Ugh. This week has been sort of brutal. Good thing we didn't have a ton planned for our Spring Happenings this weekend. Because we wouldn't have made much more.
It all started last Sunday night when, out of nowhere, our youngest spawn developed a stomach bug in the middle of the night. At first we debated if it was a stomach bug or food poisoning (because he had eaten some yogurt that was not exactly within the expiration date #momwin) and because it started at about 11pm and was over a few hours later. He was perfectly fine the next day for the most part except for stuffing his face with breakfast and getting sick one more time as well as a couple marathon naps but really he had been up a lot of the night so we didn't think much of it. Monday was fine. Everyone was fine. Kenzie went to school on Tuesday perfectly fine and then Tuesday night... it happened again. This time it was Kenzie and we knew it was a stomach bug. Grrrreeeeaaaattttt! Just what every parent wants to deal with. At least we knew we were at least halfway through the family.... but we were only halfway through the family. Steven had a big meeting at work midweek so I had been in charge of the clean up for the kids because we knew he couldn't miss the meeting and we needed to keep him well. In preparation for the meeting he has been working a lot of long days so it was making for a very tiring week for all of us. We kept Kenzie home from school Wednesday although she was 100% fine on Wednesday because this was the weirdest bug ever. Then on Thursday, just as we were hoping that the adults in the family would make it out unscathed... I got sick in the afternoon. Really?? To top it off... I got it in the afternoon instead of at night so I had to continue to do the normal mommy job while Steven finished up his (late) day at work. Thankfully, when he got home he took over and got the kids in bed so I could lay in bed (and on the bathroom floor) in peace. By the time the bug got to me, I had it way worse than either kid. I wasn't 100% on Friday but Steven had put in so many hours during the week that he was able to stay home Friday.
Steven started the very difficult task on Friday of raking and bagging leaves in our backyard. This is a project that we take on every year. Well, every other year we try to bag the leaves and on the off years we often just use the mower to mulch them up. We LOVE our backyard and wouldn't change all the trees we have. It helps keep the back side of our house cooler and we just like having the trees... but the leaves. Oh the leaves. It's horrendous after winter. Since we don't have a typical "fall" season here in Florida, our leaves tend to fall all winter and into the spring. Steven got tired of looking at the leaves so he set out to try to clean up the backyard some. He raked a ton of piles and I helped hold bags while he loaded them up with leaves. I was minimal help because I still felt pretty tired and icky after being sick but I couldn't leave him out there all alone. We tried to convince the kids to help. Kenzie tried but she was probably more dangerous with a rake in her hands. Eventually we pointed out how great of a climbing tree we have in our backyard and they ended up way more focused on that. The two of them have talked about (and tried) climbing the tree what seems like constantly all weekend.
By Friday evening I was feeling much better and Steven was still well so we decided to go forward with the plans we made with our neighbors to take the kids to the Apopka Amphitheater for movie night. Apopka does this movie night thing periodically but it was the first time we decided to go. They were going to show Moana which we all wanted to see and we thought the kids might finally both be good enough to sit and watch an entire movie in a more "theater" type setting. We brought over some snacks, chairs, and blankets but ended up just taking our snacks over because they had the seating in the amphitheater open and we were early enough to grab some pretty good ones. Before the movie started, we let the kids run around the open grassy area nearby to get some energy out. Will ended up sitting on my lap for the duration of the movie because he wasn't heavy enough to keep the chair seat down without it folding up on him and Kenzie ended up in Steven's lap because someone sat down about 15 minutes into the movie in front of her that was too tall for her to see over. It worked out okay though. They munched on popcorn for a while but they both seemed to like the movie and we managed to make it all the way through. Will was starting to fade with about 30 minutes left but then the Lava Monster showed up and he was super into the movie again. He has talked about that Lava Monster since Friday night. We all really enjoyed it. Now we are discussing with Kenzie the possibility of switching her initial Rapunzel themed birthday to Moana as she thinks that would make a good birthday party. It would totally fit with her summer birthday and I could recycle a few things from her first birthday luau so we will see what she decides.
