Frog Hollow 2019

Merril and Jack were on teams for Frog Hollow this year. Jack rode with Ryan Rosenberg's corporate team, 'Awesome Sauce.'

Merril rode with Logan's Heroes again and turned 6 laps. This year he did some laps back to back. 

Jack turned 2 laps and was able to pull a fair time for his team.

Ryan brought some great seating.

Mikayla spent most of the day in this hammock. 

Maxine, Sheri Beatty, and I went back out for midnight pie. It was good times, see you next year!

Halloween 2019!

Ward party night! Mikayla's costume didn't get ordered in time for the party. I thought I had ordered it but didn't finish the transaction!! Luckily I realized this in enough time to finish ordering it and have Amazon deliver it on Halloween! She wore last years costume to the ward party.

 Juliet was a pineapple. She made her costume herself.

Merril and I were the Brawny Man and a roll of paper towels.

Maxine was Carol Danvers from Captain Marvel.

Jack was Jack Harkness from Dr. Who.

Mark was an army guy. This is a costume from the costume box.

And Mikayla's mermaid costume arrived the day before Halloween and was super cute!

There was so much candy! Jack and Paul Fagergren went together.

Juliet hauled in the most candy, weighing in at almost 9 pounds. She named her bag full of candy, Margaret. She said it was the same weight as a newborn baby. 

Happy Halloween!

Pianooooo....

Juliet has gotten really good at the piano lately. She plays for the Intermediate School Choir as well as taking lessons. There are a few pieces that she's brought home from school and I've thought, "I don't know if she's going to get this." Eek! But Juliet has shined. She practices, a lot, without being told! Her siblings get annoyed at how much she practices but it makes her awesome. She can memorize big pieces too! She has surpassed me. :)

Family trip to Puerto Panasco (Rocky Point)...

 Over Fall Break, we took the kids to Mexico! It was their first time and so we went to Puerto
Pañasco or Rocky Point. We went with Ryan Rosenberg and his kids. Everyone wanted to play on the beach but we spent an evening on a pirate cruise. 

It was silly and goofy but it was fun.

Mikayla and Mark were in a musical chairs contest. Mikayla tied for first and won some bubbles.

Merril was in a dancing contest and tied for first. They tried to award him with a tequila shot but he declined and gave it to another boat passenger. It was hilarious.

This was mostly a lot of time on the beach.

Sunshine and sand.

 Mikayla wore her sling like a champ and we wrapped her arm to her body with a bandana when she wanted to swim.

We ordered mangoes and pina coladas from the beach vendors.

We had a windy day that provided lots of waves for body surfing and a calm day that was perfect for lying in the water.

The weather and water were perfect! Lovely warm days.

We found a Spanish speaking ward for Sunday and then we drove home. 9 1/2 hours home. Oi. We stopped at Aunt Jody and Uncle Jim's house for dinner in Phoenix. It was a long day but a great trip.

The Color Run!

This is the second year that Coral Canyon has done a color run instead of a a walk-a-thon. It's a mess but whatever, the kids think it's fun. Mark wasn't going to run because of his stitched up head but decided to at the end.

Jesslyn and Reese seemed to escape without too much.

Mikayla was all in.

That's Juliet and Nicole B., who don't even attend the school anymore but came for the fun of it.

The kids thought it was hilarious. I guess my evil eyes kept everyone from even thinking of getting any of that powder on me because I escaped totally clean. 

They were thinking about it though. :)

My first kid to get stitches: Mark

I dropped Mark off at the bus stop for Kindergarten and got a call from the school about 30 minutes later. Mark had cut his head and was bleeding badly and he should be picked up. I zoomed to the school and found him in the nurses office. Oh my! That is a big hole in your head bro!

He said he was running to line up and bumped into a girl and spun off her and his face went into a squared off cement column. Maxine ran into one when she went to school there too. 

I took him to UrgentCare for some stitches because his wound was triangular and I figured it would leave a big divot if left to heal on it's own. Beka Bracken was the doctor there and she was the one to help us! 

She took an xray just to make sure he didn't have anything lodged in there. He didn't but the xray looked cool.

Stitches are horrible. I'm a big fan of steri-strips but just didn't see a way around it with this guy. He didn't numb up very well and was squirmy while they did it. But it got done and we went to get ice cream to celebrate, me and my two injured kids.

It was looking so much better the next day but kept trying to weep. I sat next to him and kept dabbing his forehead with gauze so it wouldn't run down him face. I imagine it's from all the fluid from his goose egg, trying to find the easiest way out, which was through his incision. About midday, it finally hardened over and looked better. It went back together better than I thought it would. Onward to healing up!

Personal Progress cross stitch...

I've been working on this cross stitch for 22 years. I started it in 1997 as a 10-hour project for Personal Progress before I was married. It took way longer than 10 hours but I worked on it steadily during conference weekend for decades. I ran out of embroidery floss a few times but DMC keeps cranking out the exact same color codes and I am grateful for that. I finally finished. I imagine it framed downstairs. That might take another decade.  

Mikayla's 2nd broken collar bone...

Poor chiquita! We were at Juliet's volleyball game and Jack and the littles were outside playing on the grass in the dark. Mikayla was running and Jack was chasing her. She stopped short and Jack plowed into her. She fell on the grass and came into the gym crying. She wouldn't be consoled and after looking at her deformed right collar bone, we figured it was broken. We went home and helped her to sleep and went to InstaCare the next morning. We were 1st and sailed right in!

And we were right, that thang is BrOkEn!

We were referred to an orthopedic doctor because the InstaCare doc said that collar bones normally just go back together if left in a sling but she was a little worried about the distance of Mikayla's fracture.

We saw the orthopedic doctor and he said that she's young and it's still within an acceptable range. Her break has 13.1 mm of separation and under 20 mm is okay. 😳 He said she needs to be in that sling and sleep with her arm lashed to her body.

We are not allowed to raise her arm at all for 4 weeks but he's confident she won't need surgery and it will grow back and remodel itself over a period of months.

A kid at her table at school broke his collar bone a few weeks ago. Her teacher said she's never had a child with a broken collar bone and this year she has two at the same time!

As a throwback, Mikayla is my only child to have broken a bone. This is her right but she broke her left collar bone at 19 months, this same time of year! It was a week before Mark was born and she fell out of a high chair. It was less severe and she healed in two weeks without a sling. Wow! She must have weak collar bones. Ha ha!

Downton Abbey Movie...

I found a friend who wanted to see Downtown Abbey with me! Yay! I knew Merril wouldn't want to go and it would be hard to catch him up on 6 seasons of content. Mandy and I snuck away on a Tuesday morning while the kids were in school

We were there with all the senior citizens in the area because Tuesday is the cheap day! All seats are $5 and popcorn is $2. The theater was full! It was a crack up to laugh with all the old people. It was good times! I have the feeling we are going to have more adventures when Mark is it first grade. I can't wait!

Goodbye hair!

Maxine loves her hair but she's got a ton of it and it's long! She was ready to say goodbye and layer it.

Say goodbye to the long locks!

We all think her new short hair makes her look like her cousin, Stephanie. She's loving how light it is and it's such a fun, dramatic change!