Life As We Know It...

Between work & school & everything else, we've been super busy these past couple of months! Here are some of the things we've been doing...

Alex had his tonsils removed!
Between September & December of last year, Alex had strep throat 5 times! So... the doctor recommended that he have his tonsils removed. He was adamant that he was NOT HAVING SURGERY, so it took a lot of discussions to get him to agree to it. But once he did, I called & scheduled it & on Friday, April 1st he had it done.

We had to be there super early, so I took Alex while Nick got Addy to school.

I got him checked in & back to pre-op we went.

Once in pre-op, we killed time by playing games 

and goofing off together.

Then it was time for the procedure. After all his worrying beforehand, Alex was calm & ready in that moment. I, on the otherhand, was a wreck! Luckily, Nick arrived shortly after I headed to the waiting room so I wasn't alone. After about an hour, the nurse came & got us & led us to

our sleeping baby boy.

He stayed in post op for about an hour & then we were able to take him home.

After the procedure, he had throat pain on & off for about a week. (But he got to miss a week of school so to him it was all worth it!!)

Addy had a lemondade stand!

All of 3rd grade had an assignment to have a lemonade stand on lemonade day. So our Girl Scouts decided to have one together.

Alex took karate lessons. 

I bought a 10 class package to try it out. He said he really liked it but after about 4 classes he was done! Glad I didn't sign him up for 6 months like they wanted me to!

I went to New Braunfels.

 My mom, my sisters & some of my nieces & I all went for a girls weekend.

The place we stayed was right on the river

and had some animals roaming around it including goats

and a rooster!

We went shopping in Gruene, ate at the Gristmill

and had bookclub while we were there.

(Don't you love our book club shirts that Brooke had made for us!)

Alex went to a birthday party at The Glazery.

While he was there he painted a cupcake trinket box.

And when he got home he painted his nose! Lol

Addy bridged to Juniors!

After 2 years as Brownies, Addy & her Girl Scout troop all bridged to Juniors!

We had a sweet little ceremony at the church where we have our meetings. We had a flag ceremony, a slide show with pictures from our activities, some of the girls recited a poem & then all the girls walked over the bridge one by one.

And we ended with our Girl Scout circle.

After the bridging ceremony, we went to one of the girl's houses for swimming & pizza!

And I kissed a girl & I liked it!

As I was leaving the school one day, I saw a small crowd of people across the street. So I walked over to see what was happening. 

The Gator Squad was there & they were in the process of catching an alligator.

And it wasn't just an alligator, but a 9 ft female alligator that was aggressive & not afraid of humans. Not a good combo for an alligator that lives across the street from 1000 kids!!

So they reeled her in, tied her snout up & before they took her to live somewhere else, I got to kiss her!

And that's our life as we know it!

Girl Scout Spring Fling 2016

On April 23rd, Addy & I went to our Girl Scout community's annual Spring Fling!

This year's Spring Fling was held at Camp Robinwood in Willis, TX (which means we had to leave really early to get there on time!)

As soon as we got there, we met up with the rest of our troop.

And then the girls started their day, which involved rotating between several fun stations. 

The first station for our troop was making crafts.

Next was water activities. This included an inflatable waterslide 

(which Addy loved) 

& a shaving cream fight
(which Addy wanted no part of!)

 After playing in the water, the girls changed back into their camp shirts & we ate lunch.

This is our troop & a Daisy troop that we invited to eat lunch with us, all standing together in a Girl Scout circle saying grace.

Affter lunch it was time to go canoeing!

Which for me, was the highlight of the day!

Then it was archery.

And snacks.

And then our final station was letterboxing. 

First the girls decorated their notebooks 

& then they went & looked for letterboxes all around camp.

As always with GS camp, it was a really LONG but fun day!

SOE Lights It Up Blue!

One of the great things about being a board member of the PTO at the kid's school is that I feel that I really have a voice for Addy & the rest of the kids with special needs. (Or different needs. I read so much online that this group says this & this group says this or this group is offended by this term & whatnot. I just try to do my best where it pertains to Addy & if she ever tells me she doesn't like me using a certain term, then I'll change it. But I guess for now I'll stick with special needs. Because let's all be honest guys, special is not a bad thing. And special is just what Addy is!)

But anywho... like I said, I think that being on the PTO board gives me a voice. I asked the principal of the school if we could have the faculty, staff & students wear blue on World Autism Awareness Day & she said, yes, not only that but we could decorate the school.

And so Addy & Alex's school lit it up blue for Autism Awareness Day & Month!

So our Girl Scout troop made some really awesome posters & on March 31st, we met after school to hang their posters & to decorate the school. 

Here are some of their posters.

And here is one of the signs we hung in front of the school.

We also had a few more signs, an awareness ribbon banner along the back pick up area, 

yard signs & blue ribbons on all the trees.

1st Grade Field Trip

Alex's 1st grade field trip was on March 29th & he went to...

The Crocodile Encounter in Angelton.

While there, we got to see lots of animals, including...

alligators

crocodiles

turtles

and tortoises

a skink

some snakes

a few potbelly pigs

and a ring tailed lemur.

Who was not afraid to stick his head out of the fence & say hi!

Which Alex thought was awesome!

Alex had a pretty good time. But he wasn't really interested in the animals like Addy was when she went there on her 1st grade field trip. 

Not surprisingly, all Alex really wanted to do was play around with his friends!