What's been "bugging" the family

There has been an unwelcome guest at our house for the past week. We've had some type of stomach bug being passed around from person to person. As of today I have yet to experience this lovely 24 hour tour of sickness, and hopefully I won't get it either! Ella and David both came down with the bug last Saturday night and Jason was up most of the night going back and forth between the two of them cleaning them, their beds and the bathrooms up! Jason came down with it on Monday night and Emily is just recovering from it this morning having been up all last night in the bathroom.

I'm sure you've asked yourself, where was Alison when Ella and David were sick? Why was it Jason's responsibility to get up all night and do the dirty work, she's the nurse! In my defense I must tell you that I was out of town that weekend! I went away with a bunch of friends from church to a lakehouse at Lake Cumberland (this event had been planned for several months). We spent the weekend chatting, playing games and eating a bunch of really yummy food! When I arrived home on Sunday afternoon I came home to Ella and David feeling better and my husband having done ALL of the laundry in the house! He said he figured he'd go ahead and do the laundry since he was already doing the kids sheets and pj's. What a wonderful guy!!!!!!

On a more pleasant note, Jason has great news to share. He passed his test that he took two weeks ago in Arizona. This is a big deal as far as his job goes. He can now stamp his own work, and others if he needed to!

This past Saturday I went to the Gap Outlet with Emily and my sister Jennifer and her son Finn. We braved both the weather (it was cold and rainy) and the crowds to get some awesome deals! Ontop of it all we had a 30% off coupon!!! If you know me well, I'm all about the coupons!

Early that afternoon we went to an art fair at Ella's school (a fundraiser for the art program). We saw a dot painting that Ella had done of a chipmunk on a log. I spoke with her art teacher telling her how much Ella enjoyed art and her art classes. Ms. Kemper, the art teacher, said she could tell how much Ella enjoyed art and that she thought Ella was very good at it. I told Ella, who was standing nearby, what her teacher had said and Ella just made a motion with her hand that said "Oh, go on!" I laughed, as did everyone else. I'm hoping we witnessed some true humility.




The kids have the day off school today, which is fortunate with Emily feeling so bad. I had planned to take them to paint pottery. My motivation behind this is the fact that both Emily and Ella painted a plate for me when they were 4 1/2 years old. David is now that age and I am hoping to have him do the same thing today and then I can display their work in my kitchen!

That's it for now, until next time!

Our weekend

This was one of those weekends that we all enjoy. Nothing to do and plenty of time to do it!

Friday started with Halloween. We were without Emily because she had a sleepover planned with the junior high girls from church and went trick or treating beforehand with a friend also going to the sleepover. I found out the next day that the police arrived to the house that they were staying at while the girls were outside playing a game and questioned them! What a roudy bunch! I'm just kidding, the police were making their nightly rounds on the empty lot next to the house and the girls just happened to be outside at the same time. When one of the ladies came out and vouched for the girls the police left. It gave the girls quite a scare though!

Our two unicorns were joined by a flapper (Nataliya) and made their way around Mamaw and Papaw's neighborhood within 45 minutes. Ella broke tradition and decided that she wanted to continue onto ANOTHER STREET! Emily had never been interested in going past the first street and the other two had usually been worn out by that time BUT this year we went onto another street and collected candy. Jason and I were both proud thinking of how we would practically run from house to house with our siblings on Halloween as children to get as much candy as possible. It's funny though because Ella doesn't eat much candy, just plain M&M's and York patties! I wasn't about to rain on her parade though (more candy for Jason and I)!

Saturday brought a lot of nothing and then Finn in the afternoon. We had the privledge of watching him overnight while Jennifer and Joe went to Columbus for a small get away. Finn was perfectly behaved and was quiet. He did wake up in the middle of the night and I figured out that he was hungry when he tried to nurse from me! YIKES! I quickly heated up a bottle for him and that made both of us happy. He fell back asleep easily and then did well in the nursery at church. His mom and dad were waiting at our house when we got home from church and he seemed very happy to see them!

Jason has a very long day today. He's traveling to Phoenix, AZ and back to take a test for his supervior stamp for HVAC systems. He left at 3:30 this morning and won't land back in Dayton until after 11pm. Thankfully he just has one test to take (he passed the other 5 parts in the spring) and he's feeling pretty good about passing this one on this go around! Pray for him if you think of it, it's a big deal as far as his job is concerned.

That's it for now, I'll post again soon! Until then, enjoy the small "Indian summer" we have going on!