update on alyssa's arm

I've been meaning to upload some photos of Alyssa's arm pre-surgery and post surgery but I kept forgetting to get them off of Mike's computer. Well here they are. The first ones are of Alyssa getting out of the car at the ER in Sioux Falls. I get a little woozy if I look at these too long {I know, I am such a pansy}. The rest are of her right before surgery and right after. We had more than this but Emma took it upon herself to clean up the picture/video app {stinker} so we are missing some. After the post are some videos at the hospital, one pre-surgery, one right after when she was grumpy and confused and then one after the meds kicked in and she was ready to leave.

She has done good ever since the surgery. We had to go back once a week for 2 weeks to get more x-rays but she is on track to get the cast off on Nov. 16th. Luckily she hasn't had any pain since 2 days after surgery and she has hardly complained about itchiness. She wasted no time getting her cast filled up with signatures. Can't wait until we can get it off but at the same time I am a little worried about her hurting it again. She seems to think that her arm is indestructible with the cast on. I am kind of hoping they make her wear a splint for a few weeks.

In other news, Michael passed his dissertation proposal so we are right smack in the middle of applying for internships. Between getting all of that done and visiting family during Thanksgiving I think that this month is going to fly by.

a skeleton and 2 ballerinas

I remember saying last year that this year I was not going to make any costumes and I was going to stay away from tulle. Both girls wanted to be ballerinas this year. I found some leotards for cheap and after looking around online found that it would be a better deal for me to just make their skirts. I decided to not tie the tulle on like I have done previously, so I found a tutorial online and started making them. It ended up taking about 6 hours total. Seriously, somebody stop me, don't let me do this again next year. I did like how they turned out.Ben's costume was easy, I found it online for $7, it is pj's that glow in the dark. He didn't want to wear it at first, he threw a little bit of a tantrum. But once it was on, he was ok. He didn't let me put on his beanie that had a skull on it or do any makeup but he was a cute little glow in the dark skeleton.We went to a branch party on Saturday for a trunk or treat and the kids got a ton of candy. Too much. We went to a few of the apartments near us and up and down one street on Monday night and they got a ton more. And unfortunately we only had one family come trick or treating so we have all of that candy too. I hear a dentist in town is giving $1 per pound, I might have to look into that. My hips will thank me at least until Thanksgiving.(my neighbor made this amazing monster's inc. costume for her son)

alyssa's broken arm

Alyssa broke her left arm yesterday. She was riding her friend's bike {which happens to be the next size up from her own bike} and she fell. Michael and I were both inside when it happened and the only witness was the friend so we don't know for sure if the bike landed on her arm or she just landed on the ground wrong. We took her into the after hours clinic since it was 5pm. Her pediatrician was not there so we saw a PA. She tried to take an x-ray but since Alyssa was in so much pain and scared to move her arm the x-ray wasn't the greatest but they could tell that there was a fracture on the ulna bone. They told us it was unstable and they couldn't do anything for her so they told us to go to the ER in Sioux Falls. We went home to get some stuff together and decided to have Michael take her and I stayed home and put the other two to bed. Michael and Alyssa got back home at midnight. They wrapped her arm in a splint. The ER doctor said he couldn't do anything for her and since it didn't require emergency surgery to go home and call the pediatric orthopedic surgeon in the morning. It was a rough night. Alyssa only slept for about 5 hours on and off. We went to SF this morning, we called and found out the the specialist was going to be doing surgeries all day today so we went to his clinic and saw the PA there. They took more x-rays and found that the break was worse than we thought. Turns out they aren't worried about the ulnar fracture, there is a dislocation of the radius near the elbow and if she didn't get surgery she wouldn't have mobility in her arm. It is called a monteggia fracture. The surgeon was booked through today so we go back tomorrow at 6:30am. They pushed back all his surgeries to get her in. They will give her anesthesia and he will try to fix the dislocation by pushing it back and then put her in a cast which will take about half an hour. If he can't fix it that way he will have to cut her open and use a pin and or plate to fix it, which will take an hour and then she will be in a splint. We are hoping for the first option for obvious reasons. She is very scared and has been sad. She keeps telling us she doesn't want surgery. She does want a purple cast that her friends can sign.
**UPDATE- Friday October 7th** Alyssa had another rough night of sleep, she slept in our bed with me and Michael took the couch. She kept waking up moaning and kept kicking her legs everywhere and rolling from side to side to get comfortable. We got up at 5am and made it to the hospital at 6:45am. Michael went in the OR with her while they gave her the anesthesia and once she was out he came back and we waited. Luckily it was quick. About half an hour later the surgeon came in and told us it went great. He said it was a bit of a challenge to get the bones where he wanted them but it worked and they put the cast on. We didn't get to see how she reacted while waking up, they brought her to us about 30 minutes later, she was shivering and seemed confused and she was quite grumpy for a while. It took some time to convince her to eat something, she finally caved when the pain started hitting her and she knew she had to eat in order to get the pain medication, about 20 minutes later she was asking to go home. She did end up vomiting several times on the way home, as we expected. It is definitely time for a family nap.

