October 31 - Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone! I am thrilled to announce that Jillian is finally healthy!! Her fever broke at 4am yesterday and she's been her normal happy self since. We never made it to the pumpkin patch (thanks a lot flu) but no worries, I picked up some pumpkins from the grocery store and the kids carved them last night. We also managed to squeeze in two GS Halloween parties a few weeks ago when everyone was healthy. Tonight, two of Jillian's friends are coming over for pizza and trick or treating. She was very excited to go to school today and celebrate! 

Daisy Halloween Party

Seniors Halloween Party (theme: dress like your mother and we did a sorority themed murder mystery)

Pumpkin carving!

Luke's Halloween costume haha

October 28 - Where's My Cake?

We celebrated Luke's birthday with Japanese food and a red velvet bunt cake. Two days later, he had a flu shot after robotics and then his birthday party. A few hours after the shot, he had a sudden onset of a bad headache. I gave him some Advil and he seemed fine. When we got home from his party, he started a low grade fever with the headache. He still had a fever Monday so I called the pediatricians office and they said he was having a reaction to the flu shot. "This is great, it means his body is doing what it needs to do!" Apparently fevers are common for up to 3 days after the flu vaccine. On day 4 post vaccine (Wednesday), I was finally able to get him in for a doctors appointment and wouldn't you know, he tested positive for flu B! Poor timing with the vaccine as he was exposed prior to the shot.

Other than a headache and low fever though, he had no other symptoms. He missed school Monday through Thursday last week and was finally able to go back on Friday. Friday evening, the girls and I went to a play at Julia's high school called "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (it surprisingly pretty good and Jillian even sat through it). Afterwards, the girls and I went out for milkshakes and we called Luke to see if he wanted anything. His response "Where's my cake? I want to eat some of that." Sorry buddy! We demolished his cake when he was sick with the flu!

Jillian was sent home from school on Monday with a low grade fever. I took her temperature a few hours later and it was 106.2. I thought our thermometer was broken and called JD to go buy a new one. Well, that one read 105.7. We immediately put her in a cool bath and gave her Motrin and got the fever down. The pediatrician said she clearly has the flu since Luke had it last week. I scheduled an appointment to go in and they called me back an told me not to bother. As long as she was drinking fluids (she is) and I can control fever with Ibuprofen/Tylenol (we are) to keep her home and it's a waiting game. She is still fighting it, it's been a long week. 

Flu is terrible right now, stay healthy everyone! And you can see Bella is giving lots of snuggles to sick Jilly!

October 18 - Homecoming

Homecoming part 2! Before activities started, Julia participated in the first ever "decathlon" swim meet between Lake and 2 other schools. The top 8 female and top 8 male swimmers from each school participated. Each kid swam 200 free, 200 IM, 50 free, 100 fly, 100 free, 500 free and then either 2 relays or a "SKINS" event. Julia did the SKINS event which was 50 sprints. They rolled the dice and it landed on breaststroke. 8 girls swam a 50 and then bottom 2 were eliminated and then they immediately swam again. Julia made it to the 2nd round with her teammate Danielle. Overall, it was a fun meet but swimming all those events with very limited rest was pretty intense. 

After the meet, it was time for the homecoming parade and pep rally. Luke, Jillian and I set up on the street and watched the parade, which included 2 firetrucks and floats for every sports team and club at the school. Afterwards, we went to the football field to watch the pep rally, which including a short band performance, cheerleading routine, dance routing and introduction of the homecoming court.

On Friday, it was time for the homecoming football game. Jillian had a sleepover at a friend's house so Julia, Luke, Tammy and I headed out. Our school (Lake) was playing Hannah's school (Brook) and we were excited for the band performance. Brook has the best band in the Houston area and their drumline has been national champions. They were amazing!! We loved cheering on Hannah (who plays trumpet in the marching band) and I was pretty impressed by the color guard.

Saturday was a big day. I dropped Julia off for a nail appointment while Jillian had a birthday party next door at a local pizza place for a birthday party. The kids made their own individual pies, it was adorable! After we picked up Julia, it was time to head out for Julia's hair appointment. I was very nervous they wouldn't finish her hair in time but they assured me they could do it. Two stylists worked on her ("Wow, she has so much hair") and completed her up-to in an hour. Impressive! We came back to the house and my friend Zaynab came over and did her makeup. She had a few minutes to put on her dress and Arturo arrived.

