Monday, August 20th:
I think we just hung out all day, I don't really remember, my bad.
But I took this awesome picture of the Green Lantern!
Oh - and the kids got a back-to-school care package from Booger with lots of goodies.
:o)
Joshua's Birthday:
We were up bright and early to attend the kids' Orientation Day at school.
But first, we took a quick pic of the birthday boy! And that girl (because she wouldn't stay in the house when we tried to go outside to take the pic.) :o)
Check out that good-looking bunch. :o)
We found the kids' classrooms and met all of their teachers. Joshua is starting 5th grade and his teacher, Ms. Smith, is very nice. Evelyn is going to 4th grade and she got Joshua's teacher from last year! (Awesome!) Evie is very excited about this. Matthew is starting 2nd grade and his teacher, Mrs. Bobsin, is very sweet, and her teacher's assistant is Evelyn's teacher's assistant from last year, so she already knows Matthew. :o)
Emily tried out the whole "student" thing but we decided that she wasn't quite ready yet. ;o) The kids got their ID Cards made and took yearbook pictures, but they postponed the school club's sign-ups until after school starts, so we'll get them signed up for stuff soon.
Later, we visited a new Tex-Mex restaurant to celebrate J's birthday!
We all had enchiladas while he had a pizza, of course. :o)
Then we stopped for some birthday ice cream on the way home.
And the kids spent the rest of the evening playing outside.
Happy Birthday Joshua!!
Wednesday:
We did some grocery shopping and then we took Evie to her eye doctor appointment.
Sorry the pic is so dark, but they dilated her eyes, so the lights were turned down low. Well, the doctor said that her eyes are very healthy, but yes, she is now near-sighted enough to require full-time glasses. :o/ Yeah, bleh that she needs them, but it's good that we're able to make sure that she has them now.
So then we were off to pick some out!
Haha, yeah, we tried on lots of different colors and designs, but she didn't really like the colored ones like pink, purple, or blue.
In the end, she decided that the brown ones looked best on her, so she ended up picking the really cute pair in that last picture. Awww, glasses make my girl look so big! And smart! Good choice Evie! ;o)
Later, it wasn't easy, but we got all the kids laid down for their school night bedtime of 8:30, woohoo!
Thursday:
First Day of School - yay!
The kids were really excited. They were all putting on their backpacks, and Emily started going "Backpack! Backpack!" And she ran over and grabbed Evelyn's old backpack from last year and was trying to put it on, so Joshua helped her.
Chris was off of work, so he got to walk the kids to school too. We always drop the kids off at the gym, where they all get in line by grade and wait for the bell to ring so they can walk to their classrooms. Everything was going good until Matthew realized that he had to get into a different line than last year, and he didn't know where the new line was! So he got a little upset, my poor Matt-dog, but we helped him find his group and then we hung out for a little while to make sure he was okay. :o)
Okay, so Emily told all the kids bye, and stayed awake all the way home. But when we got there, she didn't want to get out of the stroller. She kept telling Chris, "No - kids!" and pointing to the door, haha. I finally made her get out and tried to get her to play with me, but she just kept being fussy and calling out, "Josh-uh! Matt-Matt!" Awww, it was so freakin' sad! My poor baby. *sigh*
Haha, but then I gave her some markers to play with, and she started connecting them end to end, so yeah, she was sufficiently distracted for the rest of the day. :o)
Lol, I know her eyes are crossed, but this one was too funny not to share.
So Chris and I decided that we were going out to lunch to celebrate the first day of school (woohoo!) ;o) But while we were talking about where to go, Emily suddenly got very quiet...
Hahaha, I guess that girl's not used to getting up at 6:00 a.m. anymore.
After a great lunch, we stopped by the hardware store.
And of course, she had a blast.
She also figured out how to ride on the end of the shopping cart.
And sorry these pics are so Emily-heavy, but she was the only one around!
The kids had a great first day of school, and were all very happy to tell me that they didn't have any homework. :o)
Friday:
The big kids had school, so it was just me and the girl all day. We decided to get the house all cleaned up for Joshua's birthday party on Saturday.
Haha, yeah, she found Evie's sleeping mask while we were straightening her room.
"Orale vato! Was sap-pening??" Bahaha! :o)
We walked to pick up the kids from school that afternoon, but then we got stuck there because of the rain, bleh.
Hehe, the kids, even Matthew, were just fine, and I had brought umbrellas and ponchos, but I just didn't want to get soaked trying to get home, you know? So yeah, we waited an extra half-hour before heading to the house, no big deal. And no homework again, woohoo!
Saturday:
That morning, we went and picked up Evie's glasses!
Woohoo! Check her out! :o)
Later, we had Joshua's birthday party!
And he got to celebrate it just the way he wanted.
