Happy Happy Birthday Keith!!!

I know...most of you have given up on me and this blog thing...but I couldn't let the day pass without wishing my husband a wonderful Happy Birthday!!!

We celebrated last night because Drew and Tyler have to work tonight but I did make his favorite strawberry rhubarb pie which we will enjoy after dinner in honor of the occasion.

This is the 25th birthday that I have had the honor of celebrating with my beloved and I can honestly say that I love him more today than ever and I pray that God will give him many more happy birthdays and that I will be around to celebrate them with him.

I love you dearly, Keith. I hope your day was truly something special.

New Year 2009

Okay...this is the final installment of my holiday recap. Hey, it's only the 3rd of February...it could be worse.

My parents came up to spend a few days with us over New Year's and we had a great time. We played lots of games, mostly cards, and just generally enjoyed being together.

Mom had a craft session with the girls while she was here. They love anything that has anything to do with paint, glue, glitter, etc. They had a great time working on some flower magnets that they got for Christmas and I think Grandma had fun helping them, right, Mom?!...Mom...are you there, Mom?...Mom?!

While Mom and the girls were having their fun, Keith was trying to help Dad with a problem on his computer. They ultimately figured out that it was a Vista problem and one without a fix...go figure! Here is my handsome hubby...

My Dad loves genealogy and spends lots of time on his computer working on tracing our family lines. He has uncovered some interesting tidbits over the years. I don't know how he keeps all that information straight. I would have the lines all criss-crossed if I were him.

These pictures were taken the day they left to go home. I didn't have a recent picture of them together so I had to snap one while I could. I think they were both in the midst of saying something when I snapped the camera. Oh well...I tried.

Here is Grandma and Grandpa with the grandkids. Well, some of them anyway.

We really did enjoy the time that we had with all of our family over the holidays. It is always a blessing to be together and we miss them when they are not here. After Mom and Dad left, it was back to the old grind stone and it took us several days to find a real routine again. I think I prefer those days when the routine gets tossed out the window in favor of doing the fun things but if we did that every day we would never get anything productive done around here.

So, that sums up our holidays. If it had taken me any longer to recap them we would be prepping for Thanksgiving all over again. How is it that the months fly by so quickly. I know that age has a lot to do with it but this is crazy. January is gone already and Valentine's Day is on the doorstep. Since I do such a poor job of keeping up with this blog, maybe I should wish you all a Happy Valentine's Day now...then I won't feel bad when it's February 20th and I never did a Valentine's post.

Here She Is

As predicted, Emma lost her other tooth yesterday morning just before gymnastics.

Our little girl is growing up!

All I want for 2009 is my 2 front teeth...

I am almost to the end of my holiday recap but I'm going to take a short detour today.

Last Friday Emma lost one of her front teeth on the top. The other one is very loose and will probably be out within a week. She has already lost the two on the bottom but the permanent ones were already coming in when those fell out so it never was obvious that she had lost the baby ones.

This time is different. There is now a gaping hole in the front and she has a beautiful toothless grin. Oh, the milestones of childhood!

She has been really good about losing her teeth. This time she was eating a bagel for breakfast when it fell out. I was in the other room when she came walking in holding her tooth and grinning. This girl has such a high tolerance for pain that most of life is a breeze for her.

Sometimes her pain tolerance level grieves my heart. I have to wonder if she figured out early on that crying over things didn't elicit a response from anyone so why bother. That makes me sad. It's amazing to me that so much can be learned and remembered in that first year of life outside the womb.

Anyway...I wanted to share her milestone with all of you. Here is a pic of my gorgeous girl with her beautiful new smile. I'm sure that another picture will be forthcoming in the next week or two with an even wider gap in the front. :)

Mr. Breakable

As I mentioned in a previous post, and most of you know already, Austin has taken up position as resident King of the Broken Bone in our house. We have decided that football is not his sport if he wants to stay healthy.

In October of 2007, he broke his right arm (both bones) playing in a football game in Paint Creek, Texas...picture the middle of nowhere surrounded by nothing but cotton fields. Thankfully, the bones did not pierce the skin and we made it the 2 1/2 hour drive home to the hospital without incident. He spent the night in the hospital and had surgery the next day where the doctor had to insert a pin to keep the bones in place until they healed.

Fast forward to October of 2008, and then hit the repeat button. Actually, this time it was his left arm, he was injured during practice here in town, and the break was a buckle fracture...much less traumatic than last year. He wore a cast for 4 weeks and a brace for 2 more and he was good to go.

That brings us to the day after Christmas 2008. He and Tyler were up at the school by our house playing football with some friends. Austin punted the ball and felt his hip pop. He fell to the ground and couldn't get up. Tyler came home to get someone to go and pick Austin up. I was in the middle of cooking with Kara and her new oven and didn't think it could possibly be anything serious and so I let him sit up there for the next 10 minutes waiting on me. Yea, I know...Mother of the Year. :(

As soon as I got to the school, I could tell that things were worse than I expected just by looking at his face. His face was flushed but he was really white around his eyes. I could literally see the pain in his eyes. I felt horrible.