Saturday morning we were up bright and early (as usual) and after some breakfast, we headed over to Oak Haven Farm & Winery. We had been talking about going strawberry picking and this place was highly recommended by a lot of people in our area. It was only about a 15 minute drive so that worked out well. Neither the kids nor myself have ever been strawberry picking. Steven was surprised to hear that I have never been any sort of "picking" unless you could the garden my family had on our land when I was a kid in which case my main goal was just to beat everyone to the tomatoes so I could eat them like apples before getting in trouble. I, honestly, had no idea what to expect. We got to the farm about 5 minutes before it opened and waited in a line of cars to get in. Once we parked, we were shown over to a tractor where a worker gave us a cardboard pallet and assigned us a row of strawberries. I loved this idea. We were given our own row which means that we weren't competing with anyone nearby to get the best strawberries and we could take our time and enjoy it. The kids loved it. Kenzie immediately set out to find the biggest, reddest strawberry out there. She was a picking machine. Will had more trouble physically picking them without help but he would point out one he wanted and if it was good, one of us would pick it so he could put it in the container. It took us quite a while to work our way down that row but we managed to get a ton of great strawberries. We ended up walking out of there with just over 7 pounds. Good thing everyone in this family loves strawberries. We gave some to our neighbors too because we had so much. The farm is also a winery but we didn't have time this time to do the tasting. I'm hoping we can make it back there one day to do that and maybe pick up some strawberry wine (which both Steven and I launched into song about when we saw it.) They also had a playground so we let the kids play for a few minutes before we left. We actually had quite the tears from Kenzie when we left because apparently she wanted more time with the tire swing.
We dropped off the strawberries at home and then headed out to Steak n Shake for lunch. Always a fan favorite around here. I managed to convince Kenzie to sit next to me there which is a miracle in itself. Although it didn't last through the entire meal as Will got super upset that his chicken fingers were hot and started to have a breakdown. P.S. They weren't actually hot... Anyway, we ended up switching the kids so I could help deal with Will. Oh well. We tried.
After lunch we spent another couple of hours outside raking and bagging leaves. We finished just about half the yard but, honestly, it doesn't seem like we did much. As we are raking, more leaves are falling. It's crazy. We ended up with about 25 bags of leaves so we definitely removed something... After dinner we made some strawberry shortcake. Our kids are picky though so we didn't know how this would go. Will was super into the strawberries themselves at first (which we used sugar on so they were sweeter than normal) until he realized that we were putting whipped cream on cake basically and then he was anti strawberry and only wanted whipped cream on cake. He has now dubbed it "strawberry cake" and keeps asking for it but actually doesn't want the strawberries. We know better. Kenzie ended up not liking the shortcake but liked the strawberries. She also wasn't super into the whipped cream but kept asking us so let her spray it directly into her mouth. We have no idea really how she knew about that. She said something about her teacher at school doing it but we aren't sure.
Then Saturday night it all went downhill again. We were thinking we were in the clear from this stomach bug. Steven and I rented the movie, I'm not Ashamed and were sitting down to watch it when he started feeling pretty bad. Before long, it became apparent that he finally succumbed to the stomach bug of 2017 (Side note: The stomach bug of 2016 was sooooo much worse). We were supposed to get together earlier in the evening with our friends and their baby for dinner but we cancelled even though everyone was feeling okay at the time just in case and we are glad we did. We have now had to cancel twice with them in the last month because of our family's sicknesses (it's been a rough month or so) but we didn't want to risk it. Especially since they have a 4 month old.
It was a good thing this was always supposed to be a light weekend because we ended up not missing out on anything. Steven wasn't able to go to church this morning (but I missed the Night of Worship on Wednesday after Kenzie was sick so we are calling it even) but other than that, nothing major was messed up. We are having a lazy day today. Later today we have to take 25 bags of leaves from the backyard to the front but that's about it. This was the weirdest stomach bug. It was quick but it manifested a little differently in each of us. I'm just glad we are on the tail end of it now. Stomach bugs are never fun. We are going to hope now that we stay well to continue with our Spring Happenings next weekend. We have a fun afternoon/evening planned at Epcot. That's about it but we might come up with some other things. We have been talking about going back to Wekiwa Springs State Park to go fishing again soon so maybe that can finally happen. We shall see.
On another note, I HAVE to share this song. It was performed during worship this morning and it was the first time I have heard it since I missed Night of Worship. It seriously gave me chills. Our church is having Easter service at the Apopka Amphitheater again this year and this song will likely show up, I would imagine. If you are in the area, please come join us on Easter morning. (This is the original recording but just know that our worship team totally did it justice this morning.)
