Skate Party

I am so behind, and meant to post this 2 weeks ago but I guess it is better to be late than never.  Carter had his annual school skate party a few weeks ago.  When I asked him if he wanted to go he gave an emphatic YES! But then I told him that I would not be skating with him this year so he was on his own.  He then retracted his yes and said maybe he shouldn't go.  I tried to tell him that he was capable of doing it on his own and that practice makes perfect.  I prepared him for the falls that were to come and he seemed more willing to try.  That night he went in with a great attitude and he came out a skater!  Most importantly he had a great time and was proud of his accomplishment.  He started the night by kind of walking in his skates and by the end he was gliding.  Here are some of the pictures I took and a little video.

The start of the night, using the railing for balance

posing with his friend Harrison

Carter and Emma

Carter, Sammy, Harrison 

taking a quick break

This was still at the beginning of the night but he was getting a little better

Defy Gravity

Since today is presidents day we had a great opportunity to go to Defy Gravity with my MOPS group.  Two girls from my MOPS own it and got us such a great deal. So we took the trek to Omaha for the morning to enjoy some jumping.  The boys really enjoy and I really think I enjoy it even more.  It is so much fun! We enjoyed an hour of jumping and then had a party room with breakfast pizza afterward.  It definitely helped with the cooped in winter blues!  Here are some pictures of our fun.

eating breakfast pizza

sad to leave

Valentine's Day

We had a nice Valentine's Day this year.  The boys were very excited about their parties at school and getting Valentines from their friends.  My dad started with breakfast in bed courtesy of Chad and some roses. After I got the kids to school I went to my class as the Y where Callan got to make a Valentine that he gave to grandma.  I went to Cam's school a little early to take a few pictures of their party and then came home for a quick lunch so I could go to Carter's party at 1.  I was in charge of the craft at Carter's school and we did the same thumb print bottle cap magnet as last year. I put the kids pictures in them this year if they did it last year.  Their were only 5 repeat kids. The craft really is for the parents and all the room moms loved them. Then the kids had a snack and played Valentine bingo.  When they won they got to pick prizes that stayed in the classroom. There were tissues, glue sticks and dry erase markers.  Then I had a little break before I had to pick Carter up from school so I stopped at Walmart and got the boys a small lego set as their Valentines gift.  They were pretty excited.  They loved opening their bags with all the Valentines in it. Unfortunately  I didn't get any pictures of this. Anyway we ended the night watching The Land Before Time and then to bed.  

Camden with his Valentines

Camden and Carson

Carter playing Valentine bingo

looking at his loot

all the kids searching for their Valentines

some of Carter's friends

February Frenzy

It is still bitterly cold here and I think everyone is ready for the spring.  I am looking forward to not putting on coats and to hopefully have a healthy family.  We spread around another illness in our house. Thankfully it was just a bad cold and resulted in short fevers but days of coughs. Chad and I both got it as well but is was tolerable.  I can't wait until they can go outside and enjoy the weather and be kids.  We were able to get out in the snow one afternoon this past weekend that wasn't so bitterly cold. The kids all love playing in snow. The kids are looking forward to Valentine's Day and are excited about their room parties.  We also celebrated Grandpa Dale's birthday on Sunday which is always fun. We are starting to plan our summer and figure out what the kids are going to do. We always do the two VBS weeks and I think I am going to send Carter and maybe Camden to camp Sonshine this summer. I have heard nothing but great things about that camp. Here is a little bit about what has been going on with the kids.

