Not again

Yes, again. It happened again. This time it was Brynna.

I was so proud of myself when summer started and the girls pulled out the bikes again. I'm not going to act like an over-protective parent. I'm not going to panic every time a child falls on a bike. After all, breaking a leg is not the usual outcome from that. And we've already used up our allotment of broken legs, right?

Evidently not. Brynna fell riding her bike Monday morning, and turned her ankle in the fall. At first we thought it was just sprained, but after x-rays and and an MRI, she broke her tibia. Sigh.

Fortunately they were able to cast her in office instead under general anesthesia like Hailey needed. But because the doctor was concerned about the bones staying in the proper alignment for the joint to work properly she needs x-rays once a week for the next 6 weeks.

Hey at least we already had the crutches! But I am now convinced that bicycles are inventions of the devil.
Her sisters had toys and coloring books ready for her when she got home from getting the cast.

oo-woo

Today Ashlynn was playing with a scarf from the play clothes and wrapped it around her neck.

I said, "OO-woo!"

Ashlynn: "Mama, I not naked!"

More Spring Recitals

Aubrey playing Minuet in G (Yes, like in The music Man).



Kora playing Mozart's Fantasy in D Minor.

Brynna's Spring Recital May 2011

Brynna's first spring recital. She's playing "The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies" from The Nutcracker.

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Part 2 of Birthday Week: Ashlynn

We will never have another 2 year old. Can't decide whether I'm sad about that or not. Either way, Ashlynn is definitely 3 today! I've always said 3 is harder than 2 for us, so we'll see how this year turns out. She is as strong willed, stubborn as ever. She thinks she's way older than she is. In fact last night when I asked her if she was going to be three tomorrow, she told me, "No, eight!" (I informed her that couldn't be possible, since eight year olds are completely potty trained, or words to that effect.)

Happy birthday, Ashlynn Faith!

Happy Birthday, Brynna!

It's another birthday week at our house. Today, Brynna turns double digits: she's 10! Happy Birthday, Brynna!

In Threes

You know the old saying how things always break in threes? Well, we beat that! In the last two months we've had to replace:

4 tires on the Suburban
one broken window in the house
the lawnmower
the grill
a keyboard
a speaker set (these last two are thanks to our puppy chewing the wires)

And of course that's not even counting the "body work" Kelly had to have in February (he had his gall bladder removed).

But since a friend of mine has had to replace her whole life (or at least her laptop, which I'm sure felt like it) I won't complain. Too loudly.

Whose Round Table?

This one is especially for my father-in-law.

This week, we've been studying about Alexander the Great. After reading a book about him and his army, Hailey, my 8 yo, came to me with this question.

Hailey: Was Alexander the Great a real person?

Me: Yes, he was.

Hailey: Hm. I didn't think he was because that would mean Merlin and the Sword in the Stone were real too, and I didn't think that was possible.

Me (stifling a laugh): Honey, I think you're getting him mixed up with King Arthur.

Hailey, smiling sheepishly: Oh, yeah.

Church Signs

Can I just ask that churches with church signs be careful about what they put up? Frankly I'm of the opinion that church signs should be restricted to church info like times of service or to Scripture. Anything else seems to get the church into trouble.

Or make them look foolish.

There is a certain church not too far from where I live that makes me cringe EVERY time I drive past it. It's a Baptist church, and for some reason Southern Baptist churches seem to be the worst about this. We're not Baptists anymore, but even back when we were, we would never visit this particular church in large part because of the stupid signs on the front of the building - which faces a major highway here in town. I have always wondered where they get their kitschy little quotes, figuring it had to be some cute little blond secretary who had a book from the local Christian bookstore. If so, please put the book in the trash!

The sayings are either just cheesy and rather stupid like this one from a couple of years ago:

"SALVATION... It does a body good!"

To just really bad theology, like the one currently on the front of the church:

"Seek first God's kingdom and the things you want will seek you."

I have no idea the motive behind the church leadership allowing such things on the front of the church, but I have a hard time believing this will draw in new visitors. It for sure kept us away years ago when we were searching for a Baptist church to attend.

Stepping off the soap box now.

Defeat is its own reward

Lauryn, 6yo, is not a very gracious loser. The girl hates to lose a game, and we are still learning to do so without pouting. We play a lot of math games as part of her "Kinder" math, many of which rely on rolls of dice, so are purely "luck" games. Yesterday we played such a game and I beat her by one roll of the die.

And she got that familiar pouty face. I decided to try to reason with her (yes, I now realize the futility of that, but it was worth a shot, right?).

Me: Lauryn, does anything really bad happen to you when you lose?

Lauryn: Nothing except LOSING.

This is why kids should be taught Logic

Did you know we got a new puppy recently? No, that wasn't at all logical, what's your point?

Buddy is afraid of balls. Even small ones. He barks at them and crouches down like he's going to flee for his life. It's quite funny.

