Hannah's Diarama

Hannah made a diarama for school of a coral reef.  This is her final project. 

Easter & Birthday & Visitors... Oh My!

Today has been an extra fun day!  Today is Easter Sunday, Brent's 37th birthday, and Grandpa & Grandma Powell are visiting from Colorado!  Grandma got here last Monday, March 21st, Grandpa arrived on Thursday, March 24th, and they are leaving together tomorrow, March 28th.

The Easter bunny came to our house.  Ryan received a super hero costume, which he has been running around in all day.  The kids are having fun celebrating so many wonderful

  

  

Fishin' with Grandpa Powell

Grandpa & Grandma Powell are here visiting this week.  Grandpa LOVES telling Jacob his fishing stories, and Jacob LOVES to hear them.  His eyes get big and Grandpa's stories get bigger.  Grandpa Powell decided it is Jacob's turn to go on a big fishing trip.  He took Jacob out to Lake Lewisville for the day and they had a great time.  Grandpa asked Jacob if this was "as good as Christmas?" and Jacob replied, "Grandpa, this is BETTER than Christmas!"  Jacob caught a ton of fish and brought it home for us to eat, but Grandpa and the guide sent their fishies back swimming.

  

  

  

  

Jump House... fail?

Today was... interesting.  First we picked up Hannah's friend, Katie Jackman, and then we drove down to State Farm so that the kids could see where Brent works every day.  They enjoyed going up to the 13 floor and seeing the view from up high.  Brent also showed us a training room so that we can picture him doing his thing.  The kids' favorite part about seeing dad was the super modern chairs that go up and down in a fun way.

After stopping by State Farm, I ran to Little Ceasar's to get some lunch and then the kids and I went to a jump house.  We snarfed some pizza and then the kids played for about 1/2 an hour before complaining and wanting to leave.  They all were grumping except for Ryan, who seemed to be enjoying his freedom in the little kids section.  We made it about 1 hour and 15 minutes and I finally gave in and we left.  I thought I would kill a good 3-4 hours here and tire the kiddos out easily.  I guess not.... spring break epic fail!  :(

Downtown Dallas

It is spring break for the kids this week.  We decided to explore Texas and headed to downtown Dallas today.  We rode on the M-Line Trolley line, which is about an hour ride all the way around.  We stopped part way through to see the Dallas Museum of Art and then hopped back on the trolley and rode back to our car.  The kids loved the trolleys and even got to push a button that let the conductor know that we wanted to get off.  I think that Ryan was so excited about this new experience that he didn't really know what to think.  He is starting to get into trains, so I think this was fun for him.  The Museum of Art was beautiful and there were many spectacular pieces that we were able to see.  

Riding Around Town

This cute boy has discovered that he can ride the 3-wheeled princess scooter all by himself!  He is determined to do it no matter how quickly the rest of us would like to go.  I sent Brent and the other kids on ahead while Ryan pushed himself along.  It took us about an hour to go less than a mile.

What a Day!

What a day!  Ellie, Ryan and I went to Sam's Club this morning to do some shopping.  Well, we decided to try test out some samples.  We tried this Lara bar along with some grape juice and within about 30 seconds Ellie started screaming that the grape juice was burning her throat!  She just got louder and started spitting and throwing a fit.  I just ignored her because miss dramatic acts like this on a regular basis.  Well, about 3 minutes later Ellie says, "Mom, my lip is a bubble."  I look at her and sure enough, her bottom lip looks like a huge bubble!  I run to the pharmacy department and ask the pharmacist where the children's liquid allergy medicine is and the guy seriously looked at me totally dumbfounded.  I took it upon myself to run over to the allergy section while the dumb pharmacist followed me over there and looked completely helpless.  In the meantime Ellie is screaming like a banshee that the grape juice is burning her throat and trying to spit it out.  I find the allergy medicine, rip it open and make Ellie drink up a dose.  The store office happened to be right there and someone comes out to see what the commotion is.  Ellie is still crying, but now her tummy hurts and she needs to poop.  She was also thirsty, so I opened up the milk and give her a drink out of Ryan's sippy cup.  That seemed to help her throat calm down.  Ellie had to poop and so we tried a few times to do that and finally had success at try #3.  It was an explosive experience.  Haha... poor girl.  She said that she felt better though.  So, she felt good enough to make it home.  We checked out (after taking a picture of the package), loaded into the car, and headed home.  Ellie whined the entire way home that her tummy hurt.  When we got home she barfed and pooped again.  She was finally over the hump.  The rest of the afternoon was her recovering with her tummy still hurting and not feeling well.  Poor girl had to have a traumatic experience to figure out that she is allergic to some kind of tree nut.  :(  Through this entire experience Ryan was asking for cookies, and bananas, and fruit snacks, and anything else he could see.  I am still irritated about the pharmacist and, I assume, the manager for not handling this situation properly.  I would have expected a report to be written up, or a procedure followed for an allergic reaction due to taste testing.  Nothing... they acted like this was a shocking situation!  When I was ready to leave, neither of them were even there.  All is said and done, and now Ellie is very cautious about anything that she eats.  She doesn't want to experience anything like that again.  I am also keeping allergy medicine in my bag from now on so that I have it available if needed.  Lesson learned. 

I also figured out something funny.  A few weeks ago I went shopping and when I came home to put the groceries away I backed into the garage.  When I closed the back door of the van it wouldn't close for some reason, so I forced it... because that's what I do.  When I pulled back around to drive into the garage, my distance ball was not there to tell me where to stop.  I thought, "Hmmm... that's funny... where did my ball go?"  Well, the next time I opened the back of the van, the ball dropped out.  I had caught it in the door.  Brent came home that night and immediately started grumping about the kids playing with the ball and ripping it out of the ceiling.  I had to embarrassingly admit that I had done it.  Poor Brent had to fix another one of my oopsies.  Heeheee....... well... when I came home from Sam's Club today and pulled in backwards again, I discovered that this is how I had caught the ball!  It is right in the opening of the back door!  I had to send Brent and my mom a picture to prove that it could have happened to anyone.

This next week is spring break.  We are watching Mallory for the Mortensen's while they go on vacation.  On our walk this evening we encountered this friendly doggie who started following us.  Mallory gets pretty excited about other dogs/animals, so Brent had to carry her for the rest of the walk home because our friendly stowaway had no one keeping an eye on him.

Giggles

This morning Ellie had a dentist appointment to get some "Princess" teeth put in (silver crowns).  She really didn't want the nose piece on, but once it got going Ellie really enjoyed it!  She got the giggles and Dr. Sharp, the assistant, Shelby, and I all were cracking up at her.  This little girl is a ham and a half!  She was a champ getting those teeth fixed!  We went and got some ice cream afterwards.  Hopefully she'll be ready to do it all over again on Friday morning on the other side of her mouth.