Flashback/Flashforward Friday - Itchin' For Stitchin'

Flashback: October 2008

The Day Of The Stitches

Yep. I remember that day just like it was yesterday. Two trips to the ER within hours of each other, ending up in seven stitches a piece. If you want the details of that day you can click here.

Flashforward: Almost October 2010

The Day Of The Almost Stitches

This poor, poor little baby. She has been to the hospital far too many times in her little life. Last Thursday, we added to that list of hospital visits. We just got home from pre school. She had a friend over and they were upstairs playing and I was downstairs making lunch. I heard a crash. I heard crying. OK, right now, at this point in the story, you are going to be horrified at the kind of mother I am. But that's OK. You can judge me if you want. Just know that in the Bible, it says not to. So I heard the crash and the cry. And I kept on making lunch. If I stopped what I was doing and ran every time I heard a crash or a cry, I would be stopped and on the run ALL THE TIME. Usually the crying stops within a minute and life as normal resumes. But after a minute, the crying didn't stop. And I remembered that I had someone elses child here and I should probably go and make sure everyone was OK. So as I was making my way up the stairs, Addy was making her way down. And I about freaked when I saw her face, covered in blood. I couldn't even tell where the blood was coming from, there was so much of it. Fine. I admit it, I am a bad mom. Sigh...

I cleaned her up, decided she probably needed stitches, loaded the kids in the car, returned the friend to his house, and made my way to the hospital with poor little Addy strapped in the backseat. I wished so much that I could hold her crying little body in my arms while I was driving. The doctor gave me the option of stitches or glue. She said the stitches would require putting her in a papoose to stitch her up. I still have nightmares of the last time they had to do that to her and I think she does too, because when I told her we were going to get stitches she freaked out. So to save us both the drama and trauma, I chose option #2, the glue. Here she is enjoying the spoils of her torture session:

What did she do to create such a huge gash in her head? She was showing her friend her "Dangerous Tricks", for which she is famous. She is always doing "Dangerous Tricks", which usually aren't so dangerous. But this time they were. She was in the guest bedroom jumping from one bed to another, when she fell and hit the side table. I told her that she could NEVER do dangerous tricks again, that she could only do SAFE tricks from now on. So the next day, she had all her friends on the stairs and she was explaining to them that she could not do dangerous tricks for them, she could only do safe tricks. It was so cute.

But it didn't last long. Later that day, we were at my mom's house and she was in the back yard playing. She was trying to climb over the fence so she could play with the kids next door. She cut a huge gash in the palm of her hand from the top of the fence. When Steve carried her around to the front yard and showed me her hand with the blood pouring out of it, I thought I was going to pass out. I just couldn't take any more blood and trauma. Oh Addy, I just don't know what to do with you.

PS: Because I haven't already said enough. It really is Sunday, October 1st when I am posting this, but I really really meant to post it both on Friday and Saturday but I never could find the time. You understand, right?

The Russians Are Coming - Part 2: Come Together, Right Now, Over Me

It's the music we were raised on. The soundtrack of our family. It's in our genes. It's like a day in our life. Whenever we've had a good morning or a hard days night, and we want to come all together now, and all we need is love, or it's someones birthday, or if we just need to fix a hole where the rain gets in, we need a little help from our friends, or wanna hold your hand in the strawberry fields forever, across the universe or if you wanna besame mucho. Either yesterday or when I'm 64. If you say you wanna revolution, or you love me do. Eight day's a week and yesterday. Even if it's just for the benefit of Mr. Kite or Eleanor Rigby or Lady Madonna or even dear old Prudence. I don't even know what I'm saying anymore and it's getting kinda outta hand so I'll just get on with the post now.

It's like this. Our family LOVES the BEATLES. Like ob la di, ob la da, kinda love. And Kristy, she's gotta ticket to ride and she's leaving home and we couldn't just let her and her kids start down that long and winding road and go back to the USSR without a little revolution. I mean, Help! So we had us a little Beatles Rock Band party one night. It lasted for hours and Honey Pie, with a little help from my friends, we twisted and shouted all night long.

Helter skelter, I'm gettin' on my own last nerve, so I can't Imagine what it's doing to you but they're just flying outta my head, so I'll just shut up now and give you the pictures.

Flashback Friday - Uncle Sam's Gettin' Hitched

Yep, he did it. My brother went up and got hitched last night. We are all excited around here. We are excited to add Teresah to our family. And we are excited to plan a wedding. My girls are completely giddy. Congratulations Uncle Sam!

The Russians Are Coming - Part One

Back in August, wildfires burning outside of Moscow Russia were blanketing the city in smoke. Too bad for the Russians, not so bad for us. Because the US Embassy evacuated my sister and her kids right smack dab in the middle of my house for two weeks. Her husband Scott was able to help them get here, but he was only able to stay for a few days. We LOVED having them here. Our house feels so empty with them gone. I have about a bajillion pictures to post of all the fun we had with them. I am gonna have to break it up over a few different posts.

