Sneak Peek!

Here is a sneak peak of Ethan and Ashton's Pinewood Derby Cars.  You may notice that Ashton's car is not a typical looking car.  He saw this idea online and HAD to duplicate it using his favorite Minnesota Vikings football field.  Thanks to Uncle Luke for making that dream come true!  I think they both turned out GREAT.  Now if we could just get dad to get the wheels on!!

Hooray!

We received an email that one of Ryan's 3 entries that went to the PTA Reflections Divisional Competition received 2nd place and is heading to State!  He will be representing the 12th District.  We are very proud of Ryan.  We will keep you posted on the State results!

Here is a picture from Nov 22nd with his four original entries.  All pictures entered by Ryan EXCEPT the single American Flag went on to Divisionals.  The picture going on to State is a cropped version of the picture below, titled "Countries United"

Not So Sweet Cheeks!

Since we received the $276 bill today for Ashton's "face" situation I decided that today is the day to blog about it.

On Tuesday, November 23, 2010 the big boys were out playing football with the neighborhood kids.  They were super excited since they were out of school for the remainder of the week.  The weather was great.  They were getting along.  All WAS good!

Then BAM!  I heard the front door open with screaming from Ashton.  I ran out of my room, down the stairs to see Ashton holding his face.  He was accompanied by a couple of his friends.  I look at his face and it looks like a golf ball was tucked under his skin on his cheekbone.  It looked like his face was broken.  Of course, the calm mother that I am . . . FREAKED OUT!!!

I called Matt and told him that Ashton's face was broken and he needed to come home . . . IMMEDIATELY.  I put ice on his cheek and just waited (and WAITED) for Matt to get home.  The whole time Ashton was crying.  Not because he was injured, but because HE was the one hurt and not someone else.  Unfortunately Ashton is a rough kiddo and usually is the one who gets hurt.  :(

Oh, so here is what happened . . . he was tackling a boy and the boys knee hit Ashton in the cheek.  Ouch!

Matt got home, and took a looksie.  By this time the swelling had gone way down.  One of the other boys playing football come over and asked if we wanted his dad to come over and look at Ashton.  His dad is an EMT and Firefighter.  We quickly said "YES!"

So he came by and poked around at Ashton's face.  He said if it was broken then we should be able to feel it since the skin in that area is very thin.  He suggested we do nothing.  He did say that if doesn't look better in a couple of weeks then we should go to the doctor.

While in St. Louis for Christmas we noticed that his face was still bruised.  This was 5 weeks after the incident.  We decided that once we got back to Kentucky we would take him in to the doctor.

Six weeks after the collision, we took Ashton to our doctor.  He told us that we needed to go to the hospital to get it x-rayed.  He said that he wanted to make sure that it was okay.

The x-rays came back negative.  His face wasn't broken.  Hooray, hooray!

He still has a little dimple like spot on his cheek to this day, 3 months later. . .

Here are some pics from my camera phone.  Not so good, but all I gots!

These pictures were taken after he had ice on it for a while.  It was bad news before the ice was put on it.

Valentine's Day 2011

This year I tried and tried and tried to come up with the cutest valentine's for my children to hand out.  It was a task to say the least!!  I bet I took 50+ pictures . . . ugh!!

Here are the finished products, along with Ethan's Prize Winning Valentine Box!

And no Valentine's Day is complete without a package from Grandma with her world famous sugar cookies.  Yum!!

Go get'em!

So I recently became a "Chatter Bird" for an online store called Latter-Day Chatter. That means I am going to "advertise" for them about once a week on my blog. They have many FREEBIES and other items that cost a dollar or two. Many, many cute things. There are great items for Visiting Teaching, Primary, Young Women, Relief Society, Teacher Gifts, etc. You can even request something and most likely Jess will create it for you.

If you "Like" Latter-Day Chatter on Facebook I would be grateful. She is having a contest for us "birds" to see who can get the most referrals. If you "Like" them, please follow up with a comment saying that I referred you.

Another great thing that Jess from Latter-Day Chatter does, is several times a week she does a "Facebook Treat" and the first 5 or so people that leave a comment receive one of her downloads for FREE. This is how I got hooked on LDC. I have received many of her downloads and am super impressed with them.

Go take a peek! Here is her latest FREEBIE!

Ice Skating Part Deux

Today I received a phone call from Ashton's teacher.  She asked if I have seen Ashton's elbow.  My reply was "Nope".  I was thinking she was going to say he had some funk growing on his elbow or something that cool.  She then went on to say that he has a bruise starting at his elbow and it continued towards his wrist.  They (several teachers) looked at it, felt it, smelled it (okay, maybe they DIDN'T smell it) and they thought it was broken.  They said they felt a "knot" in it, noticed his hand was a little swollen and he said it really hurt.  When they asked him what had happened he said that he fell while ice skating this weekend but didn't tell anyone.  That is SO ASHTON!! 

She said that the school nurse was due to arrive at the school within the next 30 minutes and after she looked at it she'd call me back.  So I ANXIOUSLY waited for the phone call, expecting the worst.  Well about an hour later the teacher called back to say that the nurse said we needed to take him to get x-rays.  AWESOME!! 

So I packed up Ryan and Brinley (she was home since her PM preschool was cancelled because of . . . .  um . . . SNOW!!!) and we headed to the school.  Since there was only 40 minutes left of school I pulled Ethan out too.  So off to the E.R. with 4 children.  Yikes!   I would have liked Matt to meet us there to help with crowd control except he was in TEXAS, dang it!!  We got to the hospital and loitered in the patient room and waited an eternity for doctor man to arrive.  When he finally decided to see us I was in shock since I think he was only 18 or so?   He looked at it and agreed he needed x-rays.  So they swooped Ashton off to Radiology where they took 3 x-rays.  About a trillion hours later (slight exaggeration, but only SLIGHT) Doogie Howser decided to come back to say the x-rays were negative.  Phew!  He just has a bad contusion (big word for bruise).  He said to put ice on it and rest it.  Oh ya, 8 year old boys know how to rest their right arm!!  Ok doc, we will try!  We survived.  I'm still thinking we may have contracted some rare contagious disease, but so far, so good!!  Well keep you posted!  Oh, and this is the 2nd time in a month that we've taken Ashton to ER for x-rays.  First time this month was on his FACE.  I will eventually blog about that fun experience!!

Here are a couple of photos of the bruise

I realize he needs a haircut, but he said he doesn't want it cut until he is in 4th grade.  He is currently in 2nd.  Haha

Skatin' Fool!

Today Ashton had a birthday party to attend at the Lexington Ice Center.  It was his first time ice skating.  We dropped him off, went to lunch, and returned with enough time to watch him for a bit.  He did much better than we were expecting.  Ryan and Ethan were super jealous, so it looks like a family night ice skating is in our future.  I, of course, have no problem with that!!!  Here are a few pictures of the event as well as a short video (or 2).  Enjoy!