The rest of spring break

I promise that I did not intend on taking another week off from blogging.  I started loading pictures last week but ran into some computer issues with flash crashing.  Then we were in Tucson for Easter weekend.  We're back now and the computer issues have been fixed, so I'm back in business baby.  But terribly, terribly behind on blogging again.

We're actually going all the way back to March 16th.  Eeek.  This has been a bad month for keeping up.

We were still in Tucson for the last half a day of our spring break "trip".

Elliott was 4 years 3 months old, so we did his photo shoot before we left town.

I still haven't picked an official one.  Any votes?

I picked up some mini cookies for the kids for the drive home.

We were all up bright and early on St. Patrick's Day.  We needed to drop Elliott off at day care by 7:00 am so that Spencer and I could get to Phoenix Children's for a doctor's appointment by 7:30.  None of us are morning people, but we rallied and got everybody where they needed to be when they needed to be there.

And we even took pictures before we left.

Spencer has had ridiculous bruising going on for the last 11 months.  The bruises are way too big for what caused them and in most instances Spencer can't even remember what caused them.  

This was the first one last April.

And some other examples.  I had all of these and more printed to take to the appointment.

We saw his dermatologist last summer to discuss these bruises and she assured us they aren't related to his eczema or eczema medication.  The bruises have been getting worse though so after seeing his pediatrician in February we got a referral to a hematologist.

Hematology and oncology are in the same office so we had to wear masks in the waiting room.

Who knew?

We had to check in at 7:30 for an 8:00 appointment.  We were finally taken into the exam room at 8:30.  The doctor finally came in at 9.  Then he left once during the appointment and took two personal phone calls.  Then we waited for 20+ minutes for them to come draw blood. We were there in the office until 10:00.  I was pretty pissed.  I let several people know how completely unacceptable the whole thing was.  I mean, 2.5 hours for one damn appointment and neither of us had eaten anything?  Not cool.  I spoke with one of the child life specialists while we were still there and she took Spencer to get all sorts of snacks to eat after his blood draw.  She also gave us four free movie tickets.

We had planned on being done around 9:00 and the plan was to go to a lovely breakfast and then I had made at 10:00 appointment to paint pottery.

I called the pottery place at 9:45 to tell them we would not be there on time and explained why and they were very cool about it and agreed to hold our reservation.  

The gist of the appointment is that the hematologist (who I still haven't decided that I like or trust) does not think the bruising is eczema related, Spencer's hemoglobin is concerningly high, the cause of bruising can be incredibly difficult to diagnose, if something were really, incredibly seriously wrong Spencer would be having other bleeding issues as well (which he's not) and we're going back in 5 weeks for what is sure to be another appointment that will piss me off.  

Side note: In the middle of writing this post I decided to actually fill out the "how did we do?" survey from Phoenix Children's.  I gave them an ear full.  The last page said, "what is one thing we could have done to improve your experience?"  I gave them a numbered list of suggestions.

Anyway.  After we finally got out of there, Spencer ate some of his snacks in the car and we headed to paint pottery.  This was my gift to him for graduating from kindergarten.  Yes, I am aware he graduated from kindergarten in May 2014.

We went with Easter pottery.  An egg platter for me and an egg box for him.

Our finished products, before being fired.

After we were done, at close to noon we headed to breakfast, which was now lunch.  Then we decided we would use two of our free movie tickets to go see Zootopia again.  Because there is nothing like watching a movie you saw three days prior.

But first, cookies and drinks.

After the movie we picked up Elliott from day care and then, I have no idea what happened for the rest of the day.

On Friday the 18th everybody was home from work and school.

Michael's dad has spent the last, like, six or nine months building this work bench for us.  He delivered it the weekend before, so Michael and I spent a chunk of the day moving everything into place and cleaning out the cabinets in the garage.

Before

After

That night Ginger found a very cozy spot to take a nap.

Seriously.  This dog.  Nice pillow Ginger.

On Sunday my ladies group was supposed to do a scavenger hunt with each other but we cancelled it because we wanted everybody to participate and Maryellen had to last minute and unplanned go to Texas.  So, for the third month this year (and, you know, it's March which is the third month) we had a group of four (Joni decided not to come since it wasn't the scavenger hunt).  We still wanted to get together though, so we went to Lauren's house to just chill.

We decided to call the day Hanging Out (The Slap).

The Slap, because Shireen slapped Lauren in the kitchen.  This is a recreation.

Shireen "claims" that there was a mosquito on Lauren's chin, but we have our doubts.

I'm pretty sure I have a grape in my cheek.

After Brenda left we played bananagrams.  I've never played before.  I'm not very good.

Action shots

Lauren won twice and she tried to lose during the third round but ended up winning in about 15 seconds.  This was her reaction.

And her winning gram.

So then we decided to keep going and she was going to still let one of us win.

But she still won.

 I stopped to pick up our finished pottery on my way home.

And that, my friends, is the end of spring break.  I worked the next day but the kids were off from school.  Michael was home with them and if you think he took any pictures you are very wrong.