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.

My old picture link is back on my bloggy post page!  My Mom sent me this old picture tonight, don't you just love it?  These two are just too precious for words.

Hey, I can't add any pictures!  What happened?  The only options for adding pictures to my blog is to choose existing pictures on my blog, from the web, or from Picasa.  I always add them straight from my PC.  Since that's no option, I guess this will be a picture-less post (boring, I know).  I hope I won't have to break down and use Picasa, as I hate it.

In children news, there have been no self given haircuts in close to a year!  What a milestone.

Nate played The Entertainer at the Jr. High talent show this week.  He didn't win, but he did get in front of hundreds of people and played - quite an accomplishment.  He also won the outstanding trombone player out of all of the 6th grade band tonight at the Spring concert.

Matt has been bit by the reading bug.  He's currently reading the Percy Jackson and the Olympians Paperback Boxed Set (Books 1-3) series.  In 5th grade, they are supposed to read a book and take an AR test on it to test comprehension.  The goal is for every student to have 20 AR points a quarter.  Matt has 65 so far for this 9 weeks at the halfway point!  I also am AMAZED that this boy has found not one but TWO lost hamsters.  When I say lost, I mean they were out roaming the room for over 24 hours and he found them!!

The Collingsworth Family came to our church a couple of weeks ago.  They were an amazing musical family.  One of the daughters played the violin; which inspired Chuck to work even harder at his playing.  He is part of a strings group through school and now he is adding private lessons once a week.  He has been so excited - he met his teacher for the first time yesterday and was even happier when he saw how cute she is!

The other three are there usual crazy selves.  What more can I say?  They are the ones who keep the dog fed, feel the water bowl up, dump it out, feel it up, dump it out, etc. 

I love them all.

Azaleas

My younger three are all one year apart, so this Spring they are 6, 5, and 4.  Today, they had fun decorating a lawn chair with Azalea blooms.  Isn't it beautiful?

Of course, they thought it was a perfectplace to take some pictures; and I think they were right.

To give you an idea of how huge the Azalea bush in our front yard is, I zoomed out.  It's really 2 bushes next to each other - on the other side the blooms are white.  It's beautiful; but since we haven't trimmed it in a few years, it has gotten a bit scraggly.  Is that a word?

I have so many more pictures; but I thought I'd spare you in this post.  Stayed tuned tomorrow.

Easter

Wow, what a busy week I had.  The girls had picked out their own fabric for me to make them Easter dresses.  My week was so crazy that I didn't even start cutting out and sewing until Friday afternoon.  Of course, I picked out some crazy patterns and was completely overwhelmed.  I think they turned out great, though.  Both of these patterns came from the book to the left, Sewing Clothes Kids Love.  Being true to herself, Anna picked out some wild Amy Butler fabric that we bought from Glenna.  Molly was a little more reserved and picked a nice paisley from Hobby Lobby.  I really thought it wouldn't make a pretty dress, but once made up, I love it!

Here's the skinny on the dresses.  For the pink one, I used the Manhattan Special Occasion Dress pattern.  Let me tell you, it was a doozy.  The skirt part alone is 16 pieces; and there are just as many on the bodice.  I think it would look pretty cool with different color materials to show off the design.  The instructions were slightly unclear in some sections; mainly because the pattern pieces aren't marked well.  Well, the name of each piece is marked well; just not which direction it should go. It is fully lined, so it can be reversible; although I didnt put any loops on the lining so you can cinch it up in the back the other way.  It is way too loose without the ribbon in the back.  This pattern also runs big.  I made Molly the size 3T/4T and she usually wears a 5.

Anna's dress is made with the Feliz Party Dress pattern.  This dress ended up being heavy by the time I added all the ruffles in the back, but she loves it and wants to wear it everywhere.  She is begging to go to Disney to meet Alice in this dress.  She picked a blue fabric since that is what Alice wears, you know, and she thinks Alice would love this dress.  I want to make this dress again, but leave the overdress part off and I think it would be cuter.

More pictures of Bessie (upper left), Jo (upper right), and Mattie (bottom).  Here's to weeks of enjoyment and hoping for no little dwarf hamster babies!

We might just be the stupidest 2 people in. the. world.

I can't believe we got talked into this. 

Chuck's class got a gerbil as a class pet this past week.  He has been BEGGING for his own gerbil ever since.  We finally gave in tonight to just take them to the pet store just to look; and we came home with not one, but three dwarf hamsters.  Derek was the one who was so hard to convince; but he seems to be the one enjoying them the most.

