February Fiasco

Let's start out with what Claire did to my Valentine flowers before I even received them.

Blair was driving home from a scout thing separate from me, so he stopped at the store and got me a Valentine's gift. He made the mistake of placing the flowers next to Claire in the car because she claimed she wanted to "smell" them. They were in pile of pieces when he arrived home!

Blair got admitted to the hospital a week ago Friday until Tuesday. He had pneumonia, and had to be monitored until they thought he could breathe well enough. It's annoying because it's the second time in 2 months that he's had it (he wasn't admitted to the hospital last time though, so this was worse). I don't know if it was related to the other, or if his immune system is down now or not, I just know he works around people that have it, and it's contagious.  This was him "posing" for the camera, trying to look as sick as possible. Unfortunately the next day he really did look scarily sick, and was on oxygen.

Xander woke up on Monday morning with a stomach bug I assume.  He threw up all over his bedroom floor, and had some very gross episodes of diarrhea. Just as I was feeling super sorry for myself with my husband in the hospital for a few days, and a sick kid that I'm cleaning up after, I complained on facebook with the ending "please nothing else."  Well, I must have jinxed myself because there was a major something more at about the time school was letting out.

I asked my neighbor to pick up Will, and Xander had been asleep on the couch but I noticed he was sitting up and looking around. I asked him how he was feeling and he didn't answer. I went over to him, and kept asking him questions in which he didn't answer. I was doing this for a few minutes and asking him to please answer me, and asking him why he couldn't talk, and getting increasingly worried. He was looking at me and kept doing this weird smile where he'd flex and then release. It reminded me of a handicapped person that can't quite control their body movements, and I was getting really worried.

I got the phone to call Blair (still a patient in the hospital), and got the other phone at the same time. I went back in front of him and started calling Blair in which he didn't answer. Then Xander started shaking, and frothing at the mouth with his teeth clenched, and I called 911.

I have to say that was the scariest experience I've had thus far. To make a long story short, being the time of day that it was, half of my neighborhood was outside bringing kids home, and so there was plenty of help to take my kids etc. Xander could talk by the time the ambulance came, and has seemed normal ever since. He looked much better after he got some fluids at the hospital, but he didn't really have a high fever (it was 100. something at the hospital) or anything abnormal on other tests so far, so we can only assume it was caused from his sickness somehow, and hope that it never happens again.

Once we got to the hospital, a co-worker of Blair's saw me and I had him go up and tell Blair what was going on (I guess he was showering). They wheeled him down with oxygen on the back of his chair, and luckily he could be there with me. Then he was wheeled back to the 3rd floor after we left.  Wow, what a crazy chain of events.

Blue & Gold and Great to be 8

So this last week after all of our drama, I got to work at my church calling as 1st counselor in the Primary. I was already overseeing scouts with this calling, but my high involvement got me nominated as the cubscout committee chairman also, so now I can do everything I want I guess. My sister knew I was involved with it and had been planning for weeks, and said some of my cousins had posted about their's too, and that I should be documenting what I've been doing so I can remember. So, though I've been involved with scouts for years, here's my 1st post about it.

The Blue & Gold was last Thursday.  Since my camera has been lost, I borrowed pictures from my friend Whitney, whose son was getting his Arrow of Light that night (oh and she's a professional photographer so it works out perfectly manymoonsphotography.com).

So I started with these invites:

 The program entailed a flag ceremony, prayer, dinner, skits by each den, awards ending with our big arrow of light ceremony, retiring colors and prayer. Being that my husband, the Cubmaster, has been in the hospital recently, I took over his responsibilities.

 We've done a spagetti dinner with salad for a few years, with parents bringing garlic bread or dessert.

 This pic has my son, Xander, in it far left, and he looks pretty funny doing the watermelon cheer after an award with some of the Jones family. We assembled the tables in a U shape with the chairs on both sides, and program in the middle. I put blue & yellow tablecloths alternating. I put 2 balloons on every other table, or a centerpiece (the ones from the scout shop, or homemade styrafoam square bases wrapped in black tissue paper, with 2 little flags stuck in and crossing at angles).

