Ryan turns 3!

For the last month or two Ryan has been asking for 3 of everything because "I'm going to be 3 on my bir-day!" 3 M&Ms, 3 taquitos, 3 strawberries, 3 whatever.  And now he's 3 years old. He had two birthdays because we celebrated once in Utah, and again back in Arizona on his actual birthday. Unfortunately the night we got home from Utah, Megan developed a fever and had a cough. I was sure it would be gone by Wednesday, so we planned a family dinner at our house that Grandma and Grandpa Knight and Justin and Marie and Peyton and McKenzie could come to, but Wednesday morning Megan's fever was still there (and we were suffering a bit from lack of sleep). Ryan was starting to feel hot, too, and by early afternoon he had a fever, too. We let everyone know that our house was a biohazard zone and they may not want to come for cake, but Grandma and Grandpa decided to brave it anyway.

I think when Ryan says bir-day he thinks birthday CAKE. He's told everyone who talked to him about his upcoming birthday that "I'm going to have a Lightning McQueen on my bir-day cake!" So we made it happen.

 He was pleased. Megan was more pleased with the decorations hanging from the ceiling.

 Ryan ate some frosting off the cake, maybe a bite of the cake, and spent the rest of the time playing with the cars.

 He had fun opening a few presents.

 One of the biggest hits were these Squigs that suction cup to lots of things: windows, tables, foreheads.

 And the grande finale was a new (to Ryan) bike. He hopped on and had a blast riding around our "indoor track" where they usually run around chasing each other.

 He had a good time (thanks to Tylenol) and we'll count his 3rd birthday as a success.

Unfortunately his sickness held on as long as Megan's. Megan woke up Thursday morning finally without a fever, but still runny nosed and coughing. Ryan continued feeling yucky for several days, though with no real symptoms other than a fever, and feeling gross when his fever would spike. Tylenol and Ibuprofen helped a bit, but he still spent a good bit of time like this:

When the medicine kicked in we'd get a few hours of him feeling better and playing before he was back to the shivering and wanting to be held all the time.

 It was the second week of Spring Break for Rachel, and most of the week we were sequestered at home because of sickness. Grandma took Rachel and Annie to the Children's Museum Thursday morning, then kept them all that day and for a sleepover that night, so they managed to have a little fun during that last week of spring break, and having only two children to care (even if they were both sick and clingy) was a real nice break. I sometimes think that Annie and Rachel don't add that much to my load because they can help out around the house with chores and are more independent and can take care of themselves more, but they also make more messes and dirty more dishes and need more food. It was nice to just be a mom to two kids for a day.

Ryan stayed home from church last Sunday because he hadn't been fever-free for long enough to know if he was over it yet, but he finally kicked the sickness. And has been super clingy ever since. Well, to be fair, he's been in this stage for several months where he prefers me to do everything for him rather than Dad (brush teeth, help him get dressed, etc.), but it seems to have reached a new clingy level in the last week or so. Maybe too many changes with our trip to Utah, and being sick, and he's feeling a bit insecure, but I'm hoping he gets over it real soon.

Ryan and Annie started swimming lessons last week and Annie was totally nervous about it before-hand, but did great once they got in and she suddenly remembered that she loves swimming. Ryan did okay the first time, but got cold half way through, so I had to coax him to stay in the pool through the whole lesson. The second lesson he was super whiny and wanted me to sit right next to him. He'd start to freak out a little when the teacher would get him for his turn trying a skill, then as soon as they were away from me, he'd be totally fine and do everything the teacher asked. Then he'd come back, sit on the step, be fine, look at me and start whining, "Mommy, I need you!" We're going to try to have Grandpa take him tomorrow and see if it helps to not have me around.

