Maryland, Fort McHenry

On Tuesday, we visited Fort McHenry.  The battle between England and the United States in the War of 1812 (I had to have a refresher about the war--basically a war between England and United States to establish United States as a country independent of England. Yep, we had to fight for independence twice.)  Anyway, Fort McHenry was attacked.  Had it fallen, it's likely that other defenses also would have fallen, and quite possible that America would have proved its inability to defend itself.  This battle inspired our national anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner."  It was a beautiful place!

 Silly faces!

 Isn't he cute?

 Camden's camera smile. :)

 Love to see my little boys with Grandpa!

 Maybe should have positioned this one better!  

 See Grandpa, Mckay, and Camden on top of the hill?

Maryland, National Geographic Museum

On Monday, we visited the National Geographic Museum.  Now, it just so happens that Camden's favorite dinosaur is Spinosaurus. (Check 2012 Halloween)  Yep, he really loves Spino.  And, it just so happened that a brand new, nearly complete Spino skeleton was discovered, and is the only one in the world.  There used to be another one in a Munich museum, but it was destroyed in WWII when Munich was bombed.  In 2008, a paleontologist bought a bone on the street market in Morocco.  He didn't know what it was, exactly.  In 2013, he returned to Morocco in hopes of finding the dig site where the bone came from because he knew it was from a Spinosaurus.  After days of searching the desert, he sat in a cafe and just happened to see the same salesguy.  He had the guy take him to where that first bone came from and found a complete skeleton!  And the exhibit at the National Geographic opened just a month before we arrived. Coincidence?  Maybe, but it was pretty awesome timing for us!  We even learned a few new things, too!

 Nate with his dino shirt on, making a silly face. :) Love that!

 

I LOVE Nate's silly picture faces!  

Wearing funny glasses for a 3D movie about pterosaurs (flying "dinos")

 Mckay, not so fond of holding still for a camera, with a Carcharodontosaurus skull in the back. 

 Mckay might have been too small for Spino to prey upon.  Whew!

Christmas ornaments

Every year we get a new Christmas ornament for each boy.  I try to look for something representative of who they are or what they like.  The hunt for the right ornament takes awhile--to think, to look, and to find something that's a reasonable price. 

 

So far, Camden has a new baby ornament(1st Christmas), a motorcycle(1 yr), Lightning McQueen (2 yrs), a Spinosaurus (3 yrs), a Captain America (4 yrs), and he choose Toothless this year, though he considered getting a new carnivore dinosaur each year until he had all the ones he wanted.  Eesh.  We found a small toy Toothless and will add a hook to it, though, so he decided on Toothless this year. 

 

 

     

Nate has the new baby (1st Christmas), a puppy with a toolbox (1 yr), a Crayola bear coloring with sidewalk chalk (2 yrs), and a steam shovel (3 yrs) to represent Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel.

 

 

     

 

Mckay is tricky for me.  When I think of him, I just think "soft, squishy, happy".  Kinda hard to find an ornament  that represents that!  Last year, I found a plush elephant ornament that was so cute.  And now he LOVES elephants!  Funny how that worked out.  But, he also loves his blanket, so I'm planning on getting a small scrap of the minky fabric to make a little blanket ornament for him. 

 

 

This is such a fun tradition for me!  And when boys get married, they get to take the ornaments with them. :)  Glad that's a LONG way off.      

Funny Nate-isms

Nate: What's "Oh my goodness people?"
(Back story--Brian and I tend to talk to other cars when we're driving.  I bet you've never done that!  Brian was frustrated with lots of cars whose drivers seemed to not know where they were going and exclaimed, "Oh my goodness people!".  Then, from the back of the car, we heard, "What's oh (garbly garbly) people?)  We just couldn't hear what Nate was saying.  But after 5 or 6 repeats, we figured it out. I think it's hard to describe how cute and funny he said it, but it certainly made us chuckle!)

