June Favorites

Mr B is SUCH a good helper in the yard :) I'll never get enough pictures of him and Daddy walking side by side workin' :)One of my very favorite pictures of them together. They look like I posed them that way, but they were just sitting on the stairs cuddling and I got there in time with my camera :) They sure do love each other!!Swimming!! I try and try to convince Kevin every year to get one of those huge above ground pools, but since we don't have the room to put it without killing a huge circle of grass, we have to settle for our tiny, little plastic pool (which obviously doesn't fit any part of me except my feet!), but the kids loved it :)

FIRST Haircut!

At 3 years, 5 months, and 16 days - Mr B finally got his FIRST haircut!!! We kept debating doing it at home or taking him somewhere, but it was a special occasion so we made a big deal out of it and took him to a professional :) He seemed excited, and he was a really good boy and stayed very still the whole timeWe still wanted to keep it pretty long, so she didn't cut too much off, but it's amazing how much older he looked to me!!Before and After pictures...I was worried we would cut off his adorable curl - but thankfully it's still there and just as adorable as always :)Gracie was confused why I was making him stand next to the door to take pictures, then she decided she needed a turn too :)

Jenny's House

We try to get together with our group of friends about every month and this time it was at Jenny and Jeromy's new house! We had a blast hanging out, eating, chatting, and playing some games. The kids had a lot of fun playing together. Hopefully we can keep up the monthly tradition, even though it's so hard with everyone's different schedules. I've had these friends since elementary school and they are very important to me! :)

Interesting spot for Gracie to decide to sit, but she seemed to like it :)Remember what I said about the bunny ears pictures for Easter? Sometimes I'll ask Bradley to smile for a picture and out of nowhere he does the bunny ears - even though sometimes it looks more like gang signs :) heheHe is just too adorable!! :)Bradley and Connor hanging outThe boys playing bocci ballI probably took 20 pictures of them all sitting there and here's my best one - pretty good I think!! :) Espcially the fact that they all sat there LONG enough for me to take 20 pictures to chose from!!! :)LOVE these girls!!!

May Favorites

Some kids have a security blanket - Mr B has to have a baseball accessory with him at all times - lately it has been a batting glove. He sleeps with it on :) It's just adorable. I don't think this baseball obsession is going away any time soon :)Trying to be a sweet brother, but Gracie seems a little cautious!Not to be outdone, Gracie has to come and get her picture taken too :)Posing on the stairsBradley probably has a dozen different bats, but his favorite is his Rockies Bat, and we decided it was fair to get Gracie her own - Carebears :) She sure likes having something that matches her big brother!Dexter Fowler!!! He came to walmart to sign autographs so we went there with Tammy and waited in line and got to meet him and Dinger. Of course Bradley was SO excited, and then got really nervous once we got up to him, but he gave him a high five and even sat on his lap! He sure looks frozen with fear though, doesn't he? :) But after that little moment of shyness, he gets so excited when he sees the balls that they signed and when he sees them on tv he always talks about how he saw them :)Enjoying the slide outside!

Anna's Wedding

One of my very close friends, Anna, got married back in May - the last one in our little group of friends to get hitched! It was a beautiful wedding up in the mountains and it was so nice to get to see everyone. She made a beautiful bride and they are a wonderful couple!!! Congrats to Dustin and Anna!!!

My Poor Baby!

