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. :)

August part 2

This year, our stake presidency was changed the exact same weekend they were supposed to reserve a campground for the stake Father and Son campout, and it didn't happen.  Nate has been waiting to go camping with Daddy, so we just had to do our own!  We decided it would be best to just camp at home, but I think we had a fun time!

We started with an old-fashioned camp game "Piggly Wiggly".  One person goes out of the room while everyone else hides in a sleeping bag (or under a blanket).  Then the person comes back in, sits on a person, who then has to snort like a pig.  The person on top tries to guess who it is.  Despite little Mr. Peek-a-Boo always trying to pull off the blanket and the fact that our sizes make it terribly obvious who was underneath each blanket, the boys thought it was hilarious.  :)

 

 Next we had tin foil dinners.  Then the boys had to go on a search for treasure outside.  The treasure was graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate for baked smores, which were super yummy!

 

 

 And the boys played some baseball and other outdoor rough housing while I made the smores.

 Camp chairs are a must!

 

 

 Then McKay and I went inside and the boys did their camping thing.