Never Leaving The House Again...Ever.

So it seems I'm going to turn my home into a giant plastic bubble, and my family will NEVER be allowed to leave it again.  Ever.  Ever. Ever. 

Why?  Because everytime we LEAVE our humble abode.  The kids catch everything that is out there! Doesn't matter how much hand sanitizer or hand washing or face washing we do.  They STILL get it.  Doesn't matter how much vitamin C I pump into them, or how much good balanced meals I cook for them to make sure they get all their vitamins and good for you stuff, or how much I make them play and not lay about like couch potatoes and make them go get some sun (while wearing a healthy amount of sunblock to protect them!)  They still get sick.  Always.  No matter what.

Keegan had just been to the pedi a day or so ago for a nasty respitory infection he's been fighting.  Just went on antibiotics for that, since it wasn't going away.

Now?  They have hand foot and mouth virus. Yeh.  That.  Great.

HOW?  WHEN?? WHERE??? WHY????

I have no idea.

None of that really matters now though.  They have it.  That's what matters.  And now I just have to ge them through around 14 days of blistery HELL. 

It's almost like chicken pox, almost.

They have blisters in their mouth (the boys couldn't even supper tonight because it hurt so badly).  They have blisters on both sides of their hands and feet (so walking is not so fun, and playing with toys can be not so fun too).  They have blisters on their BUTT and poor Keegan has them pretty damn close to his umm butt hole.  So going poo is NOT going to be comfy for him.

And you know what I can do about it? 

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

I can give them cool baths with oat meal. 
I can give them tylenol. 
The Doctor at the ER gave us a prescription for a mouth wash to help them so they'll be able to eat and drink.
I have to keep them hydrated (which I already do)
I can give them freezer pops or pop sicles to help their mouth and hands.  The cold is good for them.
Keep them isolated away from other kids and people (as it is very contagious especially for children).

Kams cannot finish summer preschool, and she is CRUSHED.  But she cann't go to school and pass this on to other kids.  Right now she only has about 10 blisters.  In the morning?  She could have 20.  She'll be staying home and I'll be home schooling her this summer to keep her up with everyone else so she doesn't loose anything she was learning.  We like to do the summer school every year so she doesn't loose any of the speech therapy she got over the school year, it helps reinforce what she was learning. 

I don't even know if the boys speech  therapist will still come or not, or Keegan's behaviorial therapist.  And they only get to use that service until August so we really do NOT want to waste miss any of these appointments. 

And we may have to reschedule the boys' tube placements on the 26th because that is cutting it awful close to them being fully over this virus.  So we'll see what happens.  Don't really want to reschedule because heaven knows when they'll be fit back into the schedule.  But to keep them safe, I will reschedule as many times as it takes. 

So we went to an art festival yesterday....before we knew the kids had hand foot and mouth virus...they didn't show any blisters or anything until much later in the evening.  So the kids had fun, until later that evening when they were sick.  Poo.  But we hit up the art festival, went out to eat and had some spaghetti, hit up a car show, spent some time at the library, and went to a friends house for a play date.  Very busy day. 

The kids entered a side walk chalk art contest, and they got 4th place in their age group.  So they all got little ribbons.  Very sweet! My little sister entered some side walk chalk too in honor of Keegan and Childhood Cancer.  Very sweet of her!

My sister and I made this art work for the side walk chalk art contest. 
In honor of Childhood Cancer and Keegan. 

This week at the carnival they had a dog show to benefit the dog shelter.
I volunteer at the dog shelter photographing the shelter dogs to help them find homes. 
And I work with some friends who do rescue work.  So for the dog show
they entered one of the dogs in a foster home and I got to take her up front
for the judging.  It was pretty fun.  Tuti was a really good girl!

Me and my daaaaarling little sister!! Cannot believe she is 17 and a senior!!

We painted up our fat little piggy toes, in a Harry Potter theme ;)  I am team Gryfndor and she is team Slytherin

Marshall and Kamilah hittin' up the car show...as zombies.  Yep. 
My kids are weirdos and like to pretend to be ZOMBIES, and they do it
in public too LOL They were seriously pretending to be zombies here LOL

The kids making hand puppets at the art festival ;)

My daughter Kams putting the finishing touches on her side walk chalk art. They got 4th place
for their age  group.  Way to go!

Kams Sock puppet!

Kams coloring on the side walk at the art festival

Marshall and Kams making some music with flip flops and PVC pipes!
at the art festival.

Doing hand prints at the art festival

Hand prints!

