I'm baaaack...

OK, last week was a complete write-off. Stupid sickness. And the worst part was that it wasn't even the kids!! It was DH and me. I woke up Saturday with a headache and sore throat and he woke up with it on Sunday. He ended up with a 101 fever, swollen glands, and 3 days home from work! I just ended up with a steady stream of Tylenol and hot tea. My throat finally stopped hurting yesterday. Man, that thing just wiped me out. Nothing was accomplished all week.

Well, no, that's not entirely true. Cassia made some wonderful self-motivation strides. She was drawing a birthday card for a friend (yes, I did still have to take them to a birthday party even though I was sick because THEY weren't) and asked me how to spell "love." Cameron said, "Just draw a heart!" and she replied, "You know, I'm getting too old to just draw a heart for love. I need to learn how to read and write!" Amen, sister! She also just randomly got out an animal encyclopedia and started reading it one day. Another day it was a book on castles. Today it was a book on origami - she made a whole basket of snakes! She's my reader! Of course, she's not necessarily reading the words in these books but she is reading a lot of captions and she is discovering what wonderful treasures lie inside. She also wrote a book based on a cool tangram design and called it The Jewel of Good and Bad. She apologized to me for it "only" being a picture book but the pictures really told the story. I loved it.

Cameron has been doing a lot of puzzling: tangrams, dominoes, Legos, electronic circuits. He's also been reading chapter books at night! Wahoo!! Finally! He read a Bakugan book that he had gotten from the library and when he finished that, he started on one that DH had read as a kid. Something about a haunted something or other, lol.

Greyson has been watching Hero of the Rails over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. He has a friend that he sees during Cassia's ballet class and they spent the entire hour last week playing Thomas trains and acting out that movie. I swear, it's preschooler crack.

Linus has just been trying to do everything that Greyson does. He's learned to jump off the couch (*sigh*) and to roll Bakugan. He can make all sorts of train, plane, and car sounds - way too cute. And he even helps me do laundry. I really love this age (15 months, if you've lost count).

So the kids have been busy, but I've felt like the week has been a bit of a waste for me. Today, I finally feel back on track and I've made up a menu plan for next week so that I can shop from a list at the store tomorrow. I've been much too free with the credit card at the grocery store in the last year and I need to cut down a bit. It's funny how spending just a little bit more than what you pay off each month adds up over the years! The best way to cut corners though is to know what I need, know what I'm buying, and know how much it costs. Hopefully I won't have to start itemizing my shopping list again. I did that for a while and while it was truly eye-opening to see where exactly all my money was going, it was very time consuming. I don't have that kind of time lately.

And speaking of time, I wanted to get a little exercise in tonight which means that I must bid you good night.