I brought him home and called our doctor on base. He said to take him to the local walk in clinic since the base clinic was closed for the holidays. The nurse practitioner that was on duty didn't think it was anything other than a strained muscle until she saw the x-rays...then things got chaotic fairly quickly.

Turns out that Austin experienced an avulsion fracture where the tendon that runs from the knee up to the side of the pelvis actually pulled part of the pelvic bone away from the rest of the bone. In an adult the tendon would have sustained the injury but in kids, where the bones are still growing, the injury occurs in the bone and not the tendon.

We left the clinic with pain medication and crutches and orders to put no weight on the leg until he saw a specialist on Monday, which we did. If the displaced bone had been more than 1/2 inch away from the pelvis it would have required surgery to fix. Thankfully Austin's was not. It should heal on it's own eventually...the doc says 6 weeks to 3 months.

He is now walking without crutches and can do pretty much anything he wants within reason. The goal is to not reinjure the hip during the healing process. My goal for him is to not break anything else either.

Because of the number and nature of breaks in just a little over a year, the doc decided to test Austin for bone issues. All of the tests came back normal and the doc says he's just "unlucky". My personal thinking is that he has grown so much in the last year his poor bones have had a hard time keeping up. That...or he's trying to make up for his older three brothers that never broke anything.

I knew when Austin burned his hands when he was 13 months old and it didn't phase him we were in trouble. Nothing keeps this kid down. He is amazing. He can't wait to be cleared so he can go back out and play some more football. Mom's not so sure about that.

Petite Chef and Artiste Extraordinaire

For Christmas this year, we decided to encourage the girls' individual interests.

For months now, Kara has been enthralled with all things kitchen. She loves to be in the kitchen with me and pushes her little step stool right up next to me whenever I'm slicing, dicing, sauteing, boiling, mixing, baking or just making "peanut and jelly" sandwiches.

She loves the kitchen so much that at the tender age of 4 she requested a cookbook for her birthday. She wanted her very own cookbook and that is what she got...Paula Deen's My First Cookbook to be exact... and she was thrilled.

So...for Christmas this year she got an Easy Bake Oven along with her very own Chef outfit. When she opened the oven on Christmas Eve she shouted "MY OVEN!". She was so excited. It didn't take her long to figure out how to make chocolate cake in her own little stove. Here are a few pics of our personal chef and her new oven.

Emma's current interests are a bit different than her sister's. While she enjoys messing around in the kitchen as well, she has begun to excel in the art arena. She can color like it's nobody's business and can draw things that really look like what she's trying to draw. She obviously has not learned this talent from her mother.

So for Christmas we bought her an art set full of all the various implements that one needs to create. Daddy will have to teach her how to use them all because Momma is clueless. Along with her set of goodies, she received an art smock and an artist's beret.

The girls seemed really excited with their gifts and we are hoping that they will enjoy many hours of fun with them.

The day after Christmas, as Kara was busy watching her cake bake in it's oven, Tyler came rushing in the door from the football field to tell us that Austin had been injured while playing ball with some friends. I left Grandma Jan to finish the cake with Kara while I went to pick Austin up. We were a bit surprised by the nature of Austin's injury but you'll have to tune in next time to hear that story.

Christmas!!! Happy Birthday Jesus!!!

Our Christmas celebration began with our church's Christmas Eve service. Several of our church members participated in the service by singing, reciting poetry, reading the Christmas story, playing instruments, etc. It was a neat evening and we ended the service by singing Silent Night by candlelight. Beautiful!!!

It is our family's tradition to open our gifts on Christmas Eve. We have another tradition that some think is a little odd but we have come to enjoy and even look forward to...we eat McDonald's fast food as our Christmas Eve dinner.

It actually started years ago, the December that Austin was born. We went to church on Christmas Eve and then headed home to open gifts. We had not eaten dinner and everyone was hungry. We wanted to do something quick so we could open the gifts and then get the boys off to bed at a decent hour. McDonald's was on our way home so that was the choice of the evening.

Somehow that has grown into a yearly tradition. And hey, we like McDonald's and it makes my life easy. I have usually spent part of the day in the kitchen already prepping stuff for dinner on Christmas Day so the break is great for me.

Anyway, now that you know the history, after church this year we headed straight to McDonald's. They were closing at 8pm so we didn't have much time to dilly dally. After gathering the goods we drove home and joined around the table for some yummy fare. I know, I know...some of you would debate the yumminess...but you have to admit that McDonald's has great fries.

After dinner some little elves showed up to pass out the gifts. We take turns one at a time...going from youngest to oldest, opening the gifts. That way the little ones have to watch the older folks and everyone gets to see what everyone else gets. We like it that way and it stretches the event out a little longer.

I won't bore you with what everyone got but we had a wonderful time and we were all thankful for the gifts we received but mostly for the gift that God sent to each of us on that first Christmas Eve so long ago. I mean really...it just doesn't get any better than that. We are truly so blessed by God everyday. I am so grateful.

In the next post, you'll get to see pictures of some of the things the girls got for Christmas. We had fun catering to their individual interests.