Kams doing some "automatic art" at the art festival.  It was interesting.

My Keegan, my friends Keegan, my Marshall, and my Kamilah all hanging out at the car show.



 

The rest of this month, I don't think we have anything planned.  So hopefully the kids can recooperate and we'll be able to go to the air show next month.  I think our plans for visiting back home this summer are going to fall through, but we tried at least!

Mae

Fun Summer Times!

I hope everyone has been having an enjoyable summer so far.  Ours has been going exceptionally well.  We've had my little sister with us for just about an entire month, and it's been a blast.  I'm always glad when she gets to come stay with us.  She's a wonderful little sister, a fantastic aunt, and a wonderful young lady.  I know I mentioned in my previous post how very proud of her I am. 

Just a warning.  This post...is photo heavy.

I took more senior pictures of her so that's all done.  She really loves them and is very happy with how they turned out. 

My sister is a Harry Potter fan, HUGE fan.  And she asked if we could do some Harry Potter
themed pictures.  I said SURE! LOL We timed this photo with the train in the background
just right.  LOVE it.

My sister has always loved the guitar, just like me.  So for her birthday, I gave her my old guitar
and she was absolutely THRILLED. 

My little sister and my daughter.

We have baked oreo stuffed vanilla cupcakes with home made cream cheese frosting.  They were delicious, and they didn't last long! We shared them with our friends.  We certianly couldn't eat 24 cupcakes by ourselves!

Oreo Stuffed Vanilla Cupcakes With Cream Cheese Frosting
1 white cake mix (prepare as directed)
1 package of your favorite Oreos (we used double stuffed)
2 8oz packs of softened cream cheese
1 stick of softened butter
1tsp vanilla
1 cup of powderd sugar (the recipe called for 2 cups but that was just going to be too much)

We put our cupcake liners in the muffin tin and placed an Oreo in each liner, we then scooped the cake mix ontop of the oreo.  We baked it in the oven as directed for cupcakes on the cake mix.  While they cooled we prepared the frosting.

We put both blocks of cream cheese in a mixing bowl with the stick of butter, and we mixed them together till smooth.  Then we added the teaspon of vanilla (don't forget to scrap  the edges of your bowl).  We then slowly added our powdered sugar (again scrap the bowl).  We mixed with our mixer till the frosting was smooth.  We then placed it in the fridge until the cupcakes were done and were cool enough to frost.  We put the frosting in our frosting gun and then decorated the cupcakes (I'm not all that great at frosting cupcakes) 

The end result, well we thought it was nice looking and yummy too!

My son Keegan also walked in his 3rd Surivors walk.  Still the youngest participating survivor.  It's a very emotional surreal moment when my son walks the survivors lap.  Every year I cry my eyes out as my son walks that lap! It's an amazing sight to see all of those survivors.  This year my little sister got to be there for that too and Keegan clung to his favorite auntie. 

Group photo before the Relay

Keegan with his Aunt Layla

A friend road his motorycle to the Relay for life with a motorcycle
group that brought in the flag.  He put a sign on it for Keegan.  Then Keegan
got to sit on the motorcycle (a Harley) and it made his day!

Kamilah got to sit on it too!

We also went to the carnival this week too! It was a lot of fun.  Freaking expensive, but totally worth it.  The kids have never ridden rides at the carnival before and they are all old enough to really enjoy them, so we figured "eh, why not"  And WOW! What a blast they had!

Marshall

Enjoying the Fun House! They LOVED that!

Keegan enjoying the rides

My sister and Kamilah getting on the Ferris Wheel

Keegan and Kamilah on a ride

Marshall and Keegan riding their favorite ride


Tomorrow we'll be heading out to an "Art on the Block" at the local college, so looking forward to going to that! I know the kids will really enjoy it, then we are going to take in a car show at the carnival downtown. 

Starting on next week the kids and I will be relaxing.  Husband is going out of town for a couple of weeks for work.  The kids and I will just be playing at the park, having water fights, and we might even camp out in the back yard. I have always loved summer and doing all kinds of fun things.  The past couple of years we haven't gotten to do too many fun things but I've always tried to squeeze in a few things!

Next month we are hopfully traveling back home sometime to see my Mother.  The kids will absolutely love that.  They had fun last year when we went. 

We're also hoping to make it to the zoo soon as well.  Lots of fun planes! We're hoping to throw in a bit of fun at the local air port for their air plane show they usually do, the boys love air planes. 

Now it's back to finishing supper and then off to snuggle up on the couch to watch a movie with my kiddos and sister!

Mae