Entry for January 05, 2006
We had a nice Christmas. The kids woke up at 5:30 am and by 6am we decided they would not go back to sleep so Rich and I got up and we started the festivities. Alex was thrilled with his gameboy, Ashley was so excited about her dollhouse and poor little Alyssa only got a toy vacuum. We didn't know what to get her and thought that in past years Rich's mom always got lots of toys for the kids so we just left it with one item for her. Turns out Rich's mom didn't know what to get her either and got her clothes. Cute, but to a two year old she wants toys to play with. The kids were excited to get a DVD/VCR player so we can watch movies downstairs on the smaller tv now and speakers to set up surround sound in that room now. I got a bunch of baking pans that I had asked for and a gift cert. to Kohls.
Then it was time to get ready to go to church. The kids did eat some cereal, but had plenty of candy for breakfast as well. They made it through the first 30 minutes of the meeting and then slowly began to loose it. I went to feed Angela in the Mothers room and came back to Rich sitting out in the Foyer with the rest of the kids. I had to stay to sing in the choir for the closing song so we decided that he would go and take the older three out to the car and they would just wait for the 45 minutes left in the meeting because they were way too wired to sit still and listen. Angela and I stayed for the rest of the meeting and she got to go and sing in the choir with me for the closing song. I got out to the car and aparrently Ashley in her sugar induced psycosis went jumping out of the car and just took off running through the parking lot while Rich was sitting in the van with the kids. Rich opened up his door and jumped out and hyperextended his knee when he chased her to get her back in the car.
Then we went back home and played with presents and ate a nice ham and mashed potato's and candied sweet potato casserole and rolls... Rich spent the afternoon with alternating cold packs and a hot pad on his knee and it propped up and by evening it was feeling a little better, but still very sore. After getting the kids to bed he and I both headed to bed around 9:30- very early for both him and I, but we were exhausted.
Monday morning I got up at 7am and headed out to get some Christmas lights for us to put on the outside of the house next year. I went to about four stores and found lights, and some other stuff. My great deal was a set of reindeer and sleigh that are normally $100 that was marked down to $25. Then I came home since Rich had Angela at home. Later that day I took Angela with me and we hit some more stores looking for Christmas ornaments on clearance. I usually buy the kids new ornaments each year on clearance for the next year- the last two years I hadn't though and last year I didn't even get anything at christmas time for the year... so this year I needed to make up for last year and this year and get a start on next years ornaments. We still felt bad about Alyssa only getting one toy for christmas so I picked up a few more items at the store and they magically appeared on the front porch with a note from Santa that he had found them hiding under the sleigh seat when he got home on Christmas Day and that he was sorry they were late... lol
I hate to shop and I was shopping for about six hours that day... lol...
The next day I went out and did a whole lot of returns and bought all the paint and supplies for us to paint the kids rooms. we needed to switch their rooms and since Alex didn't want a purple room and Ashley didn't want a blue room we had to do some painting. Rich decided to do something more than just one color so he had fun planning the rooms. I'll take pictures when I get their stuff put back in their rooms.
Tuesday I wound up shopping for about 5 hours.... Have I mentioned how much I dislike shopping??? I was exhausted by the end of the day.
Wed morning everyone was up and excited for the day. The kids helped empty out their rooms and we put up a gate to keep them out of Rich's way. We had some friends come over and I was watching them while their mom got her hair done so that was a good distraction to keep them from trying to watch daddy paint all day long.
Thursday was more painting for Rich. I hadn't slept well the night before because Angela woke up a few times and Alex was sleeping in our room and snoring, so when I woke up that morning with sore muscles I just attributed it to that. Throughout the day the muscles were still sore and I was getting a sore throat. Rich was painting all day long and into the night so I was basically hearding the kids and keeping them out of his way and we were supposed to leave the next morning to drive down to Houston so visit his sister and her family. We get the kids in bed by 9pm and by then I'm feverish and feeling really sick and I still have boatloads of laundry piled in the laundry room and I haven't packed anything for the trip. I took a shower to rejuvinate myself and then went back to packing and finding the clothes we needed and activities in the car and snacks. I went to sleep around 1:30 am. Around 4am I realized that the sore throat was exactly like when I had strep last time and waited two weeks before going to the dr about it. So... I got up at 7:30 and pulled some clothes on and called to see if I could get a culture done that morning. I did and I had strep. I went and picked up the meds and then went home and napped for about an hour while Rich was getting the kids ready for the drive. Then we loaded up and headed south.
