Do I Look Old Enough To Have A Kid Going To High School???!

AAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!! Tonight was 8th grade "Transition Night" at the East High School here in Sioux City, where Zach will be attending classes this fall.... I can't believe he will soon be in high school!! I still remember his first day of kindergarten like it was yesterday!!!
When we arrived at the school tonight, there were signs welcoming the "Class of 2012" (that really isn't that far off, is it???!) We were introduced to the Principal and the three Assistant Principals (they divide the kids up by the letter of their last name) and the four guidance counselors (also divided by last name). Zach has Mr. Todd for an Asst. Principal and Mr. Lucas for a counselor. Most of the talk from them was about preparing for college, taking college courses while you are still in high school, special programs offered by the school for kids who want to go into engineering, etc. There was also someone there from ICAN (Iowa College Assistance Network) talking about scholarships, financial aid for college, etc. It was really intimidating, because I am sitting there thinking... my kid is only going to be a freshman!!! SLOW DOWN FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!! I don't even think we talked about college until we were Juniors in high school. But they say that in this day and age, with the workforce constantly changing, kids need to be more prepared than ever. So now we start thinking about college while we are trying to adjust to high school.... Next thing you know, I will have to be thinking about college when Brianna is just trying to go to middle school!!!
The last part of the evening was a tour of the high school to see where the classrooms are, etc. I know where some things are from going to the school for sports, etc. But when our "tour guide" was taking around... up and down steps, around corners, down lots of halls, right turns, left turns... I had NO CLUE where we were most of the time!! I was really glad when we got back to the gym because this was "familiar" turf!!! I asked Zach later what he thought... he said he will never remember where all those rooms are come August!!! He also doesn't like the idea of his classes being spread out all over the school... at the middle school, all the 8th grade classes are on one floor, 7th grade on their own floor, etc. I am sure he will be just fine!!! Many parents that I have spoken to that have already been through this have said that it is very intimidating, but once the kids get to school, the upperclassmen and the teachers are really great about helping the freshman kids around!!! At least I will have six months to get used to this idea... high school??? NO WAY!!!!! GET OUTTA HERE!!! (Jeez... where did all the time go???)

Happy 8th Birthday Brianna!!!

Brianna turned eight years old on Saturday, February 2nd!!! We had her birthday party on her actual birthday this year!!! We always do a little "family" one with just the four of us where we go out for supper wherever the birthday person chooses and then we also give the gifts from us. This year we went out on Friday night since Saturday was busy with the party with friends and family. Brianna chose to go eat at Wendy's (yes, she could eat there any day, but I guess she is still too young to figure out to ask to go to the more expensive places!!) and we gave her our gifts. She got a Baby Alive doll and a real purple guitar. She really loves the guitar, as she was playing it all night long!! And of course, we had to feed Baby Alive (now named Ariel) and make her pee!!!

On Saturday, I made Brianna's cake (she had a Hannah Montana themed party, so that is a guitar on her cake in the picture!) in the morning and then we had to pack because we were having a pool party at the Marina Inn in South Sioux City!!! She had a basketball game in the early afternoon, then after that it was all about the party!! We checked into the hotel and got a room because this was cheaper than booking the pool for the party. We had a blast!!! Brianna invited 12 girls and every one of them was able to make it!! Including cousins, etc. there were fifteen small children there!!! The kids swam around, ate pizza and cake, we opened presents, then they got back in the pool and swam until the parents arrived. We played some pool games and had a good time!! The three hours we slated for the party went by really fast!! Some of the parents even had trouble getting their kids out of the pool to leave!!! Two girls stayed after the party and spent the night in the hotel room with us, along with Grandma Joan!!! We let the kids swim for another couple hours before we finally had them get out... their eyes were really red and their fingers and toes were more wrinkled than raisins!! We went back to the room and the girls put their pajamas on while we made popcorn and put a movie in. I thought they would all fall asleep right away, thinking the swimmin wore them out. Well, my two kids were asleep shortly, but the other two girls stayed up for a while... one even made it to the end of the movie before she decided to go to sleep!!! They were really good, though!


The next morning, the girls got up around 8am, and we just watched TV and started packing up to check out and take everyone home. We left the hotel about 10am so Grandma could get back to Laurens because the weather forecast wasn't looking very good for later in the day, so she wanted to be off the road and home before then. All in all, I would have to say that this was one of the easiest and best parties we have done!!!

