Sunday/Monday were busy... And other fun info!

Picture A

On Sunday, my Mother and I took my 4 boy on a "Nature Adventure"! At first, they did not like the idea of not being able to take ANY electronics in the car with them. My kids are way too high tech! LOL. Once we got on the road they found that things can be more interesting if you actually take in your environment instead of letting it fly by you while you have your nose in a game. We got up that morning, ate breakfast and had showers and got on our way. My husband had worked the night shift the previous night so getting the kids out of the house was a bonus for him. He got to sleep in a silent house! Lucky him. After the kiddos got passed the fact that they could not have any electronics we found our way to Sheep Bridge. Not as impressive as it was when I was last there and could remember it. We ended up only stopping to use a campground potty and to let the boys run off some steam there. They ran back and forth between the "road" and a picnic table. They had a blast with that. Back in the car we got and drove a few miles down the road to South Twin Lake. Once there, we did not park or exit the vehicle. We found there that they are now charging for day use. This is new to our family. If it is a yearly payment, we may consider giving them our business. If it is a daily due, they may have lost us. We usually go to the lakes a lot during the summer, that one in particular, and if they are going to charge us then we simply can not afford it. After that disappointment we drove up to North Twin Lake to see if the "parking fee" was required there as well and... We were in luck! No fee required at that lake. Not for day use at least. Since we were there, we got out and let the boys explore for a bit. (Picture A) The boys did great here until they started throwing someone else's firewood into the lake. That is when this mom decided to say we were don there and start walking to the car. This got their attention and made them realize that Mama was not fooling around with the misbehaving stuff!

Picture B

After getting back into the car and getting the boys to calm down we drove a little ways down the road to Fall River Campground. (see Picture B) There we walked down to a bridge where the boys got to look down at the water and see that people often toss coins into the river and use it as a wishing well. They found that to be very interesting and spent a bit of time looking into the water and finding different types of coin on the bottom of the river. They also found a larger chunk of "Witch Hair" and decided to toss that into the water to watch float down stream. (Picture C) All in all, we had a pretty good day. After the river and lunch at a picnic table we loaded back into the van and drove down to The Fish Hatchery. While there the boys spent $1.50 on fish food and fed all the different sizes of fish. from the tiny sardine sized fish to the ones that are almost as big as the baby! This was the stop that the 4 year old requested at the beginning of the day. He just had to go to the fish place. I remember also going there as a child. We even bought some of the food there and after feeding the fish at the hatchery would bring leftovers to my guppies who loved that stuff.

Picture C

Once the Fish Hatchery trip was over, my Mother and I decided we were getting tired and that it may be time to head home for the day. We left the house at 9:30 A.M. and at that time it was 1:30 P.M. We used the restroom at the hatchery and loaded up once more. The boys had began to act as though we could do these kinds of trips once a week (and that is the plan now) so we felt a treat was in order. Instead of turning to go home, we drove down to Thousand Trails and took the boys the the little grocery store there and let them pick out an ice cream each. Logan, my oldest, picked out Vanilla DIBS. Riley, the 6 year old, chose an ice cream SNICKERS bar and Tanner, the 4 year old, decided to follow in his mothers footsteps as a child and got the classic, ice cream sandwich! Yum! It was a great day all together. The boys had ice cream in their bellies and they were all happy little campers. We came home, Dad was still sleep and slept like a log while we were away, and Logan returned to his computer while Riley watched him play games and Tanner went to the bedroom for a nap. (He did this without too must of a fight)  This left me with some time to catch up on "games" and getting all of my pictures from the day onto my computer so that I could share them here! I have found that since I started my blog I tend to have my memory card inserted into my computer more than it is in my phone. I have it in my phone while out and about and then when we get home I usually will turn the phone off, remove the card, place it in the computer and off I go with getting all my photos onto the computer. I feel a blog without pictures can become boring after awhile. Speaking of pictures from the other day, my mother got some great shots of all 4 boys by themselves while we were at the river eating lunch. After she sends them my way I will share them here. Her phone was almost out of battery yesterday from taking so many photos that she wanted to wait until we got back home. Soon enough she will send them. She is a woman of her word! (And I love her for it!)

In other news...

I am still awaiting my BzzKit for the Dr. Scholl's For Her High Heel insoles BzzCampaign. I am super excited to do this campaign. It is my first campaign and I have a thing for heels! I love to wear them but they hurt my feet! I have pretty high hopes for this product. I want to be able to show off my "killer legs" LOL. (I have no idea if they are that great, all I know is what I am told. Ha ha...) It has only been 4 days since I signed up for this campaign and i am impatient. I want this product really bad! But, they say to wait 14 days before "searching" for the shipment. We shall see how long it takes. In the meantime, I will sit back and wait to see if any more BzzCampaigns come my way. I hope so, because who doesn't love to try out new products and state their opinion? I know I love to! Keep looking forward to the Dr. Scholl's For Her post!

