Scary Storms Last Night

First of all, Clayton and I are both just fine and no damage to our house! Phew!

Well, if anyone doesn't know, we are moving to York in the fall for Darrel's new job as a math teacher at York Middle School and the High School - really our dream come true. Well, our house has been on the market since April 1st but it still hasn't sold, but starting this week, Darrel is sort of going to York without Clayton and me. He will be working on the farm and helping with York's wrestling program (staying with his parents).

So last night, he left after Clayton was in bed. And then we got some severe storms. We (Buffalo County) were in a Tornado Warning and the sirens were going off, this was about a quarter to 9pm. Our house has no basement, so we had discussed that in this type of situation, we would get into one of the clothes closets and shut the door. Without Darrel here, I am in near panic! I can recall the tornadoes that came through Kearney, about this time in May 2008, the month before we got married, and several buildings within blocks of where I was at that time were destroyed. Would I be that lucky this time? I remember thinking that my worst nightmare was coming true - our house will be leveled by the tornado and we will be homeless with a baby. Except it wasn't we, it was just I. Reluctant to wake up Clayton, I had the flashlight and a stocked diaper bag in the closet and turned off the computer and sat on the edge of the couch on high alert watching the local weather reports and radar, nervously glancing out the window. One of the last things I remember them saying before we lost power at about 9:05pm was that there had been several tornadoes spotted in Kearney and that you did NOT want to be on the west side of your house right now, with winds that strong, it would blow the hail right through your windows. Luckily we don't have any windows on the west side of our house and I hadn't seen that we had gotten any hail. But with the power out and no TV to keep me updated on the storm, I grabbed Clayton out of his crib and sat in the closet. I sat there until about 9:20pm when Darrel confirmed to me via text message that Kearney was out of the tornado warning and the worst of the storm had passed over us. So I gently put Clayton back in his crib - he had never even woke up through this whole ordeal by the way. I even bumped his head on the plastic drawers in our closet a couple of times while I was trying to get situated and he never did more than stir a little, what a little stinker! : ) Our power came back on about 10:00pm (which was good since my phone had been beeping low battery most of this whole time). So crisis averted we are all safe and sound, but of course still missing Darrel (daddy).

Happy Camper

Clayton had so much fun playing outside while we were camping at Fort Kearney. I think I will try to let him do that more at home now. This video is from Friday afternoon; Darrel had to be in Holdrege for rehearsal dinner (he was a groomsman in his childhood friend Kirby's wedding this weekend) so he dropped Clayton and I off at the campsite around three and set up the tent, then went back home to get ready. My parents came in their camper later that evening, so Clayton and I held down the fort in between.

My grandparents also came out for dinner on Sunday afternoon. We had hobo stew meals (onions, ground beef, potatoes and carrots cooked in a foil packet in hot coals and cherry cobbler (baked in our dutch oven in the fire) with ice cream for dessert. It was kind of misting all day and never got very warm, but I was glad that Clayton finally got to wear some cozy fleece lion PJs in a 6-9 month size that I was afraid he would never get to wear just because that size and the seasons didn't match up correctly. I know that my grandparents and my parents really enjoyed all the time with Clayton (and I think they like to visit with me and Darrel too!)

Clayton (in his lion PJs) & Great Grandma Erna

We bugged out early than originally planned on Sunday afternoon because of predicted high winds overnight, and we are glad that we did! It has been very windy last night and this morning it would have been really hard to pack up and for my parents to pull the camper (read: wind sail).

Clayton was a great camper and we can't wait to try it again sometime soon!!

Clayton's 1st Camping Trip

I'm calling it a success even though the weather didn't really want to cooperate!!

Clayton had a lot of  fun. More pictures to come!

Haircut

We had family hair cuts last night! We go to the home of someone I know from my time working at the Buckle and this is the 2nd time Gretchen has cut Clayton's hair. It's amazing that just trimming so little can make such a huge difference!

And the spikey look : )

Rainy Day

It's so wonderful to sleep in on a rainy day! Clayton slept until 8:20am this morning! So much better than the 4am wake time he was trying to pull last week. He woke up such a happy camper too!

My little ham

Building blocks with Dad

Can I knock that down?

BOOM!

Official 7 Month Pic and Hives

Here it is (finally):

Also, on Saturday and Sunday Clayton had hives. I didn't notice any this morning so far. I have never experienced hives before so I didn't know what they were at first, but thanks to the Internet I learned that he had a classic case. They would appear and go away, just to show up somewhere else on his body. They did seem to bother him and I would say that he was a little irritable and had a decreased appetite. Over all though, he was a trooper. Here is a picture of one relatively small one on the back of his leg yesterday:

I am assuming that they are from the antibiotics he was on from his infection earlier this month. He took Amoxicillin, and both my mom and I are allergic to penicillin, so we are assuming that is the culprit. His last dose was on Friday morning, and the hives showed up for the first time on Saturday. However, he also had a new food on Thursday (Lentils) and we switched back to regular Johnson's baby lotion from the unscented version last week as well. So I am going to cut out the lentils and keep using the lotion and see what happens with the hives. Once I am sure they are cleared up, I will reintroduce the lentils. If the hives do not return I will know it was the antibiotics.

Blocks!

It was so neat to watch Clayton figure out what I wanted him to do with those blocks (knock down the towers I made). He went from just putting them in his mouth and accidentally knocking them down, to doing it on purpose and getting better at doing it! It is so rewarding to watch him learn something new!