FPK End-of-Year Program

What a great first year of school Mary Laine had! It was a bittersweet ending. She sang her little heart out at her program and setup playdates with her friends. 

Waiting for Wyatt...

Ready to go on stage for the progarm

Ann Grace was a little unhappy

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Ann Grace and Mamie were happier sitting with Miss Tami

The whole school

Mary Laine LOVED her music teacher, Mrs. Caroline!!

Susanne Graduates

At the beginning of May, the kids and I headed with the rest of the fam to Auburn for Susanne's graduation. (Gary headed to Talladega. I would say that he'll post about that later, but I have a feeling that what happened in 'Dega will stay in 'Dega!) 

The night that we got there, Walker and I joined Susanne and her friend Taylor for trivia night at one of the bars. On the way there, I made sure to let everyone know that, unless the questions were about early childhood development, I probably wasn't going to be much help. The questions were really hard, but between the four of us, we actually managed to get them all right. I even contributed - who is the leader of Snow White's dwarves? (Okay, I know about more then early childhood development. I can also contribute in early childhood literature!) We tied with another team, so they had us come up to the front. Unprepared for a tie, the guy asking the questions said that he was going to send us on a scavenger hunt. He said that the first team to get a mom in a Braves hat onto the stage would win. Susanne grabbed the Braves hat off of some guy standing nearby and threw it on my head and I jumped (yes, literally jumped) onto the stage. I did have to deliver some proof that I was actually a mom (pictures on my phone). And we won! Turns out I wasn't quite as useless as I thought I'd be. We won Crown Royal t-shirts (my new favorite sleep shirt) and two entries into the raffle. They were raffling off four tickets to Talladega. And guess what? We won those too! We ended up selling them and making a nice little profit on the weekend. (Actually, my take covered Gary's stay at the hotel since they were hit with a monsoon that very night and got rained out of their camping plans.)

Don't put money on these two in a paper airplane throwing contest!

Winners!!

The next day we got to see Susanne graduate with honors. So so proud of her! And now she's off to grad school. The sky's the limit!!

One fun thing about Auburn is that they have buildings that are named after my family (okay, maybe not my family, but maybe they are... you never know!)

Susanne and Langdon in front of LANGDON Hall

Susanne with Mary Laine in front of MARY LANE Hall (but they accidentally misspelled the Laine)

Auburn was such a great chapter in Susanne's life, but now we must say that we are SO excited to have her back in the great state of Mississippi. We've already gotten to see more of her in the past few weeks than we did in the few years before that! And in a few years, she'll be a licensed counselor ready to take on this crazy family!

A Soverign God

In the wake of everything that has happened with Langdon this week, I have been thinking about God's Sovereignty. In our Sunday School class the past few weeks, we have been discussing God's Sovereignty versus man's responsibility. The question has been posed: "Do you really want God to be in charge?" There have been alot of different answers to that question. Many have admitted that this is a real struggle for them and they want to be the ones in charge. And I believe that we all want this to a certain extent, but my answer was that I really don't want to be in control - I'm a mess and would screw up.

Gary and I were talking when we got home from the hospital. The truth is that Langdon survived because God is in control (and not me). But, the reality is that Langdon may have died, and that would have been the decision of a sovereign God. To desire God's control is to desire it even when it hurts.

I read this blog post this morning and thought that it sums up my internal struggle.

Jesus Loves Me

Sweet Langdon

I know that I've been catching up, and I will get a post to show all of the fun things that we've had going on in May, but I wanted to go ahead and post about our last few days while they're fresh on my mind.

On Wednesday, I started Potty Training Boot Camp (PTBC) with Langdon. It was going really well.

Ready to start PTBC!

Supportive big sis/Cinderella reading to him while he's trying to go

And sure to show him all of the pictures

PTBC Day 1 was a success!

Day 1 went great. He had two accidents in the morning, and that was it! He didn't have any accidents after his nap and really seemed to be getting the hang of it.

Throughout the day, Langdon had been complaining of an upset stomach. But everytime that he said he had a stomach ache, he would immediately go potty, so I thought that he was just confusing the feeling of needing to go with a "stomachache". Right before bed, he threw up, so I quickly realized that my little trouper really hadn't been feeling well all day. He got up in the night to throw up again, so I thought that I would just cancel PTBC. 

