Seriously, people, I feel like I live in a nudist colony lately.  Not even joking.

Ava has started boycotting clothes.  If we don’t have anywhere to go, she’ll spend the entire day in her underwear.  If we are going somewhere, I have to force her to get dressed and then as soon as we get home, she strips down to her underwear again.  She won’t even wear pajamas!  Last night, I managed to get her in them, but at bedtime she took them off and whined, “I can’t wear a shirt!  I don’t want to wear a shirt!”  For those of you who look at the kids’ photobucket, if you notice considerably fewer pictures lately, it’s because I can’t put very many up because she’s only in her underwear in most of them!

And Kelvin is a whole different story.  His stripping seems to be centered around his diaper.  He’s fine wearing clothes until he pees in his diaper (even though nearly every diaper he wears is stay-dry).  The second that happens, everything (including the diaper) comes off.  Even the snaps on his cloth diapers don’t stop him anymore.  So all of a sudden, I’ll just see him strolling through the house butt-naked and I have to go off in search of a wet diaper dropped in a random place.  It’s like he just takes it off wherever he happens to pee, drops it, and walks off as though nothing ever happened.

They’d better get over this before winter!  Can you imagine the number of doctor appointments we’ll have to make when they get themselves sick by walking around freezing their little tushes off all day?  Even though we have insurance, we’ll have to apply for a medical assistance program or something!

I’m telling you, our trip to Florida in a few weeks is going to be torture for these two!  They’re going to have to wear clothes all day long, every single day, for nine whole days!  *gasp* The horror!

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This last weekend, we decided to take a day trip up to Omaha to go to the zoo with Kim, Rob, Myra and Gavin.  That was something we’d been planning on doing since the beginning of summer and now that August was nearly over, we figured we’d better get to it!

I was very disappointed on our way up there when I discovered that my camera battery was nearly dead.  I managed to get a couple of pictures before it died, but they didn’t even turn out because I was in such a hurry to turn the camera back off before it died.  Thus, the lack of pictures in this post.

Even though I don’t have the pictures to prove it, we had a really fun day.  We got to see most of the zoo (it’s huge) and we had very nice weather.  The stroller was even nice enough to wait to pop a wheel off until the very end of the day!

By far the funniest part of the day was when we were just about to leave.  Ava really wanted to see the giraffes, so we went to that exhibit and they also had ostriches and peacocks walking around with the giraffes.  Ava said, “There’s a giraffe, and a diarrhea, and a peacock.”

Wait, what?!

Apparently she thinks ostriches are called “diarrhea’s”.  She says she heard it from Diego.  The only explanation I can come up with is that maybe Diego was talking about an animal that looked like an ostrich that had a name similar to diarrhea?  I don’t know…

One thing’s for sure, though…if this girl had a comedy show, we’d make enough to buy gold coins!  Life is definitely never dull with her around!

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So I’ve mentioned how sick the kids have been the last few days.  They’re finally recovering…no fevers yesterday or today!  But now I have a new worry.

Today I was changing Kelvin’s diaper and I noticed he had little red bumps all over his butt.  My first thought was heat rash, but he wasn’t out in the heat more than 2 minutes at a time today, so I don’t think that’s it.  I put some CJ’s BUTTer on him at each diaper change for the rest of the day, but didn’t notice any improvement.  I did notice some similar bumps on his face, though.

At bath time tonight, I noticed that Ava had bumps on her butt, too.  I looked more closely and she has them all over her stomach and back too, as does Kelvin.

I freaked out, thinking it was chicken pox, but after talking to my mom, I’m not so sure.  She said chicken pox has fluid-filled bumps, and these don’t look like that.  They’re just teeny-tiny red dots all over their skin.  I’d say each child easily has 100 on them and they’re not super-noticeable either.  Also, the fever is gone and my mom said if it was chicken pox it would last until they were done breaking out.

So I’m kind of unsure what it is and what to do about it.  They don’t have any other symptoms.  I guess I’ll be taking a break from Googling Outer Banks homes tonight (haha) and I’ll be Googling weird red bumps instead!

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I am beyond excited that we’re planning a trip to Disney World for next month!  I’ve never been there before…mainly because I’ve never even been to Florida, but also because I come from a family of 9 kids!  Who could blame my parents for not wanting to shell out for that?  We’re a little bit surprised at the price of 1-day passes just for our family of 4!

Anyway, where was I?  Oh yes…we’re going next month!  Never having been there, I’m not exactly sure what we should make sure we absolutely do not miss.  Since we only have one day (we’re going to be staying in Daytona Beach for a little over a week and just making a day-trip to Disney World), we’ve already decided that we’re going to the Magic Kingdom.  It seems the most small-child-friendly of all the parks.  But we’re definitely coming back when the kids are older for a longer vacation to visit more of the parks!  Even if we have to sleep on log beds because of how much a week-long trip costs!  LOL

We do know that we want to do a character breakfast at Cinderella’s Royal Table.  I’m having a little bit of a problem making a reservation.  I’m not sure if I waited too long and it’s completely full or if it’s not open that day or what.  I’m going to have to figure that out.