The day after Easter Gracie had a really bad accident over at Grandma Gay's. I got a call from Katie at work that Gracie had burnt her hand on the wood burning stove and Gay couldn't get her to stop crying. I left work right away and rushed over there, hoping that I could get her calmed down and praying that it wasn't too bad. I get there and the poor thing was just bawling uncontrollably. I tried to comfort her while trying to get a look to see how bad it looked. Well it wasn't just one hand - it was both, and it wasn't just a finger or two - it was BOTH hands, ALL of the palm and ALL finger-tips, and they were already bubbling up and blistering about 1/2 an inch off her tiny little hands. I rushed her to my doctor's office, only to have him come in, take one look and say "I'm sending you straight to the ER, these look bad" :( :( :( At this time she was still crying and crying from the pain, so I asked them if they could at least give her something for the pain and he said no, they could just try to wrap them up - which didn't help. After what seemed like forever to get to the ER and into a room (luckily they got us back pretty quickly) we were given a choice on what we could do for the pain. We could just give her Tylenol which might take longer to take effect, or we could do an IV. From past experience with IVs with tiny children (with Bradley when he got so sick), we really wanted to try to stay away from the IV, so we thought we'd try the Tylenol first. I think it ended up being close to 3 hours from the time she burned them to the time she actually got something for the pain, crying pretty much constantly that whole time. Luckily the meds seemed to kick in pretty quick and she fell asleep in our arms. I'm starting to cry right now thinking of what a terrible feeling it is knowing that your child is in SO much pain and not being able to make it better! :( It just breaks my heart.
At the ER they were telling us that she could need surgery since the burns went over all of her creases in both hands, they might have to re-do those creases so they could function properly. But he said burns can develop and change over 24 hours, so we'd just have to wait and see. We got LOTS of bandaging supplies and instructions on cleaning and bandaging, prescriptions for the pain, and a referral to a hand surgeon set up for 2 days later. I am NOT good with injuries! I have lots of respect and awe for nurses and doctors (Mindy included!) who deal with stuff like that on a daily basis - I just couldn't do it. I dreaded anytime I'd have to touch her hands, worried that I would hurt her. She was a pretty good sport about it all, just got really frustrated because she couldn't do anything, she couldn't hold her milk, or pick up any toys, or anything really. And she is a VERY independent little girl, so she does NOT like people having to do stuff for her! Mom had to take off time from work every morning to come help me re-bandage her hands and clean them, Tammy was a big help too when she wasn't working - Thank God for family!!!
The hand surgeon was very nice and very comforting. He said he didn't think she'd need surgery - Thank God! He did cut off all the blisters which made me SO nervous!!! He said some people think that helps, some think you shouldn't break them before they're ready (which is what I originally thought) but he said he thought it was best and would speed up the healing process. She did NOT like that :( and I did NOT like it! The raw, exposed skin made me even MORE nervous to deal with. He was very nice and reassuring though and answered all my questions even though I asked the same ones over and over again!
We had a follow up appt a week later and he said they were healing beautifully and that we could even stop bandaging them - which - guess what?!?! :) Made me nervous!! :) I still bandaged them for another couple of days, very lightly, then would only do it when we went out somewhere. We had to constantly keep them moisturized with ointment or else they would have cracked and been very painful - but luckily that never happened.
I was SO mad at myself because we all knew that the wood burning stove was open and accessible to the kids, we all even talked about getting a gate to put around it since it was so dangerous - but no one actually took the initiative and did it, which was so unfortunate. BUT Thank God that she is tough and she healed quickly, without surgery. Bradley was SUCH a sweetheart and very worried about her all the time, very careful about playing, and would help her get things when she was having trouble picking things up. He was the PERFECT big brother. Anytime he saw her bandages he got scared, then when her bandages came off he got so excited that she was all better but then he would see her poor wounded hand and get worried all over again.We would line up her cereal on the edge of the table and she'd go down the line and eat them one by one - like a little birdie! It was so sad and so cute at the same time!We did a LOT of bubbles! One of the only things she could do for a while...She was SO happy when we were able to keep some of her finger-tips out again, that sure helped but she had to be SO careful!These are the 3 weeks after pictures - I'll spare everyone the other pictures we took early on, they are no fun to look at. I was actually surprised how great they looked at this point - this first one was the better of the 2. I guess she had a little toy in her left hand when she did it, so the palm didn't get it as bad, it was 2 big blisters instead of 1 big one - but the finger-tips were worse on this hand because they got the brunt of it.Her right hand was just one big blister, but the finger-tips were a little better. Months later you can still make out the lining of the blisters on her hands if you're looking for it, but I think they've healed beautifully! It's amazing how the human body recovers from something like that!