The Ray's Days: the big fat post

catch-up time.

the first weekend in november matt had his navy weekend.

and blondie cakes was still having fun with our hurricane supplies.

little miss crafty pants (addie) draws and writes lists all.day.long.
and she leaves papers everywhere.

every.where.

she's got hair!
and she got visited by the hair fairy. ;)

poor lex had the throw-up bug the first weekend in november.
thankfully it was just one night, but then the next day she refused to eat anything.

when all was said and done she lost 5 lbs.

(lucky)

because lexi was sick, frankie and i took over her neighbor dog watching duties.
we went and fed sammy and let him out.

frankie loves dogs. :)

and this boy is cute.

and sweet!
he washed the dishes all by himself!

without even being asked!

i almost passed out.

but instead i took a picture. :)

we did some fun crafts and i finally ironed the perler beads and we made some cute... toys? figurines? plastic thingys? not sure what you call those, but it was fun.

addie's first day on the bus.

she loves it.
hooray!

and first day coming home.
ahhhh! who is this big girl and where did my little baby go???

we enjoy a nice talk and short walk home.

that bus is such a blessing to me!
and what a natural pose, right?

that afternoon (monday the 5th, in case you're keeping track) christian came home not feeling well.

he had a headache, sensitivity to light, backache, and neck ache.
but no fever, so i sent him to bed.

he tried to wake up for basketball conditioning, but at 5 he still felt yucky. he was still at 98°, so he laid on the couch and fell asleep. matt got home at 6 and as he was walking in i was checking c's temp again. this time, an hour later he was up to 102.5°. quick conference with matt and we were off to a very very full er. 5 hours, 1 spinal tap, 1 great friend (laura), and 2 taco bell value meals later and they tell us that he either has a mild viral meningitis or a bad virus.

and laying down eating a taco is about as hard as it looks.

i'm not one to run to the dr all the time, especially not the er, so i felt kinda bad. christian was super upset about having to get another spinal tap, although he handled it like a rockstar. he didn't even have to be held still, he just leaned over and didn't move.

(last spinal tap they had a big santa looking biker guy come in and hold him still)

so i asked the dr if i had jumped the gun by bringing him in.

he assured me that he wouldn't have done the spinal tap if he didn't think it was probably meningitis and you can't be too careful with a deadly illness like that.

so then i felt better.

after letting the bacteria grow for 3 days they decided it wasn't meningitis, just a bad virus. he was sick in bed for 4 days and got a terrible rash (from the virus) towards the end. poor guy.

but grateful it wasn't anything too serious.

i went to get a necklace one day and found that addie had hung her special one from school up too.

cute. :)

there was no school on election day but we still got to wake up early because the cheerleaders were selling krispy kremes at the polling stations. they bought 1000 (yes, 1000) dozen donuts, and when i picked alexis up at 10:30 (they had been out for 4 hours) they still had a ton and that wasn't even the half of it. so then i started stressing. lexi thought i was crazy because i wasn't involved in the fundraiser at all, but i hate to think of them losing money! so since matt has class on tuesday night, i volunteered to dress my little cheerleaders and hawk some krispy kreme's till the polls closed.

thankfully matt's class was cancelled. apparently everyone forgot it was election day and when they realized it they decided they couldn't possible have class, love it. :) he came and picked up the girls which was good because it was freezing! it was just lexi (after some persuasion she reluctantly agreed to come help again), sydney, her mom brandy, and me, but we had so much fun. we hawked our donuts ("flips for tips!"), watched mad tv on sydney's phone ("i will cut you"), and froze.

we brought home about 40 boxes of donuts and thus began the great donut week at the ray household. we sold some to neighbors and matt's coworkers. we took some to addie's teachers, our dr's office, matt's office, church, and seminary. and then as a family we did our part to put a hefty dent.

in the end i think they sold about 600 boxes, not sure what they did with the other 400, hopefully they sold them and i just never heard about it. i was even going to set up a table at the high school and sell them individually (the kids were thrilled) but it never quite panned out.

that night addie started feeling sick again and requested a bed in our room and a picture.

thankfully it didn't last long.

and please disregard matt's notebook corner.

i'm trying to figure out where to put/hide them.

gymnastics is so fun.
she pushed, ran, fell, pushed, ran, fell with this huge ball over and over again.

addie the cat burglar with her goofy smile and sick eyes.

frankie loves to read and she loves dinosaurs.

the end.

since lots of kiddos were sick and we were kinda quarantined, i ordered our christmas cards.

sometimes i am so on top of things.
and then i look around and remember that i am so not.

ps - i love frankie's big head back there. :)

daddy did some after halloween shopping and little witch #2 and #3 got some fun costumes.
and ice cream is delicious.

we start our cheerleaders young around here.

picture time with mom and dad = heaven for a 2-year-old.

our schedule has been strangely empty lately.

it feels like i'm forgetting something. but with baseball and football over and lots of sick kiddos at home, we've actually had some free nights.

so matt and i went out on another date.

woo-hoo!

we're trying to try new places, so this night we tried debby's favorite niko's and it was so yummy!

we got a gyro and something else that i can't remember but was super tasty too and dreamed of vacationing in greece.

then we walked all around ollie's which is a huge and cheap store right next to niko's.

it was a perfect date night. :)

after what seemed like forever i finished the laundry. but then my hamper looked like this.
if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

if a mom finishes the laundry but the hampers are already full, did she ever really finish?

deep thoughts.

i love finding random kid pics on my phone.

on sunday night we went to mccombs to celebrate daniel's birthday.

we ate yummy spaghetti and yummier cake

(i wonder why i'm chubby!)

and since we didn't have school or work on monday

(thank you, veterans!)

we watched james bond with their big projector.

they were all very disturbed that i haven't seen any jb movies.

frankie is so cute. even in silhoutte.

and just to remind us all that joseph really does love mama and daddy. :)

we stayed way too late and our little girls were way too tired.

delaney finally crashed and slept like this across daddy for about half hour.

on monday mini-mr-beckham-hair needed a spruce up.

and then we all went to see hotel transylvania.

it was cute and i love going to the movies so i thought it was totally fun.

at the end addie and frankie (and matt) danced in the aisles, super cute.

and don't mind evil frankie. ;)

then we stopped at chick-fil-a for yummy peppermint milkshakes.
(i wonder why i'm chubby!)

fun weekend!

it's been so cold!

in front of the heater is a favorite spot.

frankie is the craziest sleeper.

but at least her bed is still made. ;)

i told you she had hair!

look how long her bangs are!

we're letting them grow out and hoping to avoid an addie mishap.

she has hair!, exhibit 3.
and she has been loving on delaney a lot lately.

poor laney.

except for yesterday they played so nicely together, and then they were quiet for like 5 minutes and when i went to investigate i found that they had both gone upstairs

(laney crawling upstairs with frankie trailing her = scary!)

and were playing with the dollhouse.