Officially In A Cast

As you can see from the pictures below, when the doctors wrapped Avery's leg on Monday her toes were all the way at the end of the splint. It didn't take long before I started to notice that her toes were disappearing. By this morning, her toes were so far back into the cast portion of her splint that I couldn't even see them anymore. I called the orthopedic surgeon's office and, of course, they wanted me to bring her in. When we got there, I was informed that their solution for our little wiggler was a full leg cast. A cast that goes all the way up her leg and over a bent knee will apparently prevent her from wiggling her leg loose. Ugh!

Of course, I was upset. A 1/2 cast didn't seem so bad because she could still move around and get up on her knees. A full leg cast just looks so sad! Not to mention that a big pink cast draws a lot of attention to us. Everyone's all like "oh, how sad...what happened!!!" I need to just tatoo a sign on my forehead that says "I let my baby roll off the bed and splat onto the floor. I know. I suck."

I know that this is all really much worse for me than it is for her... We go back next Wednesday and they'll remove the cast and x-ray her leg again to make sure it's all healed. I'm just so thankful that it's only a week and she'll be as good as new!

My Baby Has A Boo Boo :(

On Sunday night I put Avery in her bed semi-awake because I knew she was tired, and I was ready for some alone time. Not long after, Keith decided to go to bed. Avery was still fussing a little, so Keith brought her into bed with him where she fell asleep immediately. I went up to bed about an hour later and found this:


My sweet baby girl sleeping so soundly. I layed down and snuggled her and gave her lots of kisses while I thought about what a wonderful blessing she is. After a bit, I put her back in her own bed and went to sleep myself. When Avery woke up the next morning, I brought her into my bed to feed her like we do every morning. I love this time together. She's still half asleep and she snuggles herself into me under the covers. Avery usually falls back asleep until I'm ready to get up and then my stirring wakes her. At least that is what usually happens...

On Monday morning, Avery didn't stay asleep after she finished eating. Instead, she woke up and rolled off the side of my bed, onto the floor. It happened so quickly! Never before had she rolled around on our bed--with or without us in it. Put the girl on the floor and she's a roley poley (not sure if I spelled that right?), but never when she's been on the bed. So, I didn't expect her to go rolling off the side of the bed, but I should have and she did. Of course, Avery started screaming immediately. I picked her up and quickly checked her over--everything looked okay. No bumps or red spots that would become bruises. I checked her pupils to make sure they were equal and reactive. Nicholas has fallen off stuff and hit his head so many times that I know the drill well! He always cries but within 1/2 hour he's back to himself. I expected the same would be true with Avery, so 40 minutes later when she was still screaming I was worried. After an hour, I couldn't get her to smile, laugh, talk...nothing but screaming.

I'd already called and scheduled an appoinment with her pediatrician, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that if something was wrong, there wasn't anything they'd be able to do in the office. I wanted her to be seen by a pediatrician, so that ruled out urgent care. I opted for the Pediatriac ER at Carolinas Medical Center uptown. They were great there. We were back and with a doctor in less than 30 minutes. Both the doctor and I thought that Avery was screaming more when we messed with her left leg, so off to x-ray we went. The x-ray and the orthopedic surgeon confirmed that Avery has a greenstick (buckle) fracture of her left tibia, just above her ankle. This type of fracture is common in children when they try to catch themselves with an arm or leg when they fall. Because their bones are pliable, the impact causes one side of the bone to bend while the other side fractures (like if you tried to break a fresh greenstick). Thankfully, it isn't near the growth plate so she won't have any lasting complications from her injury. The doctors think she'll be all healed up in 10-14 days. They decided to put her in a 1/2 cast/splint (cast down the back of her leg and under her foot) that is unfortunately not removable and can't get wet. I'm glad it's only for 10 days! Here are some pictures from the ER and from right after we got home yesterday afternoon.


Avery is having a better day today. She hasn't let her injury stop her one bit! Her friend Aubree was here this morning and they played. It's so funny how she's just adjusted to having a big clunky leg to haul around. Avery still does her thing--rolling and sitting and rocking on her hands and knees. She is so close to crawling. I'll laugh if she starts officially crawling with a cast on her leg! I'm still giving her a little Tylenol in case her leg is sore, but any pain should even be gone in the next day or two.

I still really can't believe this happened. I figured that it wouldn't be long before I ended up in the ER for a broken bone, but I would have never thought in ten million years that it would be Avery! I need to remember to expect the unexpected!!!!

Strawberry Picking

I love strawberry season, and it's officially strawberry season at our house. Each spring we go to a nearby strawberry farm and pick several gallons of strawberries to enjoy. We make lots of fun treats--strawberry shortcake, sundaes, smoothies, shakes. We also eat a lot of plain old cut up strawberries. Everyone here loves strawberries any way they come!

Our annual trip to the strawberry farm really got me thinking this year. I think I would like to be a strawberry farmer. I've never thought of myself as the farmer-type, but when I say that, I'm picturing getting up at the crack of dawn shoveling manure, milking cows, and collecting chicken eggs. That's SO not for me! Strawberries, on the other hand, are pretty and clean and smell good. And they can't be that hard to grow. They are only really in season for a couple months, the time during which you'd have to work so that others can come and pay to pick your strawberries. And just think...all the strawberries you could ever want to eat or for making yummy treats. How fun would that be!?!?!