Dance time! Arturo and Julia exchanged flowers, posed for picture at the house, and then went to the country club across the street for more pictures with a larger group and dinner. Afterwards, they went to the dance, had a blast, and then a small "after party" at her swim friend Ava's house, which consisted of playing cards and swimming. 

It was a busy but exciting week!

Homecoming Dance

Pizza Party

Friday Night Lights

October 17 - Happy Birthday Luke

 Age: 12

Grade: 7th

Favorite Class: Science & Robotics

Current Activities: robotics

Current Style: sweatpants and hoodies

Current Interest: programming, anime, chess, yoyoing

Favorite Food: mac and cheese, ramen, sushi

Best Friends: Angel, Bella & Sophie

Dream Job: attorney

Favorite Animal: cat

Place he wants to travel: happy to be in the house! LOL

Fun Fact: loves his wild big hair and resists haircuts!

**

My little man is 12 years old! We celebrated at an escape room with a few of his friends, followed by dinner at Salt Grass and then Kemah Boardwalk. We didn't escape the room (we were close) but everyone had a great time! Luke is super excited about his presents, including an electric blanket, water bottle and cell phone! Happy birthday Luke!

Luke's birthday crew

October 10 - Mums the Word

Homecoming in Texas. We all know what that means, mums! Actually, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about unless you've lived here. Mums are not a "thing" anything else in the country that I'm aware of. How did this tradition start? It started in Missouri in 1911 during the first ever 'homecoming' game. The first mum was spotted in Texas in the 1930's and starting in the 1970's, they started growing bigger and bigger. How does the tradition work? If a boy invites a girl to homecoming, he gives her a mum. There are ribbons depicting the couples names, school, interests, etc. The girl (or her mom, or in concert w her mother) make the boy a smaller 'garter' mum that is worn on the arm. If the girl doesn't have a date, she makes her own mum. Crazy right? Definitely weird but you just have to go with it! Most people make them but some crafty people take orders starting in June and make good money making them for people. 

Arturo, a freshman on the swim team who Julia is friends with, invited her to homecoming. I thought I was off the hook for making her mum, success! Until I found out about the garter mum. Before looking at pictures, I was imaging the garter mum as a hair scrunchie with a small flower on it. Nope! Several weeks ago, Jayme (Arturo's mom) invited me over to get a sneak peak of Julia's mum and offered me ribbon in case I wanted to match them. I walked into her dining room and was so shocked at the size of Julia's mum and overwhelmed by the ribbon everywhere, I was almost paralyzed. She had 2 garter mum's a mom friend had lent her and I borrowed those to use as a reference. 

A week later, I headed out with the girls on the search for ribbons. It turns out, when your homecoming is one of the later ones in the district, there isn't much selection. After hitting up 2 different Michaels and 2 different Hobby Lobby's, I finally found what I needed!

Tammy had just made Hannah's mum for her homecoming a week earlier so she offered to help me. I went to her house and were making that sucker until midnight. We were laughing "If someone had told us 20 years ago we'd be up for hours cutting ribbon, gluing letters and stapling a mum together, we'd tell them they were crazy!" But we had fun making it. 

Mum exchange! You are probably thinking-what do they do with these things? They exchange them and wear them to school the day of the homecoming game and then wear them to the football game. Arturo came over to do the mum exchange and they both loved it!

Crazy tradition but I will definitely be more prepared next year! And if you see any unique navy, blues or red ribbons, mail them to me! 

 5.30am drop off..with a giant mum

Swim girls Ava, Julia & Annika, with their mums

Oh..and the mums get bigger and bigger as they get older. Here are a few seniors:

October 6 - Red vs Blue

HS swim is officially upon us! The Red vs Blue Intrasquad meet was a few weeks ago and Julia was on team red. On meet day, the teams dressed up in their color and convinced friends to dress up too. They entered the pool area with war paint on and dancing to music, so fun! The highlight of the meet was the little witch cheering for her big sister. She was running up and down the bleachers with her pom poms yelling "Go team RED!" It was a great meet and red won!!

Go team red!

October 5 - Fabulous Flair

Last weekend Jillian participated in a dance clinic at the high school. Julia's friend Reese is a Flair (dance team) and I was hoping she would get to work with Jillian. As luck would have it, Reese worked with the kinder group! Jillian had an absolutely blast and cannot wait to be a Flair when she's in high school! The girls were divided in 3 different groups: pre-K/Kinder, 1st-3rd, 4th-5th and middle school. All of the groups learned a dance routine and performed it for the parents. Jillian's group danced to Tangled. Absolutely adorable!

Love our little Fabulous Flair!