They are supposedly all girls.  The one at the top is Jo and belongs to Nate.  She is by far the fattest and laziest.  He bought the cage with his birthday money, so these gals are going to stay in his room and he promises to clean the cage and do everything that needs to be done to take care of them.  How long do you think that will last?  The little lady in the picture above is Mattie and she belongs to Matt.  He, of course, named his pet after himself.  I think she might be the smartest, as she was the first to figure the wheel out.  And lastly, we have Bessie, the psycho of the group who tries to escape anytime Chuck gets her out of the cage.  You can tell by her disheveled hair and crazy eyes that she's trouble.

What I've been up to

Well this has been a craptastic couple of months.  We have been more sick this season than ever before, I think.  The past two weeks we've had a combo of viruses attack.  Some kind of stomach bug and than another virus with a fever for a few days followed by an insane amount of coughing.  Boy #2 stayed home last Friday from school, boy #1 stayed home Monday, and now boy #3 has been home the past two days.  We have an old house that the windows have been painted shut, so no airing it out.

The good news, though, is .... Spring has sprung in Georgia!  I've been able to leave the doors open and the kids have been non stop outside (when they're not running a fever).  Here is some shots of their new favorite pastime.

There happens to be some dried out vines hanging from one of our trees in the backyard.  The kids moved a play castle underneath to reach it good and then do their best Tarzan move.  I know it's pretty hard to see my boy; with his camo on he blends right in.

More good news - I got a job!  It's part time and working from home.  The kids have already spent my upcoming paychecks for me.  They are wanting to save them up and go to Disney World.  Guess who the girls are wanting to see the most there?  You'd think Cinderella, Ariel, or Belle, right?  Nope, they want to see Alice from Alice in Wonderland.  They LOVE that movie.  Can you imagine what a trip to Disney for 8 would cost?  I don't want to.


Of all this, I think the thing I'm most excited about is the 5th and final Fablehaven book is coming today!  Did I tell you how much I have enjoyed this series?  I'm telling you, it's Harry Potter good.  It came out yesterday and my UPS guy should be bringing to my door around 5ish.  I hate being the last one on his route.  Alas, I know what I'll be doing tonight and for the next couple of days!

If you like fantasies, or have kids who love to read - these are some great, clean books.  Two thumbs up from me.

If you have kids, I'm sure you've found them sleeping in some crazy spots.  This one tickled me enough to grab the camera and I'm sure my eight year old won't appreciate me putting this on the blog, but what can he do?

When my husband went to check on the kids, Charlie wasn't in his bedroom.  He found him in his older brother's in a toy bucket.  Isn't that funny?  And look Mom- the rag quilts are being used!

Skew Socks

I thought the socks were going to be the death of me.  I fell in love with the Skew sock pattern on Knitty when it came out a couple of weeks ago.  When I looked on Ravelry and saw the close to 400 versions of Skew by other knitters, I was inspired.  I found the perfect yarn and set off. 

This is how my adventure set off.  Cast on for my first toe up and it was a little exciting learning a new cast on.  Darn, I dropped a stitch - had to unravel and start again.  Drat, the stinking perfect color yarn splits like crazy and with all those increases it's driving me crazy; dropped another stitch and had to start again.  Decided to move to DPNs since they're a tad more pointy on the end.  Finally get past the 8th or 9th round and have crazy huge ladders, frog yet again and start over for about the 6th time.  Decide to use another yarn that won't split so much.  Takes 3 hours to wind 400 yards of yarn because I have still not bought a yarn winder.  Finally cast on with new yarn, and decide to use 47 inch size 2 circulars by the 7th round, realize I have one more stitch on one side than the other; since I'm not too far into the sock decide I'd rather frog again than backstitch.  Cast on for 30th time, probably about 10 rounds into it, pull tight at join to keep the nasty ladders away and my STINKING YARN breaks!!!  I finally did get it started and going great, once I was up to 72 stitches, I changed to my new HiyaHiya 9 inch size 1 needle.  It is now going along great and I lurve the 9 inch needle.  Did you notice I started with a size 2 needle?  Well I didn't mean too, and with all the problems I had I wasn't about to start over yet again.  Yes, I can tell - hopefully it won't feel crazy once they're done and all cute on my feet.  Look at the top left side and you can see the point when I changed to the appropriate needle size.

Now that I've complained about my stupidity with trying to start these socks over and over and over again, let me tell you how cool these socks are.  I love the way it's coming together and I love the Zen Yarn I changed to.  I can't wait to see how they turn out.  I'll leave you with one more picture to see the side view.