Picture D

I have to say, all my children have their own little "ticks" or things that make them unique. The Baby's latest thing is how obsessed he is with the strap to his changing table. If he is crying and I can't get him to stop, 9 times out of ten all I have to do is put him on his changing table and hand him the end of the strap to play with. (Picture D) It really is sort of cute. And since it calms him down almost instantly, it is a little relaxing as well! LOL He has also started to stick out his tongue while watching me eat my dinner. (Picture E) This is from a few nights ago when he decided he had to be held while I ate dinner. (This being held thing is not something I consider to be "cute" at all) However, the tongue was popping in and out of his mouth the entire meal. Sometimes he would just let it hang out. Which is how I got the picture. I think it may be, in part, due to teething. his top 2 teeth have been working on coming in for a couple weeks now. He has also managed to rub his bottom lip raw on the inside with his 2 bottom teeth because he sucks on his lip. All of his little baby habits really are cute. I am just thankful he has decided to start sleeping through "most" the night. Granted, he is a breastfed baby so I am sore by the time he decides to wake up between 4 and 5 am to eat! LOL.

Picture E

That brings us to today! Since the Husband had to be to work at the butt crack of dawn, I got to get up and take the kiddos to school. And that means up and ready to leave for everyone by no later than 7:45 A.M. but that wasn't such a big deal. My oldest even woke me up today. He came into my room shortly after the alarm went off and told me it was time to wake up his brother. Alright, the 7 year old's internal clock is set to school time. Just in time for the school year to almost be over with too! LOL He has always been pretty good at getting himself up and going. When he first started school, he was always in bed first and always awake first. Most of the time he was up and dressed before I was. But back to the day at hand. We got up and dressed and showered and fed. Finally followed with loaded into the car and on our way. The boys got to school with about 5 minutes to spare to get to class. Now it was time for my Mother, 4 year old, 5 month old and myself to head to town for a fairly busy morning. We went straight to the coffee shop (Starbucks, of course) and I ordered a Venti Sugar Free Mocha Breve Latte instead of my regular Carmel one and I was not impressed. Tomorrow is another day however and I shall order my normal drink and be happy with a caffeinated beverage to keep me going that also tastes super duper yummy! I went into my OB-GYN's office today for my 10 days off blood pressure medication blood pressure check and my BP was pretty great, for me, 118/80. I normally have a pretty high BP but when I had my youngest son I ended up having postpartum pre-eclampsia. Typically, women only get Pre-E during pregnancy and the best cure for it is to deliver the baby. Well, I had already done that part. This is what caused my entire family to panic. How could I have been saved if the "cure" was to deliver the baby that I already delivered? Lots of BP medications! I was on 4 different types while in the hospital and when they sent me home, they sent me with 2 of them. I took one once a day every day for 3 months and another twice a day for 4 months (roughly). Now the hope is that my BP can stay in check. How do I manage that without medicine? I breathe and attempt to ignore those things that bother me. I even have to ignore a lot of what other people are saying so that I don't snap at them. But, when I do this, it tends to start an argument. So, I will listen to everything... But I am going to stop responding. Hopefully this doesn't cause any sort of issue when it comes to the safety of anyone and everyone. I am to return to the office again in 1 month to see how my BP is then. If it is still in the pretty good range then, no more medicine! That would be nice! But if it is up the Doctor will decide how to adjust my medication levels to keep me on track. Hopefully, I will be able to stay well at the same time. I ended up having a pretty bad head cold and my Primary Care Doctor (a nurse practitioner) gave me a medicine that she did not check to see if it was compatible with my BP medication and caused me to have an extremely painful 3 day migraine! That sucked!

Tomorrow should be a rather "easy" day to done with. I will be taking the kiddos to school again and then taking my Mother to pick up her car at the hospital (where Hubby works) and then I get to entertain the 4 year old and the 5 month old until my appointment. (Therapy, oh joy) I was supposed to take the time to look into a couple websites and a conference call line for women with postpartum depression, I just didn't have the time. which I will let the therapist know and I am sure she will be alright with my slacking as long as I promise to look into them before our next, and last, visit. One of them I am not sure I will be doing however. It was nice of her to find the information for me on the websites and chat groups and all but one of the sites costs $45 just to be able to discuss how you feel. I can tell everyone here all that for free! Why waste money on a place to vent when I have a blog (and Facebook!) After my appointment I will meet back up with my Mother and leave her car for Hubs to have a way home. I believe we are going to be hitting a few stores tomorrow, but I could be wrong. Those may be waiting until Wednesday or later. My Mother has a dentist appointment tomorrow afternoon and I may take the 4 year old and 5 month old to check out the new church next to the dentist called "The Door". However, it will be close enough to time for the big boys to be getting out of school that I can zip over there (also next door to my Mothers dentist) and pick them up instead of letting them get into trouble on the bus... Again. If they had a pretty good day at school we will head over to the library (again, also next door, but technically across the street) so they can each pick out a movie or two and a book. My boys love the library and I think that is awesome and just how it should be. Then home for the family and Dinner time. Tonight was spicy cheese stuffed burgers on a bed of lettuce topped with ranch, mustard and "Chipotle Madness" BBQ sauce (YUM!)... This sort of feels like our fall back meal. When we don't know what to cook, we cook burgers and put them on top of lettuce and call it a meal. Not bad since it is quick and painless with the Foreman grill. Hmmmm..... What to eat, what to eat. I will have to update everyone when I know!

Sleeping Wyatt after our fun filled Sunday.
(He just so happens to also be asleep as I finish up this post)

Thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to read about my busy days! I do enjoy sharing with everyone. Even my readers in Germany and Russia! You guys are great! Thank you for returning to read the way you do. I think my boys have the right idea....

~TTFN