Dauphin Island, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, WoW it must have been spring break!

Content at the beach

I'm free!

Making a sand volcano with Claire in it.

Thanks for the sand in the face Claire!

 WHAT?!! Those beach photos were from a camping trip???? YES! We live in a cool place where you can drive an hour or so and go camping with a walkway to the beach. This spot was in Dauphin Island, Alabama. We do have a beach a mile or so from our house, but it's cooler to go on trips to really nice beaches somewhere else, and not bring the sand in our house!

huge tent! Blair found an amazing deal on a big ole tent.

yes, a playground at the camp too!

Looks like the mountains. You wouldn't think the beach is just beyond those trees, eh?

Had to stop at the BBQ place with the pig out front.

 BATON ROUGE, LA

So where is the nearest temple to Biloxi, MS? Yep, 2 1/2 hrs away in Baton Rouge. We visited and then hit a children't museum there to make it a day.

Xander & Will making lotion, fun!

walking around Baton Rouge a bit

NEW ORLEANS

Another fun place is New Orleans, just an hour and a half away. We tested out the Children's museum with Claire on a day that Blair had off.

NOLA Zoo

We went twice within the last month.  It's such a great zoo! Here was a cool Pelican walking around. These things are everywhere down here-not just at the zoo.  This was the closest I've been to one though ;)

Love those pretty fountains

Will making a face for the camera.

Where are all my pics of the animals? I don't know, but the kids loved the leaves.

Oh, here's a monkey ;)

 EASTER

Yes I know this was a few weeks ago, it shows how often I post. The kids were lining up for one of the egg hunts here on base. 

great weather!

the loot

Check out the ultimate jello I made for Easter dinner with some friends!

 LASERCRAZE

The boys have been begging us to go to Lasercraze and play some minature golf and laser tag. We finally obliged during spring break, and found out they have a great family deal, so we can go more regularly to Xander's excitement.

I'm going to miss my friend Sabrina. She's AirForce & has been a member of the church for a year and a half or so & hangs out with us.  Moving to UT in a week or so for BYU, so hope she has a great time!

RANDOM: Do you find treasures like these in the wash from your boys' pockets? I could start a rock collection!

WHERE DO WE HANG OUT FOR A FUN TIME?
Maybe the mall.

Check out this sand sculpture at the mall by our house. 

To say that Claire LOVES the carousel at the mall would be an understatement.

The boys doing the jump tramps there.

We found a frog in the parking lot on the way home.

THE PRETTY PRINCESS...

has started tea parties and dress up.

Here she saw that her shoe broke.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

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.