Finally!... A "Sunshiney" Day!!!

Whoo! This is finally the first day without snow flurries, snow accumulation, blowing snow, etc. However, it is frigid outside to say the least!!! It was -17 degrees this morning when I came to work, and that was the actual temperature, not the wind chill! BRRRR!!!! After the snow we got yesterday, I think we ended up with a total of 12 inches over the last three days. It is going to take forever to get rid of this stuff now. Today, the sun is shining and it is really cold, but the weather forecast says it should warm up into the 20's and 30's by the weekend. That will seem warm compared to today!! CJ had trouble getting his truck started this morning because it was so cold... I didn't even attempt to try to start the car I usually drive to work. I went ahead and drove the Trailblazer... even this tried to "hesitate" slightly before actually starting up! We can see if the car starts when we get home from work tonight.

Will It Ever Quit Snowing???

Geez... another snowy Monday... guess we can't seem to get enough of these. Yuck! I just listened to the news reports at lunch time and we seem to have gotten 7 inches since it started snowing yesterday afternoon. The worst of it was over sometime early this morning, but it is still snowing little flurries out there. Seven inches!... just when we were getting the other snow melted and starting to see the brown grass again! I guess Zach has some scooping to do when he gets home from school!! I sure will be glad when spring is here!!!

Eczema: The Story of Zach's "Itchy" Life...

Zach has had a battle going on with a skin condition called Eczema since he was 18 months old. Eczema is a very severe dry skin condition that breaks out in a rash on certain parts of the body such as the arms, legs, shoulders, or back. It can be triggered by allergies (nature and food), asthma, or changes in the weather. Even a family history of allergies or asthma can be reason enough for someone to get eczema. Apparently this is the case with Zach.When he was younger, the doctor had hoped he would grow out of it, as most people do. In the last 3-4 years, his skin has been doing a lot better. He used to get a lot of flare-ups on his face, arms, and legs. These flare-ups were usually small -- no bigger than about the size of a 50 cent piece usually. Now that he is older, I was hoping that he was growing out of it, since he didn't seem to have too many of these flare-ups anymore. Of course, I also don't see as much of his body now that he is older, too! We noticed that he was scratching his leg and back last weekend, and when we looked he was broke out with a few small rashes in several places. We put lotion on him and told him to be sure to use the lotion a lot until it goes away. The doctor used to have him on Elidel, which is a steroid cream, however he had to discontinue using that about 3 years ago or so because the FDA determined that it was made with a cancer-causing agent and took it off the market. There was nothing else to use that would work, so we had to resort to expensive lotions that were labeled as "extremely moisturizing". Luckily, we hadn't had any real problems until now. After several days had gone by since he first showed us his back, he came up to me one night after he had his basketball game and said that his back was really hurting bad. When he showed it to me, I almost fell over! The eczema had flared up so bad, that he actually had red welts and bumps covering almost his entire back!!! He said he had been itching it , which he is not supposed to do because that can cause the sores to break open and become infected. We gave him a cool bath and really moisturized him up good that night and I put a call in to the doctor in the morning. When we had his appointment that afternoon, she took one look and said that his skin was infected from itching and she prescribed an antibiotic cream for that. Then she gave us the REALLY GOOD NEWS!... She could put him back on the Elidel that worked so well for him a few years ago. When I asked about the cancer-causing agent, she said that the FDA seemed to have made a mistake about that, and they have returned the medicine back to the market as safe to use. She gave him a prescription with about 6 refills, and he is to use it every day to heal this up and then keep in under control in the future. His back is already starting to heal nicely. The dry skin bumps aren't gone yet, but at least it doesn't look like he is trying to sprout a set of wings out of his back!

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year everyone!!! Wow, I can hardly believe that 2008 is here! Hope everyone finds this year prosperous, healthy and happy! As for resolutions... well... I will just resolve to "try to keep up" with everything and everyone!!

We had a nice New Years... Sioux City used to have a big family event called FunFest on New Years Eve down at the Convention Center, but they didn't have enough sponsors to put it on this year. It was an all day long event for $10 per person. You could go to movies, go ice skating, roller skating, swimming, bowling, go on a treasure hunt, see a magic show, go to a carnival, etc. All these events were housed in different locations throughout the city at different times all day long. You would just pick the things you wanted to do and be on your way! It was a really awesome event so we were really disappointed that we wouldn't get to do it this year.

