we were glad to have chuck and patrick arrive home safely on friday after a full week of camp. however, by saturday afternoon, patrick was complaining of a headache and woke up sunday morning with a fever (apparently, a few other campers had it, too). by sunday evening, tucker was complaining of a sore throat (surprise!) and fever, but it was not the same virus patrick had. tucker had been exposed to hand foot and mouth disease earlier in the week and had finally come down with it. thankfully, both boys were back to normal my monday afternoon, but tucker's throat was sore for another day or so.
on tuesday, i took tucker to the ENT for his consult regarding a possible tonsillectomy. although his current symptoms were not due to strep, the spots in his throat were definitely convincing, and the doctor agreed that a T and A was the best option, stating that tucker being sick so often at that age would "only get worse." we'll be scheduling the procedure for september - as soon as the kids are in school but before the next "strep season" begins.
for now, it seems that everyone is healthy. despite the presence of 2 viruses in the house at once, the girls both managed to escape getting sick. this week, the older three are enjoying CFC's vbs. tucker is enjoying having mom and dad to himself each evening (and a few dinner outings...) he's finally caught on to wii sports, so we've played a bit of that. he and i enjoy playing golf... although a 3 year old trash-talking golfer is something to behold.
i've spent a lot of my free time this week catching up on photo organization. the most current pics in my photo albums are from this past christmas, which is really not that bad. i did some online investigation and, through website sign-ups, coupon codes, and photo credits, ordered around 400 prints this week for just the cost of shipping (woo hoo). i love having my albums up to date... and because i keep them out, the kids look at them a lot. i know this is one of those things that's slowly becoming out-dated, but one of my fondest childhood memories is looking through family photo albums which my mom so faithfully update. i'm glad my kids can do the same thing.
in addition to catching up on prints, i've also been taking advantage coupon codes for different photo projects. a few weeks ago, seehere.com was offering 25 free photo cards (for just the cost of shipping). i cashed in on this offer three times (3 email accounts = 3 website accounts) and ordered our christmas cards. premature? maybe. but that's one less thing i need to remember or budget for in december. this week, i used shutterfly's offer for free shipping and 30% off all photo books to create 2 different books (one of tucker's train trip and one of lucy). although i do keep my albums current, i've wanted to start scrapbooks for each of the kids - with a page or 2 for each year of their lives. however,... this has not been happening. with a good coupon code, i can make a photo book with less effort and about the same cost. i'm not planning on doing this each year for each of them... but i know they'll enjoy them just the same.
chuck has been home all week and will be home next week, as well. after that, he's back to school! i'm kinda glad he opted out of any summer work for these two weeks, because it's allowed him some time to work on other projects around the house - like painting patrick's room and the living room. he also replaced 3 ceiling fans that had mysteriously begun to die (after only 4 years!). we were going to just buy new ones, but he decided to call the customer service number he found on the motors. upon talking to a service rep, he discovered that we were able to return them to Lowes for a store credit equal to the original price of the fans. most fans have a limited lifetime warranty - i guess most people don't pay much attention to that, though. it worked out well, though, because we got 3 new fans for way less than what we were prepared to pay for 2 fans. i use coupon codes,... chuck uses warranties. it's all good.
well, the kids did their time and are back inside now. time to make lunch...
We "need" some new ceiling fans in this house. Some of them make mysterious grinding noises that scare me a little bit, though they do still function albeit with a little swaying (most of them are on those long hang-y poles). It's at the bottom of the list, though, currently. We've got a lot of other stuff that takes priority. My house is a wreck today. I'm going to post pics of the mess so I'll be motivated to clean this place up.
ReplyDeleteI like photo albums, too, and don't care if they're going out of date. I intend to keep them up anyway.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great idea to shop around for special photo deals, and if Eli wasn't going to change so much between now and November, I'd do our Cmas cards ahead of time, too. Great tip to remember for the future!
Glad the kids are feeling better!
ReplyDeleteI have always kept photo albums up as well, but am trying something new this year. I take SO many pictures, and am honestly not very good at keeping them up. I decided to make one massive photo book at the end of the year that is a nice summary of the year. I've been working on it as the year goes along. I'm also thinking of making a small photo book for each child for each year of their lives. If I miss having all my photos printed I may revert, but I'm going to try it!