April Phone Dump

Have I mentioned it's April?  Hmph.

My sweet boy and I

The chickens got booted to the garage.  I was sick of the dust and the feathers floating in the pantry.  They were most certainly running out of space in their Christmas tote.  And winter was supposed to be over.  I closed the garage door and said good luck.  They made it.

We started doing date afternoon's.  Nana comes over Monday afternoon's and I take out a child per week.  We are all in love.

Movie night.  Because we don't have a couch in the basement.  Eating popcorn is the only way we can get Lincoln to watch TV.

It's a rough life.

Wah.  I'm going to miss super cute one piece outfits.

This chicken is lucky we caught it at the right moment.

Eric's mom's cousin came into town from Canada so we all went out to lunch.

Oh how I love this picture.

It is miraculous we have not had any stitches or broken bones.

"Don't take my picture."

Picking bouquets of dandelions.

"It's bright out."

Lincoln was driving his car across the keyboard.  Then he shut the screen.  Repetitively.   I nearly cried.  Dell wanted $300 to fix it.  I nearly cried again.  Thankfully Eric could buy a screen and replace it himself.  For $40.

I went to the bulk store in Pullman and bought stuff to make my own chicken food.  This is what it looked like when I left.

We went to the zoo with friends.  Lincoln started getting his hives.

This is what he looked like when we left.  Makes me mad.

Again.  Life's rough.

Our Third Bike Rider!

We tried to get Joelle to ride a bike last year.  HAHAHA.  Joke is on us.  I took her training wheels off and told her we were going to do this thing.  Any time I would even think about letting go she would not stay up at all.  So then I figured I would try in the grass.  Where I could let go and she wouldn't meet her death.  So I did.  Let go.  And she literally tumbled over her handlebars.  I can not make this up.  So.  That ended our saga of trying to ride a two wheel bike.  For the rest of the year.  Any time I would bring it up she was adamant it wasn't happening.

Enter this year.  Joelle decided she wanted a new bell.  I told her if she wanted a new bell, she had to take her training wheels off and ride.  She said ok.  Bring on the next day.  We take them off.   I literally held on to her one time.  And then we did this.

Crazy girl.

The Chickens First Time Outside

We let the chickens outside for the first time.  To say the chickens (and the kids) were elated is a mass understatement.  The chickens look so tiny here.

Of course everyone loved chasing them around.

Cuties.  They love these crazy birds.

 

Homeschool Field Trip::Hemlock Crossings

We had our April field trip to Hemlock Crossings.  It was a really cool trip.  We were at the end of reading The Pond People and we got to see a lot of the bugs that we had just been talking about.

 

Our little cuties gathered on the bridge listening to the guide.

Catching some things in the pond.

Caddis Fly Larvae.  They are little worm like bugs that build this wood house around themselves and then they turn into flies.

 

Adelyn scooping up some treats



 

Kailyn and all her prizes

She was showing the kids the bug homes in the field.

 

Brecken had to pick one "to take home."  I think not.

Our First Missing Tooth!!

Listen y'all.  This kid is over 7 and hasn't lost a tooth.  Her front one started wiggling.  Then the tooth came in underneath.  Then the baby tooth wouldn't come out.  Then the adult tooth and the baby tooth started clanking on each other.  We would yank and yank and nothing.  It would start to hurt her while I was yanking so I'd stop.  But each time it got a little looser.  One morning she was raging, again, and it was because her tooth hurt.  So I took her into our bedroom and told her we were yanking the dumb thing.  We got it out.  Eric nearly barfed when I sent him this picture.  It is quite impressive.

Success!!  And no more pain.

B's Itchies

So I never actually got a picture of poor Brecken's bumps.  Sad.  They were impressive.  They would come and go.  He had them for a week and a half before I brought him in.  The first time.  She was clueless.  I was thinking maybe dust mites.  She finally agreed it might be that.  So we left the office with thoughts of a really good mattress protector and to come back if it doesn't get better.  The itchies continued.  These were bad, people.  He would wake up in the middle of the night itching and itching and itching.  He would wake up multiple times.  Every night.  So entering week two, we questioned Lincoln having an ear infection.  Naturally it's the weekend.  So I blessed Eric with taking both boys to Urgent Care.  The Urgent Care doc was stumped.  He gave us a prescription for steroids to try and knock it out of his system, thinking it's possibly poison ivy.  My dad was insistent it was poison ivy.  I did not think so.  The steroids started helping.  After his 5 day course, the itchies came back with a vengeance.  We gave it another week and a half wanting to give his system a chance to bounce back.  Nothing.  So I brought him back to the doctor.  At this point, it's been 5 weeks of the itchies.  Severe itchies.  He itched them all raw and then itched them some more.  Our doctor was still stumped.  She wanted to treat him for Scabies.  She also told me I could get a second opinion from a dermatologist, to be sure.  I went with the second opinion.  The treatment for Scabies is taking baths in insecticide.  I'd like to be 100% sure before I do that, thanks.  We left the doctor's office with words of "We'll call you with a derm appt in a week."  I took matters into my own hands.  I called my dermatologist in GR and spoke to the lady on the phone.  The best she could do was an appointment one week later.  She did tell me to call every day, 5 times a day if it were her son, to get a cancellation appointment.  I said oookkk.  This is how bad she felt for him.  She called back less than an hour later saying she talked to a doc and they squeezed him in....tomorrow.  AAAAAmen.
Off we went.
She looked him over and was completely confident in saying it wasn't dust mites, scabies or poison ivy.  My final (and biggest but it didn't seem likely) concern was a reaction from a tick bite.  She was confident it wasn't that either.  We could give it another week or two because these things usually clear up in 6 weeks.  And since we were almost to that point, we could wait.  But if it didn't clear up, we would have to come back.  The other option was to take a sample of it right then and there.  Then we would know.  After 4 doctors appointments and 4 stumped doctors,  I chose take a sample of it right then and there.  And I didn't want to come back.  This kid was such a trooper.  They did a great job explaining what they were doing to him.  I prefer explanations to what is really happening vs making it vague thing.

His war wound.  You can see the bumps above it.  Wouldn't you know, the bumps started clearing up a few days after his appointment.  Which she said they might.  The call came back as insect bite which is most times a spider bite.  So now we know, if it happens again.  Poor boy.

So this kid had two stitches.  To which I said I will remove them myself thankyouverymuch.  They said ok, here's a suture kit.  I didn't want to drive half an hour each way AND pay $35 to remove them.  In hindsight, I may do that if there is a next time.

The first stitch resulted in 30 minutes of screaming.  Eric and I literally had to hogtie him to the table.  Mind you, when I actually cut the stitch out he didn't make a peep.  It was the whole idea of me cutting them out.  Which I don't get, when he was such a trooper about getting a HUNK of his skin cut off.

The second stitch.  I tried bribing him with watching TV on my phone (which has literally happened zero previous times) and candy at the end.  There was still a lot of screaming.

Hooray for itchies.  AND NOT SCABIES.