The whirlwind week and Dean is 5

My house looks like it's been hit by a tornado.  The truth of the matter is, it has been a ca-ray-zy week around here and I have not had a spare moment to clean up. Or rather, I've not had a spare moment to clean up the 5th or 6th time each day and that little bit adds up to a disaster area. 

On Monday I taught Walter's preschool on the letter I. We had an insect infestation and did a lot of insect activities. For snack I cut up hot dogs and had green grapes and gave them toothpicks and let them create insects out of them.   That was fun.That afternoon I taught 2 piano lessons.  I also started Dean's rainbow cake since I had to bake 6 individual cakes to stack on top of each other.

Tuesday was Dean's 5th birthday.  I got up at 5:30 and began baking. He told me he wanted muffins for his birthday breakfast, so I baked muffins followed by a batch of sugar cookies for his school snack/treat. I frosted them in a rainbow since he loves rainbows. I quickly dropped him off at school, went shopping for the ingredients I was missing for his frosting, came home and put the cake together.  Then I picked him up and we got hotdogs at sonic and then went for his free ice cream at baskin robin.  After we got home I set out to clean the kitchen enough to make the meat pies he wanted for dinner. Phew. That was a lot of baking on Tuesday.  That night we had a family birthday where he opened our gifts and had cake. He seriously took 2 bites of his cake and proclaimed that he had had too much sugar that day. haha. Overload.

Wed. I taught the letter J. I've had J before with Dean's group and it was a disaster from beginning to end. Next to nothing "preschool cool" starts with J. Seriously.  Think through it. Not much.  Anyway, I pretty much just did a loose Jack O Lantern theme and added in lots of pumpkin stuff since that's what Jack O Lanterns are made out of. We talked about the life cycle of a pumpkin, weighed and measured pumpkins and compared it to the weight and measurements of the boys. We tested to see if they would sink or float. We played pin the nose on the jack o lantern.  Lots more stuff too.  That night I taught more piano.

Thursday after I dropped Dean off at school, my visiting teachers stopped by.  I kind of unloaded my busy week on them.  As one of my VT was leaving, I apologized for still being in my running clothes and explained that I'd planned to run, but I missed my window of opportunity since Edward was napping and it was nearly time to get Dean.  She so very kindly offered to stay with Walt and Edward while I went running right then and there. That was such a blessing!  I hadn't been running once this week because it's just been too crazy with too much stuff for me to prep in the morning or at night.  I busted out a super fast run (seriously, I averaged 7:24 min. miles!!!), came home and took a cold shower, and then went and picked Dean up. It was the only run I got in this week, so bless that sweet sister's service!  I tried catching up on some neglected house work, but I merely dented it after folding 4 loads of laundry.  That night I tried furiously to finish sewing the boys' costumes, but I only nearly finished one of the vests.

 On Friday I did more sewing, tried to finish up Dean's party preparations, and Matt and I ended up going to a Halloween costume party.  As I was getting dressed in my one and only costume (asian lady and Matt as a ninja), my zipper popped on my dress. The dress was plenty roomy, but it was a 10 year old dress and it was, afterall, made in China. =) Luckily I had back up Asian clothes. haha. The back up outfit was actually quite a bit more comfortable anyway. It was the same fabric but in a shirt and I wore my black slacks and my sky high Chinese hooker heals and black wig.  We didn't really know anyone at the party well but had only met a few of them at church. It was a lot of fun though. The funnest game was "never have I ever" and there were a lot of yummy desserts. It was really fun to do something like this because it has been AGES since we've gone on a date or mingled with other adults in such a setting.  After I got home I sewed a little more.

This morning I got up and made the boys breakfast and commenced sewing. I finished their vests and then set out to finish up party planning since, you know, the party was in a few hours. I made some black "cannon ball" bean bags for a game I called sink the ship. I got out our Noah's Ark since that was the only ship like thing I had, and I had the kids try and knock the ship over. They also played pin the nose on the pumpkin, cannon ball bowling, had lunch, and had a scavenger hunt around the house (thank you pinterest for making one up for me since I didn't have a spare moment!), just played for awhile, and had cake and presents. It turned out as well as I could have possibly imagined. Since I didn't have time to make any cupcakes, I had Matt pick some up at Tom Thumb while he was out getting the pizza. Best decision I made this morning. =) I didn't need one more responsibility.

 

After the kids left, I made some chili for our ward party tonight and got back to sewing. I finished up the boys' pirate costumes minus the boot covers about an hour before the party. We'll see if I get around to making the boot covers at all. The chili turned out great. I tried a tomato-less chili since Matt doesn't like tomatoes/tomato sauce in his very much. I thought it was really good for all experimentation. I fed the boys some sandwiches since I knew they wouldn't eat the chili and didn't want them to get it on their costumes anyway. It was a mad dash to get them all dressed and to the church by 5:30.  It was pretty chilly out and the boys (wait, just Dean) complained enough about being cold that I went and found a coat in the car for Dean and gloves for Walter (who actually didn't complain at all, but I could tell he was cold). After dinner, we made the parking lot rounds for our ward's Trunk or Treat. I thought it was much better laid out than any of the trunk or treats we did in McKinney.  A lot of the cars were decorated and they were all backed into the sidewalk so you could easily go from car to car without worrying about getting hit by anyone.  It was a lot of fun.

We came home and got the kids in bed and I took a little break to do this. Now it is 10:30 and I'm dreading going down stairs to see the mess-I-should-probably-clean-up-but-will-most-likely-ignore-until-tomorrow.

    
It has been a very full week. I'm glad it's over and that I was able to accomplish the most important things. I am blessed. I have a great family.