It all started last Sunday night when, out of nowhere, our youngest spawn developed a stomach bug in the middle of the night. At first we debated if it was a stomach bug or food poisoning (because he had eaten some yogurt that was not exactly within the expiration date #momwin) and because it started at about 11pm and was over a few hours later. He was perfectly fine the next day for the most part except for stuffing his face with breakfast and getting sick one more time as well as a couple marathon naps but really he had been up a lot of the night so we didn't think much of it. Monday was fine. Everyone was fine. Kenzie went to school on Tuesday perfectly fine and then Tuesday night... it happened again. This time it was Kenzie and we knew it was a stomach bug. Grrrreeeeaaaattttt! Just what every parent wants to deal with. At least we knew we were at least halfway through the family.... but we were only halfway through the family. Steven had a big meeting at work midweek so I had been in charge of the clean up for the kids because we knew he couldn't miss the meeting and we needed to keep him well. In preparation for the meeting he has been working a lot of long days so it was making for a very tiring week for all of us. We kept Kenzie home from school Wednesday although she was 100% fine on Wednesday because this was the weirdest bug ever. Then on Thursday, just as we were hoping that the adults in the family would make it out unscathed... I got sick in the afternoon. Really?? To top it off... I got it in the afternoon instead of at night so I had to continue to do the normal mommy job while Steven finished up his (late) day at work. Thankfully, when he got home he took over and got the kids in bed so I could lay in bed (and on the bathroom floor) in peace. By the time the bug got to me, I had it way worse than either kid. I wasn't 100% on Friday but Steven had put in so many hours during the week that he was able to stay home Friday.
Steven started the very difficult task on Friday of raking and bagging leaves in our backyard. This is a project that we take on every year. Well, every other year we try to bag the leaves and on the off years we often just use the mower to mulch them up. We LOVE our backyard and wouldn't change all the trees we have. It helps keep the back side of our house cooler and we just like having the trees... but the leaves. Oh the leaves. It's horrendous after winter. Since we don't have a typical "fall" season here in Florida, our leaves tend to fall all winter and into the spring. Steven got tired of looking at the leaves so he set out to try to clean up the backyard some. He raked a ton of piles and I helped hold bags while he loaded them up with leaves. I was minimal help because I still felt pretty tired and icky after being sick but I couldn't leave him out there all alone. We tried to convince the kids to help. Kenzie tried but she was probably more dangerous with a rake in her hands. Eventually we pointed out how great of a climbing tree we have in our backyard and they ended up way more focused on that. The two of them have talked about (and tried) climbing the tree what seems like constantly all weekend.
By Friday evening I was feeling much better and Steven was still well so we decided to go forward with the plans we made with our neighbors to take the kids to the Apopka Amphitheater for movie night. Apopka does this movie night thing periodically but it was the first time we decided to go. They were going to show Moana which we all wanted to see and we thought the kids might finally both be good enough to sit and watch an entire movie in a more "theater" type setting. We brought over some snacks, chairs, and blankets but ended up just taking our snacks over because they had the seating in the amphitheater open and we were early enough to grab some pretty good ones. Before the movie started, we let the kids run around the open grassy area nearby to get some energy out. Will ended up sitting on my lap for the duration of the movie because he wasn't heavy enough to keep the chair seat down without it folding up on him and Kenzie ended up in Steven's lap because someone sat down about 15 minutes into the movie in front of her that was too tall for her to see over. It worked out okay though. They munched on popcorn for a while but they both seemed to like the movie and we managed to make it all the way through. Will was starting to fade with about 30 minutes left but then the Lava Monster showed up and he was super into the movie again. He has talked about that Lava Monster since Friday night. We all really enjoyed it. Now we are discussing with Kenzie the possibility of switching her initial Rapunzel themed birthday to Moana as she thinks that would make a good birthday party. It would totally fit with her summer birthday and I could recycle a few things from her first birthday luau so we will see what she decides.
