Andrew's 1st job

Andrew's so thrilled to have his first job.  My next door neighbor asked him to mow her yard every week for $25.00.  He moves, trims, and blows every Thursday.   It's been a great learning experience for him.  He has had to track the weather to make sure it will not be raining that day.  He's had to plan out his days to finish school early enough to get it done before its too hot.  He's also tracking his deposits and making sure he knows how much he's earned this spring.  I'm very thankful that he's maturing into such a responsible young man.  We are so proud.  

Happy 12th Birthday, Andrew

Here are some highlights of Andrew's birthday.  Hill Academy was cancelled that day to celebrate his birthday all day!

Breakfast:  Homemade bacon and fried egg sandwich on toast
Headed to our Homeschool Co-op class for PE
Library trip
Lunch at the mall
Game Stop to buy new PS3 games
Target trip to but the new Hobbit movie
Home to play on the PS3
Fast food dinner picked up by dad
Night out to go shopping at Academy Sports
Home to play again
Bed

Poison Ivy (again)

Jason, Andrew and Ethan just returned from a Boy Scout camping trip over the weekend. They did have fun but the biggest unwelcome surprise was the poison ivy that Andrew woke up with on Monday. It completely surrounded his eyes. It progressed so quickly that we were forced to go get him a steroid shot at a minute clinic that late afternoon. After the shot was done, we assumed that the rash would clear quickly which it didn't. By Wednesday, we were back at the minute clinic again getting a prescription for Prednisone. We were told that if the Prednisone didn't help, our next stop was a hospital visit. Thankfully, it is clearing up today (Thursday.) Andrew awoke to eyes that weren't swollen almost shut and the rash is starting to subside. Only now, the rash has spread to his neck, chest, arms and legs. Poor boy. Jason has a little of the poison ivy rash too but it seems that Ethan is in the clear.

Monday morning

Swollen eyes

Full blown rash on Wednesday

Camp Buck Toms

We just finished dropping Andrew off at his first Boy Scout Camp in Rockwood, TN at Camp Buck Toms. He will be there for a week in terribly hot weather. The weather forecast is calling for high 90's. No electricity and a/c for a week is not the way I'd like to spend the week but those boys are super thrilled. That is they are today.

They will be sleeping in a three-sided wooden enclosure called an adirondack. The one Andrew is in fits 8 boys. The best thing is that all 8 boys are all the same age and recent Cub Scout graduates. All will be 6th graders this fall.

Andrew will dabble a little in swimming, archery, shotgun shooting, whittling and tons more that I just can't remember.

If you think of Andrew this week, will you say a prayer for safety and cooler temperatures? This mom greatly covets those prayers. Thanks!

Andrew's 11th Birthday

This year was low key for activities for Andrew's birthday due to him being at Berean Christian School for his spring testing days. Yuk! We started the day much earlier than our normal at 6:30am. I made him one of his favorite homemade breakfasts: fried egg with breakfast ham on toasted bread all wrapped up like a sandwich. We then headed out the door for testing. After that was all done, we went shopping and let him buy a new Harry Potter Lego set, deposit birthday money in the bank. eat lunch and head straight home to build the set. For dinner, we ate at Chili's and took some silly shots at the restaurant. Enjoy my silly boys! Thankfully we were in a booth that backed up to a wall where NO ONE saw these boys' faces.

Overall, he had a nice birthday especially since it was the start of his spring break.

Andrew's Webelos Badge

Andrew started Cub Scouts this past August. He has loved it and has devoured his Scouts' book. He has known from the beginning that he only had 6 months to accomplish all he wanted to do in Cub Scouts as a Webelos II before crossing over to the Boy Scout troop.

In his pack there are other Webelos II scouts who've been in the pack for years. He fit right in and worked just as hard. He actually outpaced them. In the fall, Andrew asked if he could start doing some of the badge work at home during school time. I agreed and he set the pace working almost every day on finishing more and more work to receive the badges. This past Tuesday, Andrew was awarded his Webelos badge. He was the first boy out of his pack to receive it. He was ecstatic! His next goal is to receive the highest honor as a Cub Scout, the Arrow of Light. He has 2 things to do/attend and then he'll have it by February. I'm so proud of the hard worker he's become. He even has told me his ultimate goal is to become an Eagle Scout.

Here's his den leader on the left explaining to the pack how he was the first Scout to get the Webelos badge.

I just love the encouragement from the Pack Leader on the right for Andrew. 

Poison Oak and Fifths

It's been a crazy week for health issues with the kids. I ended up taking all 4 kids to the doctor Thursday morning. We had dropped by the CVS Minute Clinic the day before but stumped a nurse practitioner who had practiced for 18 yrs. She couldn't figure out what the kids had. Turns out Andrew had the beginning stages of showing a poison oak rash and the other three kids had fifths. The three kids' rash looked so similar to Andrew's the day that we were there that she couldn't determine the virus because Andrew's was around his eyes. She thought that they all had the same thing so she sent us to our pediatrician.

Sadly, by the time that we were able to see the doctor the next day, it was apparent that Andrew had something completely different from his siblings. Also sadly, we have to pay a doctor's bill for them instead of the smaller minute clinic fee. We do not have a low co-pay with our insurance but a huge deductible and I am not looking forward to paying this doctor's bill. YUK! At least we know what they have now and only one is contagious today. No prescriptions were given.

