A delightful Valentine's Day, a long descent into disgustingness, and then a Birthday do-over

How's that for alliteration?  😆
Bob wanted to go out for lunch on Valentine's day, and we weren't going to argue.  We brought down the average age at Pizza Ranch.  By a lot. 

Perrin was torn between watching people and eating all the food. 

After school the girls kids and I delivered Valentines.  I love that they love blessing other people instead of expecting Valentines for themselves... I don't love how they fight over who gets to carry what.  :P  Our neighbor lady insisted that they each needed to take home a bell from her collection.  Ha.  Imagine 4 porcelain/metal bells tinkling merrily insanely loudly in the van and all evening.  

We ate red things for supper: lasagna, pink applesauce, jello, heart bread sticks that didn't look like hearts.... It was a good day.

One princess, one little boy making engine noises.

Emmy and I tried making 'tree stump fudge rings' for Perrin's birthday party.  They tasted good, I'm not sure that they looked much like tree stumps. 

Late Tuesday/early Wednesday Perrin threw up half the night.  Poor boy.  And poor me... so much laundry (blueberries! blueberries are the worst!) and a very sad and tired little buddy. 
Wednesday afternoon Cecily came home complaining that her eye felt weird and it was of course red and mattery. *sigh*  So she had to stay home from school on Thursday until she'd had pink-eye drops for 24hrs.  woot woot.  I had noticed that our drains were a little slow and that there was water in the floor drains downstairs when there usually isn't... so we were eating lunch and I started smelling something.  Pardon my french, but I said "Oh Crap!" and ran downstairs- the drains were backing up.  And it stank and there was toilet paper.  gah.  We called the company that cleaned the roots out of the sewer line last time and they were able to come that afternoon, thankfully.  But it took the rest of the afternoon to dry out and sanitize around the basement drains. 
Cecily working on schoolwork... or checking her 'email.'  Her later: "Mom, I've never heard you use grown-up words before!"  Um....oops ha.  Let me tell you a story about the only time I've ever heard Grandpa use grown-up words.... it involved a clogged sewer line too.  😜 (Grown-up words being words we don't want them to use, but also don't want them calling out adults who choose to use them.) 

 

Friday lab day.  :)  We did a titration and they were duly impressed.  

 

The girls had a half day at school and some of Cecily's friends and their families went ice skating!  Miri was just as enthusiastic as last time. 

We brought Perrin with us.  Kelly kept an eye on him while I skated for part of the time.

Cecily and some of her friends. :) 
 

Then I asked if I could take the stroller out on the ice and they said I could so Perrin got to skate too!  I think he liked it.  He likes being a part of the action. 

He's so sober. 

Cadence and Jayla are a pair.  :D  So much energy. 

Watching the zamboni before we left. 

 

So then Friday evening marked the start of 24hrs of misery. First Perrin's diaper leaked all over the highchair and they both (the highchair and Perrin) ended up in the shower.  Then Emmy threw up.  And kept throwing up at intervals.  And then Miriel woke up and threw up all over her bed. Bob and I were going from one kid to another, as soon as soon as one was cleaned up the other one would start again.  And then Perrin fell asleep for an hour or so, woke up, decided that that was a nice nap and refused to go back to sleep again.  So he was wide awake and getting in the way of us trying to take care of puking kids until 2am.  And then Cecily got sick at 2:30am.  We got a little bit of a break after 4am.... in the morning Cadence (and Perrin) were the last kids standing.   

We spent most of Saturday doing laundry and sitting around.  Bob and I both were sick briefly, and everyone took a two hour nap in the afternoon.  It was so quiet... 😜
It was poor Perrin's birthday... no one felt like celebrating or eating or anything.  Happy First Birthday Buddy Boy!

Perrin followed me on one of my trips downstairs to switch laundry loads.  In my exhaustion and sickness I had forgotten to shut the basement door behind me and he rolled all. the. way. down. the steps.  Poor boy was fine except for a bloody nose, and I felt horrible.  😭
We all sat down to eat (or at least look at canned chicken noodle soup) supper and Emmy and Cadence threw up almost simultaneously.  Make. It. Stop.   😭
We did give Perrin one birthday gift, a little Noah's Ark.  :)  Notice the massive pile of clean bedding behind Cadence.... I hate sickness.

