Investiture

Today was the investiture for Adventurers...the "graduation" to the next class if you will. Since this was Aubree's first year, it was obviously her first investiture as well so Calleigh took it upon herself to describe in great detail everything there was to know about the day even though Aubree has attended both of the investitures of Calleigh's.  "Aubs, we go up on stage, and we get our trophies and we get our needles (this is what they call the pins that they get), and, and, and, afterwards we get to go and have goodies. You get to have a chocolate chip cookie and an Oreo cookie and other snacks." The investiture wasn't until 3:30 so they had the whole day to look forward to it.  I heard Calleigh mention at least three or four times, "I can't wait until investiture." I love to see their enthusiasm! Grandma and Grandpa came which made it extra special too.  The stinky thing was the program was smack dab in the middle of nap time (including mine!) but we maneuvered things by putting the boys down by 1:30 and letting them sleep until 3:00 and then I hightailed it to the church.  Duncan went a little earlier with the girls.

For each class, they pick a boy and a girl who is the "Adventurer of the Year" based on your attendance to the meetings (and whether you were on time), wearing your uniform to church on the first Sabbath of the month, and helping with the offering.  Points are awarded for these things and whoever has the most points, wins the award.  We didn't miss any meetings or were late although we did miss two Sabbaths of wearing uniforms (the first one when I didn't have a uniform yet for Aubs and the second was when we were gone for Leadership weekend for Duncan's work) but the girls did the offering like four times.  So I knew they had a pretty good chance.  I warned them though that they might not win.  We got to the part of the program where each class goes up on stage to get their trophies (everyone gets one of those) and Aubree's group was first, the Little Lambs.  Sure enough, when they announced the winners, Aubree's name was called. We weren't sure she even heard them say that she had won because she was standing there with a blank smile on her face but she said afterwards that she did. Her prize was a Target gift card (guessing it's $10).

Calleigh's group, Busy Bees, was third up on stage.  There is only one other girl in her class and she didn't ever do the offering so I figured Calleigh had a pretty good chance. Alas, they ended up giving it to two boys this time.  Oh well!  I was wondering how Calleigh would react to Aubree winning and not her but she was great.  She wasn't mad or jealous at all and was really excited for Aubree.  She did ask Aubree if they could share the gift card though and Aubree, being the sweetie that she is, said, "of course." And so ends our Adventurers year.

Brady wanted to get into the picture.

Apparently so he could make faces.

Going back to the beginning of the week....Sunday I had another dream day.  A Corey day. I call it taking a personal day since I'm taking a day off work so to speak.  We finally got a Sunday where we didn't have something going on so I decided to cash in on the coupon Duncan had given me for my birthday of a "day without the kids." I left the house at about nine and went to some yard sales in our neighborhood and then on to four Goodwills. The yard sales were mainly a dud until I got to the Isidros and bought a cute giraffe chair from them that used to be Braelyn's.  It goes great in Colby's jungle/safari themed room.  So that worked out nicely!  I had to pop back home mid-day to feed Colby since I didn't want to go twelve hours without nursing him (which would have entailed pumping while I was on my journey) but it was all good. Awww, these days are so wonderful.  Can't wait for Mother's Day!

Duncan took the kids to a festival in Winter Garden while I was gone.

McDonald's was giving out free smoothies.

Guess it was good.

My favorite firefighter.

The rest of the week was mainly uneventful with just our usual trips to Publix, Target, CVS, and Costco.  If Calleigh had her way, we would never go anywhere.  Monday's are her favorite day because usually it is a "home day" where we don't leave the house.  In fact, this past Wednesday she didn't even get out of her pajamas the whole day and she was very pleased with this.  On other days when I tell her to get dressed because we are going to Publix or wherever it is we are going, she always gives a big groan and says "Oh, I wish it was a home day." The great thing about Calleigh is that she is more than happy to entertain herself playing polly pockets or something else in her room.  I rarely ever hear her say that she is bored.  Apparently she would make a good only child which she laments about pretty much on a daily basis (wishing she were one!).  

Target.  I can neither confirm or deny that I first wiped down that bar that Colby appears to be sucking on.

Costco

So this is really a thing, huh?

I haven't been very good about planning out lesson plans for school in advance so it was with surprise on Wednesday that I opened our school books to discover that it was our 100th day of school which apparently is somewhat of a big deal...We don't really have school on Fridays so this is part of the reason why our 100th day is so late in the school year (and also we started several weeks late).  So yay!  We made it to this milestone.  We are still having our good days and our not so good days with school which I'm sure will be the story for the next two decades.  I did have some excitement this week though on the reading front with Calleigh.  I haven't mentioned it on here but I've been somewhat discouraged with Calleigh's lack of enthusiasm for reading. She knows how to do it but she hasn't progressed at the pace that I had envisioned. I taught myself to read at the age of four or five and I've loved reading passionately since that day.  I used to read books as a kid next to the nightlight in my room after we were supposed to be in bed because I couldn't get enough.  Indeed, if I had no kids or a job, I could live a happy life just reading all day and night. Anywho, somehow you picture your kids being the same way and I'm having to adjust my thinking at least so far. Calleigh loves to pretend to read and she loves getting a book read to her but she doesn't just pick up a book and read it.  At least until a couple of days ago.  We had a "Learn to Read" Fancy Nancy book which I found on one of our shelves.  I brought that out and she did very well reading it and seemed to enjoy it so that night I went on the library website and using our three library cards, I ordered like 25 of them to be delivered here.  They were delivered a couple of days ago and we've been using them for our extra school reading. But then on Thursday she confided to me that she had read one of them by herself the previous evening.  Oh, if that didn't make my week!  Then tonight, she offered to read me another one before bed. Please, please let this continue.