Dale's 61st birthday

singing happy birthday

Callan is loving his voice more and more each day. He will use it all times, and especially when you talking. It is as if when you start to talk it triggers something in his brain to immediately start talking. We are working on this.  He now really understands what it means to communicate and tell stories and *needs* to be apart of everything.  One hundred times a day I hear "I have to tell you something mommy!" When I indulge him he will tell me a made up story that is usually completely unrelated to what we are talking about, but man does that kid have an imagination.  I do love his stories and often laugh when I realize how he sees the world.  He is catching on to our stories as well and will interject his own opinion by using one of his friends name.  If we are talking about how much we like oatmeal at breakfast he will chime in "Brooks doesn't like to eat his oatmeal." He also uses his puppy "Woofster" to tell stories. If Callan is sick and has to take medicine he will tell me that Woofster took his medicine too but he doesn't like the orange one.  The other day when I asked him if he would always be my baby he said "no, but I will be your nugget" (I often call him my little nugget) Camden has been working with Callan on saying words the right way. He says lellow for yellow and Camden will have his say yell which he does, and then say ow. Then when he puts them together he goes back to saying lellow.  But one time he said yellow and the sheer joy that came over him was priceless. Of course Camden and I were cheering, but he grinned from ear to ear and clapped and said "I did it! I did it!" He is also starting to wipe himself! Dear God we are so close to independence over hear and I am so overjoyed!
Our independent five year old is getting more mature as days pass. We just got the stuff in the mail to register him for kindergarten! Crazy! One of Camdens new little quirks is that when he needs to do his bathroom business he has a routine. He now shuts and locks the bathroom door and turns on the "air conditioner". He says he needs his privacy. He is notorious now for reading over your shoulder when you are on the computer and inquiring about what you are reading.  He will sit in the car and read out loud anything he can. One day I heard him say "that says kitchen on the go" when I questioned what he saw he pointed to a food truck that said that on the side. He then explained that it was a kitchen on the go because the truck could move any place it wanted. Then as we continued down the road he saw the Phillips gas station sign. When I asked him how he knew it said Phillips he said "well sometimes a ph sound makes the f sound. and because it is also on my tooth brush (sonicare toothbrush made by Phillips) This kid can remember some of the craziest things. One other crazy thing that happened with Camden one morning happened when Chad was helping him brushing his teeth. He was looking at Chad's shirt in the mirror because he had on a Wolverine shirt. He was looking at it in the mirror and then ran off into the kitchen and got out some paper and markers. He then ran to me to show me that he wrote Wolverine. When I glanced at it I didn't even make sense of it until I realized that he had written it just as he saw it, in mirror image.  I held it up in front of the mirror and could read it perfectly. I have no idea if he wrote it left to right or right to left but either way it was very interesting. He also got a kick out of finding out that in the song "what does the fox say" that the elephant says "toot". He thought it said "too" but he likes "toot" much better and shouts it out every time!
Carter is trucking along in school and at home.  He was thrilled that we got to go to a super bowl party at one of our friends houses.  He has become a huge football fan and checks out a football book from the school library almost every week.  We got him a poster from the book fair that has all the NFL team helmets on it and he was in heaven!  He told me yesterday that he is writing his story at school on the Seahawks and that he is on page two already. He was doing "research" in one of his books the other day.  He has been begging to play flag football. So we decided that next fall we will put him on a team through the Y. He also uses the term "versing" when talking about who is playing who and uses verses as a verb. Apparently it is common for kids after reading this article. Thought that was interesting. Carter also showed us how big of a heart he has (and maybe how tired he is with all the extra drama). The other night we were all saying night prayers and we have been using a prayer pail with peoples names on them to change things up. We drew out our family's names and went around and picked who we wanted to pray for. Callan was second to last and he was sad he didn't get to choose mommy because Carter already choose me. So while Callan threw a little fit we all went around and prayed for our person. When it was Callan's turn he refused to pray for Daddy (the name he drew). So Carter offered to say a prayer for him as well. He also offered to let Callan have my name. We told him thanks for the offer but that Callan needs to learn that some nights he doesn't get to pick first and he is going to have to live with that. The prayer ended nicely but when Callan realized we skipped him and he did not get to say a prayer for mommy he had a melt down. We ignored it and put him to bed and told him he was welcome to pray for me anytime he wanted.  Carter felt bad and came into Callan's room to apologize for picking mommy's name. He then broke down in tears and when I asked him what was wrong he said "I should have just picked daddy's name, I was trying to decided who I wanted to pick and it wasn't that big of a deal to me but it was to Callan." He is saying all of this through sobs! Then he says "I didn't want to pray for mommy that bad anyway!" I stepped back and said, well that kinda hurts my feelings. He then followed it up with "I'm sorry, that's not what I meant, I just meant I would have been ok praying for daddy!"  Poor kid. As sad as it was to see him feeling that way it does make you happy that he has a big heart and doesn't want others to be sad (even his own brother). I told Carter that Callan really didn't want to pray for me that much either but he was just being a typical 3 year old who wanted control of the situation but that I appreciated his kind heart and willingness to give to Callan.  I am sure some of his emotion was because it was the end of the day but I love that he wears his heart on his sleeve. He will definitely be hurt by people in his life but hopefully he will also be able to love deeply.

eating a lime

playing in the snow

action shot

can you 3 please get together for a picture? 

loving the snow

king of the snow mountian

making a snow ball

putting the kids to work. one dusts while the other vacuums 

Camden had a themed week at preschool. The first day was sports day and I didn't get a picture of that. This was crazy hat day. He made his own hat using his birthday crown

His favorite day at preschool, pajama day!

We watching the neighbors baby girl one day and Callan loved her! He was just concerned that milk was not enough for her and that she need a "nack(snack)" with him

after swimming all the boys couldn't wait for her wake up to hold her (it was short lived by the way)

Poor Everly was not happy about being passed around.

quiet time on the weekend

Husker Basketball Game

We were very blessed to get two basketball tickets to the Husker men's game last Sunday from our good friend Curt Brinkmann.  After talking about it for a while, we decided that Carter would love to go and so Chad decided to take him.  I really wanted to go as well, but knew that Carter would have a blast.  It did not disappoint!  Carter had a great time and Chad said he had some good one on one time with Carter. They ate hotdogs and Carter got to have a Pepsi (which was the most exciting part for him).  He also loves having the roster. He will keep the tickets and roster in his room and play with them for a long time.  He still has the tickets and roster from the football game he went to this fall! It was even more fun because the game was played in the new arena.  The parking was crazy and they had to park far away and walk in the cold but it was worth it to Carter.  Here are some pictures of their fun evening! Thanks Curt and Renee for the tickets!

