Germs Go Away!

It all started last week...I woke up in the middle of the night Wednesday with my eyes glued shut from gunk. I visited the Minute Clinic Thursday and got some drops.  I frantically washed everything, including my hands until they were raw, in an effort to keep the ickyness to myself.  Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, Camden woke up from his nap Friday with gunk in his eyes.  I started him on drops too.

Then, it got really fun on Saturday.  Camden began running a fever.  I had him on Tylenol and Ibuprofen but it would never get below 100.  His energy level was way down which is shocking if you know this child at all.  He's always on the go!  Sunday was even worse.  Fever was higher and he wouldn't eat or drink anything.  In fact, I woke him up at 9:00 just to give him meds and check on him.  He was back asleep by 10:30 and slept until almost 1:00!

Slept right on the couch. 

By Sunday night before bed, we noticed a pink tinge in his diaper.  It appeared to be blood in his urine.  We called the doctor on call.  Dr. Greenfield said it may be from dehydration, but that we should take him in the next day (which I was planning on doing anyway).

Come Monday, his fever was even higher and he just had no energy or appetite at all.  He fell asleep again at 10:15 and slept until 12:30.  I was able to get him in to see Dr. Anderson at 2:00.  

Here we are waiting for Dr. A.  His poor eyes are so pathetic!

His fever was up to 104 while we were there and the blood was still in his urine.  Dr. Anderson said he had an ear infection and took a look at this throat.  When she gasped, I didn't feel too good.  She said his tonsils were really really swollen and covered in infected mucus and puss.  She said it was one of the worst throats she'd seen in a long time.  She also said that was likely why he wasn't eating or drinking much since it probably hurt to even swallow.  They sent us home with a bag in his diaper to collect some urine to test and a prescription for an antibiotic to fight off the infection.  

Since I hadn't been feeling too hot since Thursday morning either, I decided a trip to Minute Clinic (again) might help.  Sure enough, I was diagnosed with an ear infection as well and given an antibiotic.

By Tuesday morning, after just 2 doses of the antibiotic, Cam's fever finally broke and he had way more energy.   I had a raging headache, but my ears and throat did feel a bit better.  We all enjoyed some time in our new reading nook and spent the day relaxing and playing in the bonus room.

The lab results came back from Camden's urine culture and all was clear.  He still had some red spots in his diapers, but the nurse said it would get better and he got more hydrated.  We worked on getting him to eat and drink, but it was still met with little success.  However, he was up for some heavy play time with Daddy and Ryker before bed last night.

More good news this morning when he ate more than a couple bites of Honey Nut Cheerios at Aunt Karen's while I cleaned.  He even drank half a cup of milk!  Woohoo!  

Since everyone seemed to be on the mend today, Ryker went to school like normal.  After pick up, we stopped at Subway for lunch and then headed to Greenfield for a stop at Goodwill and an Aldi run.

Ryker has been napping less and less often these days.  In fact, when he does nap, he is usually up really really late.  For example, he took a nap Monday and at 10:38 he was still wide awake in his room.  I'd rather not deal with that, so I've been allowing him to stay up.  Today, he did chores with me around the house.  He had a bit of an emotional spell at one point.  I sent him upstairs to calm down and he came back down 10-15 minutes later as good as new.  We then worked on some Kindergarten prep.  We've been doing flashcards for his numbers and letters almost every day and he hates it.  This dry erase activity book reinforces number and letter recognition and he actually enjoys doing it...yay!

I let him watch some TV while I put away laundry.  I went to check on him and found him curled up in this blanket with his back to the TV sound asleep.  I felt his forehead and it was really warm.  I was hoping it was just that he was hot in that blanket, but after a quick thermometer check, he is now running a fever of 101.5.  Uggh!  It's so weird since he was fine all day.  Heck, he ate an entire 6" sub by himself for lunch!  Now, he won't eat at all. :-(

SPRING COME QUICKLY!!!!

Mom's Birthday

Today is my mom's birthday.  We invited her, Dad, Grandma, (Grandpa was at the Butler game), and Aunt Karen over for dinner and dessert to celebrate my awesome mom.  I made one of her favorites, taco soup.  Yep, that is what she requested.

After dinner, she escaped and went up the playroom to play with her boys.

Then it was time for our brownie "cake."  Ryker was a big helper with blowing out the candles.

I told Robert to take a picture of Mom and I .  For those of you who don't know, my mom is 5 foot nothing.  I have a half a foot on her so she took this opportunity to knock me down and few pegs...literally.  She pulled me down to be shorter than her.  We all started laughing and never did get a decent picture...it was pretty funny though!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

Girl's Night In

After our Chick-fil-A play date it was time to get home and get everything ready for my friends Em and Jenn to come over for a Girl's Night In.  Jenn and I have known each other since elementary school and we all roomed together for our freshman year of college.  Lots of memories with these girls and I love that we still hang out!

