Easter sunday

Our church was going to have an outdoor sunrise service overlooking Boardman Lake......but it was decided that we did not want to have an Easter snowshoe sunrise service so it got moved indoors.

Sooo, we got up at 5:30 am (ouch!) and Alex woke up on his own for a drink around 5:50 so I kept him up after that and we made it to church for 7am.

After church a group of us went out for breakfast together and we got home around 10am or so. We promptly put our pajamas back on and took a nap!

The Easter bunny came while Alex was sleeping (...well, the Easter bunny ran downstairs quick while daddy stalled Alex when he woke up because the bunny had been sleeping too) and "hid" his basket and some plastic eggs all over the playroom in the basement. Alex loves hunting for eggs and was pretty excited with his basket as well. In his basket he got a bug catching kit, some washable ink pads and farm animal stamps (because we found out the hard way that my stamp pads I have are in fact NOT washable but he loved using them), some special markers he can draw on the patio door windows with and some little animal figures.

Indoor fun.........

We had to find ways to keep busy inside over our 3 day weekend....to snowy and blowy outside for much of anything. Friday we colored eggs, Alex thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Saturday has become our shopping day. Since I can't lift anything heavy it's a pain for Alex and I to grocery shop alone during the week like we used to do. I can't lift Alex in and out of the cart and have to be careful with some of the heavier bags, etc. So Ben has been roped into joining us every week. I'm secretly pleased that he has to share my pain...I have always hated grocery shopping! It actually is more fun to go as a whole family, I bribe Ben with a coffee (the store we do our major shopping at has a coffee shop inside) and we have discovered that for just over $1 they will put some of their flavoring in an 8 oz cup of milk for kids. So Alex can happily sit and sip his special milk while we get the shopping done.

We filled the rest of the day with playdough. Literally. Alex played playdough for hours.

Happy Easter??

Ben decided to get a gas grill with his birthday money. Unfortunately he finally decided which one he wanted on the day our "unusual spring lake effect snow incident" started. He put it together anyway and it's spring so we are grilling darn it!

Two days and over a foot of snow later here we are with a long weekend and not much chance of doing anything outside unless this howling wind dies down.

HE RIDES!!

Alex started trying to ride his bike last week. He could pedal, but didn't understand that to keep moving you had to pedal continuously. Also, this bike has a back brake so he kept pedalling the wrong way and accidently putting on the brakes. And there was no concept of how to stear....at all. So we went out for a little while each day last week that it was nice and just kept trying.

Today his friend Carter came over and brought his bike. It's just like Alex's and he's been riding since last summer. He took off and Alex watched for a minute and took off right after him. We've now been around the neighborhood 3 times so far today!

This is the best part:

On the last lap around Alex noticed this dirt track that kids have made thru the woods to cut behind some houses to get to another street.....I had to physically keep him from turning off the road and heading off on the trails! He was determined to go ride in the woods! I tried to explain that he needed to practice just a little more on the road and get better at stearing and then he could ride in the woods!

.....and I forgot my camera

We went out to dinner for Ben's birthday last week. Alex and I picked up a birthday cake ealier in the day and dropped it off at the restaurant so we could surprise him. We went to a new Mexican place here. Our food was great, there was a little confusion regarding the cake due to some broken English on the waiters part and the fact that someone in the kitchen had found it in the fridge and panicked because he thought it was an ice cream cake so he moved it to the freezer......so it wasn't a total surprise.
But once they figured it out, this whole crew of waiters came back to the table...I mean there was a lot of them! They had a huge sombrero for Ben to wear and sang two songs to him and had him blow out the candles. They also made him lean forward and take a big bite out of his cake!
Ben was bright red, Alex was amazed by the whole commotion...it was really fun!

.............and I forgot my camera

Housebound and Bedridden..........

Last tuesday Ben didn't feel so well, sore throat, stuffy head.....by bed time he had a raging fever, chills, body aches. So wednesday he headed in to the Urgent care clinic because our doctor's office was overloaded and sure enough he had Influenza. The doctor he saw said he had diagnosed approx 200 people over the previous 2 days so aparently we have quite the little outbreak around here.

So from wednesday until yesterday I could count on one hand the number of times Ben was out of bed. Thankfully since he went in right away he qualified to get the anti-viral treatment Tamiflu. Our doctor recommended a homeopathic treatment called Oscillococcinum for Alex and I to take to avoid catching it.

In case we were carrying it without symptoms yet (you are actually contagious before you have symptoms) we have been staying home and away from other families.

Today Ben feels much better and we are pretty sure he was done being contagious yesterday. So it looks like Alex and I might be in the clear if we make it thru tuesday w/out any symptoms.

Alex and I are not cut out to be homebound! We are a little stir crazy!

And a few days later.............

Not much left!

Snow fort

Thought we'd build a little one quick before everything melted!

Potty training??

Alex wants to be potty trained. He says he doesn't want to wear diapers and he wants to wear underwear. That's great right? Well, yes except he can't tell yet before he has to go.

That's kind of important LOL.

Poor kid will sit on that potty forever just trying to pee by sheer force of will.

In the tent

Papa made Alex a tent in his room while we were visiting.

A few Shedd Aquarium pics

These were taken by my mom:

Playing catch up again!

Alex and I headed out on friday Feb. 23rd to drive to Wisconsin for a week. We had great driving weather and Alex is the best traveling buddy ever. We have a regular routine for our trip, we always stop to eat either in St. Ignace or Manistique at the Big Boy. They have room to run outside if it's nice enough, the Manistique one even has a playground, it's fast but not fast food and they always give Alex treats or a toy! I do have one gripe regarding the one in Manistique though - they have an automatic hand dryer in the bathroom that sounds like a fighter jet taking off and could literally blow a layer of skin off your hands with it's force. Because of this hand dryer, Alex is now afraid of all public restrooms.
In the next posts I will include some pictures. We got to do a lot and see alot of people! In that week we got to go to Mary's baby shower, visit with family in New London, go to Chicago to the Shedd Aquarium, do some shopping, spend a day with friends in Green Bay and I got to go to the opening reception for my mom's gallery exhibit in Plymouth!
We had planned on coming home friday but they weather was awful everywhere so we waited until saturday. We had one false start on saturday morning, we tried to leave town but Alex had a really bad coughing fit and threw up all over the carseat :(
Thank goodness we were only about 10 min down the road, we headed back to Grandma and Papa's house for some assistance.
About 4 hours, a couple loads of laundry, lots of scrubbing, some Fabreeze, lunch and a nap later we hit the road again!