Science Center

I know - check me out - did more "fun" stuff with my kids this week (we also went to the zoo and spent some time at a friends house doing a barbecue and the kids got to ride behind the riding lawn mower in a trailer - good times)

So here's the favorite exhibition at the science center...you spin around and around and around.




And since it's been a while...here is some Coby eye candy! She's getting so big and cute and smiley!

Finally made it to the skate park!

Howie's been begging to go for a while. We wanted to go on Wednesday - went there just about an hour after it closed down - and planned to go back in the evening when it opened back up...but instead (see post below) Brynn decided to chop herself up.

So it was postponed until yesterday. (Yep, I'm a day behind - it's my life's story) Howie loves to play on his skateboard and he's got all the gear, but he's never had an opportunity to play at a skate park! So we went! And - yep, still had the camera! Kali took these pictures.

And yes, he spent a lot of time on his hiney and laying down - but still couldn't get enough - after almost 2 hours - it shut down for the afternoon (apparently it gets too hot?) and we planned to go back that night. But no. We didn't.

So that's the plan tonight - this time Kali's going to bring her roller blades. She's been practicing on the driveway all day yesterday and today!

You slice em, we dice em

(warning - graphic pictures, if you get queasy, stop before you get to the pictures - story above the pictures in case you want to read, but not look!)

We went to the skate board park this morning for Howie to find that it was closed, they have some funky open hours...7am-10am and then again 6pm to 10pm, don't understand the reasoning behind it, but we got there at 11...and I wasn't going to wait around until 6 for it to re-open...but I brought the camera. So I let the kids play at the little water park there for an hour or so.

We went home, we ate lunch.

I fed Coby real quick, I took a shower (I had to do a few loads of laundry to get my laundry caught up so I could do some laundry for a friend who has been in the hospital - 5 kids - and no mother to launder for them - it gets messy) So my friend dropped off a few loads for me to wash - I started a roast in the crock pot - fed Coby and jumped in the shower.

Got out of the shower, got dressed, and heard dishes breaking - and then Brynn screaming.

Normally I would not run in to see what the problem was, mostly I like for the kids anxiety to build up for breaking something they know they'd get in trouble for. But this was a more urgent scream. So I ran in to see what was the matter.

Brynn was crying, she fell while she was helping Kali unload the dishwasher - she was handing the dishes over to Kali who was standing by the cupboards putting them away. But they were having fun doing this. Brynn would unload a plate and "drive" it (like it was a steering wheel) over to Kali. Well, she bumped into the open dishwasher and tripped dropping the plate and then fell on top of the plate that she dropped.

I saw that she was bleeding when I picked her up and pried her arm away from her body and tried to take a quick peek at the cut that I could see - the part below the elbow.

It looked pretty bad, but nothing I couldn't butterfly closed...so I called for Rossi to bring me some butterfly closures from his first aid kit. Then I saw the rest of her cut and decided that it was beyond superglue and butterfly closures!

I took her to urgent care - down the street.

Nope, they took one look and freaked out - told me to go to the hospital - it looked like she nicked her artery. SO off we jetted to the Phoenix Childrens Hospital.

We went straight back & they looked at it (pictures 1 & 2 below;long shot & close up), put some local numbing stuff on it (refer to picture 3 below) took an x-ray (to make sure she didn't have any glass in it) and brought her to the sutcher room. So there we sat, waiting for the local numbing stuff to take effect, Coby's at home, getting hungry - it's been a few hours - and crying - along with all the other kids in the ER crying - and my milk started to come in (yes, it did, and I don't wear nursing pads) so I ran around frantic before I realized I was in a hospital and I could take care of the slow leak (insert gauze pads here HAAAAA!)

So here we sit in the sutcher room....this is where they decided, and in fact, attempted to anesthetize her (so she'd sleep peacefully while they stitched her up) - to no avail (anyone who knows my sweet baby and why I call her the "Grave Digger" would know why any form of opiates or even anesthesia is not effective on her, her dad gave her a blessing when she was just born that said something about how she will always be alert and awake - and that includes no naps and no drugs, I'm guessing?) (Oh, and the whole time, though, they're sure she nicked an artery because they couldn't get the bleeding to stop - apparently blood loss doesn't knock her out, either - she filled up a diaper with the blood coming from her arm - we used it to apply direct pressure & soak up the blood - and their gauze & other wrappings...)

So the next picture is her laughing while they were irrigating the wound...it apparently tickled her.

The next one is while they were stitching her up (yes, at this point, she's pretty doped up with meds that were supposed to knock her out...she's WIDE awake and talking like a drunk monkey). If you look toward the bottom of the picture, you'll see an extra "hole" and then directly to the right of that picture, you'll see an extra piece of skin - that piece of skin plugs up that hole...yah - yank it over to the right place, would ya, doc?

Lets see, the next one is of her when her daddy finally got to the ER, she was glad to see him - even though they gave her a portable DVD player and put her very favorite movie in - he held her hand and she was glad to see him.

