GratiTuesday

Happy GratiTuesday! This week we're thankful for:

1. The nurse in the ER that let Blake use her iPhone to watch VeggieTales videos while we were waiting for his x-rays. (Remember my post about wanting a phone that only made calls, and how I didn't need a smartphone? She converted me to a smartphone believer.)
2. My friend Caryn won a limo ride and offered to give it to us after the horrid week we had last week. How sweet is THAT?! We declined, though, since the restaurant I'd want to go to in a limo isn't exactly within our Dave Ramsey budget. :-) Someday!
3. Our sitters who have taken such good care of Blake this week, and given him so much TLC.
4. The latest Dave Ramsey class came to an end last Sunday, and the new one begins next Wednesday. I'm excited for the new class and the new format! It's like the first day of school...I might go sharpen some pencils to celebrate.
5. My medical tests all came back normal! The only problems they found is that I'm deficient in iron and vitamin D. If you haven't done it already, I encourage you to have your vitamin D level checked--the more I read about it, most Americans are deficient and it's linked to increased risks of some types of cancers. It's easy to correct, too, so it's worth checking into! Doctors typically don't check for it unless you ask, so be sure to mention it! (That's my public health announcement for the day.)

Brent in line AGAIN!

Brent is too funny! The Best Buy near our house had their grand opening this morning, and the first 50 people in line got a $20 gift card. My husband? #50. Isn't he a riot?? He used his prize to buy the movie "Avatar" (which we didn't get a chance to see in the theatre).

WARNING: Your collarbone will hurt if you look at the following pictures!! These are the x-rays of Blake's collarbone, from two different angles. OUCH.


The doctor said to expect the break site to turn black, then green as the bruising subsided. When we saw him on Thursday, he was pleased with Blake's bruise and said it looked "ahead of schedule." What can I say?? He's advanced! :-) The doctor doesn't think he necessarily hit this area when he fell--I didn't think he hit the table as he fell off the chair. The break is most likely from him hitting his shoulder when he fell, and the bruise is most likely from the bone pushing up from beneath the skin when the impact hit. There was a small (dime-size) black bruise when I took him to the ER.

Here he is sporting his new sling. Dinosaurs! We're not noticing the shoulder drooping as much today as it has been.

Brent's yard hobby

Meet Brent's nemesis:

He's been slowly and methodically combing the lawn for the past few weeks armed with weed killer, trying to stay on top of the dandelions. Last night we took the kids on a walk, and Sophie wanted one of the "flowers" in someone else's yard. I picked them each a dandelion, and I could sense Brent's anxiety level increase. The SECOND we got back onto our property, he said "Ok kids, give me the flowers..." and they went into the trash. Ha! He's a die hard on the anti-dandelion front! This is serious business. It's paying off, though--the yard looks awesome!

Blake's spirits are improving. He's keeping his distance from Graham and Sophie, but watches them with a big smile while they play. He's been sleeping on his stomach, and is able to use his right arm a lot more than he has been. We got him a smaller sling from a medical supply place yesterday, and it's made a big difference. (Plus, it has dinosaurs on it, which instantly brought smiles to Blake --and jealousy from brother and sister!)

This weekend will be a challenge since he'll be in nursery at church on Saturday night and Sunday morning...we might have to make other arrangements for him...

Horoscope

I was scanning through the newspaper this afternoon, and my eyes were drawn to my horoscope for the day:



HAAAAAAA!!! How perfectly appropriate!!! Whooo, it gave me a much-needed laugh. I suppose "Out and about" means I should take them on a long wagon ride tonight to enjoy the fresh air.

Blake goes back to the doctor in the morning for follow-up x-rays. The appointment got moved up a few days because when he stands, his right shoulder is significantly lower than the left. I'm hoping that's normal with this type of break, but if it's not I want the doctor to see it before the bone heals in that position.

He's obviously in a lot of pain still, and cries quite a bit. Poor little guy, he just wants to be held all the time. Luckily, Brent and I are both off tomorrow and our entire day's agenda is to "hold Blake" and "wear the other two out so they leave Blake alone." :-)

Me and my big mouth... (& Happy GratiTuesday!)

In my last post I was rejoicing about the kids' good health and hoping I didn't jinx them. Me and my big mouth.

As I've mentioned before, our health insurance has a ridiculously high deductible which makes us less apt to go to the doctor on a whim. Well...here's the sequence of events that's occurred since then:

• I've been experiencing shortness of breath for a few months, and decided to go to the doctor to see if maybe an allergy medication would help clear it up. The doctor ran a quick blood test to see if anything alarming popped up, and my clotting factor was high enough to indicate a possible blood clot in my lung. (What?!?) They took me for a CT scan which (praise God!) didn't show a clot. I've also had a respiratory analysis (scored great on that) and an echocardiogram (waiting on results) since then. Our checkbook ran screaming from my purse at the mention of "CT scan" and I STILL don't have a prescription for allergy medicine (growl...).
• Sunday night Blake took a tumble off of a kitchen chair and wouldn't stop crying. He just wanted me to hold him and he was holding his arm tightly between us. I determined that his pain was in his shoulder, and thank God Brent was getting off work shortly. I took him to the ER where they determined his collarbone was completely broken in two pieces (ouch, ouch, ouch--poor child!!!). They put him in a sling and finally let us go home 4 long hours later with an appointment to see a specialist first thing the next morning. (At this point, the checkbook applied for a passport and left a note saying "You're on your own. I'm outta here.")