But, if you’ve been there, what are some other things we absolutely have to do?  Any tips for being in the park with kids?  I’m open to any and all advice, since I know virtually nothing!

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I really don’t know what I was thinking when I said that this Freezer Cooking Day would not turn into Freezer Cooking Week.  You know how people say that God laughs when you tell him your plans?  Yeah, he was definitely chuckling at that one.

For the last two days, Kelvin has been running a 103.5 degree fever….and it was that high when he was on both motrin and tylenol!  Which also means I’ve been up every three hours at night to give him another dose of medicine because I’m scared to death of his fever going any higher than that.  Today, it was lower though….only about 100, so hopefully he’s on the mend!

But even if he wasn’t so sick, I still don’t know if I could have gotten it all done in one day.  Maybe if Chad took the kids somewhere for the entire day, but as long as they’re in the house they are bound and determined to not let me get a single thing done other than playing with them.

So I’ve just been using nap time to knock out a couple recipes a day.  Yesterday, I made Grilled Chicken Pesto Wraps and Frozen Fruit Cups.  Today I made Black Bean Mango Chicken Salad.  I only got one done today because I had to pay bills during nap time.  By the time I was done with the bills, I only had a few minutes left so I cleaned up the desk and did a few miscellaneous things that it seems like I never get to (things like sending in an ipad warranty…and no, I do not have an ipad….that is strictly hypothetical).  So I made today’s recipe with Kelvin sitting on the kitchen counter next to me.  It’s exhausting being loved so much!

I still have Beef Potato Dinner Wraps, Buffalo Chicken Wraps and Fruity Breakfast Burritos.  Maybe if the kids take really good naps tomorrow, I can get all three done and be done with it!  I might take a little bit of time during the rest of the week to make a huge batch of cookie dough to freeze too, but we’ll see how things go.

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Freezer cooking today did not go as well as I’d hoped.  I did get a lot of recipes done, but six of them are still going to have to be done tomorrow.

It started going downhillwhen my kids started running fevers late Saturday.  They continued their fevers all day today, but the weird thing is that there are no other symptoms…..no sore throat, headache, runny nose, cough, diarrhea, nothing!  But they were incredibly fussy and clingy, which is why I didn’t get much done while they were awake.

I managed to start the Harvest Summer Soup and the Harvest Cinnamon Roll dough first thing in the morning, but all the other recipes were cooked during naptime.  Luckily, they took pretty decent naps!

Here are the meals that are done:

2 Harvest Cinnamon Rolls meals
3 Summer Harvest Soup meals
2 Stuffed Buffalo Chicken meals
3 Lemon Chicken meals
3 Tomato Pasta Sauce meals
3 Tangy Marinated Steak meals
2 Bacon & Bleu Burgers meals
3 Tomato & Basil Burgers meals

That’s 21 meals so far, so I guess that’s really good, considering the amount of time I had to work on it.

Tomorrow, I need to do:

Fruity Breakfast Burritos
Frozen Fruit Cups
Grilled Chicken Pesto Wraps
Black Bean and Mango Chicken Salad
Buffalo Chicken Wraps
Beef-Potato Dinner Wraps

I was also going to make Italian Flank Steak Pinwheels, but honestly I think I would get too frustrated with that recipe.  I’ll just freeze those steaks in their original packaging and use them in a different recipe in next month’s menu.

So there you have it.  I really hope I can finish up tomorrow because I can’t spend all of the kids’ sleeping time all week cooking….I have a home based business to run, housework to do, and a MOMS Club board meeting to prep for.

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I’ve always been amazed and a little bit envious of the people who take an entire day to make meals for their freezer and then don’t have to cook for the rest of the month.  I enjoy cooking, but not with two little people underfoot, so not cooking for an entire month but still having homemade meals sounds like HEAVEN!

I’ve attempted freezer cooking days in the past, but they always stretched into freezer cooking WEEKS.  The last time I tried, Kelvin was still really tiny and with all the interruptions and distractions, it just didn’t work.  Now that Ava is 3 and Kelvin is 21 months, I’m hoping to have more success tomorrow.  I wish I had a nanny camera that I could set up in their playroom so I could supervise them from the kitchen….but who am I kidding?  If I’m in the kitchen, they’re going to be right there with me!

I’m planning on making Once A Month Mom’s Summer 2010 Menu (with a few tweaks).  It looks fairly simple and the best part is that I won’t have to turn on the oven at all!  Did I mention we have an excessive heat warning for the next week?  We’re expecting a heat index of 110 every day!  So not heating up the house with the oven sounds like a pretty good idea to me.