I don't really believe strawberry farming is my calling in life, but it's fun to think about things that other people do that bring joy and happy memories to my family. We do have many happy memories of strawberry picking...and strawberry eating!

Potty Training

Over the past week, I've been working hard with Nicholas on potty training. We've sort of been toying around with it for the last few months--going every night before bed and talking about it a lot--but we hadn't really taken the leap of faith and put him in underwear. Well, last week I took the leap! I set up Nicholas' potty seat on a towel in the kitchen where he can always access it and put him in underwear. Through this experience, I've learned several valuable lessons. 1. Potty training is more about training the parents than it is the child. Until I was ready to commit to doing the whole potty routine every 1/2 hour (including when we're out and about!), it wasn't going to work. 2. No matter how many accidents or how much of a PITA it is, there is no going back to diapers during the day. This means that I now haul around a potty with us everywhere. Yes, everywhere. To the store, on bike rides, strawberry picking. When that 1/2 hour is up, you never know where you'll be and I must be prepared! 3. I really, really don't like potty training.

The exciting thing is that my hard work is paying off. Nicholas wears his big boy underwear all day now and rarely has accidents. He even wore them to church last Sunday. He can also hold it a little longer now. This is big progress since, when we started, he wasn't used to holding it at all and would go little tinkels in his underwear if the occassion arose between reminders. Now, even though I remind him every 1/2 hour, sometimes he'll say he doesn't need to go and will hold it longer. Thank goodness for this! I don't know how long I'll have the stamina to do this every 1/2 hour thing!

So, that's my potty training update. My little boy is getting so big, and it's kinda sad (the growing up part, not the pottying part), but our bank account will be soooo happy to be done with double diaper duty.

Here we are, ready for a bike ride, potty seat in tow!

Easter

I've been asking Keith for awhile to re-hook up our camera dock thingy so that I could get our Easter pics off the camera, but I guess he had too many other things on his to-do list because it didn't happen. I finally did it myself, so I can now blog about Easter!

If you didn't already know this about me, Easter is far and away my favorite holiday. I love Easter. I love what it represents. I love that it is still largely about Christ and not so commercial. I love that it is always on a Sunday, which means we get to go to church and sing and be thankful. I love that it is in the spring when the weather is getting nicer and the whole summer is still ahead of us. I love that Easter outfits are so springy and flowery (or pink with bunnies in Avery's case). I love dying Easter eggs and Easter pictures with my kids. I love Easter candy--Cadbury eggs and Russell Stover chocolate covered marshmellow eggs are the BEST! I could go on but I'm sure I've made my point, so I'll just sum it up by saying that I LOVE everything about Easter!

Easter this year was the day after we got back from our vacation in Florida. Thankfully, I had the insight to get everything ready, including baskets prepared, the day before we left. I'd been telling Nicholas that the Easter bunny was coming and would leave treats for him. Of course, he was excited! Everyone got lots of candy, Nicholas got some cars, books and sidewalk paint and the girls each got a monogramed sterling sliver bracelet. We got up early on Sunday and everyone enjoyed their Easter baskets before we headed to church. Grandma B and Grandpa Ron came to church with us, and then we all came back home for lunch. I hid some eggs in the yard for Nicholas to find and then I made everyone take pictures. It was a beautiful day. Happy Easter!!!

Spring Break

Amanda and Alaina are only with us for spring break every other year, so we try to plan a nice family vacation for this time that we have together. Two years ago, we went to Hawaii. This year, we talked about going out west but eventually decided that it would just be too much with the little ones. We also considered a cruise, but those are very expensive during spring break time and very expensive times 6 people equals way too expensive! We decided that we would head to Florida and spend some time enjoying the beach, take the kids to Sea World and Busch Gardens (we got 5 day unlimited admission passes to both parks), do some swimming and visit with my grandpa. Nice, easy and low-key. Now, I know the obvious question is...why not Disney too??? Well, Disney is nearly $100 per person, per day for one park for everyone except Avery. Since Amanda and Alaina have been to Disney at least 5 times, Nicholas and Avery wouldn't remember it, and I had no desire to hang out with a million other people who had the same idea for spring break, we decided against it. Orlando is an easy drive for us--only about 7 hours--so in a few years we can take the kids to Disney at a time that will be less busy.

Monday morning, April 6, we got up early (it wasn't bright yet at 5 am!), loaded everyone into the mini van and headed south. We planned to leave really early so that the children would sleep a portion of the way there and our plan worked well. Everyone woke up around 8:00, we had breakfast, got the little ones dressed, watched a movie and we were there! The only gliche was that Keith realized that he forgot he wallet when we were about 3 hours from home. This ended up being a real issue because the hotel reservation was in his name, and you can't check into a hotel without a photo id! What an ordeal that was! Fortunately for us, our neighbor was also off from school and was able to go over to our house and fax the hotel a copy of Keith driver's license. Almost as soon as we got our things to our room, a huge storm blew in it got super cold and then started raining really hard. So, rather than going over to Sea World as we'd planned, we got some dinner and then we out shopping for some sweatshirts. Welcome to Florida!