Thankfully, we all slept well that night and everyone woke up hungry Sunday morning.  We were all pretty wiped out though, so we watched church and rested.  It was a lovely sunny day, and we needed some fresh air so we tapped the maple trees in the afternoon. 

So sunny!

Miri thinks she needs to ride under the stroller.

Everyone looks a little bit peaked, but it was good to get outside.

I felt well enough to make some cupcakes so Perrin got to destroy one.  We postponed the birthday party we were planning, but he at least he got cake a day late.

 

 

And we made some paper snowflakes since there's no snow outside.

 

Miri just wanted to cut paper into little pieces.

Cold nights and warm days means that the sap is running!  So we boil on the porch and play outside.

Perrin is very spoiled- everybody wants to push him in the stroller.

Emmy started a really cool drawing of a fairy.

 

There was no school on Presidents Day and the girls wanted to do the Lego afternoon at the library. 

We had a quiet week, and then we got a bunch of rain. 

Cadence came home from school with pink eye, and then Friday night Bob went downstairs just to check the drains.... they were backing up again.  gah!  Either they didn't get enough of the roots out when the line was cleaned the week before, or something broke loose and re-clogged it.  It was mostly groundwater (thankfully) but still slightly stinky.  I had a few choice words (again) for whomever decided it would be a good idea to tie footing tiles into the main sewer line.  Stupid 1960's and their stupid building practices.  Water was just slowly coming out of the drain and we wanted to keep it off of the carpet. So Bob and I bailed water into buckets and he carried it out to the sewer access/check valve until 1am when it seemed to reach an equilibrium and Bob plugged the drains with towels. He was up most of the rest of the night checking on them. 

  I was googling 24 hr emergency plumbing and sewer service companies... guess what? None of them are truly 24 hours.  I got answering machine after answering machine between midnight and 1am and no one even called back in the morning.  grr.  Well, one company I tried Saturday morning texted me back that they couldn't come until Monday and double checked with me Monday morning, so I'd at least recommend their customer service.  Bob was going to go buy a snake at Menards Saturday morning and just try and do it ourselves so we could flush toilets and shower, you know, minor things.  I called the company that cleared it last week and they informed me that 'he doesn't work Saturdays... he's probably already drunk.'  Um.... thanks??  I have sewer water in my basement- at this point I'm willing to pay whatever outrageous price you ask, why is there nobody who works weekends!!??
Enter Tim.  Tim doesn't even do sewer lines... but Tim answers his phone and Tim is willing to try to help us, so he came over Saturday morning and got the line clear again.  *sigh* Be like Tim.

We had been planning to take the kids to the Home Show that afternoon.  Instead I got to re-sanitize the basement and Bob took a nap.  ugh. So disappointing. 
I also baked for Perrin's belated Birthday party. 

The girls decided that Saturday night at bedtime was the perfect time to pull all the books off the shelves and reorganize them. gah. I was not very happy. 😫

We brought Kenna home from church and the girls mostly played legos all afternoon.  I got to set up to my hearts content. It was loosely woodland themed. 

Bob deemed the paper pinwheels and snowflake the girls and I made for decorations "oppressive."  Ha.  Mostly because they hung down so low they blocked some light.  :D 

Cake, cupcakes, stump smash cake, fudge 'tree stumps', trail mix

Perrin was not so sure about all of the people in his house. 

And playing with his presents.  :) 

Little buddy likes fire.  😬

And frosting.

He was using the little beaver on his cake as a spoon.

Such fun.

Logan really wanted to hold Perrin and Perrin didn't really want to be held. 😂

The girls played Mario cart until Kenna had to leave.

Doing his new puzzles the next morning.

Oh, and Emmy got her costume to be Maria Tallchief for biography day. She's so excited and puts it on multiple times a day.

Mister Perrin knows where the food is.

Emmy and Cadence borrowed my phone to take pictures of the sunset... and themselves.

Hehe. So cute.

Oh, and one of Perrin.  Blurry, but adorable.

He seems to delight in breaking their lego sets.  Does not bode well for the future.  😜

This week we've been boiling sap and trying to stay on top of all the things. 

Blessings.