Nate: (Coloring at the table while I'm getting ready for church) "Hi, this is Brian Marchant from the stake".  When I peeked at him, he was holding an old cell phone.  He he!  It was so cute.  Yep, we hear that a lot lately!

Nate: (Walking home from taking C to school) "There's the house of the man who loves boys"(Speaking of an excellent young men's leader).  Gwamma Marchant loves boys, Gwamma Wilkinson loves boys, Sister Peterson loves boys, my nursery leader loves boys (and on and on!)"  I'm glad he can say that in innocence without other meanings.

Back to school!

Now that it's nearly Halloween, I better catch up!  Here's my darling Camden on his first day of Kindergarten: 

 

And, of course, a funny face shot:

With the brothers. Everyone's excited to go!

 

So far, I think he likes school.  His teacher is a master teacher, who is exceptionally patient, understanding, and calm with the children, but who can bring out good things from them.  She seeks out help from the parents, which  I really love!

Crazy week

First, we had a GREAT time in Maryland with Brian's parents.  I'll post about that soon.  But, since we've been back....
Monday night= Camden got his cast!  He choose deep purple, and he loves how he can move around so much easier than with the sling.  He can't quite do the monkey bars yet, but the doctor said he should only need about 3 weeks in the cast. 

Tuesday night= Camden felt pretty sick, with a strong tummy ache just below his ribs on the right side, a fever, and overall lethargy.  We decided to go to urgent care (3rd time in a month!).  The doctor told us to go to Primary Children's ER for a likely appendectomy.  As we were walking out the door, the doctor told us that a strep test came back positive.  After debating back and forth, she told us to take him home and watch him, that if he didn't improve after an hour on ibuprofen, that we needed to go to the ER.  Did I mention Brian has meetings Tuesday night, and this time, he was supposed to start at 7:30?  Of course he could skip them for an emergency, but it added to the craziness a little.  And the prescription for the antibiotics (for the strep) was written incorrectly, and it took awhile to get correction from the doctor and several trips to the pharmacy.  Finally, close to 10:00, we got the medicine.   Then we went to bed wondering what the night and following day would bring.   

Wednesday= Camden stayed home. His tummy pain wasn't really getting better, but it wasn't getting worse either.  We watched movies and tried to keep him still.  Finally in the afternoon, the pain started to lessen.  Of course, that left him feeling better, but cooped up and grumpy from staying still all day.  It was a rough afternoon for my patience. :)

Thursday=Camden went back to school.  After school, I took the boys to Costco to refill ink.  McKay suddenly threw up.  He didn't act weird, not sick, not sad, nothing!  In fact, he was quite upset that I wouldn't let him have samples that the other boys had.  I'm glad I had extra clothes in the diaper bag.  I thought it was probably something weird--just a fluke.  He vomited again later, after he drank his milk for bed.  We thought maybe he had strep too, but tummy problems are not typically the most obvious sign of strep. By this time, the urgent care was almost closed, and the pharmacy would be before we could get a prescription if he had strep.  After several hours of doing all we could to get him sleep, he was still fairly frantic to drink some more milk.  I opened a new container of milk and gave him a tiny sip (which made him very angry) and a few bites of applesauce.  Having a child throwing up is one thing, but having a weak, hungry child frantic to eat-- who can't understand why his mom won't help him is so hard for me. So after he kept down the milk and applesauce, I gave him a normal amount of milk.  He slept all night.

I realized the milk from the bottom of the first gallon was spoiled.  Poor Mckay! Today (Friday), he's been totally normal, besides taking an extra long nap.   

Friday=I think we better do something fun! (Or maybe just go to bed early!)


Even with our crazy week, I'm so glad it happened this week.  It would have been miserable to be so sick during our trip to Maryland.  I am grateful for medicine that can help us get back to normal pretty quickly.  I'm grateful for dishwashers and clothes washers and warm baths and showers.  And I'm super grateful when things turn out better/easier/simpler than they could/should have been. :)