On the drive down we passed lots of areas that had had the wild fires. A few of the areas still had the smoke coming off of them and firefighters were monitoring them. Angela screamed the entire drive except for the few naps when she screamed herself to sleep. She did not want to eat and was just miserable and hitting at her ear. I was feeling much better by alternating the tylenol and motrin. I figured I would just keep my distance from everyone and since last time I was able to keep from passing it on to anyone I thought I would be successfull this time too.
We got down there and made it to their house for a late dinner. THe kids ran around and played and got a bunch of energy out goofing off with their uncle and cousin and then we put them to bed. Now we put the kids to bed and we are all spread out throughout the house seperating the kids and getting them asleep and then all us adults just crashed. I got Angela asleep after the older kids were asleep and then crawled into bed. Just as I'm falling asleep she wakes up again and I get her to sleep again. THen just as I'm drifting into the deep sleep Rich wakes me up at midnight to tell me that his throat is swollen. We decide to go ahead and just start him on my antibiotic too and get it and some motrin for him and then head back to bed and sleep.
Just as I'm falling asleep from that Ashley starts coughing and hacking up a lung... she keeps coughing and coughing and coughing. I try to wake her up for some cough medicine, but she won't take it so I just put some vicks rub on her. An hour later I'm still listening to her cough and finally get her to wake up and take the medicine. She settles back to sleep and just as I'm settling in to sleep she wakes up again and says she has a nightmare and I tell her to bring her sleeping bag out of the tent in the family room (where the kids are all "camping out") and put it at the foot of our mattress so she can wake up and see us and not have her nightmares. I get her settled in and am just drifting off to sleep again when Angela wakes up again. Then as I'm trying to get her back to sleep Alyssa starts screaming... I go out there with Angela and we climb in the tent and find Alyssa's paci and she is pointing to her throat and saying it hurts... so I bring her back into Rich and I's room and hand her to Rich who is half asleep in bed. Luckily she snuggled back in and went right to sleep. Then another hour and I got Angela to sleep and I slept from 5:30 till 7:30am when Angela and Alyssa were up for the day.
We told my sister in law and her husband that I was the villan and had brought strep to their house. THen I tried to call my dr up here.... couldn't get ahold of him so I called our old dr there in Texas and talked to him about it. I didn't know it, but it is very uncommon for kids under 5 to get strep throat. He called in a RX for Rich and my sister in law and her hubby took some extra garlic to ward it off and we decided to stay and enjoy the weekend since if I passed it to them it was already passed...
We had fun just playing and hanging out for the weekend. We went to church on Sunday and came home and played some more. On Monday we all got up and got dressed for the day. We ate breakfast and gave goodby hugs and headed out. We drove around for a little while to see some places in the area and stopped to buy some snacks and then hit the road to drive home. We got into town at 5:30 so we decided to stop at Golden Corral and eat dinner there. We ate and then thought we would just stop and pick up the gallon of paint that Rich needed to finish Alex's room on Tuesday that night instead of having to run out the next morning to get it. Then we got home and got the kids in their pj's and went to sleep.
Tuesday Rich woke up and put the final coat of paint on Alex's walls, then put up the little border in Ashley's room and we reassembled their room. I had a whole mountain of clothes to wash and sort and put away, but no closets to put them into until Rich got the paint stuff cleared out of their rooms.
Yesterday was back to school and back to work day and I was able to get more stuff put back into the kids rooms and out of our living room. I pulled all the christmas decorations down and got them boxed up and Alex slept in his bed last night instead of our room since his room was finally dry.
Today I'm going to try and get the suitcases emptied and put away. I've got the tree still sitting in the house so I might see if I can drag it out to the porch at least so I can vaccum up all the pine needles for the last time.
Oh..... and the biggest news I forgot to mention before.... ANGELA IS CRAWLING.... I am sooo not ready to have her crawling all over the floors and picking up every single little thing and putting it in her mouth. She has been scoching around backwords for a month, but she would basically stay in the same little area. Now she is crawling all over the entire downstairs!!

So... there is the last week and a half in the life of the Newton's. I'm looking forward to us getting back into the school/work groove and hopefully I can get to the YMCA starting next week. The house is just too caotic this week to get my things organized to get there yesterday or today and I don't want to go just one day so I'm takeing this week off as well and will start anew on monday.