I put him in a diaper on Thursday morning, and he was pretty pitiful. He was running a low-grade fever (about 101), and was fussy and a little lethargic. But, after a good afternoon nap, he seemed to be back to himself again. He asked if he could go back to potty training, which I thought was a great sign. We switched his reward from jelly beans to pennies for his "froggy-bank", and that seemed to suit him just fine. And he didn't have a single accident all afternoon!

Mary Laine had gone to spend the night with my mom, so I got some quality time alone with the patient to play and focus on our potty-training.

Although he was still playing happily, he felt a little warm to me. I checked his temp around 6pm and it was 101.5. I decided to wait about an hour to give him more motrin so that it would last throughout the night. In hindsight, that seems to have been a big mistake. I gave him motrin at 6:45 and then took him to bed at 7. 

Gary and I were eating dinner, when we heard Langdon cry out at 7:15. We commented at the time that it was a sound he had never made before - it sounded a little like the cry that a doll makes. I thought he may have thrown up again, so I went in to check on him. Unfortunately, I think the image that I saw when I turned the light on will forever be etched on my brain. My baby was completely pale, his lips were blue, he was not breathing, his eyes were rolled back into his head, and he was completely limp and lifeless. I am so so so thankful that Gary was home and that Mary Laine was not. Gary was the peace in my storm. He calmly told me to put Deacon (the dog) outside and get the keys. While I was doing that, he held Langdon upright and was able to get him to take a few shallow breaths. Gary drove us to the ER and the nurses at GLH were fabulous! They got us back right away and Langdon slowly regained consciousness. They told us that it sounded like a febrile seizure. A CT scan, chest x-ray, and blood work confirmed that there was nothing more serious going on, and we were very relieved to know that these seizures are fairly common and harmless. 

Langdon handled all of the sticks and tests like a champ. He even started acting a little silly after his chest x-ray. The tech gave him a sticker and he decided that he wanted to put it on his nose.

This morning, he seems 100% back to normal. His fever is gone and he is still accident-free in PTBC. (And, on a side note, I think that the fact that he is actually accident-free after all that he has been through during PTBC is a ringing endorcement for this method. If anyone is interested in knowing what I'm doing, you can read about it on this blog.)

I'm not sure how long it will be before I will be able to sleep through the night without getting up to check on Langdon, but I am so thankful that he seems to be A-OK. Right now, I feel like I'm walking a fine-line between loving-on and appreciating the time that I have with my son, responsibly caring about his well-being, and idolizing him and detrimentally walking through all of the "what-ifs". But I do know that I am a little more thankful for my kids this morning and soaking up the snuggles that I am getting from Langdon right now.

Gary got a very sweet video of him singing Jesus Loves Me while we were in the ER last night. Once I get it from Gary, I'll be sure to post it.

And I was hoping that I would never be more afraid for my children's well-being than I was when Mary Laine had her tick-scare last summer, but, unfortunately, Langdon just topped her. Our children come from a long-line of fierce competitors on both sides of their family. I hope that they don't decide to make a contest out of this!!

April 2013

We had alot going on in April. Here are the pictures:

I spent the weekend in Asheville with a few of my closest college friends. On the way, I stopped in Atlanta to see one of my favorite families:

Getting so big - and more precious everyday!

Wish the weekend had lasted longer

Lee clearly adores her Aunt Kathryn

We had some fun around town:

Learning how to use a computer at the library

Playing at home

Everyone got a haircut

Celebrating Langdon's half-birthday with doughnuts and chocolate milk

Uncle Walker sent us a taste of New Orleans - Drago's oysters

Celebrating Daddy's birthday

I love a sleeping baby!

...and again!

We broke ground on our new house - hoping to be in before the end of this year!!

Went with some of our best buddies to see Click, Clack, Moo, a play at the Bologna Performing Arts Center:

Drove to Jackson to cheer for Daddy and friends in the Warrior Dash. Gary came in eighth place overall (out of over 6,000!!):

Caught a sweet moment when they were "protecting" each other during a scary scene in the movie

On the bus to the race

Go Delta Crush!

Go, Daddy, Go!!

Almost done

Some of the top finishers!

Love this picture of Tyler and Ashley!

We finished off the month going to the annual Sumner Rotary Club Spaghetti Supper:

Cake walk - didn't win :(

Loading up on sugar - win for the kids (not so much for mom)

Bingo! (didn't win)

Mrs. Caroline was there - Mary Laine's music teacher from school (and possibly her favorite person in the world!)