I can't remember if I have blogged this yet but because of some complainers in the other Ward (they didn't like the half hour overlap with our Ward) we now have church from 11:30-1:30 on Sundays. Previously we were at 10:30 and that was great, I am not a fan of this 11:30. It kind of kills the day. Mornings are wasted and lunch and dinner are hard to figure out. With the time change they also switched my lesson time so that now I teach my class the second half instead of the first which I noticed has been leaving me with less time than I had before. Let's face it I am not a fan of change and this was lots of change just after I had found a good rhythm with my Sundays. So hopefully within time I will adjust but I'm not there yet.
Tuesday I volunteered in Ben's class and helped kids with finding facts for their research papers. While I was helping one kid at the table Ben's teacher came behind another one at my table and started correcting his spelling and his facts. I hate when he does that because it always makes me feel like he doesn't think I am doing a good enough job- like I'm incapable. That's probably just me classically overthinking things but it bugs me nonetheless. After volunteering we watched one of Penny's friends for the afternoon. She is such a good friend to everyone and they had a good time together.
Wednesday was kind of a frustrating day. It started off with a fight with Steven. Right before we were supposed to head out the door to go to the bus stop he couldn't find his snow gloves and when we had to leave without them that was my fault because I didn't give him enough time to find them. I also offered him some regular mittens and he refused those because they "made his hands colder." Ugh. So from that frustration I went to Salvation Army (while Penny was in her speech class) to look for a few things. A nice customer told me all the kids clothing was 50% off and all I had to do was mention it at the cash register for the discount. Well when I mentioned it, the cashier said he couldn't give me this discount unless I showed him the post on Facebook or the email. I tried for way too long to find the stupid FB page but all I kept getting was Salvation Army pages in other places. He was not helpful and I was going to be late to pick up Penny and I was just frustrated that he wouldn't throw me a bone. Finally when another customer came behind me he decided to be nice and give me the 50% off anyways. I know stores have their policies and I was probably being ridiculous insisting on getting a discount on already cheap stuff but I was still annoyed with the situation.
So to try to turn around the day after speech class Penny and I went to the mall and got a pretzel and she played at the play area. It was really a nice time until I got a phone call from the kids' school. Lucy wasn't feeling well. She had just had a stomach bug, I couldn't believe she'd have it again so soon but to avoid any school accidents we left the mall and picked her up. She ended up having some super gross bowel movements that night and Thursday morning. So it would seem that she did indeed get a stomach bug again. I am so hoping she is the only one to repeat this.
I had a sub job Thursday but thankfully Tyler was able to work from home and watch Lucy and Penny so I didn't have to cancel another sub job. It seems like every time I have to sub someone decides to get sick. So frustrating.
The sub job went smoothly but it was a long day because that night we had an early Birthday Party for Ben. His birthday week was going to be too busy and we had originally tried for Friday but realized the church youth auction was that night. A weeknight birthday party was not my favorite but it went really well. He ended up having his new neighbor, Jacob, and his old neighbor, Beck, there. Andrea came but she came late because she had dance lessons. Also my friend needed someone to watch her 2 boys that night so they came at the tail end of the party.
We started off the party with our traditional pizza.
Next the boys colored smooth Styrofoam balls so that they looked like Pokeballs. Then they tossed the balls into bowls with different Pokemon characters. They were trying to "catch" the pokemon and each Pokemon character was worth different amounts of points. On this task Beck was the winner and earned the most points.
After that I hid some pictures of Pokemon characters and the boys had to go around the house finding them. Ben found them all first so he won that activity. Then they shot suction cup bullets at Team Rocket. Jacob had the most hits so he won that event.
Here they all are with their candy medals I had made (Reese PB Cups attached to ribbon with a pic of Pikachu holding a trophy).
Next we played "Pin the Pokeball on Pikachu" and then they played Pokemon Bingo. I learned that although Ben knows a lot of the characters names, he doesn't know all of them. Also, Jacob really likes Penny and let her share his BINGO card with him.
The last activity was "hatching" Pokemon. I had covered little Pokemon figures in a baking soda/water mixture and they hatched them by putting vinegar on them. This was by far the kids favorite activity (even if it was the stinkiest). They loved finding the figures inside!
When Andrea finally arrived it was time to sing "Happy Birthday" and eat cake. Tyler told them we had the tradition of singing very loudly and boy did they oblige- so loud! And even though Ben covered his ears at some points, he totally loved it.
For his presents from his friends he got a Pikachu hoodie, a Pokemon drawing book and 2 Enderman Dragon Lego sets. And even though he was given the receipt with the option to return the duplicated he wanted to keep both. He is such a goof and was real excited about having 2.
Friday my friend Chalsea came over in the morning and it was so nice to catch up with her. It was some much needed grow up time. At lunchtime the kids all came home because it was a half day. They basically spent the afternoon driving me nuts with their fighting. That night we had the church youth auction. I was not impressed. This year they didn't do a dinner. They did a talent show and then sold concessions but they still asked that you donate $20 at the door. On top of that you had all the donated auction items that you were to bid on. It felt like they were nickling and diming everyone. Unfortunately we failed at having cash on us and only had a twenty. We ended up only donating $10 at the door and used the rest for concessions. We were told we could pay later if we bid on any items but the one thing I wanted ended up going too far up in price. But a fun fact is that my hand lettered cards that I donated to the auction sold for $25 which made me feel pretty good. There were several people going for them so that was nice.
Saturday was super unexciting- a trip to the library, a failed attempt to find Steven pants (he seems to be in between sizes) and we babysat my friends kids. And that is another week down.
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