Hitting the 100th day in her nightgown.

On the Colby front, this week he started eating puffs so we now have a new distraction item to add to our repertoire. I'm trying to keep him in his highchair while I make supper since he still screams when I leave him in the living room with his toys and my back is really starting to kill me with him in the Bjorn after a little while.  I'm feeding him two solid meals a day and am looking forward to getting to some real food and not this baby food stuff in the not too distant future.  I weighed him this week and he's up past 18 pounds (at 7+ months) so he's doing great with his growing.  He's getting really, really close to crawling and my suspicions are that he'll be doing so by my next blog entry.  I'm hoping that will improve his disposition since he'll be able to come find me.  Or, it may mean that he'll just crawl to my feet and sit there and cry instead of crying where I left him.  But, he's still sleeping great at night so I'm not going to let this other stuff get me down!

Trying puffs for first time.

Getting close.

Finally got his hand on it.

This week we harvested some Brussels sprouts from the garden and they've been fantastic.  Duncan put some garlic, lime juice, and salt on them and roasted them in the oven for about 20 minutes.  They were so crispy and delicious.  Imagine my delight when Calleigh decided to try one.  She has been pretty steadfast in her distaste for them although Aubree gobbles them up along with every other vegetable.  Turns out she loves them prepared this way and kept asking when we were going to make more.  Ahh, the little things that thrill a parent's heart!  The only thing that could have made it better is if Brady would try some.  But nope. We still have some of the Brussels sprouts growing over the next few weeks and then they'll be cleared out because they don't do well in the heat.  For this summer's growing season, we're putting in tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, pole beans, and watermelon.  

Before going into the oven.

I've mentioned that Calleigh is having a problem with that cyst on her eye and I'm in the process of getting her an appointment with an ophthalmologist for that.  In the meantime, I'm dealing with some eye issues of my own.  I've been wearing contacts for 20 years now and have rarely ever had any problems but that's all changed since last summer.  It all stems from going over some friends' house up in Maine during campmeeting to watch the Bruins game and having my eyes irritated from what I believe was cat fur in the carpet.  My eye (I've only had a problem with my left eye through all of this) got incredibly itchy from that and I had problems all week.  Since that time, I haven't been able to sleep with my contacts in (something I did frequently without ever having an issue) and in fact, the past few weeks, I haven't even been able to take a nap with them in.  If I do, within a few hours, my left eye becomes irritated and itchy.  And then I can't wear my contacts the next day either and I have to throw those contacts out and put new ones in.  This morning I finally opened a new box of contacts (Accuvue Oasys with Hydraclear) I had ordered at the end of last year to get them before our reimbursement ended and when I put it in, my eye was all blurry and I could really even see out of it.  I thought maybe that one was a dud so I tried another one, same problem.  I still had some old contacts for my right eye (right eye is 2.5 while left is 2.75) so I put one of those in the left and it was fine.  So now it appears this new brand of contacts don't work for me after I ordered four boxes. The eye doctor told me to get this brand so I don't know if I can take up this problem with him or what. Anyway, the bigger problem is that this is incredibly frustrating and now I'm thinking about Lasik although I really don't feel like spending that kind of money or having it done when I have an infant.  We shall see though.  Ha. We. shall. see.  I'm up to more inadvertent jokes at this late hour.    

Just one quote to wrap things up.  As I noted above, Calleigh would seemingly be happy as an only child. Oh, she loves playing with Aubree and 95% of the time they get along great and play in happy accord but there are a few moments here and there when she gets really frustrated with her or more likely Brady who will come along and wreck something she's setting up.  Then she starts spouting off all kind of things, saying she wishes she didn't have a sister or brother or wishes she had her own room, etc.  Most of the time Aubree doesn't say anything when Calleigh gets on these rants (and they are definitely rants) but this time she spoke up.
Calleigh:"I wish I didn't have any siblings.  Siblings are SO disgusting!!"
Aubree: "Well, I guess YOU are disgusting then because YOU are a sibling."
That shut Calleigh up for a few minutes while she pondered that one.

A few final pictures.

Last Adventurers meeting of the year on Wednesday night.

Taking baths in the big tub now.

The boys wrestling.

A yard sale freebie.  Brady saw this at a yard sale and when I said "no," he started to cry.  So the lady gave it to him for free.  Glad I can teach my kid that if he cries he gets stuff!

Helping little sister button her uniform shirt.

We got one of those "Where's George" stamps on this dollar bill so we entered it into the computer to see where it had been.  Apparently people are real curmudgeons because it was only logged once back in 2011 in NC.

Have a great week.