Mother's Day and the Sick House

Last weekend for Mother's Day, Kaitlynn woke up with a fever of 101. I figured it was just something viral but it turned out to be strep throat. Luckily her fever was the only symptom she had -- you would've never known she was sick otherwise. The weather over the weekend was sunny, breezy, and gorgeous so we ended up spending all weekend lounging and relaxing by the pool.

Jeff was asking me if I had a nice Mother's Day and something dawned on me. It seems like many mothers consider it a successful Mother's Day when they are able to leave the kids at home and enjoy some nice alone time pampering themselves or just relaxing. It struck me as funny that on the day we Moms celebrate our motherhood, we want to get away from those that made us mothers in the first place, ha! (OK, maybe that's just me, or maybe that's just mothers of young children.) Fathers, on the other hand, tend to have a successful Father's Day when they are able to spend as much time as possible with their kids. At least that's how it works in our house. :-)

Even though I wasn't able to escape my kids, I had a great Mother's Day and really enjoyed the quality family time. Here are some pictures from our weekend together.

A Mother's Day photo with my cuties.

And another one.

Swimming on Mother's Day weekend



Another fun Mother's Day weekend activity was a cute little event that our local Chick-fil-A hosted. It was called "Mother Son Date Knight" and was such a neat experience with my own little knight. When we arrived at the restaurant for our reservation, there were several knights to introduce us and young maidens playing flute melodies. We sat at our special table where the knights took our order, served our food, and gave us some knight-themed materials to spark interesting conversation. The Chick-fil-A cow was there and also dressed as a knight. After we ate, we had a "knighting" ceremony and Connor was dubbed Sir Bubble of Gum. He really liked that part. It was a really fun and special evening with my little knight.

Sitting at our table at our Mother-Son Date Knight.



Connor is "knighted"

Connor's favorite part, being dubbed "Sir Bubble of Gum"

Even the Chick-fil-A cow dressed up as a knight.

Probably my favorite thing about my Mother's Day was a surprise note that came home in Connor's school folder. His teacher gave him some paper to write me a note and this is what it said. Man, it gave me the biggest smile (and maybe caused me to tear up a bit...)!

Connor's sweet letter to me for Mother's Day. You can bet this is going in the keepsake box.

The week after Mother's Day marked a very first in the Courtright household. Connor came down with some sort of stomach bug that was making its way through his elementary school. After a few middle-of-the-night bouts of vomiting, he was fine but I kept him home from school on Wednesday just in case. That night, we had the entire family over for dinner but Collin could only stay for a few hours. Then in the wee hours of Thursday morning, Kaitlynn woke up vomiting and I followed suit a couple hours later. By mid-morning Friday, Jeff had come down with the bug as well. Then at noon on Friday, Kevin came home from school with the same symptoms. A quick call over to Collin confirmed that he had the exact same illness. It felt surreal for all 6 of us to have this nasty stomach bug at the same time. The little ones seemed to recover quickly, but the rest of us struggled miserably with typical stomach virus symptoms as well as aches, chills, and fever. It was horrible. Friday was the longest day I can ever remember. Thankfully we are on the mend this morning. I'm going to mark this down as the first and hopefully LAST time we all get sick together. That's a little too much family together-ness if you ask me.

Connor in his "sick bed" (before the rest of us got sick).