Andrew's eyes are swollen and his face and torso are covered with the rash. Thankfully, he should be better soon though. The other 3 kids are on the tail end of their fifths, not contagious anymore and just have the rash left. What was sad was that we totally contaminated our PE class, Scouts pack, American Heritage Girls group, and AWANA last week. When you are most contagious, you have no symptoms and feel and look healthy, then the rash comes on many days later. By then, you aren't contagious but look terrible. Most children get fifths before they are 4 yrs. old too. With the kids not being in daycare and public school, we didn't catch it until now. Here's what Caleb's looked like for 5 days. Sad.

Andrew's favorite shirt

I just noticed that the last few pictures of Andrew showed him in his yellow football shirt. I have been getting tired of seeing it on him lately and now I know why. He wore it to the zoo, 6 flags, first day of school this year and I even noticed that he wore it on the first day of school last year too! WOW! That shirt has gotten its money's worth. Now, it's time to retire the baby.

Andrew's finished room

I forgot to post pictures of Andrew's new room. Sorry about that, we've been a little busy (what's new?). The garage sale went well. I did sell about $200, mostly $1.00 a piece kids' clothes. Tomorrow night, I have an appt. for someone to come see about buying my Pottery Barn table. If I sell it, then we have enough to go but the new oven/range. Yipee!

Andrew's 10th birthday

Andrew's 10th birthday fell at the perfect time this year. He had just finished 3 days of testing. We had the weekend off (since basketball season is over and we're not doing baseball. His birthday fell on a Sunday this year followed by a few days of spring break from school.

This year we decided to take a mini vacation instead of a birthday party with friends. Originally, we were talking of heading down to Atlanta for the day to visit the Lego store but Jason had a better plan. He thought it would be more fun for the whole family to go to Sevierville (about an hour away from Knoxville) to The Wilderness in the Smokies. It's an indoor and outdoor waterpark. To play at the waterpark you have to stay at the resort hotel so the kids were super pumped about that. The waterpark even has a place for toddlers and preschoolers to play. Imagine a toddler's playground with slides, swings and teeter totters all in a pool of 1/2 foot of water with sprinklers spraying all around. That's what it was like. Caleb really surprised us by heading over to the older kids area and learning how to slide down a slide like a 10 year old. It twisted around through light and dark areas even and as soon as he was out, he'd run back up the stairs to do it again.

We had a GREAT vacation! Hannah and Ethan were even able to ride the slides with Jason and me on an innertube. Caleb's been begging to go back every day since we got back home. Here are some pictures of our stay.

Caleb seeing the park in the distance.

The boys screaming with excitement.

This is what they saw. I'd scream too if I was a kid.

Waiting in the lobby to check in.

The flat white pillow and the thumb go hand in hand. Here's Caleb with both in the lobby.

Ethan's ready to swim!

Birthday Dinner

Day 2 getting ready to hit the outdoor park. Caleb sees it in the distance.

Hannah lounging on the van while we unload and take a few pictures.

Ethan and Hannah's first trolley ride.

Andrew riding the trolley.

Andrew's new room

Andrew's surprise upon returning home from his last day of testing was to see his new room all finished! Jason and I pulled the surprise off too. We converted the downstairs office to his bedroom. We repainted the room first. I used Behr's Shortgrass Prairie in flat for the rich green on top and repainted the bottom white with a bright white paint color.

We had been repainting all week, so Andrew knew that we were working on getting his room together. He just didn't know it would be so soon. We thought it would be a great surprise, a double one. First to celebrate testing was over and secondly to celebrate his 10th birthday. It worked out perfectly. Our new neighbors, the Tardys were also testing at the same time. So Janel and I carpooled. She took the boys to Berean in the morning and I picked them up. After the boys were gone, Jason and I got to work moving all his furniture downstairs. Then Jason headed off to work and I put the decorating touches on the room. Puttering around decorating a new room was fun for me (even a 10 yr. old boy's room). I pulled out my Pottery Barn Teen magazines to get some inspiration.

Here's a picture of him just after he walked in. He was so excited! He loved sleeping in a pitch black room without a night light. He LOVED not waking up to Ethan in bed with him. He said he slept like a baby. Andrew did confess later on that he would miss sharing a room with Ethan during the day just not a night.

I'll post pictures of all 3 kids' room makeovers soon. I'm almost done with the transformations.

Soccer Awards

Soccer season is over. Finally! I am so ready to hibernate until spring. At the end of the season parties, each player is given an award from the coaches. Usually it's something like most improved or best defender, etc. Andrew's two coaches this year were UT college seniors. It made for quite a different experience for him and the team. They certainly did not carry the authority like a father coach would and were surprisingly quiet, even at the games. Andrew did learn from them though and had a great season.

So the award he received was "The Secret Agent." The whole room chuckled at that award. It was very fitting. The coaches explained that the name came from the fact that he ALWAYS wore his sunglasses in sun or shade. But most importantly, as the smallest one on the team, he was their secret agent defender. He would surprise most players by being able to defend the goal quite well hence the name Secret Agent. I liked it and so did Andrew. He even has new sunglasses that fit this description even better, They have a yellow orange tint to the lens and are reflective. All you see is yourself. I hate those type of glasses but those were the darkest glasses available for my little vampire.