Thursday Family Night

We have been doing a family night every Thursday for a year or more now. It usually includes a kid friendly meal either cooked by me or ordered in, icecream, and games. Lately the kids have been wanting to play a board game like Sorry or Monopoly. For icecream we usually end up at DQ. Last night we decided to change it up a little and go out for pizza at a new place. We took them to Stevie B's pizza which turned out to be really good. Its a buffet like Cici's but also it has crazy pizza creations and an arcade. Jeff and I tried their loaded baked potato pizza which was really good dipped in marinara and we also tried their cheeseburger pizza which strangely reminded me of a cheeseburger from McD's. I think the kids stayed safe with cheese pizza and pepperoni pizza. Gaber and Tara also enjoyed the dessert pizzas and icecream. As good and fun as it was, buffets are just a bad idea b/c Jeff and I left stuffed! I probably ate twice the amount that I usually do! I just had to try it all! :) At the end of the night we went bowling. This was Tara's first time bowl and she had a blast! Mommy or daddy would take her up there and help her push the ball down the lane. She would tell us, "you watch" and try to push us away! I think if we would have just watched, no one else would have a turn b/c the ball would never make it down the lane! She did pretty well with a score of 20 something and only one foul. :) Gaber did well too, of course he had the bunkers (is that right? bunkers? that doesn't sound right?) up and he scored in the 70's. Josiah did really well with no bunkers but scored in around 30.
Between pizza and bowling we had one extra stop that is not part of family night. We took the kids to the funeral home for a viewing of one of our church members who died Tuesday night. This lady was also Gaber's sunday school teacher so we thought it would be good for them to go and learn from this. I explained to them there is nothing to be afraid of, that it is just a part of life. Gaber had many questions when he saw her laying there. First of all he asked who it was, it just didn't look like her. Then he asked why she was in that box. Then he wanted to go up closer to see her better. I'm glad they all did well with this and understood that she is in heaven now.

One of Those Days

Saturday was one of those days where I just shake my head. It started off as a normal day. We had breakfast, went to bus visitation, and ate lunch. That afternoon Jeff went out to some people's house with some other men in our church to help them with some yard work. Jeff tells me that night that one of the teens found a worm and so who decides to eat the worm? The teen, no, my hubby. Yep. Then that evening Gaber walks out of the bathroom with a look of concern on his face. I ask him if he washed his hands as I continue to walk toward the kitchen. He walks up to me and says, "I have a battery stuck in my ear." *shaking head* I was like, What? Thinking first of a double A battery, which obviously wouldn't fit but that is what I thought of. So I take him to the table and pull open his ear to find one of those little round batteries shoved way down in that ear. Yep. I did get it out, didn't think I'd be able to, but with a pair of tweezers I was able to grab a hold and pull it out. Then he tells me he had it up his nose earlier but was able to blow it out. Yep. *shaking head* Oh and he had been in the bathroom trying to fish it out himself AND he was looking for the tweezers to use. Thankfully we had them put away.
Yep. Just one of those days.

Just Some Pics

Gabe and Tara playing on the tractor




We went to the Children's Museum in Atlanta last week. Here is Jeff and Tara
painting on the wall together.



I love the big buildings in the city. :)



Tara walking Chloe



Siah putting away the dishes, his new chore. He does a great job too! He lines up all my cups perfectly!



The tent we made the kids on Thursday. They played in this for hours!



Tara helping me cook.

Early Mornings

This week I started getting up early with my hubby so we could read our bibles and pray together before he leaves for work. Going from sleeping in to 8:30 or 9 am to waking at 6:15 am was quite a jump and not easy for me! To top it off we ran out of coffee 2 days ago. Even with all my grogginess in the morning, I've really enjoyed getting up and having a special time with God and Jeff in the morning. Its also nice to start off this way instead of taking care of my children's needs right away. I love my children, but this start to my day is so much better! :) I really hope I can keep this up and not let my laziness get in the way.
This week has also been more productive for me. Monday I had my grocery shopping done before 9 am and then had my kitchen mopped before 11. Tuesday I got Tara's room cleaned and organized, vacuumed and my room vacuumed, and all 3 bathrooms cleaned before lunch. Wednesday I got all laundry done and the office cleaned up before lunch. Today I got coffee for Jeff and I from Starbucks and a blanket tent made for the kids (with Jeff's help) before 9:15. :) Ok, not so much cleaning done today but the kids tent was more important. :)
Hoping that blogging about this will motivate me now and in the future to continue with this new early morning thing. :)

