House Pictures

I'm taking my cousin Mary's advice and doing a room at a time. So this is the outside. I think I will get the bedrooms up this week - if I can get them clean:) Come visit any time! Swimming season starts first of April.

Sydney Turns Eight

This year was a big year for Sydney! She turned eight and got baptized! Luckily Sydney has made some friends that could come to her birthday party, which in her mind was going to be a Webkinz party but what do you do with that? So we settled for a Webkinz cake, and games, a pinata, and pizza at the park. Overall, it was a success but Sydney did talk about her Texas friends that she wished she could invite.

Sydney and Dan right before she got baptized. The dress Sydney is wearing was made for me by a lady that used to babysit me - Sister Dennis. It was then worn by my sister, Erin, and almost all of my girl cousins, then my neices, then Kassie and now Sydney. Post a comment if you wore this dress.

Sydney went against the trend by choosing a special purple dress to wear after she was baptized. I did not plan very well and had to make this instead of buying it. It was the first dress I made entirely by myself - sleeves and zipper too! It started out that Sydney wanted her dress to look just like Kassie's Halloween costume from last year, only purple. I talked her down the glam spectrum and she settled for the fact that it spins around. She looked so pretty and has mostly acted pretty, too. We are so glad to have her!

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words...

So with out too much commentary, here is a short recap of the last few months. First is Christmas:
We had both grandmas on Skype, that proved too much for my computer which I dropped on the tile floor and now it is barely hanging on by a thread:( But the grandmas liked it.


Sophia got a baby, a stroller, a crib, and a little yellow chair. But her favorite was the chocolate.




Sydney's favorite was this remote control boat - which was sunk later that day by Caroline and the pool skimmer pole. At least there is the new bike.

Caroline also got a new bike - Santa didn't know it would be a little bit too big. But at least it motivated her to learn to ride with no training wheels.

Kassie and I thought Beatles Rock Band was the best thing we got. It has provided hours of fun for the family.

At this moment, Sophia didn't care who was playing with her toys. All she wanted was the candy.

It was a really nice day and even nicer that we could just drive up to Las Vegas a few days later and have Christmas with the rest of the family. Also, I know you Texans enjoyed your white Christmas but I can't complain about the perfect weather we've had to ride bikes everyday.

All You Need Is Love

This is a video of all the great-grandkids from my mom's side of the family. It was made by my cousin's husband and he is awesome. My kids are only in it for a second because we don't live close by but he got them in anyway. Thanks John Paul! To see his other awesome projects checkout his blog at www.johnpaul5d.blogspot.com

Happy Halloween!

I know I said I would post pictures of the house but I haven't taken any. The pictures I did take are the kids in their Halloween costumes and so this is mostly for the grandmas (that will ooh and aah) and the Flynn's (who we are missing acutely on Halloween). I really will post pictures of the house soon.

Just Because You Can, Doesn't Mean You Should

We're finally in the new house! Yeah! We moved in last week and discovered the house needed a lot more work than we originally thought. I guess when we looked at the place there was so much STUFF everywhere that we couldn't see exactly how bad it was.

Apparently there was a Fuax Finishing Fanatic living here since ALL the doors, closets, and the bathroom sink downstairs were fauxed. Why?

Also, the doggie door that I thought was so great - gross! I pulled off the linoleum squares that were surrounding it and found this:

Then there is Sophia's room that was a Super Hero nightmare.

Dan says we moved into the house after the Grinch had been here, leaving some hooks and some wire. It wasn't just some, it was a TON! (Note: always use the smallest nail, screw, hook possible for hanging things).

The pool was disgusting and had to be drained so so here is a picture of the Sydney enjoying the pool as we filled it back up today. I will post more pictures as we finish:)

The Incident where in Caroline Gets Hit By A Car

She got Sherbet at the hospital to help keep her company. So smart.

Getting ready to go for a CT scan.

One of the new nightgowns she got because people felt sorry she had to get hers cut off.

Happy and healthy, no cast and hardly a mark on her nose. We are very blessed.

I am afraid to post all the details for fear this will turn into some rampant Internet craze about what terrible parents we are. There were several factors that came into play here but the bottom line is don't let your 5 year old into the front yard unless an adult is watching. And no, the 10 year old sister and 13 year old friend DO NOT count.

So it's Tuesday afternoon, the real estate agent for the buyers is coming to make sure we completed everything we said we would. There are two huge PODS in the driveway. Our car is parked in front of our house. The window guy's truck is parked right by that and the next house over has a van parked in front of it.