Since Ryker napped at the store, he was wide awake when we got home and got busy with a dinosaur lacing activity I found at Goodwill while I chopped veggies and made a dip.

Then it was time to clean.  I put that boy to work!

Then, he got squirrelly and decided to use the laces to be an Indian...which also required taking off his shirt.

Then, it was finally time for everyone to come.  Ryker was beyond excited that Piper was coming. He couldn't wait to hold her.

Neither could Robert.  He is a total sucker for that little girl.

Me and Em

Em and her pretty princess

The smile kills me. :-)

All of us girls 

We had a great time catching up (we don't get to see Jenn very often) and enjoying delicious, healthy, homemade food that we all contributed.  We even watched Hunger Games before they headed home.  What a great night!

Chick-Fil-A

After school today we headed down to Southport to meet the Nye's for lunch and a little play time.  I went to take Cam to the bathroom to change his diaper and ran into my grandparents on the way out!  It was too funny.  As soon as Cam saw Grandpa he reached out for him with a big grin on his face.  He sat with Grandpa for a bit and fed him his fries.  Ryker got to visit with them a bit too.  He had a great time playing with Charlotte and Cam and Henry were too funny "talking" to each other and swapping books.  I so enjoyed chatting with Sophie and Chloe too.  They love dogs and I think I might have impressed them with my knowledge of all things canine (or maybe not...they could've thought I was totally lame and just faked it). Em and I don't get to see each other as often as we used to and I miss her like crazy.  It was great to spend some time together and catch up.

We ran to Goodwill and Target afterwards.  Clearly, he was worn out! :-)

Museum Trip

Tuesday morning we headed down to the Children's Museum for a fun day of playing.  We met the other Brown's and my best friend, Emily and her two little ones.  It was way busier than we anticipated, but we still had a great time.  The kids played so well together and it was nice catching up with Katie and Emily.  I took off without my camera, so all of these are from my phone.  Boo!

Cam was cracking me up in these goggles.  I couldn't believe he left them on for as long as he did.  But, he had a great time digging.

So did Ryker and Tucker. :-)  Aren't they handsome??

They had so much playing together.

I love when they hold hands.  It's so sweet (and a big help since it keeps them all together.)

The Hot Wheels exhibit was a hit with the little ones.

Ryker, Kainen, and Tucker loved riding together in a row.

My little ham and I had fun watching from behind the big boys.

Ryker adores babies and loved seeing Piper.

Katie had to take off to get Chaney off the bus.  Ryker and Kainen enjoyed some chill time watching the clock.  

Trying to get one of all of Em and I's kiddos before heading home.  

Play Date with Cousins

The kids had off of school today because of President's Day so we had Ashlyn and Carter over to play.  They had a great time and got along so well.  I was too busy chatting with Jalyn to snap many pictures but we did get this really cute one of them playing dress up.  Even Camden joined in. :-)

Game Night with the McCollister's

We had the McCollister's over for a game night tonight.  We had a great time and even got them playing Just Dance on the Wii.

We had to warm the McCollister's up to the idea by breaking the ice.  We performed a lovely duet for them. ;-)

It's pretty spectacular...

 

And very romantic. :-)

We finally got them in on it.

It was a great time for all.

Aud and I performed many songs together...that girl can dance!

Robert even did one with her...and she won!

Then he got some cuddle time in with his future daughter-in-law, Ruby.

Which put her right to sleep. 

This was Anna and I's impression of Tom's dance face. lol

SSMT: Verse 4

"You have made known to 

me the path of life; 

you will fill me with joy in

your presence,

with eternal pleasures at

your right hand."

-Psalm 16:11 NIV84

Ornery

I'm beginning to believe that I have one of the orneriest children to walk this planet.  That's right, my sweet Camden Nicoli, is getting ornerier by the day.  Here are a few of his adventures as of late....

~ The boy loves the toilet. Specifically, putting things in it and fishing them back out.  I've gone to do laundry or some chore around the house only to find later that he has dunked pieces of toilet paper in the toilet and then scattered them all over the bathroom floors and walls.  My recent favorite was when he dunked his favorite ball in the toilet.  Robert's favorite, however, is even better.  He had just finished giving the boys a bath and was assisting Ryker with his asthma medication when he looked over to see Camden using a bath toy to ladle toilet water out and was drinking it!

~ I recently hung some hooks in Camden's room for his hats.  I used a pencil to mark where I wanted to hang them after measuring.  Camden watched this entire time.  Since then, he has found a pencil (not sure where since I swear I've hidden them all) and marked all over his wall. This has happened 3 different times now.

