Let the May Madness Begin!

May is traditional a crazy busy month with school. There are just so many things going on. Let's start with McKenna.

She started off the month by running into the corner of a brick wall at school, and the brick wall won. I was at a PTA conference so Chris picked her up and the school didn't think she needed stitches so he patched her up and called it good. By the next morning though it was looking pretty bad and we decided to take her in. They decided that she should have had stitches but at this point all they could do was superglue it. So it became this nice icky looking blob on her forehead for the next 2 weeks. In the end, it probably didn't matter, she still has a scar that doesn't appear to be lessened any by the treatment. Oh well. She can be Harry Potter for Halloween.

 

Innovations Day:

This year the 4th grade teachers introduced a new activity called Innovations Day. The kids were asked to pick anything they wanted to research and write a short report about it and make a poster or display, anything they wanted. They worked on it all at school and then had a parents showcase. McKenna chose to research horses but was gone most of the day (getting her forehead looked at) and didn't finish all that she wanted to.

Utah History:

 

 

 

  

For Utah History they learn about all the pioneers and native Americans that lived in Utah and have a program. The kids can dress up like pioneers, Indians or railroad workers. Since we have an Indian costume...that's what McKenna got to be. Then they had a program and sang songs about what they have learned and square danced.

Dinosaur Museum:

 

 

 

 

I got to go on a field trip with McKenna to the Dinosaur Museum. We had a fun time learning lots about Dinosaurs.

January at a Glance

January has been a pretty interesting month to SAY. THE. LEAST! We started off with tons of this stuff:

 

 

Which meant the kids spent LOTS of time outside:

This one has spent lots of time obsessing over all things Harry Potter: 

Watching the movies, over and over and over...

Lauren had a choir concert at school:

She is smack dab in the middle, turned sideways with a long, blonde ponytail with her arms folded.

Which was probably the best one we've been to in three years.

Sorry the quality stinks but it was my phone and I was in the nosebleed section.

We checked out a new store in town (Scheels) and got silly with Abe Lincoln and a Bear but broke all the children's hearts when we refused to stand in line for over an hour, in the middle of the store, to ride the ferris wheel. Yes, we are mean like that.

 

 

 

 

 

We squeezed in a birthday party for this little cowgirl:

 More on that at another time.

Lauren was student of the day for her Jr. High:

 She will be so mad I posted this. It's a random drawing so she feels like there isn't any thing special about it. However, her name was on the marquee so I did what any good mom would do, I took video and posted it!

Sorry Lauren. :0)

We also spent a LOT of time in the evenings and nearly every weekend watching this:

 

 

And enjoyed some victories:

 

 

And no sport would be complete without a few of these:

 

 

 

Lots of free time at the tournaments led to this little accident:

 

(See Previous Post)

And now this guy is struggling with some health problems too...

more on that another day.

Whew! We made it through the month. And those were just the things I actually took pictures of. 

Here's to hoping February is a little calmer...it hasn't been looking to good so far though.

A "Quarter" for Your Thoughts?

Well, this is new. I'm sure we've hit our medical deductible for the year and only three weeks into the new year! 

So I think Brooklynn must have some type of oral fixation issues. Here's how our weekend went: Tyler had a big wrestling tournament (which he placed 5th in!!) and we had to take Brooklynn with us for the last half of the day. She had brought two quarters with her from the car and I caught her sucking on them. I told her NOT to do that, it was dangerous, she could choke and die.....you know, the things most parents say. So she ended up purchasing some chocolate milk from the concession stand. Unfortunately, she found another quarter on the ground. (yes, I know, disgusting. And until you've been to a wrestling tournament,  you have no idea how more disgusting this is.) As we were leaving the gym after the medals ceremony, Brooklynn grabbed my hand and looked at me with a panic look on her face and was crying and choking and gasping. She was wheezing and looked so scared. She had been sucking on the other quarter and it slipped down the back of her throat and she started choking. I screamed for Chris and he looked at her and told me to grab a nurse. (Luckily there was medical personnel at the wrestling tournament) Tyler ran and grabbed one and she came running over. By this time the quarter had settled vertically and Brooklynn could breathe ok. The nurse told us we should take her to the emergency room and have her evaluated. Brooklynn was telling us she could feel it right in the hollow of her neck inside her throat and it hurt. So we hurried out to the car. She started to throw up (in my car…yuck!) but the quarter didn’t come out. So we rushed over to the ER at Orem Community Hospital about 4 blocks away.

  

Once there, she threw up again, but still no quarter. They took an x-ray and it was lodged right there in her throat.

 

They decided that it should be removed because it could shift again and block off her oxygen. However, they couldn’t do it at that hospital so they would have to transfer her to another hospital. (Luckily, we were able to get the surgeon to come down here or they would have sent her by ambulance to Primary Children's.) They had to call a pediatric gastroenterologist to do the procedure which turned out to be the doctor that McKenna sees to treat her Celiac Disease. So off we went to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center a few miles away. After checking in and being triage'd AGAIN, we were transferred over to the OR where we met the doctor and they prepped Brooklynn for the procedure. 

  

The first nurse couldn’t get the IV in so they had another nurse with more experience give it a try. Then they gave her some medicine to relax her. When the doctor was ready they knocked her out and took her away. A little side note: Since McKenna has Celiac, everyone in our family has a 1 in 10 chance of also having it. They want the whole family to be tested. But since it is REALLY expensive, and nobody else really shows any signs, we have opted not to have the whole family tested right now. But, since the doctor was going to be in there anyway he decided to scope her and take some biopsies and get that out of the way. So we’ll hear later this week, early next week if Brooklynn has it or not. Anyway, he retrieved the quarter and brought her out so we could go to recovery up on the pediatric floor. We stayed for about another hour while she woke up and had some crackers. Once they were sure she was fine they sent us on our way. It was a very stressful evening but we are so glad things turned out ok. We love our Brooklynn!

PS - I can't wait to see how much that quarter is going to end up costing us! NOT! Two ER visits and the OR, I'm sure we are going to hit our deductible.

Oh, and remember this? When she was a year old? She likes to put things in her mouth.

 A small disc battery

Not so Hot Weekend

This weekend was the weekend of accidents around here. Friday night in the middle of having to be in too many places at once (picking up Tyler from football, meeting new tenants to sign contract, Brooklynn getting a haircut, dropping Lauren off to a friends house), I heard... "MOM, COME QUICK IT'S AN EMERGENCY!!!" I could tell from the tone that this was not the average, Mom, come quick it's an emergency. This one was for real. I ran outside to find Brooklynn standing on a piece of wood with nails, two of which were in her foot. They were at least this deep (see photo). I pulled off the piece of wood and took her inside to inspect the damage. I called InstaCare and they said if she was current on her shots she should be fine. We got her all cleaned up and I still made it everywhere I needed to be.

Sunday, while we were sitting around visiting with family for Lauren's birthday, we heard another..."COME QUICK, IT'S AN EMERGENCY!!" Chris took this one, and again, it was for real. This time it was McKenna. Somehow she got smacked in the head with the wagon handle and split her eyebrow open. Chris took her to InstaCare and she got 6 blue stitches. She was a trooper and did AWESOME! She is our first child to ever need stitches. I have to say with four kids and almost 14 years, we are doing pretty good.