feeling left out...

Ethan is the only kid that has not used his insurance card since we switched companies last month. I guess he must have felt a little left out. Today when the school called - it was about him. He had put his tooth through his lip and they thought it might need stitches. I ran across the street and got him, but I was more worried about his tooth, then his lip. His tooth (permanent) was wiggly - so I called the dentist. He had us come right up and he x-rayed it - IT IS FINE (I am paranoid because of the permanent tooth that I lost after being hit in the face with a basketball - I still don't like that sport)! He said the lip was borderline stitches, but he didn't think it was necessary - Ethan opted for NO stitches. It is quite sore (and hard for him to eat), but he was able to choke a Dairy Queen Blizzard down before I took him back to school.

I do want to give a shout out to our WONDERFUL dentist - not only does he have a TV on the ceiling and headphones so the kids can watch cartoons, but he didn't even charge us for today - he wouldn't even let me pay for the x-ray's. So if anyone reading lives here and is looking for a great dentist - CHASE WILLIAMS is really, really good!!! While I am on that tangent - I also need to give a big thanks to JASON YORK for fixing a cabinent door (one that I didn't think was possible to fix - I had actually called him to see if he could build me another one) - that Abby broke (shattered actually). He did incredible work (he also did my parent's kitchen remodel - absolutely beautiful) - and again he wouldn't let me pay him. THANK YOU!!!

Psycho Strikers!!!

Miles had his last soccer game tonight and yes - I let him play - even with staples in his head. He has had a great season this year - it is getting fun to watch him play. He is a great dribbler, passer and shooter - he has even been hustling this year. He had two of his good friends on his team this year - and when they were all in together (as forwards), they were unstoppable. Here are Miles, Isaac and Justin after their last game - Go Psycho Strikers!!!

Miles visit to the E.R. (Take 2)

This morning I was at Cedar Middle School observing for my practicum. I got done about 11:00 and stopped at my parents to pick up the girls. Since the babies were still asleep, I ended up staying for a bit longer. The phone rang and I was closest - I picked it up and saw that it was the elementary. My mother's intuition knew something was wrong immediately - so before I even heard what had happened I had my keys in my hand and was heading out the door. Miles had split his head open on the playground. By the time I got there the bleeding had almost stopped, but I knew it had bled alot just from the amount of blood on his clothes. He had quite the gash in his head - my very favorite kind - where you can see lots of tissue. He was nausious and very wobbly - but I got him loaded in the car and stopped back at my mom's to make sure she could watch all the girls for a bit longer (including a girl that I am babysitting - my mom is an angel). I called the doctor and they said to take him to urgent care - we went out to urgent care and they sent us to the emergency room (saying that he might need a cat scan because he had been knocked out as well - nothing like a drive clear across town praying desperately that my child doesn't have any brain damage). We got all checked in to the E.R. and the doctor was great - he wasn't worried at all about brain damage - he didn't even think Miles had a concussion - I can't even tell you the relief I felt. Miles has 4 staples in his head to show off now - the doctor didn't even shave his head or anything.
Miles felt great after we left the hospital - he was begging to go back to school. He had been quite upset earlier because he thought he would miss giving his county report (not only that, but another of the kids giving his county report had brought beef jerky to share for his report and Miles was so upset that he might miss the beef jerky). So I picked up the girls from my parent's, fed the kid and walked him back to school. We are all fine here now - and I want to thank all the friends that have called tonight to check on him - I think he caused quite a commotion during lunch recess - all the kids had gone home and told their parents. I don't know quite what to do with this child - this is the 2nd E.R. visit in 2 months - I did tell him that for every accident involving stitches, broken bones, etc. - it means an extra year before he can play tackle football (we are up to 7th grade now).

Only 7...

This is an Ethan post - Miles also played great in his game, I just wasn't allowed (by the babies) to get the camera out at his game. So hopefully, (babies permitting) Miles will get his own soccer post later this season.

I mentioned last post how the boys had their duet festival this morning - they played at 8:30 and 9:00. Well, they both also had soccer games at 9:00 and then Miles had a flag football game at 10:00. Somehow, the boys convinced me that we could make it to everything. Luckily we were able to switch with someone so the boys played first in their piano session and then we snuck out and headed to the soccer fields. The boys changed into soccer uniforms as we were driving and we only missed one quarter of the games. Since both games were at the same time I had to hop between games (which happened to be at opposite ends of the fields), so by the time I got down to Ethan's game he had already scored 4 goals. We then watched for 15 minutes and saw him score 2 more before we ran down to watch Miles. After his game was over he walked down to where we were still watching Miles. The first thing out of his mouth was "I ONLY scored 7 goals, I really wanted to score 9 though" (his uniform number is 9 - I think that has something to do with it). Poor kid - here is one of the 7 goals.

