DONE!!!!

 Summer is over which is very SAD, but we accomplished everything on our list!!!

 We crossed our last thing off the list 2 nights before school started when we went to play mini golf.

 Can you believe my kids have never played mini golf before???

 McKenna got a hole in one which was devastating to a certain older sibling who thinks he needs to be better at her in everything in life...but it was a teachable moment that he just had to deal with.

 He came home and started digging up the back yard to make his own golf course.

 McKenna on a go kart ride with daddy.

 She loved it.

 Christian on the other hand was not "wowed" by this activity. He told me his four wheeler goes faster.

At least my oldest child, Ryan, loved it!!!! ha!

It's going to be hilarious

 McKenna started a "real" sport this fall.

 She cried before her first practice, so I wasn't sure how it was going to go.

I'm so proud of her for getting in there with everyone else and for being a great listener to her coach.

 Those pink shin guards are supposed to go under her socks, but they're pink and no one would see that they are pink if you wear them under your socks. Why on earth would you want them under your socks when they're such a great accessory and the only reason you wanted to play soccer in the first place???

 This is what she learned at her first practice...how to stop the ball.

 The ever present spectator!

 Watching four year olds play soccer is like watching a comedy routine. I can't wait for her first game!

 He just wants to be big too.

 A little athlete in the making.

Believe it or not, he can actually run and kick the ball. What??

This week

Blogging time has just not been possible lately. We have been busy. And since I'm sure you are all sitting around refreshing your page just waiting for an update on our lives this week (insert sarcasm) I'm going to give you a quick bullet points update.

• Christian is not a fan of first grade. The first two days were ROUGH, but things are looking up.
• McKenna is playing soccer now which means I have two kids in sports. It's not too bad because they both practice on the same night.
• I'm not allowed to write notes that use the word "love" or "miss you" or that have hearts on them and put them in Christian's lunch. In fact, if I have something important to tell him I should not even put my name on it because he already knows it's from me and it's just embarrassing to have a note from your mom in your lunch.  It's first grade for Pete's sake!!!
• DRUM ROLL PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Will was discharged from the plastic surgeon today only 3 weeks and 2 days after his accident! This deserves an entire post and I will make that one a priority. We still have some healing to do..it's not over, but man oh man I am thankful.
• Preschool is arriving just in the nick of time. McKenna will literally talk to me every single second of the day, thus making me realize that I'm actually thankful that Will isn't really talking yet. I need some quiet!!! Love her to pieces but I really don't want to discuss the pretend party she's planning every day or her Christmas list or all the girl names that she really likes or how she wants to rearrange her room again or........ you get the point.
• My husband has a four day weekend!!! Love having him home!!!!
• My in-laws are coming for the weekend. We haven't seen them since this time last year. We're all so excited to see them.

1st Grade

First Day of School 2012-2013!

He did great this morning. Last night was a different story.

He was a nervous mess, but just needed to be reminded that he has a "secret weapon" that he can use at any time and that's prayer. I'm so proud of the man he's becoming because he "gets it." He really does understand that Jesus is with him and can help him when he needs it.

Sending him to school is hard for me. I want to protect him and be there to help him, but I know that's not what's best for him. It's good for him to have adversity and to learn how to deal with it now. It's good for him to be learning right now to rely on Jesus and not on mommy to solve his problems. It's good for him to have a little stress and figure out how to deal with things on his own.

I have some reservations about this year, but he doesn't know that. And every time I tell him that "we prayed for the right teacher and we prayed for a great year and now we're going to have faith and trust Jesus" ... I'm really speaking to myself.

I miss him so much, but I know he's going to get off the bus with a smile!!

Witness to a Miracle

Heads Up: There is a picture of Will's finger in this post. I think it looks great, but I've also been looking at it for a few weeks and it looks so much better to me...you might think it's horribly gross, so don't scroll down if you don't want to see it.