The next day we got up and headed out to this breakfast place that Keith spotted somewhere, and the plan was to go to Sea World after breakfast. It was only about 3 miles from our hotel and our hotel backed up to Sea World's parking lot, so we figured we'd have lots of time at the park that day. Wrong. It took us nearly 1.5 hours to get back to our hotel because of heavy traffic and some kind of accident that we never actually saw but just assumed happened. It was sooooo very frustrating! We finally made it to Sea World and had a nice afternoon in the park. We got to see the dolphin show and the sharks. Nicholas loved it (he's really into sharks lately)!

Wednesday was our Busch Gardens day, which meant we had to drive to Tampa. Again, traffic was really bad and it ended up taking a longer than expected amount of time to get there. We spent the morning doing all of the little kid things for Nicholas--we rode the train that went around the free-roaming animals (zebras, rhino, giraffes, etc) and then walked through the rest of the park where we saw tigers, hippos, gorillas, and lots more that I can't even remember. I was actually really impressed with Busch Gardens. It was a really neat combination of a zoo and an amusement park, and it is very kid friendly. In addition to the animals, they have these two huge kid play places with areas for getting wet and areas for climbing and jumping. I can't offer a description that would do it justice so I'll stop, but trust me, it's cool! Once nap time rolled around, Nicholas, Avery and I packed up and headed out to visit my grandpa, leaving Keith and the older girls to spend the rest of the day enjoying the roller coasters. Grandpa Douglas lives just outside Tampa and provided a very restful and relaxing afternoon for us! We had a really nice visit, and I was sad when it came time to get back in the car to pick everyone up and drive back to Orlando.

Thursday was one of the days I was most excited about--Daytona Beach day!!! Keith chose this beach because you can drive out on it and set up camp right next to your car. Very nice with kids, as a hike across the beach with all of our stuff would not have been fun! Avery mostly hung out in her sun tent while Nicholas played and played in the sand. Nicholas absolutely loved the beach. He could dig and pour water everywhere and make sandcastles to kick down and bury stuff...my boy was in his glory! That evening, we went back to Sea World for a few hours to see more sharks and the Shamu Rocks show. It was so much less crowded this time and that made me so much happier to be there :)

Keith decided that he wanted to go back to Busch Gardens on Friday, so we headed out early again that morning. It was a beautiful day and we were able to do a few things at the park that we couldn't fit in on Wednesday. We left around nap time again and drove back to visit with my grandpa one more time. The kids went swimming in his pool and then grandpa ordered in Mama's pizza. It was so yummy...I wish Mama would bring her pizza to Charlotte! Saturday morning we all went swimming in the pool at the hotel and then we packed up and checked out.

Our drive back to Charlotte didn't go as smoothly as our drive to Orlando. There was a ton of traffic through Florida and Georgia, and GA made it worse with construction zones that were 30 miles long every ten miles. UGH! I was so happy when we finally arrived at home. Being so busy with two little kids and away from my house full of helpful baby stuff was tough! Still, we had a really nice time and made some great memories and that's what really matters.

8 Months Old

Avery is 8 months old today! I have a ton to do to get ready to leave for Florida tomorrow, but I had to take time out for Avery's 8 month pictures. She's wearing a bubble that my friend Amy monogramed for her, and then I added some bows. I love it, love it, love it! I'm so enjoying dressing up my sweet baby girl!!!!! Here are some of the pictures that I just finished taking. I've also thrown in a few of Nicholas that I took yesterday.

Mr. tough guy ready for soccer practice

Nicholas and his friend Jackson driving their boats during the shark game!

Blueberry Buckle

I think that I've previously mentioned that my friend Amy and I are starting a business. We are going to sell boutique children's outfits, mostly in an online store that we've named Blueberry Buckle Kids. Eventually, we'd also like to have a few "dress shows" that would allow local people to get things at a lower cost, but that is probably down the road a bit, as we have to build up our inventory first. Over the past few weeks, Amy and I have been really working hard to get all of the pieces in place that are necessary for starting a business. All boring stuff, like setting up accounts, creating ways to track our inventory and finances, registering our business everywhere...etc. This has been no easy task because, between the two of us, we have 7 children. Amy has a 4 year old boy, Anderson, a two year old boy, Grayson, and a little girl, Aubree, that was born 15 days after Avery on August 20. We usually get together in the mornings when Amanda and Alaina are in school and, let me just say, it is total chaos!

We have already received our first few outfits and should be getting our next shipment of outfits in the next few weeks. It's all very exciting! We've also both been able to get many summer outfits for the girls. They are the best dressed baby girls in Charlotte! Spring break is next week and we are going to Florida where it will be warm enough for Avery to wear several of her new outfits. I can't wait! I'll be sure to take lots of pictures of her modeling her super cute clothes so that I can share them after we are home.