Ben's Birthday

Here are a few pictures from Benjamin's 2nd birthday.

our baby is two!

Our baby is not a baby anymore. Ben is such a big boy. We are so blessed to have him in our family. I will post about his birthday with more pictures soon.
Here is a little bit about Ben at age 2.

you know it's fall...

when the boys start watching football :)

1st day of 2nd year of Head Start

Emma started school today. She was so excited, she kept asking me all morning if it was time to go. As soon as we got there she was assigned to help with lunch, she was very happy. When Michael picked her up, her teacher said that she was a big helper all day and a good example to all the new kids. showing off her cupcake backpack

2nd grader

Today was Alyssa's first day of 2nd grade. We went to meet her teacher last night at the open house, she was sooo nervous but got a little more excited when she saw one of her friends from last year is in her class again. We know nothing about her teacher but she seems very nice. The school is much bigger since it is 2nd-5th grade.
She was a little upset I didn't make her a lunch {she wanted to use her new lunch bag} but I wasn't very organized yesterday. She picked out her clothes, she begged me to make her a shirt with a necklace on it so this was my attempt. She was nervous again this morning. When I picked her up she said she had a great day and I am sure she will be less nervous and more confidant as she meets new friends.

words

A few conversations I have heard lately...

Alyssa: "this is the worst day EVER...I only had ONE dessert" {what?!? we don't have dessert every day}

Benjamin dropped a certain word with 4 letters today at church. He was saying truck. Basically anytime he tries to say the word truck, fork, flag or frog it tends to sound like this certain word. Well half the time flag sounds like that word and the other half of the time he says flag without the l. Luckily it happened in nursery and I think I was the only one who heard it.

I was talking to Emma about her part for the upcoming primary program. I had asked her to tell me something she can do to prepare to go to the temple and one of her answers was sharing, then she said "we need to share, if we don't, Heavenly Father and Jesus won't let us into the church, they will lock the doors"

Speaking about the cartoon The Avatar: The Last Airbender, Alyssa said, "Whoever made this show is the best ever."

the trip

We made it back from Utah last Tuesday, even though we extended 3 days it still felt like a whirlwind trip. I will start out with the lowest point and then tell about the better parts.

I kind of feel like I cursed us with the last post {hoping for no more hiccups with the car} We left here on the 29th at 10:30, the quick fix in the morning took a bit longer than expected. We traveled to Sidney, Nebraska and stayed the night {note: our children do not sleep well with us in the same room} but we did have a lot of fun in the hotel swimming pool, we had it all to ourselves. We left at about 9 am in hopes of getting to Salt Lake before dinner, but about 15 miles outside of Laramie, Wyoming we started noticing a problem with the car. First the lights on the dashboard started failing and the next thing we knew we couldn't accelerate and started trying to coast as far as we could get, we luckily made it off an exit for a rest stop a few miles from Laramie when the van stopped. I called my parents to look up auto repair/parts places in Laramie and my dad called a shop to possibly tow us into town. Meanwhile Michael popped the hood and started scraping off the acid corrosion around the battery and we decided to try the car, it started and so we hopped in and made it all the way to the repair shop and it died right as we got it parked. A new alternator and 3 hours later we were on our way again. We were blessed that the car even restarted for us so we could make it to the shop and not have to pay for towing especially since they only accepted cash and we barely had enough to pay for the repair. {Also, John helped us get the part for cheaper}

We made it to Utah around 10:30 pm. We spent the first several days seeing a few friends and family. We had a BBQ with our friends Dirk & Laura at Jayson and Rachel's house. The kids had so much fun we had to drag them out of there. We went to John and Julia's for the 3rd to celebrate the 4th with most of Michael's family. It was good to see everyone. We celebrated the 4th with my parents.
The kids always love playing out back at my parents. Ben learned how to climb up the ladder and slide down all by himself, I wish I had some video of it. The highlight of the trip for him was of course the puppies. First thing every morning he would ask for all the family members and then the dogs. It went something like this "Mommy? Sissa? Emma? Grandma? Grandma? {for Grandpa, he didn't quite get the difference} Sammy? SueSue? {the dogs}.
We decided {I persuaded Michael} to stay a few extra days and then we drove up to Idaho Falls for our niece Averi's baptism. I am glad we decided to go, it was good to see my brothers and their families. The night we got back we went to visit Darin & Alicia, I felt bad that the visit was so short but it was good to see them and once again we had to drag the kids away from their friends. The last Sunday there we saw John & Julia again and Jenn & James and then we had Michael's mom over to dinner with my parents.

We got to go on a few dates {sadly we hadn't been on a real date since our anniversary last year}. I got to do a little shopping {it sounds so lame but I really miss being able to just drive 5 minutes in any direction to find whatever you need}
We had a great time, thanks to all our friends and family. I missed my bed and my closet but not the humidity that greeted us when we got home at 11pm.
Here are a few photos from the trip. We kept forgetting we had a camera.