Random Updates

Here's what's been going on around here the past few days:

Ben finished band camp and came home last night. We are all very happy to have him back, although other than the flat tire Wednesday, our time without him was easier than ever before. The kids are so good, and other than a disagreement about who got to sleep on the inside of the double bed at Mom and Dad's (which I solved with a coin toss), they didn't argue at all.

Sam's allergies have been getting worse, and he was really suffering by Thursday. I called the Dr. and they gave us a sample of a nasal spray to try - so now he takes 24 hour Claritin and the nasal spray, which we trying to space apart every 12 hours. It's helping more but he still sneezes and sniffs quite a lot.

The kids got their teacher letters this week - Maria has Mr. Fillman, and Sam has Mrs. Dulle. Ben and I are pleased, but neither child got their first choice. They both have found that they have at least one friend in their class, though, and probably more - we just haven't run into very many people to ask yet.

Maria will be taking her good friend Lily to the Jonas Brothers concert in a couple of weeks - we originally got 4 tickets but Sam flat out refused to go (if we had only gotten three tickets, then he would have wanted to go, I'm sure). So Maria got to ask a friend, but I was concerned that some parents would not want their child to go to a concert on the evening of the first day of school. But Ben talked to Lily's Mom at camp (Lily's older sister is in band), and she said it was fine and that she probably wouldn't let her go with anyone but us, which was a nice compliment. So Paige, Lily's older sister and our sometime babysitter, will stay with Sam while Lily goes with us to the concert, and everyone's happy.

We went to the new Lego store at Easton today - we've only ever gone to Lego stores in Florida and Chicago before this, so it was a treat. We let each kid buy a small bin of assorted bricks that they got to pick, and did some looking for Sam's birthday - he decided he wanted a Lego theme for his party and we are having to do it ourselves - there is no pre-made older kid Lego theme that we can find anywhere. We also went to the Container Store and found some drawers to use to organize the huge amount of Legos the kids have collected over the years, and I think this project may keep us busy during the next two weeks until school starts. We all spent a few hours working tonight and Maria just did not want to quit to go to bed. When we're done, I'll write a post including before and after pictures, but it may be a few weeks!