Tonight I did all the prep work….shredded the cheese, chopped the fruits and veggies, browned the ground beef, cooked the bacon, put the chicken in the crock pot to cook all night, etc.  It took about 2.5 hours, so I’m thinking that investment will save me even more time tomorrow since I won’t be trying to do all of it with the kids around.  I also got the 4 meals’ worth of the pasta sauce completely done and in the freezer.

I will be updating at some point tomorrow!  In the meantime, head over and see the freezer cooking Money Saving Mom is doing!

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The weather in my neck of the woods:
Hot, HOT, HOT!!!!  Tomorrow is actually supposed to be our hottest day of the year so far.  Yuck!  I feel like we have to hibernate just as much in the summer as we do in the winter!

Things that make me happy:
Finally getting the unpacking done yesterday.  Yes, from the trip we got home from a week ago!

Book I’m reading:
Breaking Dawn.  Now that we’re home, I don’t have the kind of time for reading that I did at my grandparents’ house, so this one is going much slower than the other three.

What I’m enjoying on TV:
The Bachelorette finale tonight!

On the menu for dinner:
Chicken Chow Mein

On my To Do List:
Laundry
Clean Sammy’s cage

New Recipe I tried or want to try soon:
There are a lot of recipes I plan on making for the freezer soon.  We’ve been so busy this summer that I haven’t done as much freezer cooking and I miss having things ready to go when someone drops in or I just don’t feel like cooking.

Looking forward to this week:
Ordering a new workout DVD.  As much as I try, going to the gym just doesn’t work well in this phase of our life.  And I don’t have any desire to buy folding treadmills for the living room, so that leaves me with workout DVD’s.  I have Jillian Michael’s 30-Day Shred, but every time I do it, it hurts my joints too much so I need to find something different.  I’m thinking of trying her yoga workout.

Tips and Tricks:
Kelvin and I sit outside under umbrellas during Ava’s swimming lessons and even thought it’s shaded, it’s still HOT!  Today my friend brought a little squirt bottle to spray the kids down with to keep them cool and I thought that was a really good idea.  Kelvin sat there squirting himself for about 30 minutes and he didn’t get too hot!  I’m going to bring ours tomorrow.

My favorite blog post this week:
I’ve actually been keeping up with my Google reader this week, but I can’t remember any of my favorites right now.

Blog Hopping (a new discovered blog you would like to share with the readers):
I’m trying to cut back and only have my very favorite blogs in my Google reader, so I’m not adding anything more right now.

No words needed (favorite photo or picture, yours or others you want to share):

Lesson learned the past few days:
All three sets of sheets fit in the washer at the same time!  Sorry, I know that’s lame, but I was kind of surprised to discover that yesterday.  I’d always divided them into two loads.

On my mind:
Trying to find ways to simplify our life a bit.  Or at least streamline it.  I need to start getting our preschool curriculum ready for fall and that includes blocking out some time every day for school.

Devotionals, Scripture Reading, Key Verses:
Today I’m reading Romans 1:16-32.

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A few days ago, we had an “off” morning.  Some of us hadn’t slept well, others weren’t feeling good, and we were all just grumpy.  I knew I needed to get dinner in the crockpot and needed the kids to not hang on me for just fifteen minutes.  IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?

So I dumped all the playdough stuff out on the dining room table and told them to go for it.  (Sorry for the horrible picture quality)

I’d gotten some new playdough on sale recently and that made it even better.  For some reason, brand new cans of playdough keep them entertained way longer than cans that have been played with before.  Go figure.

Anyway, this kept them busy for at least 45+ minutes.  It was awesome.  A definite mood-lifter for a tough morning.  Of course, this helps too.

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While we were in Wisconsin last week, my grandparents took the kids and I on a train ride!  My grandpa is very interested in trains and had been showing the kids some videos of trains, so they were really excited.

We got there early and went through the train museum.  I don’t think my grandpa is used to going through museums with kids.  They charged right past everything, barely noticing what was in there, and left Grandpa in their dust!

Next it was time to get on the train.  It was pretty hot outside, so it was hot in the train too (it was an old train….no modern furniture or air conditioning in there).  Luckily all the windows were open so it was more bearable once the train started moving.  Ava entertained our entire car by yelling “All aboard!” after the conductor.

I’m not sure that Kelvin even realized we were on a train.  He was busy jumping back and forth from seat to seat.

Halfway into the trip, the train had to turn around so everyone got off to walk around while the engine drove around to the other side of the train.  In the picture, that’s my grandpa talking to the conductor before he turned the engine around.

The ride lasted about 50 minutes, which was just about the perfect amount of time for the kids.  They were ready to get off, but not crazy from being cooped up in their seats.

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