He's quite the artist.

Best part is, the paint they used in this house is the cheapest, flattest, most horrible paint ever and when you touch it or heaven forbid wipe it, it comes right off.  He now has this lovely shade of mint green showing through in several spots on his wall.  

~ Recently, I made the mistake of using the bathroom for longer than 2 minutes.  I was just on the other side of the wall from the family room and figured I could run out if I heard anything amiss.  Hudson was laughing and all seemed well.  That was until I walked out to see this:

Yep, he got the container with the oyster crackers out of the pantry, pried it open with his teeth and proceeded to spill/throw them all over the family room.  Did I mention I had JUST vacuumed!?!?

See how Ryker was there and didn't say anything???  Yeah, he later confessed that Camden was throwing them and he was catching them in his mouth.  Super helpful he was that day!!

~He's also become enamored with the dog bowls.  He particularly enjoys moving the food into the water and back out again.  Splashing in the water is quite alluring too.  I had to completely change his outfit and mop up the floor twice in the span of a few hours the other day.

That being said, he is still one of the most endearing children you will ever meet.  He can make you want to scream and pull your hair out one minute and make you laugh and your heart swell with love the next.  Thank goodness for that charm!  He's gonna need it!

Oh, he's rotten to the core, but boy, do I love him!

10 Years Ago....

10 years ago today, I made one of the most important decisions of my life.  

I agreed to marry Robert. 

I was a freshman at USI and he was a Private in the Marine Corps.  We'd been dating just over 7 months and we were madly in love.  It was Valentine's Day and he had made arrangements to fly in and visit me for the weekend.  My roommates (who I later found out were in on his plans) were single and chose to throw an anti-Valentine's Day party in my roommate Jenn Jo's hometown.  They vacated the apartment hours before he arrived and I cleaned up and headed out to the tiny Evansville airport to pick him up.  After a joyous reunion in the airport terminal (it had been a month and a half since we'd seen each other, and when you're in love, that's an eternity), we drove back to my apartment.  

Shortly after arriving, we decided to exchange gifts.  Being the poor college student that I was, I sprung for an ultra-trendy, yet easy-on-my-wallet, shirt from Hollister.  After giving it to him, he hands me a book.  A book of poetry to be exact.  I love poetry.  Truly, in the most nerdy way possible.  I used to write poetry (I was even published once!) and I love to read it.  I love how it speaks to everyone differently and you have to think about it to figure out what it really means to you.  I have several poetry books with notes filling the margins.  So, this was a perfect gift!  I was thrilled.  I took my time searching the table of contents at the beginning, exclaiming things like, "Oh, he's one of my favorites!" and "I love that one!"  Robert, being rather patient (or extremely nervous), let me take my time, before pointing out that he had marked one of his favorites.  He flipped to a page where a poem was starred and a heart-shaped bookmark with a ring tied to it was placed.  This is the poem he marked:

Somewhere

Somewhere their waiteth in this world of ours

For one lone soul, another lonely soul-

Each chasing each through all the weary hours,

And meeting strangely at one sudden goal;

Then blend they- like green leaves with golden flowers,

Into one beautiful and perfect whole-

And life's long night is ended, and the way

Lies open onward to eternal day.

Sir Edwin Arnold

I truly can't remember exactly what he said because I was so shocked.  Shocked that I (the girl who had never had a serious relationship and ran at the first utterance of the L-word) was sitting with a guy that I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with and he felt the same way!  My head was spinning with thoughts like, "Is he for real?" "This is too good to be true."  and, of course, above all, "Yes! Yes! Yes!"

And, the rest, as they, is history..... :)

Valentine's Party

Yesterday we took some time to assemble Ryker's valentines for his classmates.  I stole this idea off of Pinterest last year and duplicated it again this year.  It's a simple, easy, yet creative way to do valentines.

I took a picture of Ryker with his hand out as if he were holding something a week before, used Pic Monkey to add some graphics and text, and then printed them off.  I cut a slit at the top and bottom of his fist in the picture and Ryker threaded the suckers through them.

While I was hard at work, this little Houdini managed to snag a sucker, open it up, and start enjoying it before I noticed.  The damage was done, so I supervised while he enjoyed his stolen treat.

Pretty soon, all 30 were complete and ready for his party.

I hadn't signed up to help with the party, but Ryker really wanted me to come, so I did.  He loved having me and the boys there.  He especially liked showing off his little brother to his classmates.  Camden was in heaven.  He was actually really good and helped with the games.  He would collect the balls they were throwing through a heart-shaped wreath and bring them back to the kids.  It was pretty funny!

One of the moms owns a cake shop and made special cupcakes for the kids.  They looked quite yummy and I know Ryker certainly enjoyed his!