Saturday morning we were up bright and early (as usual) and after some breakfast, we headed over to Oak Haven Farm & Winery. We had been talking about going strawberry picking and this place was highly recommended by a lot of people in our area. It was only about a 15 minute drive so that worked out well. Neither the kids nor myself have ever been strawberry picking. Steven was surprised to hear that I have never been any sort of "picking" unless you could the garden my family had on our land when I was a kid in which case my main goal was just to beat everyone to the tomatoes so I could eat them like apples before getting in trouble. I, honestly, had no idea what to expect. We got to the farm about 5 minutes before it opened and waited in a line of cars to get in. Once we parked, we were shown over to a tractor where a worker gave us a cardboard pallet and assigned us a row of strawberries. I loved this idea. We were given our own row which means that we weren't competing with anyone nearby to get the best strawberries and we could take our time and enjoy it. The kids loved it. Kenzie immediately set out to find the biggest, reddest strawberry out there. She was a picking machine. Will had more trouble physically picking them without help but he would point out one he wanted and if it was good, one of us would pick it so he could put it in the container. It took us quite a while to work our way down that row but we managed to get a ton of great strawberries. We ended up walking out of there with just over 7 pounds. Good thing everyone in this family loves strawberries. We gave some to our neighbors too because we had so much. The farm is also a winery but we didn't have time this time to do the tasting. I'm hoping we can make it back there one day to do that and maybe pick up some strawberry wine (which both Steven and I launched into song about when we saw it.) They also had a playground so we let the kids play for a few minutes before we left. We actually had quite the tears from Kenzie when we left because apparently she wanted more time with the tire swing.
We dropped off the strawberries at home and then headed out to Steak n Shake for lunch. Always a fan favorite around here. I managed to convince Kenzie to sit next to me there which is a miracle in itself. Although it didn't last through the entire meal as Will got super upset that his chicken fingers were hot and started to have a breakdown. P.S. They weren't actually hot... Anyway, we ended up switching the kids so I could help deal with Will. Oh well. We tried.
After lunch we spent another couple of hours outside raking and bagging leaves. We finished just about half the yard but, honestly, it doesn't seem like we did much. As we are raking, more leaves are falling. It's crazy. We ended up with about 25 bags of leaves so we definitely removed something... After dinner we made some strawberry shortcake. Our kids are picky though so we didn't know how this would go. Will was super into the strawberries themselves at first (which we used sugar on so they were sweeter than normal) until he realized that we were putting whipped cream on cake basically and then he was anti strawberry and only wanted whipped cream on cake. He has now dubbed it "strawberry cake" and keeps asking for it but actually doesn't want the strawberries. We know better. Kenzie ended up not liking the shortcake but liked the strawberries. She also wasn't super into the whipped cream but kept asking us so let her spray it directly into her mouth. We have no idea really how she knew about that. She said something about her teacher at school doing it but we aren't sure.
Then Saturday night it all went downhill again. We were thinking we were in the clear from this stomach bug. Steven and I rented the movie, I'm not Ashamed and were sitting down to watch it when he started feeling pretty bad. Before long, it became apparent that he finally succumbed to the stomach bug of 2017 (Side note: The stomach bug of 2016 was sooooo much worse). We were supposed to get together earlier in the evening with our friends and their baby for dinner but we cancelled even though everyone was feeling okay at the time just in case and we are glad we did. We have now had to cancel twice with them in the last month because of our family's sicknesses (it's been a rough month or so) but we didn't want to risk it. Especially since they have a 4 month old.
It was a good thing this was always supposed to be a light weekend because we ended up not missing out on anything. Steven wasn't able to go to church this morning (but I missed the Night of Worship on Wednesday after Kenzie was sick so we are calling it even) but other than that, nothing major was messed up. We are having a lazy day today. Later today we have to take 25 bags of leaves from the backyard to the front but that's about it. This was the weirdest stomach bug. It was quick but it manifested a little differently in each of us. I'm just glad we are on the tail end of it now. Stomach bugs are never fun. We are going to hope now that we stay well to continue with our Spring Happenings next weekend. We have a fun afternoon/evening planned at Epcot. That's about it but we might come up with some other things. We have been talking about going back to Wekiwa Springs State Park to go fishing again soon so maybe that can finally happen. We shall see.
On another note, I HAVE to share this song. It was performed during worship this morning and it was the first time I have heard it since I missed Night of Worship. It seriously gave me chills. Our church is having Easter service at the Apopka Amphitheater again this year and this song will likely show up, I would imagine. If you are in the area, please come join us on Easter morning. (This is the original recording but just know that our worship team totally did it justice this morning.)
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