The orthopedist wants to see Blake back in a week, and said that it would be 6-8 weeks before he felt back to normal. Poor little guy!! He just wants to be held, and is naturally fearful when anyone gets too close to him...especially Graham and Sophie. Have you ever seen kittens play? How they lay in wait for an innocent littermate to walk by to pounce on? That's how these 3 play. Blake constantly scans the room so the whereabouts of Graham and Sophie are concretely on his radar.

On the light side, though, the trip to the orthopedist had a couple of funny moments. The nurse told Blake she'd bring him a book that had lots of colorful pictures, and she came back into the room with the "Encyclopedia of Spiders." (Who knew there was such a book?! And how did it enter the life of the most arachnophobic person on Earth?!) Then when the doctor was discussing the treatment options, Blake let out the longest (...ahem...) TOOT ever heard. The doctor actually stopped mid-sentence and waited to continue. I turned a dark shade of crimson and wanted to die.

Now for our GratiTuesday highlights!

1. We're grateful that we have insurance at all. We can slowly bite off paying the $4,000 deductible--I know there are a lot of people who are saddled with hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical expenses, and I know we are very lucky.
2. I'm grateful that Brent wasn't with us at the orthopedist appointment, because he would have been in a full-fledged howling-with-laughter frenzy at Blake's tooting episode, and I might have died of embarrassment.
3. We're grateful that we've found great babysitters so the kids are at home while we work--I can't imagine leaving Blake somewhere at a time like this. I love that he can be in the comfort of his own home while he heals.

I'll have more updates on Blake during the week! Please pray for his comfort and healing.

GratiTuesday

Happy GratiTuesday! This week we're thankful for:

1. This WEATHER! It's an honest-to-goodness Spring! I love having the windows open during the day (I'd leave them open at night, too, if I wasn't such a chicken).
2. Sandals--for us AND the kids. Shoes/socks/coats/hats are a challenge with this crew, so I'm rejoicing to be able to slip sandals on the kids and head out. It's liberating!
3. My work's dress code--capri pants & sandals are no problem around here.
4. The kids' health (praise God!)--I keep putting off their checkups/shots because I think "Ah, they'll have to see the doctor pretty soon for something anyway and we'll take care of it while we're there." I hope I didn't just jinx them...
5. The turtle sandbox from Karie makes the list this week again. The kids are crazy about it!

Monday

The title of this post should be a pretty clear indication of the creativity of the post itself--if I can't come up with an interesting title, I must not have anything interesting to blog about. So...I'll just chat about nothing in particular.

Kelly and I took the kids to the zoo on Saturday for a picnic lunch. We went to the petting farm area and the kids fed the sheep and goats (side note: Speaking of farms, Kelly has three dogs and Sophie calls her house "Kelly's Farm"). A goat ate my dress once at a petting zoo, so I'm personally leery of goats. I pretty much stood behind Kelly and handed pellet food to the kids. After that, we caught the feeding time for the giraffes and Kelly took Sophie up on the platform to feed them. Apparently the giraffe thought Sophie's hairbow was part of the meal, and it gently wrapped its tongue around the bow and part of Sophie's hair. Ewww! Giraffe slobber!

The boys acted so tired on the drive home, but didn't take a nap that day. Then, Sunday after spending the morning in the church nursery playing hard, they came home and played outside again. No naps that day, either. Therefore, I've come to a conclusion: Our boys are solar-powered.

That's about it around here...

Haircuts, part deux

Peer pressure. I thought it was just for teenagers.

I talked to my dad today, who was FAR less than enthusiastic about his grandsons' new haircuts. So...out came the clippers and the 'faux hawks' are gone:

In my defense (so you don't think I'm a big pansy who does everything her dad says to do), I've been on the fence about the mohawks from the beginning. Today the kids wanted to apply the tattoos from Aunt Kelly's Easter baskets, and the sight of the boys with mohawks AND tattoos covering their arms pushed me off the fence.

However, I'm going to change the name of this incident from "peer pressure" to "pa pressure" (hee hee...chuckle...snort...).

Happy, Grandpa??? Please send these poor bald babies some ballcaps.

Happy GratiTuesday & "This Week in Pictures"

Happy GratiTuesday! It's been a busy week of celebrating Easter and enjoying the beautiful weather. This week we're thankful for:

1. A schedule is coming together perfectly for our new (Dave Ramsey) Financial Peace University class that will be held at the church this summer. The course is designed to fit into a 2-hour timeslot, but the church had been trying to squeeze it into 75 minutes. I'm excited to report that we'll be scheduling a full 2 hours this summer!
2. This gorgeous weather we've had lately! The flowers and trees are amazing.
3. Aunt Kelly for spoiling the kids rotten (yet again!) with fabulous Easter baskets.

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Now for pictures of the week!

We celebrated our friend Caleb's 1st birthday this weekend with a pizza lunch and Easter egg hunt. Caleb's big brother, Ryan (3) is the second one in the picture:

Caryn, Caleb & Ryan hunting eggs:


Blake, Sophie and Graham hunting eggs:


Kelly with the kids--the boys are wearing their new Toy Story shirts she got them, along with their bunny ears. Their baskets were full of candy, stuffed animals, wind-up toys, tattoos & cotton candy!

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Now, hold onto your hats...I gave the boys a haircut this weekend! Remember how sweet they looked with their longer hair?

Here they are now...looking like little toughguys! They were supposed to be mohawks, but kind of ended up in a "high & tight" military fashion. Brent loves it, and I'm kind of on the fence about it. They look too big boy-ish to me! Any opinions??

In fact, here's a better picture of the cut--Graham is trying his hardest to chew his way through the wrapper of a "carrot" full of Reese's Pieces. The haircuts have as much attitude as his facial expression in this picture!