of year when the spring cleaning bug is going to hit and I want to be ready when it does!

Another thing I would like to gripe and complain about is this stupid digital t.v. stuff. UGH! It makes me so mad. We have this nice big television and half the time I choose to watch the fuzzy channels because it is always messing up and getting pixelated or whatever you call it. We have a new digital antenna that is this flat unit that can hang on the wall or sit on the television stand. Every channel we watch it has to be in a different place or it won't come in. Sometimes it is hanging on the hinge of the closet door, sometimes it is hanging on the door knob and sometimes it's sitting on the television stand. There really is no benefit to having a remote control because we have to get up to move the stupid antenna to a different spot each time we change the channel anyway. If anyone knows what we need to do to fix this problem, I would be happy to hear what you suggest. We won't be getting cable, but is there some sort of antenna we need to put on top of our house to get better reception?

Pie

I got a call from my sister, Kysa, this evening with information about my Mom's doctor's appointment today. Kysa had received text messages from my other sister, Jari Jo, who went with Mom and Dad, about the appt. but all she could decipher is that they were at Perkins eating pie and were on their way to the casino. She also said there has to be a cardiac stress test done before the surgery. Hmmm. There was some missing information there that apparently you can't fit into a text message! LOL! I called Jari's cell phone and as I listened to the slot machines dinging in the background, she explained a little more about the appointment. Oh, and Mom and Dad had coconut cream pie while Jari had a Reese's smooth silk chocolate pie. My mouth is watering just thinking of it.

There isn't really too much to tell at this point. They want to perform a carotid endarterectomy to remove the blockage, which is around 80%. However, to do the surgery, Mom must pass a cardiac stress test which they want to do Tuesday. Did I get all of the information right guys? That's what I understand anyway. I tried calling tonight, but apparently the casino hadn't yet taken all of their money, because I had to talk to the answering machine.

The weather here was beautiful today. I hate beautiful days this time of year. It means yucky, mucky, slushy slop all over the place. It means wet, muddy, dog paws coming in from the outdoors. It means wet socks inside of wet boots. It means wet snow pants. It means MESS and I hate it. I would rather have it frozen for the entire season then one day it magically disappears. I don't know what Fairy Tale that would be in, but it sounds like one that I would like to come true!

I have Thursday and Friday off from the library. I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet, but I should clean the house. Friday after school is going to be a zoo as I have Emma's 6-year-old well check at the doctor's office, then Emma has a birthday party to go to from 4p-5:30p at Claire's Boutique. If that girl comes out of there with pierced ears, there will be TROUBLE! :-) Then she has another birthday party/sleep over that starts at 6p. I haven't yet talked to the mother about that, but before I commit to the sleepover part, I want to know what kind of effort will be made to get Emma to sleep. I can't have her up until 1:30 in the morning again, especially with the busy Saturday we have while Scott is out of town for the weekend. She has another birthday party to go to on Sunday evening. This little girl's social calendar is FULL! It wears me out just thinking about it.

Headache

I'm on day 2 of a headache. It was in full swing at 3am but it's not terribly bad right at this minute, thankfully. Even the skin on my forehead is tender to touch. UGH!

I wanted to get on here to be sure and let you know, Mom, that I am thinking about you and my heart and prayers will be with you tomorrow at your doctor's appointment. Please know that I wish I could be there with you to act as the interpreter between you and the doctor. Thankfully Jari Jo will be there with you and will be able to help you understand what they are talking about. Please call me when you get home tomorrow evening to let me know what you found out. I will be thinking about you. Please remember that we all love you with all of our hearts and souls.

Sleepovers

Emma received an invitation in the mail today for a birthday party/sleepover. UGH! Why do these people keep torturing me like this? Gage gets ticked off because no one has ever invited him over for a sleepover birthday party. This sleepover is Friday night and then she has another birthday party for Sunday evening. The only thing that may save me this time is that Emma is coming down with a cold. She started getting it a few days ago, but it's coming on pretty slow. She now has a nasty cough with it, so maybe she'll feel too terrible to go Friday night? I hate to wish an illness on her, but I also hate to send her on another sleepover where she won't actually "sleep"! The last one she went to she was up until 1am. These mothers are crazy for wanting to put up with so many 6 year olds overnight! Maybe I'm the only one who has problems getting my 6 year old to sleep?

I don't have much else to write about and I've had a bit of a headache all day today, so I think I'm going to call it a night.

Cross-Training Basketball Camp

As I mentioned yesterday, Gage attended a free Cross-training basketball camp at the YMCA yesterday morning.

Gage has never been interested in basketball and wasn't sure he wanted to play when some classmates of him asked if he would play on their team. He has never really cared for it because when he goes outside to shoot baskets he can never make any because our hoop is at regulation height and we can't adjust it because it is attached to our roof. I can't really blame him much, as it isn't any fun if you can NEVER make baskets.

Last Monday was his first basketball practice and he said he really liked it. The hoops are lower and he was able to make a few baskets. That, apparently, was quite encouraging. However, because he hasn't ever really been interested, it shows in his dribbling ability. YIKES! He was almost like the Bad News Bears of Basketball! Actually, he WAS the Bad News Bears of Basketball! However, I see him improving each time he tries and that is what is important, as well as having fun.


This is a Christian-based basketball camp put on by Bob Upgren. I didn't realize that was the same guy we had as a guest speaker at church a year or so ago, who did a chalk art drawing that was quite amazing.

All of the kids were divided into groups and went to the different stations to learn defensive moves and ball handling skills.

Gage must think he's playing baseball where we are always telling him "keep your eye on the ball!" I'll have to let him know that statement doesn't apply to basketball when you're dribbling down the court! :-)

Nice! I just noticed as I was trying to think of something to write with this picture that the kid closest to the camera has some issues with his butt! Too bad I don't know who it is, otherwise I would print out an extra copy of this photo for his parents. I'm sure they would be quite proud! LOL!