In other child challenge news, Annie has all of a sudden gotten a bunch of fears she's fighting. She's afraid of fires now. This probably was triggered by a Family Home Evening we had last week where we did a fire drill and an evacuation drill to practice getting our 72 hour kits. She asks me several times a day about fires and if there are fires in the desert, or if we use fires for light, or if we leave the lights on if a fire will start. Then Thursday night she had a bad dream that she wouldn't tell me about because she was too scared, but Friday she wouldn't leave my sight and kept talking about monsters. I told her many times that monsters were just imaginary. Then we made some monster spray and sprayed all around our house with a smell Annie said they wouldn't like (Wild Orange). When I made her leave Megan's room so I could put her down for a nap Friday afternoon I came out to find her in her room with the light on hiding under her covers so monsters couldn't find her. The girl has it bad. We said a prayer to help her feel better, and got to work distracting her. Once Rachel was home she wasn't glued to my side as much and has been a little better all weekend (probably because she wasn't alone). Tonight we put an extra night-light in her room and put a big stuffed bear on guard and that made her feel a little better. Hopefully these fears die out sooner rather than later. And I hope they don't get passed on to Ryan right now. He's clingy enough as it is. It's a bit exhausting having 3 kids want to be touching me all day every day.

Campbell reunion-saying goodbye

Saturday morning we packed up to head out around lunch time. The kids squeezed in some more cousin time. After a week together the novelty of having cousins around to play with all the time was beginning to wear thin and there were an increasing amount of arguments towards the end of the week, especially between Rachel and Lena, who are both the oldest in their family and used to being the "director" of activities. As departure loomed, however, all fights were forgotten and they were so sad to be saying goodbye.

Modeling their tie-dye bandanas:

Megan and Lisa meeting for the first time:

We headed outside to get some pictures taken. We managed one of all the grandkids with their faces at least looking in the same general direction.

While we waited for everyone to gather the kiddos were freezing. The backyard was warm enough, but the front yard was still in shadow, which worked well for pictures, but we had to huddle together for warmth.

We managed a couple good shots with everyone's faces  at least mostly showing.

Then the kids got some fruit snacks as rewards for being good sports.

Bribes for pictures are a must. :)

Somewhere in all the fun that morning Annie threw up all her breakfast right into her lap. We managed to get her clothes run through the washer and dryer before we headed out, and grabbed an ice cream bucket and some ziplock bags as barf bags just in case other kids needed them. Grandma and Grandpa Campbell had been hit by the bug during the night, and Annie and Jacob got it before we left, so at least we were prepared. But driving while sick is never fun. That afternoon a few more of the group were hit with it, but we were already on the road, and thankfully none of the rest of our family had to deal with it.

Annie never got the diarrhea part of it, which would have been horrible for a little girl in a car driving for hours on end. And Jacob never got the throw up part. Annie threw up once more, thankfully when we were already stopped to fill up on gas, and we could dump out the bucket before it stunk up our car. Then she was all better. Jacob's was not so short lived, but he survived.

In our many hours of driving to and from Utah we were able to confirm that Megan has followed the in rest of our kids' footsteps and like the rest of them CANNOT sleep for longer than 30 minutes in the car. Even when it was past her normal bedtime she would fall asleep for 30 minutes, wake up cranky for a half hour, then fall asleep for another half hour, just to wake up again. Luckily we were only in the car past her bedtime one of the four days of driving. Ryan, who normally has an hour and a half nap nearly every day, did not nap once on our drive. But around 4 or 5pm each day got super cranky because he hadn't napped. Megan was not a big fan of her car seat, but did much better when I was out of sight, which happened to be most of the time, since Jacob only drove for about an hour out of each day because he was not feeling well on the days we were driving.

We were making decent time on our drive and figured we'd stop on the other side of Las Vegas with plenty of time to spare before bed time. We pulled off in Henderson at an exit that had 6 hotels, and after driving for a mile we didn't see one of them, so we stopped for some dinner, then got back on the freeway for 15 more minutes to Boulder City. Megan especially was done driving, but everyone was really ready to be out of the car. I prayed as we drove through Boulder City that we would find a hotel that had a room quickly because I didn't think I (or any of the rest of us) could handle another hour or hour and a half to Kingman where the next chance for hotels would be. We pulled up at a hotel and when I went in we were able to get the very last non-smoking room available. They had 2 more smoking and one non-smoking. Apparently there were two big races the next morning and things were pretty booked in town, so it was a total answer to my prayer that we were able to get the last room available there.

We were all so relieved to be there. Ryan and Rachel jumped back and forth on the beds a few times while Annie laid and watched them, still recovering from her sickness. We let them watch a short movie to settle down, and everyone was asleep by 8pm.

