Our first fracture

My little girl took a mighty big fall and landed right on her chin on Monday.  Before I go into the story, here's a before picture I took last week.

I was in the kitchen when I heard a thud and then crying.  As soon as I ran into the den, John held up his hands and said, "I didn't do anything!"  Through the blood, I saw that one of Anna's teeth was knocked back and a little up.  Usually I call my husband at the site of lots of blood (he works a little over a mile away); but this time I was calmed and composed and took her straight to the dentist.  Wouldn't you know that the dentist was out of town?  Thankfully the sweet hygienists tried to help me.  Upon further evaluation, they found that her lip was caught up and over another tooth - I had not even noticed that part.  After several attempts, they got the lip off - only to reveal a bad gash in the gutter of her mouth.  They sent me straight to the ER.

The PA that saw us in the ER did some Xrays to rule out a broken jaw, then sent me on my merry way; saying that mouth injuries heal quickly.  While waiting in the ER, Anna pushed her tooth back in place and they are perfectly aligned once again.

The above picture is how she looked yesterday morning.  I decided to take her to a pediatric dentist an hour away since an expert had not officially checked her teeth out.  He didn't like how swollen her face was and the fact that she couldn't really open her mouth wide.  He sent me to an oral surgeon.  He did a CT scan, and my baby indeed has a hairline fracture on her chin.  There is nothing they can do for jaw fractures in a 4 year old - but she is on a soft food diet for a full week.

Molly wants to know her sister's face is fat, Nathan thinks she was cuter before the accident, and Charlie has no clue what everyone is talking about - he sees no difference.

Guess what I'm doing?  That's right!  I'm trying my hand at gardening.  Call me crazy since I don't like to get dirty or hot.  I've been reading about container gardening in Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces and was inspired.  So far I have pepper, mint, chives, sage, rosemary, and basil growing in containers.  As I type, my FIL is outside tilling up a bit of earth for me to grow some purple hull peas, lima beans, squash, zucchini, and tomatoes.  I hope it works out and something besides weeds will grow.

Now if only I had enough nerve to try composting ...

BIG Mother's Day

What a day I had yesterday.  It all started with lots of goodies from the kids:  hand prints, cards, poems, etc.  Derek gave me some gardening gloves, tools, and LOTS of potting soil.  We went to my parent's house for a great church service followed by food and homemade strawberry pies with homegrown strawberries from my Papa's garden. 

Speaking of Papa, he offered us my Grandmother's organ!  I always loved playing on her organ my whole life.  While everyone was together yesterday, the men loaded it up and delivered it to my house.  Derek played on it for at least an hour last night; and the kids have been at it not stop today.  When asked if I wanted a turn, I let them know I've gotten to play on it my whole childhood and I would gladly let them have their fun for now.

Also speaking of Papa, his dog had yet another liter of Australian Shepherd puppies.  He had two left - and ALL six of my children have begged and begged for one of them.  All day we were asked "please can we get one".  I thought it was ended when Derek and I both had warned them to stop asking.  Do you know that when we were leaving, Derek turned right out of Mom and Dad's driveway towards Papa's house instead of left towards home.  You should have heard the excitement in the car.  When the kids were arguing over which pup was to be ours; the softie told them to grab BOTH!

We are now the proud owners of three dogs; which is at least one too many.  But they are cute, aren't they?

Halter Top

Last year at Stitches South, I bought a huge 950 yard skein of 50% bamboo / 50% cotton yarn.  It's been sitting in my sewing room doing nothing as I was dreading winding it.  Thanks to my wonderful husband, I now am the owner of a Knitpicks yarn ball winder!  He did not know, however, that you need a swift to go with it.  Since he is the one who likes gadgets, he has gotten to use the winder while I hold the yarn and spin around as fast as I can (not really folks, I just hold it standing still).  We wound the 950 yards and it made 4 cakes!

 I had been wanting to make one of the girls a tank top from a great book I got at Stitches - Barefoot Knits.  I had been eyeing that book from the author's web site for a couple of years; and I was lucky enough to find ONE copy at Stitches.  The girls chose the halter top for me to make first and let me tell you; that bamboo/cotton was a perfect yarn! 

I wish everyone could see my son, Charlie, get tickled.  It happens pretty often; and when it does, he has everyone laughing right along with him.  It's one of those laughs where no sound comes out, he can't breathe, and he just shakes all over and it's FUNNY. 

Well, today when we were taking pictures, he layed his head where you see it.  I mentioned he was under John's butt.  You can see his reaction in the picture below:

Family picture

We drug the sofa outside in front of our ginormous azalea bush this afternoon to take some pics of everyone.  Do you know how hard it is to get 8 people to smile at the same time?  At least, with us, it is.