In front of the Arena (it was cold)

ready for the game to start

a nice couple offered to take a picture of them together

watching the game

chillin' during half time!

A sinking vomit ship

(warning, this is a long an boring post about the family getting sick. I wanted to write it to remember in the future. if you don't want to read it, the long story short is, everyone got sick except me, it was terrible. now skip down to the pictures)
I am happy to be writing this blog post as a healthy human being.  The Scribner clan has not had the best of luck with health since the new year.  As I had posted in our previous update Carter, Camden and Chad had what I think was influenza which knocked them out for a few days.  During that time I disinfected the whole house and prayed Callan and I would stay healthy and we did.  Then that following Friday Carter came home from school stating that he did not feel well and went down hill fast. He fell asleep on the couch at 5pm and that was his bed time that night.  Weirdly enough he was better the next morning.  Then last Tuesday night, right before Chad and I went to bed Callan threw up in his bed.  I prayed it was a fluke one time thing but I was wrong, dead wrong.  He continued to throw up every hour until about 5am and he even threw in a poo accident on the carpet that I woke Chad up for. That day was Camden's birthday and a busy day for me at MOPS so Chad stayed home with Callan while I attempted to take snacks to different places and getting pictures of the birthday boy.  We postponed Camden's birthday dinner to Red Robin due to Callan being sick until Saturday night.  Then the real hell started.  Tired and worn out I made plans to go out with my friend Rene for the night.  I left Chad finishing up dinner with the kids.  About an hour later I got a text that said Callan threw up all over, AGAIN.  Ugg!  I proceeded as normal but received another text soon after that Chad said he threw up! I knew I was in trouble. If Chad got it, the rest of the kids we bound to get it too.  Our house was already filled with tons of laundry since our 3 year old still has trouble hitting a bucket or toilet when he gets sick.  Chad warned me that Carter told him he wasn't feeling well either.  Despite putting a bucket near Carter just in case, he managed to get sick all over his bed, floor and inside the boards of his bed! That was when I got a call that said I need to come home. In hind site it was the best thing because things did not get better.  I walked into a scene from a horror movie.  There was so much puke laundry and used buckets and a husband who was pale and bend over trying his best to keep things together.  I got Carter cleaned up and into Callans room to quarantine them. towels and buckets were strategically placed. At this point I decided to clean up Carters bed and move Camden from the top bunk to the bottom, just in case.  (in hind site this was the best decision i made) He was fussing and mad that Carter wasn't sleeping in there but when I asked him if he was feeling sick he gave me an adamant "no!"  I left to go make bio hazard bags of vomit laundry in the bathroom, clean out buckets, sanitize the bathroom and all door handles and light switches.  I also needed to disinfect all the legos and toys Camden might play with in the morning since he wasn't sick. About an hour later while I was talking to a friend, throwing a pity party for myself I heard the cries of our middle child and know that the inevitable has happened.  He managed to throw up straight up and let all the vomit hit him in face on the way back down. Along with all over his bedding.  I made him lay there for a few minutes while I finished cleaning up the bathroom to give him a shower.  I got him settled back into a pile of towels on the floor with a bucket next to him.  I went back to cleaning wondering if and when this thing was going to hit me. It was then that I decided that I need to get everything cleaned up and all laundry done so that if it did hit me, we would just have to do minimal work to keep the family going.  I went back to all the cleaning and took breaks to help out Carter and Camden taking turns throwing up.  Carter made it to the toilet every time after his first which was a HUGE blessing.  I think it is the next great milestone after having no more diapers is having all kids able to puke int he toilet. Camden however still had a difficult time and did hit the bucket with help from me.  Any time I heard him start to cry I could run in and help him make it to the toilet or the bucket.  But let me tell you this kid will fight you. Poor Cam got it the worst and was up about every hour to throw up. Carter stopped about 1:30am.  A midst all of this chaos Chad was having his own person vomit hell in our room. I kept praying that would not get this and thankfully I did not.  No one got much sleep and we spent the next day recouping and taking it easy.  Since we were all healthy on Saturday we were able to go out for Camden's birthday to Red Robin.  We even went to Goodrich after for some ice cream.

wednesday morning

that night after dinner the boys wrote callan notes that said they loved him

Carter on Friday after school when he said he didn't feel well

Nase and Tatze tried to help take the sickness away

Thursday night in the quarantine room

lots of towels and buckets (callans was out for cleaning at the time of the picture)

When Camden slept most of the night

Saturday- all better!

eating at Red Robin

his menu he colored

the ladies singing happy birthday to him

his ice cream sundae 

taking a quick break from eating to take pictures

with grandpa Al

More ice cream!