I found an arrow of light ceremony at http://www.cubpacks.org/ks/cs/899/2004ArrowOfLightCeremony.pdf
The picture in the back is made from constuction paper, and stuck in a dollar store frame.
In the front I found "emergency candles" in a 6 pack at the dollar store (can you tell I'm trying to do this  without spending money if possible?) I needed 7 candles, so I bought 2, then dipped them in the wax of another candle, and stuck them on a piece of wood.
I found a place to create a certificate, and made a big one for the arrow of light, and small horizontal ones for the other awards this time. Waa-laaaa. A good program.  http://www.cyberbasetradingpost.com/index.cfm?Page=docs/create-a-certificate1.cfm


Then a few days later the "It's Great to be 8, Baptism Preview" was last night. I was in charge of a little talk on Baptism, and giving the gift. The Primary President introduced the Faith in God program, and then I talked, then we had the Cubmaster (my husband) welcome and introduce the boys to scouts, and the Activity Days leader welcome and introduce the girls to Activity Days. The Bishop spoke and in under 1/2 hour we were eating our refreshments. I'll try to snag a pic of the table, because  the other counselor, Katie, is great at decorating and I saw she had her camera.

As far as the gift, I made what I called "baptism jars." They would have been buckets if I could have found white buckets, but instead I found some fun airtight jars at the dollar store.

I used some ideas from last year, and a few new ones.

Washcloth-Your sins will be washed away at your baptism
Candle-Follow the light of the Holy Ghost
Soap-Stay clean & keep the commandments to feel the Holy ghost
Heart-Jesus loves you, stay close to him & you will be truly happy
Pen-Remember to write down your thoughts & feelings on your special day

I printed out the cute subway art, from a google search for Great to be 8 (1st image)
originating at meekinheritearth.blogspot.com

Alright it's documented. That's what I've been doing.

Jackson MS twice, Mobile AL twice, West Point MS twice, New Orleans, & now Mardis Gras.

Just out exploring the South, while Blair worked in Jackson all of January (3 hours north), I was keeping busy with the kids. We visited him twice, and hit the movies with him, our favorite restaurants up there, and the Natural History Museum.

Here's Will in a random pic on Blair's phone from his hotel.  I lose my camera frequently, and I've done it again within the last couple of weeks, so I'm at the mercy of what's on the phones for now.

We visited our old neighbors here who moved to West Point (a couple hours more north from there) and had fires, shot guns, hiked around their property and four wheeled. The kids begged me to go back, so the next time we visited Blair, we visited them again a couple weeks later.

Claire loved our friend's little dog. She would carry it around everywhere- the poor little animal!

Here were the boys gearing up to shoot some guns.

The boys loved the bonfires up there, but this pic is at our house now that we've been back. We finally got to open up Blair's Christmas present of a fire pit, and we can't get enough roasted hot dogs or smores since. Did I mention that Blair caught pneumonia at Christmas and was down until he had to go to Jackson for January?

We took my friend Sabrina with us to see New Orleans one Saturday. We got beignets and New Orleans food and visited the Aquarium and Insectarium (even ate a couple of bugs that they were sampling).

Here was Xander about ready to be brave and try a chocolate covered cricket.

We have a pass with another museum that would get us into the Exploreum Science Center in Mobile AL (1 hour east). We tried it out in January without Blair. The boys loved it, so we went back with Blair when he got back from his month away.

The 2nd visit they had this set up in the lobby when we walked in, so the boys had some fun before we showed dad all of the cool exhibits.  Too bad we didn't get a picture of the demonstration with the real human lungs (healthy and then a blackened smoker one) that we saw. That was cool!

Had to stop at "The Shed" our favorite BBQ restaurant on the way back.

Now it's Mardis Gras. The kids have 2 days off of school. Hmmm, what to do...
Well, rain or shine, the kids begged me to go to a parade today even though it was raining.

Xander got so many beads at a parade today that he collapsed on the couch right when he got home under the weight :)

Here were the kids with all the loot they got thrown. Claire was exhausted, and had wet boots.

Happy Mardi Gras! And to think I never really knew anything about it until we moved here.