If it's broke...

...then fix it!!!!

Lindsay wore her purple splint for 3 days like we were told. We took it off Tuesday night for a couple hours; she was still in a lot of pain and was again holding it quite still and favoring it. So, I called the orthopedic doc today to get her in. And since it is the same doc we go to for Kate's feet AND she had her next follow-up scheduled for next week, I asked them to combine and make back to back appointments for me asap. Awesome. They got them both in today.

So we go in with our awesome x-rays from Urgent Care (the ones with the "inconclusive" evidence of a break). Dr. Hrasky was not in this week but the PA's, Nina and Sarah, are awesome. Super fantastic, actually. They put the x-rays on the light board and said "Did they tell you that you broke your arm?" Turns out that 1.5" long vertical line IS a break after all!! So they immediately start to cast it and talk colors - oh, if the orange was a pretty orange...so she got purple...with sparkles! Sarah started the cast and I had to juggle really quick while I had Kate in my lap and Nina was examining her feet to grab my camera - "Mama's got to blog this stuff!" I said. Nina and Sarah laughed. But doh! No memory card. So I grabbed a couple of quickie phone shots.

The good patient in her sling (sling just for a week) carrying her x-rays.

Afterward we went straight to Office Max to get a silver sharpie because Nina suggested that would be so cool for signing on the purple sparkly cast. Of course! Why didn't I think of that? And then out to lunch...she picked Wendy's. Funny thing - we were making the phone calls to grandma's and grandpa's to tell them about the broken arm and cool sparkle purple cast. So the funny thing was that a mom was there with her son who had a broken hand and was making the same kind of phone calls! But she was incredibly unhappy with the doc they saw and was talking about needing a second opinion because he may need surgery - seriously, his cast looked one step better than the fake casts the girls make with paper towels and tape. Luckily, I have been working on organizing our medical records for the girls, a la Katrina's advice, and had extra business cards in my pcoket and could give her one! I was able to give her a double awesome referral since I have two patients seen there!

Bottom line: Cast for 4 weeks. Sling for 1 week. No PE for 6 weeks. No gymnastics for 8 weeks! I got a note that will hopefully get our tuition back for this session...

Oh, and I will blog more about Kate in another post but the quick answer is that they are thrilled with the progress of her feet correction thus far and since she is starting to pull up on her feet, we are going to wearing the splints only at night and daytime she can go barefoot! Yeah!

...

A little plug...for a great cause!

My friend Shawni has written and photographed this book with her mother, Linda Eyre. You may know this family from their countless books on family and relationships, the creative force behind Joy School, frequent speakers at LDS Education Week, appearances on countless TV shows, etc. Shawni has written on her blog about their youngest daugther Lucy, who is pictured on the cover of the book. She has a rare genetic disorder Bardet-Biedl which will eventually cause her to lose her sight, along with a long list of developmental challenges. Shawni, her mom Linda, and husband Dave have decided to give a portion of proceeds of this book to the Foundation for the Blind.

Pick up a copy of the book (a great Mother's Day gift, I am sure!) and one for yourself and get some reviews on Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com. The more positive reviews, the more they stock the book, the more they sell, the more they donate to this foundation.

If any of you have been to my house or have admired several of the lovely black and white photo shoots (OK - a bunch are not hung right now...I am working on re-hanging stuff!) you have seen her work. It is gorgeous. I admire her and her dedication to motherhood and womanhood. She is truly an example of making the best experiences with your family.

AND...if you are in my ward, she will be our guest speaker at our May HFPE night next Thursday!!! I mentioned it in passing when I saw her last fall at an event and she emailed me after Christmas and said she would love to do it. I am not sure That the HFPE speaking circuit is her gig so I feel especially thrilled to have her come!

The Prophet Said to Plant a Garden

The Prophet said to plant a garden, so that's what we'll do
For God has given rich brown soil, the rain and sunshine too
And if we plant the seeds just right and tend them carefully
Before we know good things will grow to feed our family.