Duets!!!

The Piano Duet Festival was today and the boys did great!!! They do not allow video to be taken at the festival though - so the only clip I have of them is from my mom's recital last week, and it wasn't their best. I can only blame myself though - the past 3 weeks have been probably the very busiest of my life - which means that I do things only when they absolutely need to be done (i.e. laundry when there are no clean socks in the house, dishes when we are out of spoons) - this is also the reason the blog has not been updated forever. Anyway, I taught Ethan the last of his duets the morning of the recital, which meant the boys hadn't played it together very much. Here is one of the songs - Phantom of the Opera (the perfectionist in me is cringing at showing you this unperfect performance - but this might be the last time they perform together since Miles thinks he has "quit" piano).

I should have mentioned - besides playing two duets with Miles, Ethan also played a concerto (with me) and two more duets with his cousin - and got SUPERIOR ratings on all!!!

Genius

I have a genius child - I am not sure which one - I am pretty sure it is one of the twins. Someone in my house set the answering machine on our home phone yesterday - a feat that I have been trying to do since we got the phone (3 years ago). The phone manual got lost somewhere in the move (meaning that we moved and it didn't) - so I have gone through every menu on the phone trying to figure out how to change from the message that came on the machine. If you haven't called me the last couple of days, you have really missed out - the message is just background noise - I think you could hear breathing, then footsteps, a little talking and even a child playing the piano. Everyone who has called has left messages telling me about the strange message (as well as commenting that they hope this is an answering machine they are talking to). So tonight I spent an hour finding the phone manual online and resetting the message - so for anyone that has an Uniden DECT1580-2 - it is simple, all you do is push MUTE, then 5, then 8, then record your message, then push 8 again. Yep - so simple a child can do it!!!

Geocaching!!!

We finally did it - we went geocaching - and I checked off another thing on my "want to do this summer" list. It was super fun!!! My brother Michael came with us - thanks so much for all your expertise and help. I was amazed at how many geocaches there are so close to us - our very first find was one called "Kiddie Highway" - we walk this road every Sunday to get to church. Here is the find.
Next we went over to the University where there was one hidden by "Old Sorrel". The boys found it really quick (it was in the same place as the first one).

We then decided that we could graduate from the level 1 difficulty hides. So our next cache was in this old field with a tractor - we knew that the cache was hidden in the tractor since the cordinates were right there, but we still searched for 15-20 minutes before finding it. Here is Michael taking the tractor apart to find the cache - we didn't know it at the time, but he is actually holding the part were the cache is hidden (it came even more apart).

Michael let each of the kids take turns leading us to the "treasure". Here is Abby holding the GPS (the boys could actually get us to the coordinates, Abby was just holding it so she didn't feel left out). Abby is going to be quite upset with me someday when she sees the outfits that I let her wear in public. In my defense - she is incredibly stubborn - so I usually give into her when it comes to clothes. Her dad was here this weekend and bought her this "princess" dress which she has worn almost non-stop since (it is Sleeping Beauty, not Snow White - Courtnie). I thought I was pretty lucky to get her out of it to put a church dress on yesterday - so I didn't put up too much of a fight today (notice her hair as well - Abby can already do her hair herself - yes she is wearing both a headband and one of the twins hair bows and neither of them match the outfit).

After the tractor find we suffered some trauma (Abby tried to pet a cactus) and had to stop to pick out the cacti spines and drop two tired babies off at Grandma's for a nap. We then made it on to the most clever find of the day - there was a fake sprinkler in a huge field that opened to reveal the cache. The GPS worked great - it literally put us right on top of the spot. (The pictures at this geocache didn't turn out - Sorry). Then we had two in a row where we couldn't find the cache - kindof dissapointing, but we will go back and find them (I read some hints about them after we got home and I think I know where they will be after that). Our last find today was tons of fun! The coordinates put us right in the middle of the busy street in front of Walmart. We were stumped for quite a while until we saw that there was a grate right over where we were supposed to find the cache. Following similar grates, we found a tunnel that led right under the street - I grew up here, how did I not know about this tunnel?

Michael helped Abby "find" this cache. Can you see how she is holding her right hand? That is the had that "pet" the cactus - I couldn't see anything else in her hand but she insisted that it still hurt. In fact, it hurt so bad she couldn't even walk. Don't worry, she is now all better - in fact, it is quite amazing what a little sugar can do - not too many injuries that a piece of licorice can't heal.

I have to give a big THANK YOU to my Uncle Rick - he not only loaned us his GPS, but he even copied the entire manual for me (and I did read most of it - even though Derek laughed at me). Now I need to add a GPS to my birthday wish list, so you can get yours back!