Spring Break and Poison Ivy

The boys had Spring Break a couple weeks ago,  I had basically nothing planned for the week, which is fine by me because I still carry on with life as normal and just leave the oldest four boys home by themselves to play on screens. The reason this is more OK with me now than it used to be is because we have recently done away with screens during the week! For so long, I was literally afraid to turn the screens off. I thought I would go crazy and the boys would go crazy and it would be so unfair to them. But, one lovely day in February after Stake Conference I was ready to make the commitment. I must say, It has been WONDERFUL! The boys fought the idea quite a bit the first week, but after that they were OK. It is so nice not to be a slave to the screens now. The boys love computer games, so I always felt like I was making sure each boy got his full hour on the computer and it was ridiculous.  Now, back to spring break, I let them play screens while I would go to the gym and run errands in the morning, and it really made their spring break exciting for them.

One other thing, during the week I was feeling bad that I hadn't made the best of their break and then it dawned on me that in our school district we have week long breaks constantly throughout the year. We have five breaks that are at least a week long each, so I didn't really feel like I needed to make this one extra special. It was just another break.

But, anyway.. here are the things we did end up doing. On Monday the neighbor stayed with us for the day while his parents were at work and we went to the library and then to the park and had lunch at Taco Bell. On two of the days we went to the indoor pool and swam for a couple of hours. That was a hit!
On Friday I took them to IHOP for breakfast for happy face pancakes. It was a lovely week.

Then on Saturday I took the cub scouts, Jacob and Nathan, to a day camp with some other boys from the ward. It was a nice day. Unfortunately I have boys that are really good at finding things to complain about, but we stayed regardless and had a great time.

{Learning how people used to write with ink and quill}

 

{armor in medieval times}

 

{she is teaching the boys about games played in England and what words they use differently than us}

 

{Lunch time}

 

{Archery!}

On Sunday Nathan was complaining  about something itching on his face. I just told him to scratch it. :-)
By Monday he had a bit of a rash going straight down his forehead. I still sent him to school with some anti itch cream on, but by Tuesday this is what he looked like. (Sorry about the cheap cell phone pictures, but let me just tell you, it looked HORRIBLE!)

 

 This was obviously something more than I was familiar with. He had it on his neck, and back and it was swelling and had pussy blisters all over it, so we headed to the Dr. He wasn't very helpful in letting us know what Nathan got into, but we did end up with some cream to get rid of it. As I talked to people, so many told me that it was obviously poison ivy. N must be very allergic to it because it was so bad! I think it spread so bad by him itching it, and then spreading it. I let him take a couple of days off of school just to avoid the stares and comments. It didn't hurt him and it wasn't contagious, it was just in such an obvious place!

This is what he looked like 3 days later. And now he is back to his handsome self.

 

We will definitely be more careful in the woods around here, and I think I my just need to lock Nathan up before the boy kills himself!

A week at the Hughes home.....

On Monday, the boys were running around the backyard and Nathan came to the back porch screaming and bleeding. He had stepped on a broken test tube (must have fallen out of the shed) and had a pretty deep cut right on the bottom of his foot. My amazing, talented, wonderful neighbor was coming over to get her son and saw our dilemma. She took care of it all while I stood by and told her how grateful I am for her. It is not that I get squeamish about these kinds of things, it is just that we rarely have first aid issues, so I am never sure what to do. Nathan just got a couple of butterfly band aids and the cut is healing up nicely.

Also, Steve and Steven in an attempt to get healthier wanted to try a vegetarian diet this week. I was excited for this idea, since I have been wanting to do some meatless dinners a couple of times a week. On Monday we had black bean burritos which were delicious and well received. We stuck with the meatless all week and did not starve! Imagine that. I think we will keep at it.

Tuesday was soccer! I put Jacob and Brandon in this season and they are both having a great time. Neither of them have much skill, but what's new. None of my boys seem to have much athletic ability but, they have a good time running around the field. The exciting thing about this season is that Steve is coaching Jacob's team. He is doing such a great job and I think it is good for Jacob to have his Dad there. Unfortunately they really don't have much skill on their team. A typical game is 0 to 7 with them losing.

{Practicing soccer in the front yard}

Wednesday was scouts. The boys and I headed out and I was responsible for the bears that night. We made sugardoodle cookies that turned out wonderful! We passed off requirement 9a, Yea!

Thursday was raining most of the day so they cancelled soccer.

Friday was an out to eat kind of night. Steve and I wanted to go to Thai but we hadn't booked a babysitter or picked up the house. So... we left the older boys home and took Brandon and Alex with us. Then we went out to have dinner and it went quite well. We will definitely be doing that again. :-)

 And as an added bonus, here are some pictures I have been wanting to share:

 

I have actually had this on my wall for about a year now. These are plates that we collected as we traveled Europe. Many are from Germany, but we also have plates from Prague, Spain, London, Italy, and Holland. They sat in a closet at our house for three years because I couldn't figure out how to display them. Well, with the help of Pinterest, I found a way, and I LOVE it.

 

Alex is so funny. He has always loved his blankets. He doesn't have a specific one that he is attached to, but he likes to have one with him when he is at home. A while back when we would put him to bed he would tell us he needs another blanket. He has a large stash of blankets in his room from many years of collecting them. So, when he asked for more, we gave him more. Most nights he goes to sleep with at least five in his crib with him. He loves is. 

  

So, Alicia did a post about her kids drinking pickle juice straight out of the jar. I was looking at her blog when my boy came home from school and they saw the pictures. They thought that looked like a good idea, so they asked if they could do it. I didn't care if they did, I just warned them about the salt content. After trying it, they decided they would rather just stick with eating the pickle. 

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter Everyone! We had a wonderful Easter holiday, and I know I need to start sharing our lives more with you.
On Saturday we colored our eggs. A wonderful experience like always.

 

(Alex was watching Youtube videos after trying to drink the egg dye one too many times. )

We also decided to start a new Easter Eve tradition. We talked about the week in Christ's life leading up to His Resurrection, but left out what happened on Sunday so we could revisit it on Sunday. It didn't go wonderfully because I had not prepared like I should have, but I think it is a tradition we will stick with.

Throughout the evening I learned two great lessons:

1. All those fantastic ideas on Pinterest of how to dye eggs in a new and fancy way, are not as easy as they look when you are trying to break up fights and keep colored dye from spilling all over the floor. Maybe with more prep I could have pulled it off, but for another couple of years we will stick with good old colored dye in a cup.

2. A messy house makes for a fun place to hide Easter eggs.

This morning we had a smooth Easter morning with lots of candy and a successful Easter Egg hunt.

We then had the Allred family Easter breakfast of mashing hard boiled eggs with butter and salt and sticking them in the microwave. Super easy and pretty darn good.

 

At church, Steve sang in Sacrament Meeting with a quartet of priesthood men. It sounded wonderful and many people let him know that he needs to share his voice more often.

I got to teach my awesome primary class of 10 year olds about the the Easter story and then shared with them some chow mein noodle nests. Yum, Yum.

Tonight we had a nice ham dinner and then watched a church video of the Resurrection.

I do love Easter. I especially love all the testimonies of Christ that are shared on facebook for everyone to see. It gives me hope to see so many that love and believe in Jesus Christ.

For your Easter enjoyment, here is a portion of our egg hunt. 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-KqvLoi1Ls