Painting, Shoes, Movies and the Mall

Well we Dunbar’s have been keeping busy with summer. Monkey had been begging to have his friends Missy and Bubba come over. Those are the nicknames that only their family calls them, but Monkey has adopted these guys as family.  Missy is an artist just like her dad. Creativity seriously runs through her.

 

Bubba is the world’s best big brother. This kid is the most generous, patient, kind, fun-loving kid I have ever met. (And I’ve met a lot of kids.) He always makes time and room for Monkey. And I am forever thankful.

Monkey is telling him that they are almost the same height because he wants to be just like him.

 

On another note:

These babes came in the mail yesterday. I got them at Old Navy. Aren’t they so hot for the summer?  And guess what, I only paid $8 for them. They run $19.50, plus I ordered them on a Tuesday (10% off day), then I looked up an online coupon (10 bucks off) then I got free shipping. Score!

And this morning the Dunbar’s and Salinas’ hit up the free kids movie. The entire way there, I had to keep explaining why we were not going to see Toy Story 3 today. Monkey was not buying my explanation of Daddy wanting to see it too, that’s why we have to wait until Friday. Target popcorn and snacks held them over for a half hour of Veggie Tales. I got a popcorn and soda at Target for $1.63, a bag of Fun Size M&M’s for $3, and brought juice boxes from home. Hey, kids popcorn meals at the cinema cost $5.75. For that price I’d rather go have lunch at the Nordstrom Cafe.

Yes my beautiful child on the left is pouting. He wanted to play the ultra-expensive video games inside the movie theatre. But this mama put the smack down on that. Since we left the movie half way through and I had some things to get done at the Mall (like get my free lipstick from Back to MAC.) We all headed that way.

Craziness! We didn’t take strollers and these guys were going bonkers playing off of each other. The only thing that settled them down were the TV’s in the stores. Whoever came up with that idea is genius.

My boys shared a moment of brotherly love. There was no room on the bench for Bogie, so Monkey just sat him right in his lap.

Today I’m feeling blessed to have wonderful boys and amazing friends to spend our days with. Grateful that my friends enjoy being a mom just as much as I do. Happy that they are fun and love my boys even when their doing the nutso dance.

~mrs. dunbar

Busy Dad’s Day Weekend

The way to start off Father’s Day weekend is to have your dad come over and fix your washing machine that went on the fritz.  Friday night, that’s what we did. Only my dad had made plans with us but my mom had made plans with my brother and his family. Solution: everyone meet up at our house for dinner and washing machine fixing.
  Kids got in jammies and jumped and jumped and jumped. Only they had to jump on Bogie’s bed, which is about 8 inches off the ground. We don't need any more head injuries this month, or ever...


On Father’s Day we headed over to Papa and Grandma’s house. All of the cousins were there and the kids had a blast. There were water toys and more water toys.

My brother thought he was one of the kids and decided to show them how its done. He actually came outside wearing flippers and goggles which made all the kids scream hysterically.

There is just something magical about playing with your cousins. No pressure to get to know them. No pressure if they’ll like you. They just do. And when your 1, 2, 4, or almost 7 you play and play and play.

 

Then my other brother thought he’d show the kids how things are done.

Can I say Tidal Wave?

And everyone just sort of meandered around trying to stay out of the splash zone.

   

Mr. Dunbar was a little worn out already so he just supervised and relaxed.

 
   

And after almost 6 hours of playing this is how my boys ended up.

Bogie didn’t wake up until the this morning, he was just that wiped out.

So here’s to good father’s who will raise up another generation of honorable men.

~mrs. dunbar

Doing cool things

With summer in full swing, I’ve been trying to keep the boys as busy as possible. Yesterday we painted feet to create our “art.” Really its just a jumbled mass of colors, but the boys love it. Absolutely love it. And I can’t help but feel a bit of a pitter patter happiness when I get to see them create something. When they look up with that conquered look that all children get when they radiate with a sense of mastery. When I was in the classroom those were my favorite memories~ sharing that special moment of mastering a concept with a student. Mastery in a child's eyes is one of the best things in life.

Now I have a bigger job set before me. Teaching these guys everything I know. Hoping that they enjoy life as much as I do. Wondering if they will have as many good memories of childhood summers as I do, even if I did throw a whole batch of baked cookies at my brothers or chase them around with utensils.

Summers were fun.

Summers are fun.

We ran some errands this morning. What makes a two year old think that he can run all over the store all by himself? I now understand those monkey leash backpack thingys.

Man-o-man was I about to pull my hair out.  And then of course, when I was trying to throw things like toilet paper in the cart and do the whisper-yell to my hooligans I ran into people from church, who know us, but not well and don’t have any kids. And they smiled and I smiled. And we made small talk as they sipped their Starbucks and said they took the morning off to just be together and I thought “What a lovely thing to do. Wish we could do that.”  I of course said, "We needed staple items like TP," and they chuckled. As the couple was meandering off  they said, “Keep up the good work.” And I smiled some more because we go to a church of real people who understand that life is not perfect and two rowdy boys were having the time of their life running around Target.

So much so that right now they are sleeping. In the middle of the day. Both of them.

Thank you Lord.

