This week is going to be insane. I always feel like this as the week of the dance recital starts, but we always manage to survive. The first of the three dress rehearsals (one for gymnastics, one for ballet, one for tumbling) was tonight, and it went well for Accalia. Unfortunately for me, the group before Accalia had to go through their routine three times, and now I have the Coldplay song they danced to stuck in my head. Urg. Tomorrow night is Accalia's ballet rehearsal, Friday is Cole's tumbling, Saturday is a two hour run through for each of the recitals (a 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. show), and Sunday is the big day.

In addition to dance, Cole had a make up soccer game tonight, will miss out on his soccer game on Saturday because of dance, but will be able to be there for his team picture that morning. I think Friday morning at the art studio is the only other activity they have this week.

The house is a complete disaster, and I'm stressing out a bit because I need to do major cleaning for the weekend and my parents visiting. Of course, I'm sure my parents could care less about the state of my house, but it needs to get down. I've been delayed a bit with this mission because Ella got sick yesterday. After supper, she was in the living room and I was in the kitchen, and I look over to see two large areas of vomit on the living room rug. Ella threw up four more times after that, finally falling asleep vomit free at 4:30 a.m. I only had about 2-3 hours of sleep last night and am conscious right now mainly due to large quantities of caffeinated coffee drinks.

The other think happening this weekend - Sunday to be exact - is Cory's 37th birthday. Hooray! Unfortunately, we won't be able to spend a lot of the day focusing solely on his because of the recital, but he is taking the next day off, so that will be nice.

Accalia just got her first email address today. Not sure why we never did this before, but I guess she just never expressed an interest. She's having a lot of fun sending emails.

Okay, time to move a sleeping Ella from the couch to the bed and hope Tylan stays asleep while I put her down to do that.

Yesterday was a really good day, and I'm hoping that today will follow suit. It was a perfect spring day - upper 60s, sunny, slight breeze - and we spent much of the day outside in the yard. Tylan loved it. I cleaned out our back porch area (I never know what to call it because it's not really a porch or a deck), we filled the sandbox with sand, I gave wagon rides, we picked up fallen willow branches, etc.

We never did see the neighbor girls, but Cole's new friend from the neighborhood, Ian, found his way over. The two have a shared love of Ben 10, and much of their play revolves around that. I can't help but see how it is when Cole and Ian play together compared with when the neighbor girls are over, and it's so much more peaceful and void of drama. Maybe it's because there's just one of Ian and none of the rivalry and fighting that seems to come with the two sisters. I don't know. Sometimes I think I'd do much better as a mother to all boys, but that's not really a helpful thought when three of your four children are girls.

Today Cole has tumbling and then soccer practice (first of the season). I'd continue blogging about our Easter weekend in Mankato, but Ella has climbed up behind me in order to use the computer and it's rather hard to concentrate when she's pulling apart my ponytail. So, I'll take my coffee and take care of some other things.

Caring for sick children is so much easier when you're healthy. I'm not. I was miserable yesterday and am feeling slightly better today, but not well enough to have much patience of any sort. Is it too much to ask that after we get past this cold that we can go more than two weeks between illnesses? There are so many things I need to get done right now, and I'm trying to make up my mind about going ahead with something that would be very time consuming, and all I feel like doing is curling up and shutting out the world.

So as not to paint everything too bleak, the good news is that I'll probably wake up tomorrow feeling almost completely back to normal, and Accalia and Cole probably will, too. They're both still low on energy and haven't been doing a lot. Ella's a little better today but continues to be one incredibly cranky patient. Tylan's still low on energy, too, and is sleeping more, but she's ready to cheer on the Cubs in her pink Cubs track suit given to her by Auntie Jess and Uncle Jer.

We'll be heading to Mankato on Friday for Easter weekend and even going to church twice - Good Friday and Easter Sunday. I'm trying to decide whether to just have the kids wear the same clothes for both church services so we don't have to pack as much. I think it will be a pretty laid back weekend, and hopefully we'll all be 100% to enjoy it all. We were last in Mankato over Christmas. I also have to remember to pack the Easter baskets. And I have to remember to boil eggs in the next day or two so the kids can dye them before we leave. Ah, the joys of not celebrating holidays at home...

Better check on supper. You know those frozen pizzas don't cook themselves!

It's another beautiful spring day with temps in the low 50s, sunny blue skies with a few fluffy clouds, and a light breeze. It's a perfect day to be outside enjoying the new sidewalk chalk and bubbles. Unfortunately, half of the family is too sick to do much of anything other than sleep and lie on the couch.

We made it through almost the entire winter without any illnesses - not even colds - and then March hit and along with it came the flu and nasty colds. That lasted about two weeks, and suddenly Cory gets sick. For the past couple days, Cory has been under the weather, but he was feeling better this morning. Cole and Accalia seem to have caught whatever he has, though, and are really suffering today. Accalia and Cole both went upstairs around 11:30 a.m. for a nap, and Accalia came down after an hour. Two hours later Cole is still up there sound asleep. I really, really hope that this stays clear of Ella, Tylan and myself.

Yesterday, before the kids were feeling really bad, they were outside playing with the neighbor girls. Cole lost energy, though, and Accalia started to feel dizzy and almost black out, so they both came inside. The younger girl (age 6) then sat outside on her sidewalk and pouted about the whole thing. I completely understand her disappointment in losing her playmates early on a lovely day, but this seems to be the response whenever Accalia or Cole stop playing before the girls have to go inside. This happened all last summer, too, and it drove me nuts. Longtime readers probably remember a few rants of mine, fueled on by pregnancy hormones. I just can't help but feel trapped at our home when the neighbor girls are at home, too, and seem to want nothing to do with their own house. The instant they can they come over and stay as long as they can. I guess I should feel pleased that they have such a good time at our house, and it makes me feel sad that they apparently dislike their own house (I suspect mom more than anything) so much that they don't want to spend any extra time there than necessary. I just need to find a balance when school lets out because Accalia and Cole also lose interest in playing after a while and just want to be inside and relax without additional playmates. We'll figure it out. I guess now I have the excuse of a baby needing to nap in order to keep things quiet.

Okay, since I have been so remiss in regularly posting pictures, I'm going to share some below. Yay!

Here is Cory and his dad at the 65th birthday celebration we had for Myron at Outback Steakhouse in Sioux Falls.


Here is Tylan chewing on a wooden book. At seven months old, she still has no teeth and is not yet crawling. She loves to turn around in a 360, though, and seems to pull herself short distances.


Cole loves nothing more than to pose for pictures with Tylan. He loves that Tylan resembles him more than either of his other sisters. I think he takes solace in that since he didn't get a brother this last time around.


And here are my three girls. Tylan loves Accalia so much. She gets so excited every time she sees her biggest sister and nearly jumps out of my arms to get to her. Ella's relationship with Tylan is slowly evolving with Ella trying to play with Tylan more and more, taking her cues from Accalia.

Wow, it's 50 degrees today and one of the warmer days of our spring so far. We made it through our non-blizzard on Tuesday and might have another storm over the weekend. I really want to put away the boots and hats and mittens and snow pants, but if I do that I'm basically guaranteeing we're going to have a big storm.

Cory's been sick a couple days this week - hopefully just a cold - and it seems that Cole has the same thing. Hopefully we won't have another family wide illness keeping us down for a couple weeks, not with Easter right around the corner.

It feels as if lots has been happening, but apparently I can't think of any of it to blog about right now. Cory will be home soon, supper's in the crockpot, and we're going to watch the final (sniff, sniff) ER tonight.