And the second verse is all about planting enough to fill our needs and sharing our extra with friends. I don't think our little garden experiment will yield THAT much but we are at least hopeful that a few things will sprout from seed and the transplants will stay healthy! We got a bit of a late start for spring gardening around here but are still within acceptable planting range on a few things. I have had some plans for raised garden beds that I want to build and each year we don't do it - something gets in the way! And this year there is talk about a possible move so I don't want to invest in beds for a yard we may be leaving. (I will let you know when it is more than a possibility...it would only be to a larger home in the area, nothing drastic.) So, we went with a small container garden with a few favorites: 2 blueberry shrubs (hot weather friendly variety...) tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, carrots, beans, zucchini and cucumber, and assorted herbs, and of course, some flowers out front. We need to work out a watering system - gardening here requires so much water and TLC!!!

Oh, and by the way...Saturday afternoon Lindsay went to get her arm checked out - on Thursday she had fallen while pulling Caroline in the wagon and landed on her left hand. After two days of favoring it and being in pain, we took her to Urgent Care Saturday afternoon. For sure we have a damaged tendon and less sure a break. Doc thought for sure there was a break but the x-ray was maybe yes/maybe no. So, after a few days of the rockin' purple splint (you can see it in the post before this one) we will remove it and check pain/mobility/etc. If it is still a problem, off to the orthopedist we go. They referred me to Kate's foot doc so we already know him. Lindsay was of course bummed she didn't get a "real cast like Ellie" right off the bat but the purple wrap helps with the cool factor!

You're invited...

I LOVE when the girls get their imagination going...and I especially love when someone tells me that they are taking care of Sunday Dinner!

Lindsay and Caroline presented us with our invitation after lunchtime on Sunday afternoon. Exactly as worded on the invite:

"We will be having dinner at 6:00, outside. When we are done with dinner we will go on a family walk. Then we will come back and have dessert."

Derections: Dress like you are going to a ball for dinner.

Thank you!

Oo la la!!

The Refreshments Spread (They kept calling it refreshments...) pizza, sunflower seeds, water, crystal light, fruit leather and granola bars, mac n' cheese, ice, rice cakes, and applesauce with cinnamon.

The fancy table.

All day long they worked on the preparations. I kept wondering what they would plan for dinner. They set the small table outside with a table cloth, the fancy pink and green dishes, stemware, and a centerpiece. (Really, we have had this same small patio table since we lived in an apartment a gazillion years ago and have never upgraded patio furniture. It has seen better days...) They brought their tea party table outside to hold all the "refreshments." They kept wanting to fix the food but we kept reminding them that a frozen pizza and macaroni and cheese are better prepared right before they are eaten so they got out things like rice cakes and granola bars and sunflower seeds, mixed some Crystal Light - you know, the things you can prepare ahead of time. :)




The girls chose fancy dresses for themselves to wear and picked a dress for me, jewelry and shoes for me. (A dress I bought to wear on a cruise 4 years ago...) Steve looked handsome in a dark suit, of course!

We came outside to the table and an announcement was made: "After dinner we will have dancing. "

We dined and laughed together and had the best time! Once Steve augmented his dinner with a hot dog, everyone was satisfied.

Kate joined us after a while - she was still asleep when the party began - it was supposed to be a 6:00pm party but the girls were so excited it got moved up to 5:30. We had pulled up the car so Kate could drink her milk.

Steve went inside and grabbed the kitchen radio/iPod speaker doc thing and played some tunes. We danced and played ring around the rosie and Lindsay showed us her disco skills! We just channel surfed for music, whatever sounded good at the time.

Then, before it got too dark, we went for a neighborhood walk with the new wagon Kate got for her birthday. (We celebrated a little early when Shelly, Joe, and Grandma were in town - a joint cousin Zac and Kate party - will post on that later.)

Afterward we sat on a blanket under the stars eating ice cream sandwiches and helped Lindsay work on her poem recitation that was due for school Monday. Really, it was a dreamy night.

I love this little family of ours - we should party more often!

Take your kiddos to work day!

Leaving for a "hard day at work."