 The next morning we found that we had a great view of Lake Mead.

We ate breakfast, and headed off for our last stretch of road. Many hours later we pulled in to our home, sweet home. When we turned on to our street Ryan yelled out, "That was totally AWESOME!" I'm not sure if he was talking about the vacation, the drive, or the fact that we were turning into our neighborhood. The vacation and returning home were totally awesome. The drive not so much.

Campbell Reunion-Friday

Friday's theme was Friday Fun Day. Aunt Cari and Aunt Sharon were going to start out the day by taking the older girls bowling. Then I took all the car seats with me to the temple that morning, so they had to wait until I got back. Oops. At least they had plenty of time to get all cute-ified.

The girls had a lot of fun bowling. Sophie even managed to break 100!

Rachel bowled a 97. Not bad for her first time ever.

After they got back and naps were done we headed to Pioneer Park for more park fun.

After the park we headed back home for ice cream cones. We all scream for ice cream.

We finished up Friday fun day with a movie night watching Big Hero 6. It held some of the kids' attention longer than others. Rachel and Annie were so engrossed in the movie that they barely registered when Lena came down so excited to tell them "Aunt Lisa is here!!"

We were glad Lisa managed to come down on Friday instead of Saturday morning so we could have longer than 2 hours with her. Once the kids were asleep we had some fun watching "Bad Lip Reading" videos on the smallest screen in the house. I thought it was funny that there were 7/8 people gathered around the tiny phone screen when a nice big computer monitor was 5 feet away.

We snapped a few photos of the original Campbell kids all grown up.

And of the whole family.

We saved the rest of the family pictures for Saturday morning.

Campbell Reunion-Thursday

Ryan learning to use his LeapReader while the girls look on:

 Many mornings Cari would get a fire going for us to enjoy. There are some benefits to it being freezing every morning (though thankfully the weather was pretty warm for us by mid-day most days).

Thursday morning Jake stayed with Megan while she napped, and I took the other 3 kids to see Ellie, one of my roommates from college who lives in Orem. Of course I forgot to take a picture with her. But it was fun to visit for a while. One of these days we'll have to plan an apartment reunion for the roomies of Crown 9er.

On our way back we took a small detour to visit the temple. Since we live 2 hours away from the temple we don't get to it as much as I would like, and the kids hardly ever get to see a temple though twice in the last year they got lucky and got to go through two temple open houses, first in Gilbert, then in Phoenix.

While we were in Provo I took advantage of having a temple so close and Jake and I went together once, I took the kids to the temple grounds, and I went by myself once.

The kids sure liked it.

Rachel kept telling me to take more pictures. "Take a picture with the temple water!"

"Take a picture with the temple flowers!"

Meanwhile, back at the house Miri and Megan were getting to be buddies.

Thursday we celebrated Christmas. Annie helped make cookies, and everyone helped cut out some, then decorated them with frosting and LOTS of sprinkles.

Grandma was so good all week at keeping us stocked yummy treats. She made sure to make plenty of gluten-free cookies, too, so Ryan wasn't left out. She's probably made more gluten-free cookies than I ever have even though I'm around the Celiac kids all the time and she only gets a few weeks out of the year. I've never been a big cookie maker, though.

A rare quiet moment brought to us by Cari and lovely books:

Outside Sophie, Lena, and Annie used a board and a big rock to have some teeter-totter fun.

For Christmas the ducks got more popcorn.

Megan was looking super cute.

Aunt Ashley was the family art director. She organized the kids to make stepping stones with plaster on Wednesday, and on Thursday she pulled out bandanas and stuff to tie-dye them.

They were super cool mementos of our reunion.

Ryan was not so interested in the tie-dye. He was happy to run back and forth on the sidewalk in front of the house with Cari chasing him on the scooter, and Sophie running after them.

After dinner we all got together for the Christmas party. We sang Christmas songs and the kids each got to open a present, then the adults had a white elephant gift exchange. I got patterned duct tape which has since been used to make Rachel her very own wallet.

Miri loves shoes. If Annie was looking for her shoes usually the first place to look would be on Miriam's feet. Such a cutie.