Not Exactly an Award...

...but it could be considered a trophy.

I took Norah for her follow-up appointment on Monday after having her "temporary" splint on for a whole week. Ugh!

The doctor still wasn't sure that he could see any growth plate damage, but he decided to put her in a cast for two weeks just to be safe. He said that he could put her in a plastic wrist guard but that kids her age tend to get uncomfortable and take off the guard.

The good news is that it's a short cast. She can bend her elbow, which makes getting dressed much easier. The other good news is that the cast is water proof, so she can take baths and go swimming. The final good news is that she only has to wear it for two weeks.

All in all, it's a pretty low-pain injury with a huge story telling upside. Just the way it should be.

It's an Honor Just to be Nominated

Every Monday evening we have dinner with a group of families from our church. We get a sitter for the kids and they eat and play in the back of the house.

At some point after dinner last night Norah, in a display of all the grace and coordination I passed down to her, tripped and hurt her wrist. After she stopped crying, she sat down and read some books until dinner was over.

She seemed fine once we came to get her except that she was holding her left arm a little close to her body. When I tried to turn it over to look at it, she cried and said it hurt really bad. I called the pediatrician's 24 hour hotline and we decided to send her with Mark to get an X-ray.


























She was an angel the whole time. I think she enjoyed the attention and the alone time with her daddy. They didn't see any breaks, but put her in a splint just in case. She has an appointment next week to see if there's any possible damage to the growth plate. If so, she'll have to have a longer term splint or a cast.

For her part, Norah seems to be enjoying the drama about as much as can be expected. I can tell that it still hurts when she tries to do certain things, but she's handling it well. She overheard the growth plate conversation last night and is now asking me to compare her arm lengths, as she's certain that her hurt arm is "getting shorter". We are trying to get her nominated for Best Actress in a Self Imposed Drama. This will be her head shot:

As for me, I'm thinking that between the flu last week and the splint this week, my nomination for Mother of the Year should be coming in the mail any day.

Snow Angels

Growing up in California, snow was a novelty. I remember wishing we could go play in it, thinking about how much fun it would be, and lasting about three minutes in the 30* "cold" before I was ready for a nice cup of hot chocolate and some dry socks.
It's probably a combination of growing up used to the cold and having better snow gear, but my kids can't get enough of the snow! Here are a few pictures of Penny's first time playing in the snow with her sister in full gear. The only time she cried was when (against my advice) she took her gloves off to feel the snow with her bare hands and when it was time to go inside.

Re-Entry

I've been meaning to post for the last 5 months, I swear. I've thought about it at least once a week.
There are all sorts of excuses - new job, crazy kids, and of course, I'm expecting baby #3!! But really once it went for a couple of months the biggest obstacle was the re-entry. There's just no graceful way to say, "Hi there, all four of you who still check in. I'm back!" So, graceful or not, that's what I'm gonna say. I'll post some highlights from the time I've missed. They'll probably be slightly out of order and a little stream of consciousness, but hey, it is what it is.
In the spirit of out of order and stream of consciousness, I give you a photo of me at 20 weeks pregnant. This was taken almost six weeks ago now, so I've grown a bit, but it'll give you an idea at least.

First Bandage

Last night Penny lost her balance and grabbed onto the dishwasher door for support. Somehow she scraped the skin off the inside of her teeny tiny pinky finger. I couldn't convince her of the importance of leaving the bandage on. That is, I couldn't convince her until it was Perry the Platypus guarding her boo boo!

Fake Birthday!

That's what Norah called today, the day of her birthday party, because her real birthday was last Sunday.

This will be a photo heavy post, so buckle up!

The invitations! Sorry for the blurry photo. I took this in the car, with my phone, on our way to give the last invitation away. Then I cropped it so you can't see our address. Leave it to me to realize last-second that I'd totally forgotten to document how cute they turned out! I made these using my Silhouette machine's print & cut function. I can't say enough about how much I love that thing! Seriously. I'm working on a post about all the stuf I've made with it.

The upstairs decorations. The banner and all the letters were cut on my Silhouette. The upside down balloons were meant to look like bubbles. Added bonus: no buying helium!

Lunch was "sushi-wiches" and "baby whales"

Dessert

The cupcakes were blue with pink frosting. Like the banner, I cut the cupcake toppers out with my Silhouette machine.

I made the downstairs deck into an underwater lagoon, complete with bubbles and seaweed. Norah LOVED it!
It was adorable until the breeze kicked up. Then the tablecloths started blowing around and getting in everyone's way. They were just tacked up, so the came down pretty quick. Still, for less than $1 each, totally worth it.

I made all the girls mermaid tails. Here's Penny modeling hers.

After the girls got their tails, they went to the underwater lagoon to dig for sunken treasure. I also made the girls personalized buckets to keep their treasure in (another Silhouette project). Each girl got a bucket with her name and a picture of her as a mermaid on it. Jazzy decided she'd rather stand back a watch for a bit.

Hannah was the first to shout, "I found something!"

The girls really had fun digging for treasure. For the cost of an under bed storage box, two $3 bags of sand, seashells, and some dollar store toys (see the sunglasses in Elise's pink bucket?), this was a GREAT activity. I saved the box and sand to use for my kiddos later.

Norah in her tail. Elise inspects her new ring.

The little kids loved digging too! That's Penny, Isaac (Elise's little
brother) and that hand behind him is sweet, 6 month old Levi!  

He's not sure who made that mess of sand around him. :) To be fair,
I think it was mostly the treasure hunting big girls who did it. 

Norah shows off her seashell find.

Hannah found lots of bracelets!

Penny has a future as a sunglass model.

We wanted to take a pic of everyone in their tails with their buckets. The girls weren't into it.

Except for photo-bombing baby sister. She was definitely into it!

After the dig, Norah opened her presents. Personalized mermaid
dolls from Elise, dress up gear from Hannah (see the awesome
flower headband) and an A-frame tent from Jazzy!

Thanks for comin' to my fake birthday guys!

Birthday Girl

On Sunday my firstborn baby girl turned four. Four years has flown by and I don't imagine they'll be slowing down any time soon.
Speaking of flying, even though it was taken over a month ago now, I think this picture perfectly represents her personality these days. She is fearless, insightful, loving, and strong. I'm so proud of my sweet, sweet girl.