Busy

Last Sunday was General Conference and we took advantage of a morning with no church meetings and no need to get dressed up and went on a nature walk at Kensington (General Conference doesn't start until noon here because of the time difference). Lucy started off the walk being fussy, saying she was too tired to walk so I told her there was a dragon in the forest that ate whiny kids. I am such a good mom, ha ha! But it worked! We also ran away from the trolls that they kept waking up that lived under the bridges. It ended up being a pretty fun family outing in some beautiful Fall weather and scenery. 

General Conference really made for a relaxing, spiritual uplifting weekend. It felt harder than normal to get back to life Monday but get back we did. I spent Monday doing my normal cleaning, going to a Primary meeting and taking the boys to their annual check up. They are both average height but didn't even make it into the 10th percentile in weight. They are skinnier than I realized! We also found out that our FAVORITE doctor is leaving the practice. She is going to another one but is not allowed to tell us where. I will have to do some googling to try and find her because I'm really not a fan of any of the other doctor's at that practice.

On Tuesday I went and completed a check up for me by getting my blood drawn. It really hurt which made me feel bad about how much I have been lacking in sympathy when my kids get shots. After that we ran around to a few stores looking for a new light weight jacket for Steven. In the process Penny made friends with a mannequin. She was playing with it while I was looking at jackets and when I came back over to her she informed me "He's my friend." I asked her if she wanted pics with her new friend and she was more than willing to oblige.

I thought I was done getting things ready for the move but for much of the rest of the week I managed to find more things that I needed to get packed or organized before we move. I swear every time I think I am done I find more work for myself. I've already made a nice long list of things that I need to do this week. We have pretty much moved the whole basement into the garage, along with everything else I've packed though. I really think this will make the move a lot easier since we'll hopefully have mostly everything consolidated there.

I did take a break from packing to sub Thursday afternoon. It was a super rough afternoon. The class had quite a few kids with behavior problems and I felt like it was a miracle that I survived the day. My patience was definitely all spent by the time I got home though and I am seriously reconsidering this subbing thing. If only the money wasn't so helpful for all the extra needs of our family.

Also Thursday afternoon, Lucy had her school's Color Run. I was subbing so I didn't make it but Peter's mom did and she took a picture of them both. Lucy said she loved it when they sprayed pink on her so I am pretty sure that meant the run was a hit! 

Feeling guilty about not being very attentive to Penny this week with all the packing I was doing, I sat down and played some games with Penny Friday morning. Playing Life with her was pretty funny. It involved her spinning the spinner, moving her piece to some random spot on the board (no counting involved) and when she felt like it she would declare me (or her) a winner and dish out a card. I also bought her, her pillowcase for her Dobby costume and cut out some holes in it. She is going to look super awesome, ha ha!

Friday afternoon the kids all had half days and it was a rough afternoon. Steven had a friend over and got super cranky when I told them to turn off the games and do something else. It is really hard to be a parent in this age of technology. Setting limits it equivalent to pulling out hair. I went to FB for some advice and outside of the annoying people who brag about their wonderful kids who don't ever play video games, I got some good advice to save screen time for last and set expectations ahead of time. I am hoping this helps for the next time Steven has a friend over. This 9 year old boy stuff is hard.

Saturday Lucy went to Wesley's birthday party. It was a firefighter party and Wesley's dad put on some streamers and pretended to be a fire and the kids got to all squirt him with water guns "to put him out"- it was so funny! After that we all went for an outing to the Outlet Mall (someone was coming to look at our rental again). We were in need of a few coats and we had some success. The kids behaved really well through all the shopping- mostly because they were promised candy. We also let them play at the play place there when were done and we got some Panda Express. I haven't had it in ages and it was oh so good!

And lastly, here are some cute pics of sprinkle faced Penny and cutie pie Lucy ready for school: