Hawaii

Scooters & D3

Wooweee, what a night we had.  We have definitely done well the last (almost) 12 years of having children, only a few minor scares here and there, but nothing like many other families have had....well until yesterday around 5pm. 

I was starting to make meatballs and homemade pasta when one of Audrie's friends, Precilla came to the door in a frantic saying, "Audrie fell!"  It's not the first time this exact same scenario has happened and so I thought, "band aide time!"  I took off my apron and started jogging around the corner to where Audrie had been playing....that's when I saw it.  Audrie holding her arm extended in the front (kind of zombie like) saying in a complete panic, with tears and the shakes, "I can't feel my hand! I can't feel my hand!!!"  She had a defined bulge in her lower arm/wrist area and I knew immediately she had broken it.  I took her inside, sat her on the couch and tried to find all of the kids.  Tyler was still at a friends house around the corner so I sent Kaylee to get him and tell him "emergency!!"  She did and eventually he came.  Sam must have felt the mood change in our home because she went from calm to absolute hysteria in a matter of a split second.  She must be really sensitive to that kind of thing because I was VERY calm.  I think having Katie in our family has helped me learn to be calm during these kinds of situations.  

Anyway, we hopped in the car and drove to the nearest urgent care hoping they could deal with this so we didn't have to wait for eternity to get into the ER.  They basically booted us out the door and said, you need to go to the ER.  So we went.  As we walked in there were many people already waiting and they all stared at her and made sad faces or mouthed "Oh, poor baby" because how obviously broken it was.
Just as a side note I must document what she said she was attempting while outside playing.  She was trying to scooter on her regular scooter with NO HANDS....as well as one leg in the air :)  Yes, that's my sweet Audrie.  Hahaha, as she told me this she reassured me that she had done it soooo many times before without any trouble.  I simply told her to take a look at her arm.  Hopefully she realizes it only takes one time to have an accident!

We waited about an hour before we were seen.  They gave her a sling.  We waited another 30 minutes and had the x-ray done.  Then we waited 2 more hours for the results, which were clearly what we had thought, broken.  Both bones.  One completely broken and displaced and the other  fractured. 

They finally took us back into a room and began prepping to set the bone back into place.  Audrie was SO nervous.  She was shivering and really, really apprehensive about what she thought was coming.  They checked her out, did an iv (which she thought was going to be HORRIBLE, but it wasn't) and started giving her meds to sedate her in order to do the "procedure."  She zonked out pretty quickly, but wasn't totally out just in a dazed like state (kinda weirded me out honestly).   Then came the manipulation of her arm.  I am still getting the heebie geebies about it when I think about it.  They tugged and moved her arm and I just couldn't watch....I'm pretty good about stuff, but that was just TOO MUCH, I couldn't stand it!  Then they cupped  some fiberglass around her arm to hold it in a 90 degree angle, put some cotton material around it, splint it and then ace bandaged it.  The cast will come later as they expect it to swell more and didn't want to constrict her blood flow.

Once they were finished with that they let her rest and waited for the meds to wear off.  During which time Audrie turned into a professional comedian.  Oh my gosh, so FUNNY.  I attached a small snip it of her talking to me while she was "waking up."   

This phase also included a rendition of "Let it go" from frozen and a conversation that had even the nurse rolling! I wish so BAD I had it on video.  She was talking just like the video shows, high pitched, baby like and FAST.  Looking at me she says, "Mom, can I have D3?"  She said it so fast I couldn't understand her so I said, "Um..what?"  She repeated herself, "D3, can I have D3?"  At which point I looked at the nurse, scratched my head completely confused and responded, "Hon, I have no idea what D3 means..."  She looked at me with her drugged up eyes and said, "You know Mom, D3!  Peanuts and chocolate!!"  I sat back for second trying to figure out what the heck she was talking about when I remembered we had walked by the vending machine on the way to the bathroom earlier.  We had stopped for maybe 3 or 4 seconds while she looked at what was inside.  D3 must have been the number on the vending machine for the trail mix!!  That girl has a SHARP mind.  The nurse and I were just ROLLING!!  Oh we laughed SO HARD!  So after the meds wore off we walked out to the vending machine and sure enough D3 was exactly what she remembered.  She's still mildly drugged up in the pic, but I had to document her crazy memory skills. 

Her biggest concern as we drove home was her ability to get in the pool when it's done.  A legit concern for sure, but I assured her she would be able to sit on the stairs with a bag around her arm if needed. 

We got home around 1am and got to sleep around 1:30am.  Needless to say she is very tired this morning (as are her parents!).  She hasn't wanted to take the Tylenol w/codeine they gave us, so I just gave her regular Tylenol, which to me means she must be doing pretty good. 

Other than that the pool progress is going well.  They are finally making it pretty out there.  Tile, coping, etc is all being done as we speak.  Absolutely gorgeous.  I will send a picture later as they get more up :)

Been praying for Katie girl all night as well....it was just an ER party last night.  Too bad we weren't in the same place!  Funny, and soo not funny at the same time.  We love you Katie and are praying for ya!!

By the way, my advise for the day is: Give all your scooters away immediately! We don't want to add any more breaks to our list.  Addie and Audrie...(maybe it's an 'A' thing...better pad Adelle up!!)

Garden, Basketball, Fussy and Pool Progress

It's been a great week.  We've really enjoyed having Andy back home and have put him to work right away!  We have deconstructed my garden, which was a very sad day for me, in order to get the backyard ready for the pool excavation.  I tried to pile up my good dirt (yes I value my garden dirt!  We have to pay for good dirt here in Texas!) around my fruit trees and rosemary bush in the back corner of the yard.  Hopefully I will still be able to use the dirt when I rebuild the garden, or as I landscape behind the pool.  I have the grand plan that I can landscape with eatable things, but we shall see.  Andy started working on taking the swing set....let's just say he's still working on it ;)  He's got a grand plan, hopefully it will work, otherwise he will be scheduling some hired help as we need to get it done ASAP.  Love that he thinks outside the box, but sometimes it's wayyyy out of the box, lol!  LOVE YOU DEAR!!!!

Tyler started basketball on Saturday.  We found a league that has a practice an hour before the game so that the practice and game are all on the same day!  Audrie and I weren't able to watch because we went to the general women's' meeting, but apparently he did great!  I am so glad that he is having a positive experience.  He just hasn't found a sport that he really, truly loves.  He even made a 3 point shot and they won the game :) He really likes his team mates and his coach seems like a really good fit for Tyler...he even said he couldn't believe he had never played on a team before.  (Although Tyler's only purpose in going to scouts is to play basketball afterward, so technically he has played A LOT, just not on an organized team).  So good news there!

Audrie is doing well.  We are thinking about getting her into volleyball again, but we shall see.  The time commitment would be on a Monday or Tuesday so that is the only reason we are hesitating.  She seems to be doing well otherwise.   I really enjoyed taking her with me to the Women's meeting, and she seemed to really enjoy the one on one time, which was great.  On the way to the meeting I told her how I always like to go to general conference with a question and how this meeting was a part of general conference.  So we talked about some concerns she has in life, one particular one being that she doesn't seem to have any real good friends from church (she ALWAYS brings our neighbor who's not a member to activities).  Before we went in we prayed together that she would be able to find an answer to that problem within the words of the speakers.  Within the first few minutes of the first talk one of the speakers said, "Focus what we have in common instead of our differences."  She popped up and I looked at her with wide eyes, in which she reciprocated recognizing that she had received an answer.  It was a really neat moment. 

Kaylee is doing well although going through a VERY fussy, lots of crying phase.  Maybe I need to start giving her that liquid multivitamin again, she cries about everything lately.  Poor girl, it seems to be her only way of communicating lately.  She is loving school though and is definitely our most boy crazy daughter!  She came home talking about her boyfriend and how she was going to invite him to her brithday party (which btw all our children are each already planning due to the pool coming! hahaha).  I promptly explained she is not allowed to have a boyfriend, etc, etc....which I feel we talk about ALL THE TIME.  She doesn't seem to understand.  Hopefully she got it this time, but I'm sure we will have a boyfriend relapse.  Heaven help us when she gets to be a teenager!

Sam is going good as well.  Andy brought her an Elsa (from Frozen) shirt from Orlando while he was out there last week and she wants to wear it every day, all day.  She is such a joy that girl; although there is some feistiness coming through lately.  She is usually very happy and very upbeat, so hopefully the attitude will subside and her sunshine will prevail!

I don't have much for pictures lately.  But I will include a cute pic of Audrie with a new hat she got during spring break.

Smoke and Mirrors

What a morning it has been.  Oh my goodness. 

It all started yesterday.  While Andy was gone I bought a new table and chair set for our kitchen since that one was truly falling apart.  (Hallelujah!)  They called to set up a delivery time right as we were walking out the door...they said between 1pm and 4pm.  I said, "Um sorry that just won't work."  Basically they said too bad, because if you don't agree you will be paying a restocking fee... to which I responded with, " you've got to be kidding me!"  And thinking "#*@$*@#*!"  Of which I repented later...but seriously, what the heck?  Anyway, I arranged for someone else to pick up from carpool, which was no easy feat. 

Then we rushed out the door to sacrament meeting, fatherless due to Andy's trip.  Sacrament meeting was so horrible (because of my dearly contentious, and fussy children) that I ended up in tears...in front of all to see...not the best way to start church.  But we plowed forward, ever forward!! 

This morning started off as usual waking the kids up at 6am, getting them ready, etc until I got in my van promptly at 6:45am to take Audrie to carpool.  I put in the keys to turn the car on...and nothing, completely DEAD as a doornail, no clicking absolutely nothing.  I call Andy, he turns around in mid commute and comes to my rescue.  We hook up the cables, and van starts up beautifully.  We then walked into the house talking about how to proceed with the morning when we hear this HORRIBLE sound from the garage.  We run, we open door, we see a SMOKE filled garage.  I have seen Andy move lightening fast before (when Tyler was drowning in a pool @ 2 years old), but I think he may have moved even faster this time!  He SLIDE across the car to turn off the ignition faster than I could get a syllable out.  Actually thinking back it's actually really comical, but considering my form of transportation is up in smoke (haha) it's not that funny.

So my car was towed to the repair shop and we are awaiting the diagnosis.   Not sure how I am going to get my kid from carpool yet, but I will figure it out! 

I am praying the furniture guys get here before 3pm so I don't have to pay a restocking fee, and I am hoping the car isn't going to cost a boat load.  BUT I am counting my blessings!  If Andy didn't get home yesterday I would have been scrambling trying to figure out what to do and if it happened while out driving it could have been even worse.  Blessings for sure!

Coincidentally on this expensive day, we are supposed to be signing our pool contract.  Wonder if this is an omen :)  I really hope not because I want that pool dang it!

On a more positive note, I sure am grateful for my husband.  When he's gone life sure is not the same!  So glad he is home and able to be a part of our lives :)  LOVE YOU Andy!

Bedtime Woes

Tonight we went to bed like this because the goggles hurt:

...But she loved them too much to take them off and fell asleep like this:

When I pulled them off of her the accumulated tears drizzled out....;)

Oh to understand the mind of a 3 year old.

Spring Break

We had a great weekend filled with church, meetings and various other church related activities.  Sunday is definitely not a day of rest at our house :)   I enjoy the challenge though (most of the time).

We started off the week with the worst ice storm I have ever seen in the 11 years we've lived here (took me back to VA).  There was probably 1/2 inch of ice on everything except the roads -- amazingly enough.  They didn't even delay the public schools at all down here, which I thought was dumb.  But they have had to cancel school twice which used up all of our makeup days (one which is Memorial day- Yes the Texas folk are not happy about being told they have to go to school on Memorial day!  There will only be few kids there that day guaranteed.  Makes me proud to be in Texas, way to go American Pride!!).

We put on our YW New Beginnings program last Tuesday which went well, not quite as polished as I would have liked, but overall it was good.  I am just grateful it's over.  Then this past Saturday we had our YW's fundraiser which turned out SO much better than I thought it would.  We made about $1250 which is a blessing.  We are hoping that it will knock $80/girl off the price of camp.  Glad that is over as well, now I can sleep at night (sometimes I so wish my mind had an off switch!!). 

Andy and I went on a "pool tour" to see some of the pools the first company we are interviewing built.  They were gorgeous.  Really, really pretty, but the final bid we received from him was really high, so we're hoping to talk him down a bit.  We shall see.  We still are waiting on another company to give us their bid and quite honestly I'm starting to get impatient!!  I just want to start already.  But this is a big purchase and we have to be smart in this process!

We are praying for Lach!  Hope the doctors can figure out how to help him best in a speedy manner. 

We started off Tyler and Kaylee's spring break today.  We went to the park, played some tennis and went on a bike ride.  I realized I must be sunburned because I just scratched my forehead and it hurt!  Ha!  Audrie's spring break starts next week, but we are going to take her out Thurs and Friday just so we can do some fun things all together.  It's definitely making it trickier to have two spring breaks to deal with!  

Blue Bell Factory

We drove up to Brenham and met up with the Ford family (plus the Ford grandparents!) and toured the Bluebell icecream factory.  I didn’t get a lot of pics due to the “no picture rule” but it was really cool!  I think Tyler has a new life goal…to work in the factory (they get all the want of free icecream, hahaha).  

Side note:  Ever since this tour Sam has suggested we "sneak to the ice cream factory" on several occasions....in fact one Sunday when Andy and I left the kids home alone (we were delivering goodies) Tyler called us in a panic because he couldn't find Sam.  He said he had looked everywhere, but I was certain his "looking" wasn't good enough and she was hiding in the house.  We turned the car around after a couple minutes of him assuring us she was NO where to be found.  As we pulled in the driveway we saw Audrie holding Sam's hand returning her from a walk she had gone on ALL BY HERSELF down the street.  Upon inquiry as to where she was headed she said, "I was going to the ice cream factory!"  We put door knob covers on the front door immedietly.  She's such a hoot!