Dan and I are crazy busy trying to pack up the last minute stuff and get everything cleaned because we sign the papers the next day and then Thursday we're supposed to leave for Phoenix. It's about 3:30 in the afternoon, I'm in the kitchen cleaning. Dan is upstairs packing. The kids are all across the street playing in the driveway with the neighbors kids. This is something they do/did on a regular basis and we had NUMEROUS conversations about watching for cars, watching your sisters outside, etc. which we thought had sunk in. No.

The window guy is replacing the front windows when I hear some glass shatter and he yells "Call 9-1-1!" I think he's teasing his partner so I ask if he's serious. He says YES. Kassie runs in hysterically crying that Caroline has been hit by a car. I start running outside trying to dial 911 but I have a touch screen phone and the change between the indoor light and outdoor sun makes it impossible to see the screen. I can't even think about sliding out the keyboard because I can see Caroline lying in the street.

I run to her, phone still in my hand not dialing, and feel a flood of relief that she is crying. I realize that it sounds funny to feel relief over that but she could have been unconcious or lifeless. There are some cars/drivers on our street that would have killed her instantly if they had hit her because they drive like maniacs. However, the window guy/kid (he's maybe 19 or 20) is right there by Caroline and hands me his phone so I can call 911. He is a little hysterical, too. He takes the shirt right off his back to let Caroline rest her head on it on the VERY HOT pavement because we know not to move her. But it's HOT!

Anyway, I call 911 and within seconds of telling them my location, I hear the sirens (the fire department was right across the street from our subdivision - I LOVE ROANOKE!). Meanwhile, I look around for Dan and can't find him! I yell to Kassie to go get him. He was upstairs and hadn't heard a thing! The emergency crew arrives. They are so fast and not only the ambulance comes but two fire trucks and two police cars. They quickly assess Caroline and say we need to go to the emergency room. I say okay, Baylor Grapevine. No, this is too serious they say. Cook Children's. Okay.

My nieghbor takes Kassie and Sydney and Sophia. I call Courtney from the ambulance and ask her to go get Sophia because I know Courtney has all the stuff and knows Sophia's business. Courtney acts so calm on the phone and she's there in minutes. The other kids are taken care of, off I go in the ambulance and Dan follows in the car.

All the way there they try to get Caroline to stay awake and she's shaking and sobbing and saying she's too tired. The EMT assesses her and thinks all she has is a badly broken arm but they had to cut her favorite nightgown off her anyway. (It says a lot about our situation to note that it's 4 PM and she's still in her PJs.) The ER staff at the hospital is quick and so good with kids. They give her an IV with not to much fuss and give her a new pair of underwear since she pee-peed in the street while we were waiting for the ambulance.

Immediately they do an x-ray of her arm and discover that the radius is cracked and the ulna is broken and poking almost through the skin, but not quite. On top of this injury she has serious road rash on the broken arm, on her knuckles, her nose, and she bit a serious hole in her tongue! The doctors set her arm and put it in a cast while she is high on drugs. They are about to release us when I ask the results of the urine test. What urine test they ask? So long story short, we get the test and discover a lot of blood in the urine and they do a CT scan and discover her pelvis is broken, too. But they don't tell us that until 3 in the morning when they are going to admit her and keep her for observation.

Meanwhile, some very good friends finished cleaning my house and packing the PODS that were picked up that night. What would I have done with out everyone who helped us? We were just so overwhelmed and it touched me deeply to know how much everyone cared for us.

Another long story short, we signed the papers Wednesday morning and Caroline was released that evening. We stayed at the Flynns on Thursday and then drove to Phoenix on Friday. Caroline was a trooper. She hardly fussed and Kassie was so good to help her with everything during the drive.

Caroline's cast came off after only 3 weeks and her pelvis has healed as well. The only sort of thing left is the scar on her nose and a deep scratch on her arm. But here are some things we learned after the fact: the 13 year old and the 7 year old friend could not watch Caroline laying in the street so they went in their backyard and started praying. God answers the prayer of the Mormons, the Catholics, and the Baptists. The other thing we learned was that developmentally a child CANNOT cross the street by themselves until they are 10! And even then, they should not be responsible for a sibilng until they are 12 or 13. We failed our child in this area so don't fail yours.

The person who did not fail our child was the driver of the car. We know her, she lives around the corner and her kids went to school with our kids. She knew there were always kids playing right there and so she was only going about 10-15 mph when Caroline literally ran out from behind the van parked on the street - carrying scissors no less. I feel so terrible that this wonderful woman had to go through this but I thank God that it was her and not someone else.

Ambulance ride: $792

Hospital Stay: $10,215

Orthopedist: $362

Healthy Child: Priceless