Keeping them busy

A few things we did while the kiddos were sick:

We had a craft assembly line. Kalyana cut out small squares of colored paper and Tyce stacked them all and gave them to Makalya who then put her letter squares on them and glued them together. Then Tyce would help lay them out to dry. They had a fun time playing with them aftewards practicing the alphabet. We're trying to teach Tyce to say it correctly and trying to help Makayla write her letters. (More to come on Makayla's skills.)

After a few days on the antibiotics and a whole lotta staying in the house I finally told the kids we could actually go OUT and do something. We ran over to the library to get some books and browse for a bit. Turns out even though it wasn't the regular storytime they were having baby story time (for kids 0-2) and the kids begged me to let them watch it. I was sort of nervous thinking the other moms were looking at me for bringing my much older kids but my kids loved it and were totally well behaved so I'm sure it was fine.

This is actually from the first few days that they got sick. We basically stayed in jammies for the first two days. The kids were getting crazy bored so I brought my sewing machine down to the kitchen and let all the kids sew their own bean bags. I helped the younger two lead the fabric but they got a kick out of pushing the pedal. They all filled their bags themselves and then, since I wasn't thinking and made them all out of the same fabric, they got to decorate their bags with their own scribbling (or name if they could write).

The girls have Grandma Linda's phone number memorized so often times they see the phone and think it's an invitation to call. Luckily Grandma was a good sport this week especially as several calls were placed her way. Kalyana even read her several chapters in her chapter book over the phone. Good thing we have free long distance.

While we were at the library, I figured it might be time to get Kalyana her very own library card. She was beyond ecstatic. The librarian was super cute and let her pick from three different kinds and then sign her name on the back. One of the kinds came with a big card and a little keychain card so Kaly picked that one so she could get 2 or 1 (which I'm very glad about because I keep one and she keeps one).

Mingling with Authors

(I basically copied this straight from my other blog, but I'd like to remember it in my family journal as well.)

I started out the weekend being utterly sad I couldn't make it on my planned girls-trip out of town to attend a fabulous murder mystery party. (Everyone, besides me, in my family got sick earlier this week.) However after remembering I'd had another invitation to another fabulous party I quickly realized the weekend could still be awesome.

Saturday I hung out at the Utah Book Blogger/Author social that Natasha from Maw Books put together. Oh my goodness. What a party!!

It's always amazing to me when a group of people, with similar interest, gather together and an immediate, tangible connection is formed. Book people are great people folks!

I sat at a table with other bloggers Jenni Elyse, Catie, and some wonderful authors Bree Despain, Sydney Salter, Emily Wing Smith, Brodi Ashton and Ann Bowen. We were laughing so hard and so loud I'm pretty sure the other folks in the establishment were hoping we'd hurry with our dinners and leave. Sadly for them (fantastically fun for us) we were there for three hours.

After dinner we had a book exchange. Numbers were drawn randomly and the books were assigned numbers. Mine was called first and I won Water for Elephants (by Sara Gruen). Shannon Hale came over and told me, despite a few scenes to be careful of, it is a marvelous book.

James Dashner came over to crack a few jokes about all us ladies being silly. And with a wave of his hand included whomever else wanted to be included. I was terribly flattered when he remembered my name.

I chatted for a while with picture book author, Kristyn Crow about a fantastic event coming up later this year. I'm definitely going to have more details coming soon. I'm so excited I've been biting my nails all day (ok not literally but it's just that exciting!).

I meant to stop by Josi Kilpack's table but was a little shy to go say hi. Turns out I guess I am still a bit nervous. I've enjoyed following her books progresses on twitter.

Friend Jenni won Jeleta Clegg's book and she was so kind to come over and visit with us and also sign the book. It sounds fascintating and I can't wait to hear what Jenni thinks of it.

After meeting Jean Reagen I remember seeing her picture and book on a blog tour this year.

I didnt get to visit much with Ann Cannon but I'm taking my kids to the library this week so we can see a few of her books!

Rachelle Rogers Knight was kind enough to give everyone one of her literary journals. She told me she loves to read award winning books and thought it'd be fun to put this together. In fact, knowing how much my readers like to win things, she even gave me a brand spakin new book to give to one away on my Cranberry Fries blog.

Of course the folks I'm gonna have to get to know in cyberspace since there just wasn't enough time to visit longer: Sueysays (It's all about books), michellewitte, One Literature Nut, Karey Shane, Kim (Good Clean Reads)

Thanks Natasha for a wonderful, uplifting evening!

All but One

A few days before Valentines Kalyana started coughing like crazy. I took her into the doctor and he asked if her ear had been hurting. I told him that even though she's been acting sick for two days she hasn't said anything about her ear hurting until just 20 minutes earlier when we were in the waiting room. Turns out she had an ear infection and another doozy, Strep Throat. He perscribed the yummy bubble gum medicine (which she was totally fine with) and told us i should take care of both problems.

Sadly she had to miss her class Valentines day party since it was the next day and she was all contagious with her throat. We actually ended up keeping her home for a whole week (I didnt realize after the first 24 hrs they're clear to return to school, I was just waiting for her nasty cough to go away.).

We finally sent her back to school the following Monday (so she missed a Thursday, Friday-Monday were holidays and then she stayed home the rest of the week) and by Tuesday all three of my kids were coughing again just like Kaly had before.

I called into the doctor and got an apt for 30 min later and after school ran all three of the kids in. He checked Kaly first and oddly neither her ear or throat were taken care of. AND now Tyce and Makayla had Strep Throat too! He figures what happened is that she got better (her symptoms were subsiding that week earlier) but her siblings caught it and gave it back to her (and to her dad, though he refused to go to the doctor and get medication).

Tyce and Makayla got the bubble gum yum medicine and Kaly, sadly, had to have a stronger dose of nasty stuff. It literally made her shutter everytime she had to take it, poor thing.

Twice a day I'd line all three kids up for their doses and they loved getting to use these fun 'shot's to do it. A whole lot of missed school later almost all of us are healthy again. It was a long few weeks for this mom trying to take care of all these sick people in my house all by myself. Counting my blessings though, at least I didnt get it too.

Cake of Book

I held a cake contest on my CF blog about this new book The Dark Divine (by Bree Despain). For the last several months I've been on the "street team" for the book. Basically there are a dozen of us around the country (we had to send in applications to 'earn' our spot on the team) and our job is to promote the book like crazy. We got a box of promo items and we pass out stickers, bookmarks, talk about it, wear our promo shirt, and participate in challenges with each other.

It's been a lot of fun and I've had the chance to get to know the author so that makes it even more great. This was the cake I made. I figured it'd be a fun, creative way to promote the book, with my new hobby of cake decorating and get some new people to stop by on my blog. If you're interested click on my link to go see the other great cakes my friends made.

Valentines with Cherubs

These are all from our music group, Cherubs, Valentines day party. (Which my friend, Brie Frank has put together.) We have music group once a week where we get together and sing songs for an hour. Each month we have a theme and color. At the end we also have snack and story time. If there are holidays though we use 1/2 the time to play games instead of sing.



Makayla is the oldest one that attends music. There are two 3 year olds and a couple of 2 year olds and a bunch of 1 year olds. We even have babies but most of them come along with an older sibling. My kids LOVE music class and ask for it all week. We even have some of the music at home and they love dancing and singing along to it. Anyway it's sometimes tricky trying to think of games for these little ones.

This month we had pin the arrow on the heart, throw the ball at the target, freeze dance, coloring their Valentine envelopes and find the heart (they were just taped all over the piano and corner of the room. The kids all made valentines for each other and they got to put them in everyones envelope. After the games the kids get to eat the feast.