Catch Up

Well, it's been awhile since I last posted.  So I thought I'd try to catch up with our doings.  We had a tragedy strike this week.  Abby came to me in tears the other day when she found Prince Charming had been cut in half.  He is Snow White's Prince Charming.  Cinderella's Prince Charming is still intact.  He is awaiting surgery. 

I must say that Abby has gotten every cent's worth of money out of these little dolls.  She plays with them so much.  She has a lot of these little dolls - not all are princess related.  They all have names and characters and are involved in all sorts of scenarios in her little play world.  I do need to fix Prince Charming soon as there is a shortage of males in her doll world.  I'm hoping a little hot glue gun action will keep him together.

Well, Aaron finally succombed to the sickness that pervaded our house.  He had the fever and everything for the past two days and even stayed home from work those two days - he has probably missed only 5 days of work due to sickness in the past 10 years.  But today, he is feeling better and went back to work.  Yea!  So I think I can officially say we are all done with sickness since it hit all of us now.  It's kind of funny when Aaron gets sick, he has two cravings for food.  The first is orange juice.  The second is SALT.  He doesn't care what he eats as long as it is filled with salt.  I find it kind of gross, but since he is rarely sick, I indulge his cravings.  Some of his eatings in the last two days:  ramen noodles (filled with a meager 78% of your daily sodium needs), eggs - covered with very slightly sauteed garlic, some salty cheese, and a generous sprinkling of salt.  And last night, I had our small group gathering to go to and Aaron was concerned about what he would have for supper.  So since I was in town doing a bit of grocery shopping, I told him I would pick up something for him to eat.  Here is what he got.

A Hungry Man Salisbury steak meal.  Yes, they gleefully declare on the front cover that it is ONE POUND of food.  It will also fill 58% of your daily sodium need along with most of you fat need for the day too.  I think this might be the first microwave meal I have ever bought - that I recall.  Aaron used to work for a vending maching company filling up all sorts of vending machines.  He would get to bring home the "out-dates" and so we used to have a number of these types of meals and other things stashed away in our freezer.  I'm glad that we don't have things like this stashed away anymore.  Aaron used to eat stuff like this nearly everyday in his vending job.  He calls those his "fat Aaron" days.  He had his driver's license renewed in his "fat Aaron" days so when people would scoff at him saying that he was ever heavy, he would get out his license to silence their scoffing.  He eats much better these days.  But he was happy with his meal last night - I called him with his choices and this is the one he picked. 

Another thing I picked up last night on my shopping excursion was some more dry erase markers in fun colors.  We have started using the white board again for school - mainly math.  We do our lesson on the board before they do their table work.  Since we've reintroduced the white board to our schooling, they often spend much time after school drawing and creating all sorts of worlds, problems, mazes, and pictures on the white board.  Abby saw all the new colors this morning when David and I sat down to do his lesson and she spent that lesson time hovering, waiting to pounce on the markers as soon as we were done.  Here she is happily drawing on the board.  I think she was trying to retrace our math stuff in this picture.

When I left for town, I had a list of chores for the kids to do while I was away (Aaron was home sick, so I could leave them at home!).  I told them if they finished their chores, then there would be a special treat for them that I would get.  Their chore list was much longer than normal, so I thought a little external motivation might be nice.  : )  So they set off and got everything done while I was away.  I brought home some giant smarties for each of them, a pudding cup for each kid, and I also have some fun modeling clay as well.  They have only received their smarties so far.  I'll break out the rest of it today.  Yea for fun and random treats! 

While I was gone last night, the kids had a tea party with Dad.  How do I know?  Because this was spread out all over the table.  They sure do love their tea parties. 

On other news:  Running didn't go so well this past week due to the sickness going on in the house.  I did get a good run in yesterday morning.  That's always nice.  Ran some 400 intervals and also a good warm-up and cool down to and from the track.  Yea!  I was going to run on Monday too, but I had one of those nights where my body refused to go to sleep.  My mind was too busy racing and I ended up only getting around 3 hours of sleep that night.  Plus it was rainy/icy out that morning too.  So I opted to get an extra hour of sleep instead of running. 

Going to town yesterday also means a stop at the library!  Yea!  David and Ana have gotten into a fun little series.  I've been reading along with them too.  I like to read the books they read so I know what they are filling their minds with.  This is a series on cats by Erin Hunter.  We are reading her Warrior series - it's about a clan of wild cats and their struggles with the nearby neighboring clans of cats and their lives as they grow from apprentice warriors to warriors.  The main character is an orange cat - so the kids are pretending it's Joey.  And he even started off as a "kittypet" like Joey is.  It's pretty fun and the kids are really enjoying it.  I'm enjoying it too.  I like children's literature and enjoy reading it with them.  Perhaps that means I'm not that sophisticated? 

Well, I should end this as it is getting long.  I need to get back to school with the kids before the morning slips away from me.  David has finished his math work and the girls have been drawing on the white board for the past hour.  Fun and cheap entertainment.  Have a good day everyone!