Norma's First Day of School

Norma had her very first day of Kindergarten today.  I had put her in the afternoon class because she is very much Not a morning person.  If you wake this girl up before she is ready, look out.  So of course for the first day she is up with Tucker before 7 am.  She was getting her breakfast bowl and I hear her say to Thad, "Look what I found!  Mom's candy stash!"

Yep.  She found it alright.  Now I need to move it. :0)

As soon as the boys left for school all I heard all day long was, "Is it after lunch time yet?"  Oh boy.  Maybe I should have done morning kindergarten.

She is such a big girl though.  I swear you would think she was 16 and not 5 if you saw the way that she was acting.  All the other kids were glued to their parents sides and there is Norma, on the playground.  Couldn't care less that I was still there and was wondering why she couldn't just go in and start her day.

The teachers were really cute.  Had this fun sign up to have the kids take pictures with and they had boxes of tissues out everywhere and were handing out Kisses and Hugs chocolate.  Norma ate mine.  :0)

"Hugs and Kisses Say Goodbye Here's a tissue In Case you Cry"

She loves her teacher, Mrs.  Stayner and acts like this is nothing new to her.  She could have been going to school her whole life.  What am I going to do when she grows up for reals?  Heaven help me.

Boys and the Camera

Tucker wanted to take a picture of Katy wearing his shoes.

She thought she was pretty cool because she could walk in them.

Tucker had a hard time getting her to hold still for the picture because she could walk in them.

Thad wanted a turn with the camera.  He really likes his new school shoes. :0)

Then he wanted to take a picture of Katy but Norma wanted to be in it too.

Then he couldn't leave Tucker out.  I have two silly boys.

Katy had a Tick!!!

So last night after dinner, I'm on the phone with my mom, trying to finish all this blogging I've been doing, (I put up a lot of new ones but I dated them so you'll need to go see some that I put up that come before some that you may have already seen.) and Katy has to come sit on my lap.  She doesn't really like me on the computer and was ready for me to be off.  I happen to look at her hair and notice what looks to me like a piece of oreo cookie under her hair.

I have her hair in pigtails and it wasn't there when I put them in that morning but you know, she's a baby, they get food everywhere.  I'm thinking, "How did it get under your hair!  You haven't even had oreo's today."  So I'm just talking to my mom and trying to get this "cookie" out of her hair.  I get it out of her hair and go to flick it on the ground and it won't come off my finger.

That is when I realized that it was a bug.  I squish it and it kind of quits moving.  I'm telling my mom about this weird bug when it starts moving again.  I have a little baggy that Kate's lunch had been in and so I put it in there.  I'm talking with my mom still and I'm really weirded out by this bug and just can't get over it.  I finally tell my mom I'm going to send her a picture of it.

I wait about 5 minutes before I'm calling her and asking her what she thinks it is.  Could it be lice?  So I have Norma come over and I'm looking all over her hair to see if she had anything like it.  That is when Mom says that it looks like a tick.

What!!!

I immediately google pictures of ticks.  Up comes this site with all the pictures of ticks and I see the one I have in the baggy from my baby's hair is a dog tick.  I yell for the kids to put the dog outside and my mom is asking if I had gotten the head out when I pulled it out of her hair.  I didn't know it was a tick! I thought it was a cookie crumb!  How am I suppose to know if I got the head out when I didn't even know it was a bug!

By now I'm really freaking out.  Nate had taken our durango and gone hunting again and was out of a service area with his phone.  I have no way to go anywhere and I'm really coming undone.

I look at her head and I see a chunk of skin missing but I can't tell if there is still a head in there or not.  The tick is still alive and moving and it is really freaking me out and looking at all these sites of tick bites and what can happen and all the diseases that tick carry and give to people and it is not helping my panic mode.

So I put on facebook if anyone is willing to come and look at it for me who would know what they are looking at.  I try and call a neighbor I know is a nurse and no answer.  I decided to call my doctors office hoping that it would still be open at least for the after hours part but it's almost 9 so I didn't think anyone would be there.

Someone was and I got through to a nurse.  Told her that I just found a tick in my babies hair and was really freaking out because I didn't know it was a tick when I took it out of her hair so I wasn't sure if I had gotten the head out and how could I be sure and what was I suppose to do because even if she told me to go the the ER for it, I couldn't because I didn't have a car.  (And yes, I said that all in one breath.)  She told me not to freak out but it was really hard to get the head out.  I was going to have to try and get out the head like you get out a sliver and I'm thinking, "Lady, she's an 18 month old baby, you think I can hold her still by myself and go at her head with a needle!"

It's not helping my frame of mind that she sounded really concerned about it and even said to me if it had been one of her kids, she would have been taking them to the ER.  She said that I needed to watch for a fever and if I didn't think that I had gotten the head out I need to bring her in first thing in the morning.

By now, I'm REALLY freaking out!  I don't know what to do and I'm trying to get the other kids to bed and it just is not working because I'm not calming down at all and so They aren't calming down at all.

