More Chaotic?!?!?!

I know that one might think that more chaos around our house is impossible. Not so!!! We are so very lucky to have Daddy home. He arrived on Saturday only about 40 minutes late. We are all so very happy to have him back with us again, that we are all bursting at the seams.
I had heard that the media was going to be at the airport on arrival to help greet our men and women..... so I was not going to drag all the kids into the airport. We usually end up getting "too" much attention anyway and we were coming directly from karate. I was not sure we were even going to make the 12:04 arrival (since we had to stop for balloons). However, we arrived a few minutes early and the kids were so excited. How do you tell the kids we are just going to sit in the van and circle the airport until he gets there? So we decided to brave the media and head into the airport. Plus, we thought it would be a nice surprise for Daddy since I told him we would just meet him out front.
I bravely dragged six kids and 11 balloons in the doors. (two balloons had already not survived the 20 minute drive to the airport so I was a little nervous. :>) We got into the airport only to discover the flight was delayed about 30 minutes. I was a little worried about how I would entertain six kids for 30 + minutes. But once again we did attract some media attention and the balloons were a life saver!!!
They had a screen set up so we could watch as everyone headed our direction. All we could intially see were feet. As people started getting off the plane the kids would search for Daddy's feet and each time they would sadly announce to anyone around that "those are not Daddy's feet." Then all of the sudden they found his feet. They could hardly contain themselves as they ran to greet him followed by cameras. One of the sweetest moments was when Bryan shouted out ,"Daddy, I missed you!" Too precious. While waiting for his bag we finished up some final interviews and headed home to Christmas.

I think that the kids unwrapped more of his presents than he did. It was a great time had by all and definately worth the wait.

The next several days have been so busy I am not sure where the time has gone. It is very interesting to me that now that there is an extra set of hands available that it just seems more crazy and chaotic. I have found this to be very true though each time that Daddy has a trip to go on. We seem to get into a pretty good groove but when that extra set of hands arrive it is like we all relax just a bit too much and it gets a bit crazy. I think that we are finally getting back into the groove again though so things hopefully will settle down a little more.

I was so excited for Tuesday as Jay had the day off and we were going to catch up on some projects around the house. I did/do have a nice "honey-do list" of things that I could not fix while he was gone. And I was lucky enough to have no appointments on the calendar except karate in the evening. But that was not to be our luck. The day started with us having to run Bryan to town for a hearing aide check. To which we discovered he had a lot of fluid on his ears so he needed to see his pediatrician. While in town I had to run Hunter to his ortho doctor to get a new cast. They one they had put on him last Friday was not as water proof as they thought it was going to be and we could not get it dry so his arm was breaking out in a rash.

While at the pediatrican we found out that Bryan does have fluid in his ears, however it had not gone into infection (which is the good news). Unfortunatley though, he had developed such congestion in his little head that his eyes were responding and his cough is not improving. We had to start breathing treatments twice- three times a day for 10 days. Not bad really. Since moving to AZ we have had to have the quads all on breathing treatments at different times. I am not sure if it is the air that is more dry and that aggrevates their symptoms, or if they have allergies that might make it worse. Cassie started with the horrible cough yesterday as well so she is also on breathing treatments. The nice thing is that they usually respond very well to these treatments and we see a huge improvement within days.


This time around Jayson and Nathan did not want to be left out of the fun so they got to have a treatment today too. Lucky ones. LOL>.

While Jay was gone I had to "tweek" our chore system a little. We had a chore wheel and each night the kids got one new chore. Dinner, trash, setting the table etc.... However, some nights I did not need help with dinner or there was no vacuuming that had to be done and they would be very upset. So I changed that and along with their chores of making beds, putting clothes in the bin for the next day...... they have their "fun" chore that lasts all week now. They love it. Last week Cassie got to make dinner every night and Bryan was in charge of garbage. The night we had eggs Hunter took me aside and whispered to me ,"I just thought you should know that you left egg shell in the scrambled eggs." I told him that Cassie had done it on accident and that she was just learning. He took her aside and told her "that she left egg shell in the eggs but that was okay and she would get better." How sweet is that?

As a reward, if they get all of their chores done and they don't break the rules and end up in time out they can earn "game" time each night. They average between 20-40 minutes a night. It works pretty well so that I can be doing homework with some while the others are entertained and not tearing the house apart. We will see how long this system works. I have found that I have to "tweek" each system every few months. They sure do keep me on my toes!!! Well my friends I think that is the week in a very quick or not so quick nutshell. We have a fun weekend planned of karate lessons, park visits and the pinewood derby for Tanner. I will get more pictures and update again soon. We hope you all have a fabulous day!! Sleep well.