Playing video games with his friends!! :o)
Did you know that they don't make a '10' candle? Like, I can buy the number 7 or the 9, but there was no 10 to buy! I would have had to get the 1 and the 0 separate! Haha, I know it's not a big deal, but I just found that really funny, so yeah, we ended up with ten candles instead.
And he picked out an awesome fudge cake. :o)
And do you see that beyblade he has there?
Yeah, that was just 1of 5 that he got that day! Five! Every person that came to his party bought him a beyblade as a present!! Lol!
Except us...
Haha, yeah, we bought him books. (But they were really good books!) Love you J! ;o)
So later, they had lots of beyblade tournaments to make sure all the new ones worked.
And then, yes, I made them pop all the balloons before going home. :o) What a great party!
Sunday:
When we woke up on Sunday morning, we realized that Isaac's track had shifted further west and we were pretty much right in its way. :o/ So after church, we went room-by-room taking pictures and trying to decide what we had that was irreplaceable. And if it was irreplaceable, could we live without it. Bleh, yeah, that wasn't much fun at all. :o1 We've been talking about taking pics and making lists for a while, but just never got around to it. So yep, we kept an eye on the storm while we gathered up the few photo albums I never got around to scanning, our important files, and of course - all the new beyblades! (Lol, yeah, the kids didn't want to leave them behind.) :o)
We also talked to the kids about how we weren't taking all the books and dvd's and toys, because all of that stuff was replaceable - we could always buy new stuff later. What was important was that we made sure that we were all safe, and that's all that mattered. And our kids are so big, they asked a few questions, but they really understood and were a big help. By that afternoon, we were almost sure that we would be leaving soon. School was cancelled in all the surrounding areas, and mandatory evacuations had begun for the parishes south, west, and east of us - just not ours. We eventually decided just to leave anyways, because it was probably just a matter of time before they cancelled school and evacuated, so we needed to get a head start on the great exodus. And besides, if they didn't evacuate, I really didn't want to be stuck at the house with all these midgets during the storm with no power or running water and all that, so yeah.
We left the house around 8:30 or 9:00 pm and made it to Lita and Epa's house around 2:30 or 3:00. Bleh, it was a tough drive, but it went by quickly. And about 1 1/2 hours after we left, the kids' school was cancelled for Monday through Wednesday. :o1 Chris had to stay behind because of work, but he would have to travel with his work team if there was an evacuation, so he couldn't go with us anyways, so it was all good. :o)
Evelyn's Birthday:
On a good note - Evie got to celebrate her birthday in Houston!
Happy Birthday to our big girl who turned 9!!
We kinda just hung out all day. I was having a lot of trouble with the laptop, so I wasn't able to blog as usual. :o1 But we did do some grocery shopping and later, we sang Happy Birthday to the girl!
Actually - she had stayed up for the whole drive the night before, so when it was like 12:05 am, she goes, "Mommy! It's my birthday now!" So I sang Happy Birthday to her in the car on the drive in. So I guess we sang Happy Birthday to her again that afternoon. :o)
:o)
Dude - check out that awesome cookie cake that she picked out. Yum!
And luckily, we remembered to pack her birthday present too, and she loved it! She also got some very detailed and intricate color-by-number books that she was very excited about.
"We love cookie cake!"
Haha, quick pic of the girl being silly.
She was actually laying on the coffee table thing watching TV like that, hehe.
And that night, Emily got to wear her new Buzz Lightyear pajamas!
And I'm not sure if you remember, but these are actually Joshua's old pajamas.
Considering that his third word was "Buzz", they were his very favorite pajamas, so we made sure to save them. I probably have pics of the other kids wearing them too. :o)
Just after Evie's birthday every year, we measure the kids' height on our growth chart. Well, even though we weren't home, the growth chart was one of those things that was irreplaceable and we couldn't live without, so it made the journey to Houston with us.
So we hung it up and were able to record all their heights for this year!
And it was so cute, after all the big kids got measured, they told Emily to line up too, and she backed right up to the wall and stood real still so I could mark her too. :o)
I know these are hard to see, but Joshua grew almost 2 inches to about 56 1/2" tall, Evelyn grew about 2 inches to about 50 1/2" tall, Matthew grew about 2 1/2 inches to right at 48" tall, and this was the first time we measured Emily (I don't think she was tall enough last year.) She was just over 32" tall, which is the same height that Evie was at 18 months old. Purdy neat. :o)
Well, that was our week. I know this Monday would have normally been posted with next week's blog, but I didn't download my camera until Tuesday, and it was Evie's birthday too, so it just seemed like a good idea to include it this week. :o)
We will be in Houston at least for the next couple of days. I just found out that the kids' school is cancelled through next Tuesday, Sept. 4th, so I'm not sure when we'll venture back towards home, but we'll see. Chris is still doing just fine, and all we can do is hope that our house makes it safely through the storm, but if it doesn't, oh well. Like I told the kids, we can always find a new place to live. :o) Hope y'all have a great week and a great Labor Day weekend!
Laters! :o)