I've had a few people ask me if I've taken pictures of Will's finger. And while I agree that it would be interesting to have "before and after" pictures, I'll be honest...I don't want any before pictures. Every time we had Will's finger unbandaged it's traumatic for him and taking a picture has been the furthest thing from my mind. There's screaming and crying and blood involved...so there haven't been any pictures (until today). I know I take pictures of pretty much everything else in my life but this is different. Today I was forced to do a dressing change (not something I ever choose to do on my own) because a certain little boy decided to play in the potty. It's quite a feat trying to keep Will away from the potty when his brother and sister are ridiculously terrible at keeping the bathroom door shut. So today I got to do a solo dressing change and I washed his hand for real with soap for the first time in over 2 weeks. His finger is looking so AMAZING I decided to finally take a picture. It's not a great picture. Not close up or anything. He was sitting in my lap crying and I just held the camera out and quickly snapped a few pictures. I am only sharing this because I want you to see this little miracle that I get to look at every day.

If you look just above the top join of his finger you can see just how NORMAL his finger looks. If this were a better picture you would see that the skin is a little pinker than the rest of his finger and it's kind-of shinier, but doesn't it look normal?? Almost all of that is new finger that literally grew in just under 3 weeks. Crazy amazing!!

There is a centimeter (probably a little less) that has grown back.

Yay Jesus and Yay Will!!

I have to give Will a lot of credit. This has been hard on him. As soon as he sees a bandaid he starts crying. He is so tired of having his finger messed with. Today when I did a dressing change he had a really hard time recovering. He just cried and cried and cried. I don't think it hurts him really at all, I think it just scares him and he probably has some bad memories associated with this whole ordeal.

Please keep praying for his healing. We still have a ways to go. We're running into a new problem now.....this is a little gross so quit reading if you don't want to hear about it..... twice now the adhesive on the bandaids has pulled off some of his skin when the bandaid has come off. That's so disappointing because we've worked so hard to get that skin to grow and now it's so soft and sensitive it just can't hold up to the adhesive on the bandaid. But it needs the adhesive other wise the bandage will not stay on for long. He's only 17 months old...so this is tricky. Wrapping his finger with a gauze pad and then tape does not work. Tomorrow I'm going to go to CVS and just look at all their first aid supplies and see if I can come up with something that might work a little better.

We head back to the doctor on Thursday so I'll keep you posted.

Water war

 It all started with ... this team

 verses this team.

Plenty of ammo for everyone.

 Then the war began...

It didn't last very long. But it sure was fun.

Wading

 Can you believe they all left with dry clothes?

This was McKenna's first time wading in a stream. 

It was so fun watching her.

She giggled the whole time.

the fab 5

 Hannah, McKenna, Christian, Lizzie & Adam

I took these guys to the park to explore.

 The girls were so cute holding McKenna's hands.

 A funny thing kept happening...every time we would walk over a bridge Adam would somehow lose his shoe down in the stream and have to go retrieve it.

 It was one of those perfect summer afternoons (almost perfect ...this guy ended up with a deer tick that I didn't find until the next day).

 Everyone was a good sport about me taking a million pictures.

 I secretly had a stash of towels in the car just in case someone "accidentally" fell in or got soaked. But I didn't need the towels.

 Adam is quite the nature guy, he's always noticing some animal habitat that no one else notices.

 The FAB FIVE!

 It was so good to spend time with our cousins! Hopefully we'll get to do it every summer.

 Gymnastics is always on her mind every where we go!

Beautiful Girls.

Outside Again

 Even though he's not looking too happy, I just love this picture. That's the face I see looking up at me most of the time. I think he's one of the most handsome things I've ever seen!

We finally let him go outside yesterday. His bandage on his finger is pretty minimal at this point so it's much easier to keep on. He's pretty much stopped taking it off. He does NOT like to see his "boo boo finger" ....it really upsets him, so I think he's realized it's better to keep his bandage on.

He loved exploring everything all over again.

 He ran around for almost 2 hours.

 I adore McKenna in rain boots :)

 Kissing the ball.

Our lives are returning to normal. At this point if his finger gets wet or dirty, it's not the end of the world. We just clean it and move on!! So thankful for the healing this little guy is experiencing.

The drive

 This is the view just outside of my town.

 I've been on this road a lot this summer on the way out to my parent's house.

 My parent's road...it's like the earth just opens up and you can see for miles and miles and miles.

When Ryan and I were first married (and gas was much cheaper) we loved to go on drives on the weekends. This is how we found my parent's house. We were driving down this road and saw the for sale sign and I remember calling my mom from my cell phone and saying "We just found your new house."