And - oh I've lost track of what order I have them now, there's a close-up of the stitches - you don't have to count them, there's 16 there - and a picture with her daddy holding her hand, and then her favorite one - a picture of her licking (like a dog would) her hard earned popsicle.

Also I wanted to let you know that I didn't run back in the house to grab the camera while my daughter lay screaming and bleeding to death in the back seat of the car, I had it in the car from before so I could take pictures of Howie at the skate-board park - and left it there in the car, so I could take pictures of him at the skateboard park when we go back at 6 - which we didn't end up doing, since I was in the hospital with my babycakes.

(by the way - these first three pictures were taken by Rossi - her brother - who held her on the way to the hospital - I wouldn't let my baby lay there screaming while I snap pictures!)


Our first good look at her gash.


obviously the close up of the gash.


screaming while they put the numbing agent on it (look at that broken hearted face! Ross took a good picture, there!)


Irrigating the wound, it tickled.


Here's the part if you look toward the bottom of that picture (above) you will see a little extra hole to the left, and then to the right of the gash, you can see the piece of skin that belongs in that hole. Cool, huh?


All done "la la, daddy, why do you have six eyes?"


16 stitches


All done, just waiting for the flick to end.


The hard earned and well deserved gratuitous popsicle.

Wii Got One!

Because apparently I'm obsessing too much over vampires & the like, Wii, well, really, Mii decided to get a Wii! I went to play at a friend's house last Friday - and Oh.My.Gosh!! My arms were jell-o! Wii played Olympics - did some swimming, running, you know - active things - and guess what? It was SO much fun! When Wii decided to NOT get one of these units - it was because Wii didn't want another mindless video game!

Ross got back from his 24 hour drive with his brother from Omaha, moving here, and I dragged him to Costco - where they had approximately 8 units of the original 52 that they put out an hour an a half before!

I bought it! I used my grocery skimming money that I was saving up for Ross' birthday present...and got it for Mii!!

I also bought Guitar Hero! Yep, I have a new addiction!

First, I knocked out Jason, that was kind of fun, cause he thinks he's tougher than Mii. Punched the socks right off of him! We both had jell-o arms! Once I proved that, I had to move on to perfect the Guitar Hero - which I played for a few hours yesterday and mastered the Easy! YAH!

Having fun! I can't believe Wii didn't get this sooner!

Jealous?

I do love Mothers Day! Despite the fact, I have to clean up the messes that the kids left after making me 4 separate "breakfast in bed" meals...despite the fact that I have approximatley 76 pieces of paper that says "I love you, mom" that I would feel guilty throwing out (at least in front of them) and have no real "reserved" spot in my "keep this or you'll regret it later" box...and not forgetting my homemade noodle necklace, the bracelet that they made for me that erroniously says "perfect mother" (which incidentally broke open during sacrament meeting, they managed to find a majority of the beads, but were only able to spell out "mother f" - ha - not really but that would have been funny, right?) and another beaded bracelet that was slightly too tight and left little indentations on my wrist - I wore it anyway!

For breakfast in bed, I was treated to a bowl of cheesy grits (I grew up in the south, these actually taste pretty good to me!) a pancake medly with chocolate chip morsels in it that spelled out "I U" two eggs over medium on their own pieces of toast and a glass of orange juice and a glass of chocolate milk. Two extra pieces of toast with strawberry freezer jam on it. It was a HUGE breakfast, and a HUGE mess to clean up in the itty bitty kitchen! But, it was great to have the kids sitting at the foot of my bed asking me to try "their" breakfast. Yep, I dipped some toast in the egg...I had bites of the grits and the "I" and the "U" of the pancakes! Sipped some of the OJ and guzzled down the chocolate milk.

And for dessert --- I got THIS:


INDEED! A full-on pedicure! Kiersten and I go out to get these from time to time, mostly during the summer - and since she's gotten them, she's been bitten by the pedicure bug! She likes to go around the house offering pedicures. So yah- I wasn't the ONLY one to get one - her poor daddy, whose also suffering from toe jam (remember? - yah - he's still cry-babying about that - actually He's in the process of losing one of his toes - the other one is nice and black under the nail - ewe, right?!)
And for SECOND desserts - I got a dose of the laughing queen!



We went to church for lunch, well you know- the spiritual feast. Brother Burns - a sealer in the Mesa Temple - taught RS - it truly was a TREAT! - and then for dinner, the brood made me the tastiest tri-tip steak in the world and potatoes and fresh hot rolls and a broccoli salad....what? no dessert?

You know how the youngest child in a family is always the spoiled one. The parents always give them whatever they want...well, sometimes I feel like Heavenly Fathers youngest spirit child. I am SPOILED - I have the best husband and the kids are pretty good, too! I really am quite lucky - and don't deserve most of what I have in my family!

I only wish I would have remembered that I wanted to get a picture of everyone after church - but we were all starving - and had to run in to figure out dinner before we all collapsed on each other! (Church at 12:30 after sleeping in and having a huge breakfast, will leave ANYONE hungry when you get home at 4:00!)

Hope everyone else had a great mother's day - if it wasn't so great - at least I hope you got to spend a few moments appreciating the little gifts from above that turned us into mothers!