We thought we would try to get tickets to the hockey game, but they were sold out way before New Years. So, we took the kids bowling instead! It was a lot of fun! Of course, it was busy, too, since it was New Years Eve, but the kids had a blast! We came home about 10:30 pm and watched Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve on TV while having grape juice in wine glasses to celebrate the New Year at midnight. Brianna took a couple sips of hers and decided she didn't like it, so we gave her a little pop in her glass!! About 12:10 am, both kids were asleep on the couch!!

Since we only got to go bowling last night, we decided to go see a movie today. We went down to the big Riviera Theatre downtown where a movie is only $3 per person. Today, they were only $2 per person!! At that price, we can afford to buy pop, popcorn, and candy for the movie!! We chose to see The Game Plan with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Madison Pettis. It was a really great family movie!! We all loved it and will definitely be buying it when it comes to DVD!!

The original plan for supper tonight was going to be potato soup and pie. With all the freezing cold weather we have had the last couple days, soup sounded really good. However, by the time we got out of the movie, it was already 7:00 pm, so we just stopped at Wendy's on the way home. Speaking of freezing... their heater was out in their front dining room and they had a sign asking you to sit in the enclosed dining room on the side.... while we were standing there ordering our food, our hands and noses were freezing! Zach saw the thermostat on the wall and went over to read it... 40 degrees!!!! Once we walked into the side dining area, it felt like walking into a sauna at first, but it was so good!!! Especially after freezing out front...

Well, I will sign off for now! Talk to everyone again soon!

Christmas!!!!... It's Over Already?????

Well, as you can see from the lack of posts this past month, it has been a busy one!!! It sure is a lot of work for a holiday that takes a good month or two to prepare for, only to have it over in a matter of about 10 minutes! But I am glad it is done! Maybe now we can get on with the "regular" chaos of our lives!!!
We celebrated Christmas over at Jenny's house on Sunday evening with her family. Mom came up to Sioux City for the weekend and since Derek was unable to get off work and come home for Christmas, we just did our gift exchange on Sunday night. It took a good while to open gifts since we took turns opening. There were six children and 5 adults. We had a nice time! Brianna got the Bratz movie doll she wanted and Zach got a PS2 game that he had been wanting (a basketball one, of course!). I got a shirt and some perfume from my mom and a cookbook, socks, and some B&B lotion from Matt. CJ got some Adidas track pants and slippers from Jenny and a shirt and some gift certificates from Mom.
We stayed home for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day... it was really nice not to have to load up gifts and travel anywhere. I had to work all day on Christmas Eve, so I fixed a nice dinner of roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy and corn when I got home. I thought of making a pie, but we had all those cookies, bread, and chocolate... that was good enough for dessert. After supper and dishes, we opened our presents from each other. Brianna got a Barbie Girl MP3 player and clothes, Zach got another PS2 game and a Colombia coat, CJ got a billfold, an LSU chain, an LSU frosted pilsner glass, some more track pants and a Terrell Owens Dallas football jersey. I got some B&B body wash, a wallet, a purse, a really soft, thick blanket, and the camcorder I have been wanting! We watched a movie after presents and went to bed to wait for Santa Claus.
On Christmas morning, Brianna got up about 8:00 am and we woke everyone up to do the Santa presents! I put an egg casserole in the oven for breakfast so it could cook while the kids opened presents. Brianna got her Nintendo DS that she has been wanting for a year and a half now!! She was really happy!! She also got some DS games, clothes, Barbie stuff, the High School Musical 2 DVD and the Hanna Montana CD. Zach got his Guitar Hero 3, accessories for his cell phone, and IPod Docking station, and a gift certificate to the mall. They both were quite happy!! Since it was just the four of us, I didn't really feel like making a big meal and spending the day in the kitchen cooking and cleaning. We had gotten some pizza, cheesy bread, and cinnamon sticks from Papa Murphy's the day before, and this is what we fixed for dinner/supper! It was really nice... the kids played with all their new presents and CJ and I got to sit around and relax all day.
Mom is having a Christmas get-together at her house this weekend for her side of the family. Weather permitting, we will be going home for that! It will be nice to see our relatives and visit. At least we won't have to drag any presents anywhere! MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE AND I HOPE YOU HAVE A WONDERFUL NEW YEAR!!!!