Buddy also has discovered my raised vegetable garden, which currently has nothing in it but dirt and the soaker hose. The girls had a very hard time keeping him out of it yesterday while they were out playing. And no, it's not that funny.

Where does the logic come in? Well, it allows my 12 year old, Aubrey, to come up with this syllogism.

1. Buddy is afraid of balls and won't go near them.

2. Buddy likes to get into the garden bed.

Thus this should work:
And you know what? It did!

Kora's pictures

Last but not least.

Buddy

Meet Buddy, Kelly's Valentine's Day gift. He's 7 weeks old, and is called a boxador. No, that's not really a breed, but it's what they call a boxer/Labrador mix. His mom's a boxer and his dad is a yellow lab. He's very sweet. He was a little scared when I first brought him home, but he has warmed up to all the loving hands and arms that have smothered him, er, I mean, welcomed him to the household. Now let's hope we have better success at housebreaking than we did at potty training.

The Gall Bladder Saga

I mentioned in an earlier post that Kelly's been having health issues. This has been going on since May. In June we thought he had food poisoning. Since the attacks kept happening we thought he'd developed a food allergy. Then we thought it was a bacterial infection of the stomach. A blood test ruled that out. Then we thought it was gall stones. An ultrasound ruled that out.

Then a couple of weeks ago he went in for an EGD because the GI doctor thought it was an ulcer, but the scope showed nothing that could cause the symptoms. So he ordered a HIDA scan to check the gall bladder to see if it was functioning. A normal gall bladder will show at least a 35% rate on this scan; Kelly's was 14%. His condition is called Biliary Dyskinesia. So Monday he saw a surgeon and Thursday he had the gall bladder removed.

This was somewhat amazing that it happened so quickly because our health insurance is still a mess. Kelly changed jobs in November but wasn't eligible for the company health insurance until January 1, 2011. (The company insures new hirees starting on the first day of the month after they have been working there for 30 days.) But the company's health insurance year starts over on February 1 of every year. So we had insurance for January and then the company switched health insurance providers in February. So we still don't have insurance cards. We weren't even in the new company's system yet. But obviously God worked it out so that they worked with us. Kelly's HR manager has been a great help too, working with the doctor and surgical center to show we do have coverage.

It was so providential that he had it done Thursday, because he was so sick from the gall bladder that morning that I would have had to take him to the ER if we weren't already scheduled to go in for surgery. I joked to the girls about him having "gall bladder poisoning" and they thought I was serious. I'm not sure I wasn't as it was definitely "poisoning" his health. He's still sore from the four incisions in his stomach, but already feels better than he did before surgery in spite of the pain.

Hopefully, he'll be back to feeling better very soon. We are all hoping that. My 14 yo made the comment yesterday that it was hard to imagine life without Daddy being sick all the time. We are praying that is in the past.

Snow in San Antonio

I guess anything can happen now, 'cause San Antonio froze over! At least Kelly got a snow day 'cause of it!

Sorry for the delay

Kelly's been having health problems of late, so most of my non-schooling, non-cooking, non-grocery-and-necessity-shopping time seems to be taken up with appointments, procedures, prescriptions, insurance companies, etc. But at least, here are Aubrey's pictures!

Brynna's pictures

I was elsewhere when a good many of these pictures were taken. I came back in to see all these pictures of someone I didn't recognize: I almost never see her without her glasses anymore!

More pictures

Hailey, this time. I have to tell a story about the first one. With everyone of the kids my brother-in-law got to a point where he told them to be serious. It made every one of them giggle, like he'd tickled them on the neck, except Hailey. She immediately wiped all vestiges of a smile off her face. She's a pro! I thought Kora would do it too, since she's got that teenaged stoic thing going, but even she laughed before she could get serious.

Lauryn

More pictures. We had individual pictures taken of all 6 kids, and there were some real gems in them. Here's some of Lauryns'.

Ashlynn

Some highlights of the picture taking sessions from last Saturday.

Family picture

Believe it or not, I think this was our first family picture with Ashlynn in it! Complements of Smith Photography of Kyle.

Uhg

I'm potty training this week. Rather, I'm potty training Ashlynn this week. In all the things I have to do as a parent, this ranks right up there in the top 3 of my least favorite. Partly this is because the more kids I have, the harder it is just to concentrate on that. It's harder to have a few days when I don't need to do anything else. So I decided to do it after Christmas but during our Christmas break. The kids aren't doing school yet, except for their co-op classes, and that's just the older two. So this is as close to "free" as I get.

The other reason I think is that it is just constant discouragement at first. I know the accidents teach her, but I always go through a time when I think "this is it. This is the one that will still be in diapers when she's 10." Ridiculous, I know. But I do have some stubborn children...

That said, I am looking forward to not having to buy diapers. Ever. Again. At least not for my kids. I keep reminding myself "last time, last time!" And fortunately I have a few years before I have to start Ashlynn on phonics, so I'll get a break on that one.