Another week has come and gone and it started and ended great, but the middle was a little rough.  I ended up getting the stomach flu this week and it kicked my bum!  

On Sunday Chris let me sleep in a little bit so the kids and I ended up going to the last church service at 11:30 instead of the 8:30 service.  When we went to church James decided he didn't want to go to Sunday school and wanted to stay with me.  So William had to make a decision on whether he would go to Sunday school alone or if he would come with us to the family worship room and William decided to go to Sunday school alone.  I was so proud of him!  Will and James rarely do anything independently from one another so watching them decided to separate was interesting.  

Mondays are usually a day where the kids have swim lessons and since it was a holiday I wasn't sure if they would have their lessons or not so I called on Sunday and on Monday morning to make sure that they did.  After I was told twice that they did indeed have lessons I loaded all the kids up and headed down to the rec center only to be told that there were no lessons.  So instead of swimming we went off for ice cream.  





On Wednesday my week came to a grinding halt when I came down with the stomach flu.  I felt completely unable to function.  There was no momming happening.  I think the boys were thrilled with the fact that I wasn't able to make breakfast or lunch for them because they basically got to eat whatever they wanted out of the pantry.  They also got to watch way more tv than they normally do.  I didn't want them to sit in front of the tv all day but I really couldn't do anything other than lay down without feeling like I had to throw up so after laying on the living room floor for about four hours while the kids played I decided we could all go to my room and we'd watch a few movies or the Octonauts (which is the kids current favorite show).  I was so thankful when Chris got home from work at 3:00 so I could finally fall back to sleep and take a nap!  




Thursday wasn't too much better in the way I was feeling but I was able to get up and dressed in time to take the boys to school, which was a huge accomplishment since I couldn't motivate myself to get my clothes on until 8:40 and the boys have to be at school by 9:00.  I'm thankful the boys dress themselves most days, James may have gone to school wearing a Christmas shirt that he may or may not have slept in, but it wasn't dirty and he looked fine so I wasn't complaining!  I spent most of the afternoon after picking the boys up from school again laying on our living room floor while the kids played.  





Finally by Friday I was feeling like 85% myself and good enough to get out of the house with the kids.  After being cooped up for 2 days it was much needed. We went to the park with our friends and Benjamin got to ride in one of the swings at the park from the first time!  He is getting so big, too quickly.  He seemed to really enjoy the ride.  






Today we got out of the house again with a trip to the aquarium.  Its been a while since we have gone and it was so much fun as always.  The kids and I spent about three hours at the aquarium today.  We went to the kelp exhibit, saw the penguins, before going to eat lunch.  Then we went out onto the back deck to use the binoculars.  After spending time outside we headed in to the jellyfish exhibit and the deep sea exhibit where we got to see the hammerhead sharks (one of Will's favorites) and the Sea turtles (Ellie's favorites). We got to see a training feeding the puffins and other seabirds which we've never seen before, before heading downstairs to the exhibit where the kids "paint fish" (color fish on a computer). We got to see the Seahorses (James' favorite). One of our last stops was the tentacle exhibit, we got to see an octopus (definitely my favorite and Ellie said it was her favorite part today), a squid and a few other creatures with tentacles.  We ended our aquarium trip with another look at the deep sea exhibit.  No matter how many times we go to the aquarium I feel like we are always finding either something new to do or something we haven't done in a long time.