Wordless Wednesday

A Whole Lotta of Updating

So a lot has happened since I last posted. Here it all is, and probably not in order.
1. Josiah's arm has healed up, Praise God! I took him in today for his 4th x-ray and the bone has healed and looks great. He can now skateboard and bicycle again!
2. Jeff made it home safely from Afghanistan, another praise! He has been home for a little over a month now. He had one week off, then had to go in for the next 2 weeks for a class and then he had this week off. The kids and I have enjoyed having him home. Monday he goes back to work, *sniff*, and we will be back to normal in the Rybold house.
3. Jeff's parents visited.
4. Josiah had his 9th birthday! Where has the time gone? I mean, seriously, how do Jeff and I have a 9 year old? Sheesh. This year we are doing family birthdays. No big parties this year. So we celebrated at home with just us. He chose a chocolate cake and asked for pizza for dinner. He got a lego starwars game for the Wii from us, some beyblades, Megamind, and more beyblades.
5. Jeff had his 29th birthday! So now I am not old any more since he reached my age. lol We celebrated late for Jeff but we did go out to Longhorn Steakhouse this week and had a super yummy dinner. He also received an embarrassing show at the restaurant from the waiters who sang a weird version of happy birthday. He says he wasn't embarrassed but I think he was a tiny little bit. :)
6. Tara is pretty much potty trained now. So is this potty adventures #5 or #6 now? I didn't keep up with that like i planned. She is doing great. She pretty much pees in the toilet 100% of the time. She is still getting the hang of going #2 in the toilet. She's not scared to at all, the timing is just so off for her. She usually wakes up from her nap with poo in the pullup. *sigh* Maybe about 2-3x a week we actually get lucky and get her to do it in the toilet. We are very proud of her and she is very proud of herself too. She gets 2 m&m's for peeing and so after she goes she squeals in excitement and yell's "I get 2 of them!" :)
7. School is going fine. Yes I've kept up with it even with Jeff coming home. I gave the boys one day off after daddy got back and then we got back to it. I do not want to get behind. We should be finishing up in May but I plan on doing some form of school threw the summer too. Especially with Gaber's reading and Josiah's memorization of multiplication. I think it was easier to memorize it myself than to help him memorize it. Last year in 2nd grade he had up to the 5's memorized, but this year he has some how forgotten all of it. Ugh.

Well, I think that is everything that has happened since I last bloggity blogged. If not, oh well! :)
Happy April!

Broken Arm

Last night after supper the kids and I went on a short walk which they all love to do. When we got home the boys decided to skateboard and Tara wanted to ride her trike. The boys were so excited because we had new neighbors moving in next door and so I think they were trying to show off a little bit with their skateboards. I was helping Tara ride her trike down the hill when I heard Josiah fall off his skateboard and hit the ground. When he first fell he didn't cry, but he kinda screamed when his right hand hit the ground. I could tell he was trying to be tough and not cry b/c of the new neighbor kids outside, but he ended up flipping over to his back, grabbed his arm and yelled out, "I think I broke my arm!" I immediately think that he was ok, he tends to over react about scrapes and bruises. I get Tara off the trike and run over to him to help him get his coat off so I could check out the arm he hurt. I didn't see anything at first showing a break, not even any scrapes on the hand he hit but he was sure crying now. (I really don't like thinking about this, it breaks my heart knowing he really was laying there with a broken arm *sniff*) So next I get the kids in and have Siah sit at the dining room table where I look his arm over and then I try to have him move it, which he was doing a little but was complaining and crying about his elbow. About 5 minutes later I notice some swelling in his elbow so I call Jeff's friend, Shawn, to come over and check it out for me. He looks it over and said I should take him in b/c it looked bad. The rest of the evening was spent at two different medical places, x-rays, crying, begging us to leave it alone, and sleeping in the ER. Around 11 pm the released us from the ER b/c the decided that yes it was broke but it was not a life threatening break so they said to go home and then go to the orthopedic office in the morning. Today we spent our day in two different doctor offices, the first one Josiah's pcm who had to give us a referral and then finally the orthopedic. There they told me his break was a borderline surgery and that it was up to me. Seriously? All I want is the best thing done for my kid's arm and there I sat not knowing what to do. I was wishing Jeff was there to help make this decision, but he wasn't so I asked the doctor what he would do. He said if it were his son he wouldn't get the surgery, he would just get a cast and let it heal on its own. So that's what we did. Today we could only get a splint b/c of the swelling, in 10 days he will have the cast. To get the splint on they had to bend his arm into a 90 degree angle and his arm sure didn't want to bend that way and poor Siah let us know it wasn't feeling good. He sat their crying and pleading with the doctor to stop while one nurse held his other hand away and the 2nd nurse helped the doctor bend it and wrap it. I sat there in tears praying that they could hurry it up. Stuff like this is just so hard on a mom. Its so hard seeing your child hurt, I seriously wanted to take the pain for him.
I'm praying for a better night tonight. Hoping Josiah can sleep better, last night he was awake a lot crying and yelling for me. Praying for his arm to heal right since it was my decision not to operate and praying it didn't harm his growth plates.
He is my 2nd child to break a bone, Gaber broke his arm when he was 4. I hope Tara doesn't follow in her brother's footsteps!