And when they wake up we are putting on swim suits and heading off to swim lessons.
So here’s to a great summer of too many screaming kids in Target.
Paint brushes.
Swim lessons.
And of course, naps.

mrs. dunbar

Summer Bucket List 2010

Twenty-Five Things to Do this summer with Littles

• Make sock puppets
• Create a scrapbook of summer activities
• Go on a picnic
• Write a real letter (Monkey)
• Conduct an interview
• Vacation Bible School
• Concoct and eat a new sandwich
• Run through the sprinklers
• Camp outside overnight
• Count by 2’s up to 30
• Host a game night
• Visit beach
• Eat breakfast in the park
• Take swim lessons
• Photograph our neighborhood
• Shop at the Farmer’s Market
• Go for icecream
• Learn 50 new Spanish words
• Hit up story time at our local library
• Make 100% juice ice pops
• Organize a playdate
• Fabricate and design t-shirts
• Go to a movie (Toy Story 3’s got this one covered)
• Visit a museum
• Take a photo every single day

Blue ideas will take at most 4 hours.
Green ideas will take at least 4 hours.
Red ideas are ongoing all summer. 

School’s Out for the Summer

Well the school year finally ended for all the kids in our area. Monkey had his end of the year performance. He rocked the show. Literally, this kid is going to be a rock star.

We could hear him the entire time from our seats. It was great. He’ll be returning to pre-school for one more year. He’ll be DUCK. He is so excited about, even though he only wants to go for like “two weeks, and then I can go to kindergarten, okay?” Sure, Monkey.

 

I sent my dad to take pictures from the other side, up close and this is what he came back with.

Mom. 

Can you even find Monkey?  Aw, well, I thought it was funny.

Here’s to a great sunny Sunday.

And the start to an awesome Summer 2010.

mrs. dunbar

Thank You

  (photo taken last week)

Thank you for all of your well wishes for Bogie. I truly appreciate all of the phone calls, visits, texts and emails. SO many people were praying for him and for us and we do appreciate it so very much.

I loved the texts and phone calls that said,

“Besides praying, what can we do?”

Truly a testament of Christ’s love.

One of our friends even offered to mow the lawn. I’ll take you up on that one next week Case! Ha.

Bogie is almost up and back to himself. The doctor said that his symptoms may last up to month. He’s getting up more often but then just crashes on the couch or floor face down. We are under the impression that he just has a really bad headache. And he’s decided that he doesn’t like Tylenol any longer, he just keeps spitting it out. Sometimes right into my face. Little guy is lucky I love him so much.

Have a wonderful weekend.

~mrs.dunbar

Scanned, Poked, Scanned, Poked, Admitted, Poked

So here’s the long version of our week with Bogie. Friday night he fell off of Monkey’s bed. When I got to him he was doing the silent cry and couldn’t catch his breath. He went limp in my arms and passed out for a few seconds. After he came to, he fell asleep within minutes. But it was already after 9pm and we figured he was just tired from the long day.  He slept in our bed. Just so we could monitor him. He seemed fine.
Saturday he was a little groggy and whining but nothing out of the ordinary.
Sunday morning after church Mr. Dunbar took the boys to the market. Bogie starting throwing up again and again. So Mr. Dunbar took him to Urgent Care. When the Doctor came in he thought it would be best to do a CT scan to rule out any bleeding or swelling in the brain. It came back negative and we were told to go home, it was probably something viral that coincided with his fall. We were told to make an appointment the following day with Bogie’s regular pediatrician.
Monday morning he seemed okay. So I didn’t call the pediatrician immediately. By 9am Bogie was crying that his head hurt and laying on the floor of his room with his head down. He didn’t want to be turned over or held. So I called the pediatrician’s office to make an appointment, his regular doctor was not in but another doctor would be seeing him. On the way, the doctor’s office called and said not to bring him in but to take him directly to the emergency room. So that’s where I took him. He started vomiting and screaming in the car, which led to more vomiting. In the emergency room Bogie was real lethargic and any time he was sat up for any reason he would vomit again. They completed another CT scan, chest X-ray, urine and blood tests. Everything came back negative. But he was on the verge of becoming dehydrated. The ER nurses tried in eight different places to get an IV in with no success. Finally he stopped vomiting for close to two hours, he ate some jello and water and they told us to go home and bring him back the next day for a follow-up appointment with his normal pediatrician as they had no concrete reason to keep him.
Tuesday, again he woke up fine. Seemed back to normal, a little crabby but nothing to rush back to the hospital over. By noon he had vomited everything back up and was back on the floor with his face down. Again, not wanting to be touched. I took him to his appointment, his pediatrician took one look at him and said she’d be back in a few minutes. When she came back she said they were going to admit him to the hospital over night. The hospital neurologist had Bogie’s chart on his desk and wanted him admitted on the grounds that his concussion symptoms were not getting better. Within an hour he was upstairs in a room.
The pediatric nurses tried six times to get an IV into him. One of the hardest things was hearing Bogie scream over and over, “No Thank You!!! No Thank You!” Or “Almost done, almost done.” And every single time it was not almost done.  All of Bogie’s veins kept blowing, the nurse would get the IV in and then it would turn blue. Bogie’s veins were just that dehydrated and fragile. Our nurse finally said, “Let’s take a 20 minute break, let him rest and then we’ll try again one final time.”  He came back armed with an infrared light found a vein in Bogie’s foot that hadn’t been tapped out and got the line in.  Later he told Mr. Dunbar that was the power of prayer. How cool was that that our nurse took a break to pray that he would get Bogie’s IV in?
 

Within hours of getting the IV line in Bogie started to perk up.  It’s amazing what intravenous meds can do.

When he tried to grab Starbucks through the bars the Doctors thought he’ was ready to go home.

And another sign that he was better; he only wanted Daddy.










                 





Bogie was discharged about 24 hours after he was admitted. He’s doing okay today.  He screamed all the way to the check up appointment. But stopped when we got home. Right now he's sleeping.
I need a margarita and then a nap.

~mrs. dunbar