I find a site that has a video of how to take out a tick.  It was really dumb and it was animated but when I watched it, I saw the head come out and I looked at the tick I had in the bag and I could see the same thing that was on the video that looked like the head.

About this time one of my good friends Kristine texts me and says that she just saw on facebook that I needed help with a tick and would I like her to come over and look for me.  I was so grateful!  She came right over and helped me feel so much better about knowing that I had gotten the head out and that Katy's head looked okay.  I told her that I was still a little weirded out that the tick wasn't dieing when I had tried to squish it and she used her metal tweezers and "POP".  It was super loud and you wouldn't believe how much blood came out of it but it was finally dead.

She went home and I felt good enough to put Kate to bed.  Poor girl just wanted to go to bed but I kept looking at her head and having other people look at it too.

Nate called a little after 10 and of course I got all worked up again telling him all about it.  I didn't even ask him how hunting went before we hung up.  (Don't worry, he didn't get anything.)

I've never been so freaked out in my life!  I'm still worried about what will come of the bite.  The sites I saw said that sometimes it takes up to a month for signs of infections to show.  I'll be keeping an eye on it and we still have the dead, squished bug if anything come of it.  All I can say is it was a long night and I may have a hard time going camping again. 

Norma's New Hair Cut

Before

Katy helping brush Norma's hair.

After

This is going to be so much easier to do in the mornings!  A lot less screaming. :0)

First Day of School 2011

My kids started school today and I wanted to take some pictures.  I have to say that I like them so much that I am printing them out and hanging them in my hallway up the stairs.  I haven't updated those pictures since both boys got glasses and I had Katy.

Tucker 4th Grade

 Thad 2nd Grade

 Norma Kindergarten

 Kate 18 months

And now I can't find the picture I put on here of Thad and his best friend Ira this morning.  I am so excited, and so is Thad, that they get to ride their bikes to school together!  It will be so great!  I'll just upload a new one. :0)

Deer Hunt 2011

Nate got a deer tag for the archery hunt again this year so we headed up to Nephi to Jered's property.  We love camping with the Taylors and have so much fun every time we go.

Katy eating her hamburger.  She looked so old I had to take a picture.

Just a candid shot of camp.

We all needed a nap so we were laying down.  The kids were on their beds playing a quiet game and we had had them pull the curtain so that Kate would go to sleep.  She really just wanted to be up there with them.

Every night I would stay at camp with Kate, Norma and Maddy while everyone else would go hunting.  The girls played so cute with the barbie dolls and even let Kate play with one too.  Kate had had her face pushed up against the side and looked like a little pig and was so funny!  She moved before I could get it all squished up on the side though.

The guys saw a ton more bucks this year than last year and even think they saw the one that Nate shot at but never got close enough to get a shot this year.  That's okay.  I go for the camping anyway. ;0)

Norma's Dance Recital Video 2

Here is the second time.  Katy's not yelling in this one and Norma isn't either. ;0)

Norma's Dance Recital Video 1

Here is the first one.

Norma's Dance Recital

Norma had her dance dress rehearsal today.  We will be on the deer hunt for the real one tomorrow night so we dressed her up and made her all pretty for the fake one. :0)  Her favorite part; lipstick.

She is such a poser!

I love doing her hair!  I love these flowers too. :0)

Nate was in charge of taking pictures while I took the video.  Go here and here to see the video's.  Here are the pictures.  I don't know why they are so grainy.  I tried a few different setting on the camera and I'm pretty sure it was the lighting at the church.

Had to add one of cute baby Kate. :0)

Norma is number 5 in the row.

She did so well until...

She did not like this little girl pulling on her arm.  It was a bit of drama but her teacher is so good, got her settled right down and back out to do it one more time.

Another break with Katy. :0)

Nate loved that he caught the picture with them all in the air.  Cool huh!

Much better.

She loved it and did so well.  She loves dance class and it has been so fun for her to do this summer.  I hope that we can keep it up during school but we'll have to see.

My little Senorita and my "Nacho"

When we were in Mexico we got the kids some things.  Nate really wanted to get the boys some masks.  I found a really pretty shirt for Norma and when we saw this dress we knew that we needed it for Katy.

She does NOT like me taking pictures of her.  But isn't she so pretty!

She was so mad at me.

So I tried to be sneaky about it.

Then her Daddy started playing with her.  She was very into that.  I love this picture because we can see how happy she is to be playing with her Dad and she is moving so fast that her hands and feet are blurry.

Just so you know, she is grinning at her Dad.

LOVE this one!

Nate walked into the kitchen and found her stealing an apple.  He took these pictures.  Now she'll smile for him and the camera but not for me.

Norma did not like her shirt.  She told me that I can save it for Kate.  She won't wear it.  I'm so sad because I got the purple one just for her and I had really liked the pink one.  But I knew that I needed to get purple for Norma.  Hopefully she'll change her mind.

Tucker doesn't like his mask either.  Thad thought they were really cool.  But he didn't want my taking a picture of him in it.  So I had to be sneaky again and got one in the car.

I really do have the funniest kids in the world.