Valentines Day

As usual the kids came home with a boatload of candy on Valentines Day.  I dont know when it happened that Valentines became another Halloween.  Whatever happened to the days when a card by itself was present enough?  Anyways, here are the kids after school with their Valentines loot.

 

Makenna's Wisdom

Tonight while I was making dinner Brielle was complaining to me about Emmitt wrecking her game and Makenna said to her rather matter of factly:

"Brielle, part of being in a family of six is learning to distract yourself from all the ANNOYINGNESS!"

Trauma

 Last Monday, Brielle was playing some make believe game in the living room and I was rounding Emmitt up to take him for his nap, when I heard a smack followed by crying and turned to see her holding her hand to her forehead, with blood dripping down her face.  I scooped her up and ran into the kitchen where I put her down to see a gash in between her eyes that revealed thick layers of flesh on each side and white (come to find out it was indeed her bone) at the bottom.  She had hit her head on the jagged rocks of our fireplace.  I felt like my heart dropped to my stomach.  It was bleeding a lot.  I covered her face in a kitchen towel and frantically put her in the car, then got Emmitt too and rushed to the nearby Emergency Room.  Luckily it was just two minutes away.
Now I dont know a lot about head wounds but looking back I am amazed that by the time we got into a hospital room the bleeding was completely under control- one of Gods tender mercies for sure.  The nurse threw away my soaked kitchen towel and cleaned the wound and it already looked so much better.  Brielle was super brave- she stopped crying as soon as I put her in the car (at which point I started crying  - I am a mess of a mom sometimes.)

Here's the wound all cleaned up: (when Kevin had arrived with his phone for the picture taking :)  I kept the pictures small because they are hard for me to look at :/
 

They wanted to do a CT scan to make sure everything was alright, and other than a "minor nasal fracture," (which would heal on its own) everything was normal.  Sigh of relief

I must say I was not overly happy with the doctor that cared for her in the Emergency room.  He sent his P.A. in to tell us she was going to stitch her up before the doctor even looked at her.  The doctor came in and only after we pressed him and asked about our options did he take a peek under her bandaging and then tell us that if it was his daugher he would probably take her to a plastic surgeon.  Sheesh!  So off to the plastic surgeons we went...

We saw Dr Miller at his clinic.  His staff was awesome.  I was so glad we had taken her there.  No matter how her wound or scar turns out, we will have peace of mind that we got her the best possible care.  Brielle was very brave.  She only cried during the numbing part and that was very very hard to watch.  The doctor did a layer of stitches internally that were the disolvable kind and then did seven on the surface that had to be taken out a week later.

 And after she was all stitched up, they put a bandage over the stitches so she just looked terrific. 

During her numbing, we tried to distract Brielle by asking her to pick whatever special treat she wanted.  She asked for Red Robin.  Obviously we couldnt go until she was feeling better but when she was up to it the next day at lunch- off we went.

Day 3

Brielle was spoiled with cards, cookies and gifts from many loving friends and family.  I sure hope all that didnt motivate her to EVER DO THIS AGAIN!!!

And here she is yesterday- one week after the accident at the doctors office just after having the stitches removed.  Isnt she lovely!  She is supposed to keep that little bandage on for a few months and so its all hardly noticeable.  And isnt the human body an amazing thing. It is a marvel!

Sunday Morning

Well, I never will tire of taking pictures of my kids, and with our church now being at 1:30, there may be more and more opportunity when the kids are all dolled up and we are just hangin out- so viewer be ware :)

These pictures were taken the day before she hit her head on the fireplace so I would call this the "before" shot.

 

How can a boy so grumpy, still be so cute!

Ingenuity

Maybe my parenting was questionable but when I walked into the kitchen to see that Emmitt had gotten a straw and pushed a stool over the counter to try to drink milk out of the carton, instead of telling him "no" and getting him down, I said "stay right there while I grab my phone to take a picture." 

Then of course I did get him down and tell him no :)... might have been a mixed message though.

Time with Brayden

Today I spent some time with Brayden.  We had a webelos activity this morning and then I took him to his basketball game and then out for ice cream.  I often dont get to go to his games so it was a special treat to watch him play today.  He is awesome.  I'm so proud of the person he is becoming.  Here's one of his great moments from today.

Our Weekend at Great Wolf Lodge

Our good friends the Thomases had the great idea to plan a weekend getaway to the Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City.  They were celebrating a couple of birthdays and we were more than happy to tag along.  Great Wolf Lodge is a place we have heard about since we moved to Omaha but we hadnt made the trip yet.  It turned out to be yet another fantastic weekend of memory making in Kansas City.

We started out by stopping by our favorite restaurant- "Fritzs"- the restaurant where a train delivers your food.  For kids, it just doesn't get any better than that.

 

The food has arrived.

See how happy this place makes them.

And then it was off to the Great Wolf Lodge.  Here they are in front of the big clocktower in the Lobby.  For the kids, it was a fun and fascinating place with lots to look at.

They dont call it the Great Wolf Lodge for nothin.

On the elevator

And then on to check out the rooms.  I was really impressed.  I had heard some unsavory reviews but I found the rooms to be nice and spacious and clean.  They worked out great for us.

Checking out the balcony.

And then on to the sad part of the trip.  After her first hour in the pool Makenna came to tell me she wasn't feeling well and she wanted to go.  We got her up to the room and tucked her in to bed to realize she had a raging fever.  Poor thing!  It kept her down and out the rest of that day but she powered through it the next day and partyed hard.  As long as she was on Motrin- she was good to go!

The waterpark is the selling point to this place.  It had three big waterslides and a couple smaller ones.  It had a lazy river and kiddie pool and kids water playground.  It kept the kids busy for two days!  I loved to watch the giant bucket dump 55 gallons every few minutes.




After several hours of swimming, it was pajama time.

This is a few of our crew at "Storytime."  The lodge had an animitronic clock tower show and then one of their charachters came out and one of the employees read the kids a story.  The littler ones enjoyed it.  The older ones are sadly getting too cool for that kind of stuff :(  Though Brayden did enjoy trying to sneak a tug at the characters tail.)

Heres another charcter sighting.  This is Violet.

Here's Emmitt.  I just think his pose here is very Brielle-like.  In his hand is the origami wolf we made on our "wolf walk"

                           
I'm missing pictures of one key part of our experience, which was MagiQuest.  MagiQuest is "an interactive live-action, role playing game where players embark on quests and adventures in an enchanted fantasy world using real magic wands to solve the mysteries of the game." (from the website).

We were hesitant to buy the wand and game for $30 but the kids ended up playing it for a good 4-5 hours and would've played longer if they had time.   They loved it, and while they were doing that the adults played cards and wandered the hotel with Emmitt taking pictures like this...

 

And this picture is the perfect one to end with.  Braydens expression is classic.  It definitely says "Really, mom?"  And I just love Emmitt's and Logan's crooked smiles.  What adorable kids they are!

We had a blast at Great Wolf Lodge and I would definitely recommend it.  I think we'll be back.  Brielle is already asking for it for her birthday.  Maybe next time we'll just do one night.  Swimming was a party but two days was probably enough (okay it should be noted the kids are reading this over my shoulder and they totally disagree).