Here is Part One:

Scott and Owen

Zac and Steve playing with the sling shot and trying not to hit anyone upside the head with a rock.
Emily, Tia and Aubrey

Silly, stupid me. I thought it would be fun one night to build a fire in the back yard and cook hot dogs and s'mores for dinner. It wasn't until we were sitting by the fire and I couldn't get away from the smoke that I realized, HEY DUMMY! Smoke is probably the LAST thing they wanna be around right now. My gracious guests assured me that the smoke put off by my backyard fire was nothing compared to the smoke they had to endure back home.

The kids ate hot dogs. The adults patiently waited until the kids were snug in bed and then we ordered take out from Pei Wei. Our Russian house guests were trying to cram in as much yummy American food as possible. And we did our best to oblige. That day I had Cafe Rio Pork Salad for lunch and Pei Wei lettuce wraps for dinner. Mmmmm...that was a good day. Because we got to spend it with family, of course.

This is a picture of the kids NOT feeding a strangers horse carrots over the back yard fence. We NEVER do this. Just for the record...

Zac made a cake one night. Mmmm...feeding 7 kids cake. That was a fun mess to clean up.

I learned my lesson after the cake, and made them take the popcorn outside. OK, not really. I ALWAYS make my kids eat popcorn outside. Because I am mean like that.

INSERT DALLAS TRIP HERE

(click on the above words to be taken to the Dallas post)

The day after returning from Dallas I dropped my kids off for their first day of school and met everyone at IHOP to celebrate. Here is Baron, Sam and Teresah.

Lauren and Kay

Tia and Me

Addy, Kristy and Owen

That same night we had dinner at the park, as illustrated by the photo below.

Watch for "The Russians Are Coming - Part Two". Coming to a blog near you.

MOnday MOnring Musings - Why I CAn't CLose My Eyes Without Seeing Pears an dFeeling Worms

See that title, how I typed it. I decided to leave it and not correct it. That is pretty much how well my hands are working right now. They have been busily peeling pears ALL DAY LONG. I spent the day at my mom's house canning pears. OK, I should seriously just leave all my mistakes so you can see how bad I am typing now. I have to go back and correct every third word...Back to the pears. My mom's neighbor gave her a huge box of pears and we spent forever canning them. And now we have a whoppin' 14 jars to show for it. When I realized that, I wanted to cry. FOURTEEN FREAKIN' JARS FOR A WHOLE DAYS WORTH OF WORK! But they are quart jars, if that makes it any better. I figure it was a good learning experience for me. I have never canned fruit before. Now I have.


And I have peeled more fruit today than I have ever peeled in my life. I don't peel anything. Ever. I don't believe in it. Too much work. Besides, that's where all the vitamins are, right? I make mashed potatoes with the peels on. We eat all our fruit with the peel on. I don't even think my kids know that most people peel oranges to eat them. I just slice them. I do peel my bananas before I eat them though but only because they have a handy peeling mechanism built in.


While we were about the business of canning, I suddenly felt something wet on the back of my neck and asked my sister Lauren to see what it was. It was a WORM! I freaked out. For the rest of the time we were working, I kept feeling like I had worms on my neck and in my hair.


I took a little trip down to my mothers storage room in her basement today and guess what I came back up with. The mother load of pictures! Oh yeah. I have been posting a ton of old pictures on facebook lately. Just wait people, just wait. So many of you are in them. I wish I had time, I would post them all now.


I got home just in time to stop by the school and pick the kids up. When we pulled up to the house the outside door to my bedroom was wide open. I guess it had been that way all day. Nice. I'm just glad we had the chickens locked up in their yard. Otherwise I am sure they would have been in the house. That would have been fun to clean up. Nasty poopers.


As soon as we got home Aubrey started telling me about how stupid (her word, not mine) their substitute Librarian was today. She said the Librarian said that she was going to tell them a true story. Aubrey started telling me the story and then she got to this part and with total exasperation she said, "And she said their are ELVES that come to life at night." She just crinkled up her face and shook her head. I wish you could have seen it, it was cute. I have cute children. I also swear I have a worm crawling on my chin as I type.

Last week at the State Capitol they had all these activities going on for Constitution day. They had the most activities on Saturday. We planned to take the kids and go Saturday afternoon. From what we read online it sounded like something that would take up a good part of the day. Then they had a freedom concert with Lex de Azevedo that I really wanted to go to. I thought we would go do all the activities, then go downtown for dinner, then head back to the Capitol for the concert. Well, we got to the Capitol and it was pretty disappointing what they had going on. Like people loading up and carting the displays out at 2:30 when the event was supposed to go until 5:00. They did have a few activities that the kids could do, so we did that. When we were done, we still had 4 hours until the concert started. And that was after we had walked around the Capitol and wasted a bunch of time. So we decided to come home. Oh well, the kids had fun doing the activities. Here are some pictures. They had to try to build their own gum drop Capitol building.

They also had to go on a scavenger hunt and find different things in the building. Here's some pictures of Addy while on her hunt.