The 4th Thursday of April is designated as the National Take Your Child to Work Day
and Steve's company always participates with a theme, goodie bags for the kids, real fake ID's like Daddy's work ID, (but their ID's don't magically unlock doors and open parking structures) and activities and snacks to keep them entertained. I kind of always thought this was a time to go and learn about your parent's workplace, what they do there, life lessons about work ethic, that sort of thing. Nope. At least not at The Apollo Group. This year the theme was nutrition and health and they got backpacks, pedometers, healthy snack bags, t-shirts, and played relay races in the common area outside the elevators. Steve has a daily 9:30am meeting and decided to include the girls on his agenda. Lindsay got to share about her newly learned cursive writing skills and Caroline was supposed to talk about facts she learned about the Earth this week but got shy. At noon I met up with them and brought Kate for some hanging around time and photo opps. Lunch in the cafeteria finished their day - they love to eat in the cafeteria. Steve would take us anywhere for lunch but the girls chose this.

Roaming the halls, meeting with the Boss, talking on the phone, eating lunch. That sort of thing. I give Steve a hard time about boxes every time I go to his office ...he changes offices fairly frequently or at least often enough that he never finishes unpacking before he gets moved to another place. Glamorous life of a software manager. He spends a lot of time there. I think I need to go and help him out and spice the place up. I just don't get out there that often. Even his framed photos are all still in a box from the last move!!!

Thanks for making this a fun day the girls look forward to all year, Steve!!

Thoughts in the back of my mind...

My mom holding Caroline (9 mo old) in August 2003. From a group of the last photos I have of my mom before treatments had started to show their signs. I often wonder what it would be like to have her here with Kate...and Bryn, Siobhan, Audrey, Zac, and Will.

A couple weeks ago a friend wrote on Facebook about spending a lovely afternoon visiting his grandmother in Tucson, who was in a hospice facility. He wrote of tenderly feeding her and holding her hand and just being with her, days before she passed away. It made me reflect again on the last 8 days of my mother's life, spent at Hospice of the Valley in Mesa, where we were able to sit with her and talk to her and even, gulp, sing to her. Cherished memories. Really, those days spent with my children (Lindsay was 3, Caroline 16 mo.) chasing bunnies in the yard of that the lovely facility, visiting with friends and love ones on the front porch, sharing a meal and memories and tears and laughter, being a friend to a homeless man who had no one in his final hour. My mom, Sue, Nama Sue, passed away 4 years ago today and it has been in the back of my mind all week. I am glad that we can laugh and remember her in our day to day conversations but I won't lie and say there isn't a hole in my heart that wishes she was here to go with me to Kate's doctor appointments for her feet, to watch the kids swim, to help me work through the pros and cons of buying a new house. A lump in my throat is forming as I type this, fighting back the tears that I have not cried in quite a while. But Sweet is the Peace the Gospel Brings and is really the way I cope on a day to day basis.

One of the last gifts to my mom before she got sick (or rather, when she was starting to show symptoms but was keeping them from us so we would not worry) was to decorate her kitchen and paint the kitchen and family room while she was out of town for Mother's Day with my Dad. Molly and I worked our tails off shopping and painting and choosing accessories and working with fabrics she loved to help make her dream come true. We got most of it done by the time she arrived home and finished the rest with her there. I loved surprising her like that. I wish she could have enjoyed it longer. To stand at the counter and make more cookies with grandkids. To host more birthday parties. To work on more craft projects together at the island. I cherish memories created in that kitchen. Sure, there were other kitchens where memories were made but this one involves all of us. My kids with their Nama Sue.

Since you asked...

Killer Brownies
(At least this is what I call them. I got the recipe from my Sister in Law Jeannie and she got the recipe from a fellow teacher at the school where she used to work)

2 boxes Duncan Hines Chewy Fudge Brownies (+ water, eggs, & oil as called for)
3 LARGE Toffee and Almond Symphony Bars (the kind that are about $1.69 each or get them when they go on sale 10 for $10.)

Mix 1 batch of brownies according to the directions and spread in a 9x13 pan. Unwrap the 3 candy bars and lay on top of the brownie batter. Mix 2nd batch of brownies according to package directions and spread on top of the candy bars. Bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes.

That's it!!!

You are welcome.