Thursday, November 30, 2006

New blue cast

Will resting at Grandma's, right after his visit to the Emergency Room.

Since William is the WINNER of the, 'first boy in our family to break a bone' award, I thought this monumentous occasion (sure to be the first of many) deserved it's very own post!

For Thanksgiving, our family travelled West to visit relatives. On Thanksgiving day we were eating ourselves silly in Rupert, Idaho. All of the kids went outside to run around for awhile and before long William came in crying. While outside playing on a tree stump (only about 3 inches off the ground), he had fallen and scraped his hand. After getting a band-aid, Will wanted Warren to come outside so Will, "could show you what happened, Dad." Warren took him outside and Will was standing on the stump explaining carefully how he had fallen, when he stumbled again. Falling off the stump, he landed hard on his elbow. He immedietly flew into such hysterics when anyone mentioned touching or moving his arm that we knew a visit to the Minidoka Memorial Hospital Emergency room was in order.

Sure enough, 4 X-rays, and a few thousand bucks later, we were told he fractured his arm just above the elbow. Thank goodness it broke where it did, apparently children's elbows can be tricky to diagnose and fix. The orthopedist put him in a 1/2 cast (to make room for swelling) and a sling and told us to follow up with our doctor when we got back to Chicago.

Yesterday we went to our own group of doctors and saw another orthopedist who took more X-rays, confirmed that Will did, indeed, have a fractured arm, and put him in a new blue cast.

We think he looks fabulous.
William, a week later. You can tell he's really suffering! :-)

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Happy (belated) Halloween!

I can't believe Halloween was 5 days ago already! We had a great day. Halloween ranks a close second to Christmas at our house, so it is a BIG deal. In fact, Matt has already started planning his costume for next year. Hey, there are only 360 days left to get it ready!

Nate and Drew finally "got" Halloween this year. Last year, they loved getting the candy, but they would stop after every house and wanted to eat the candy. This year they could keep up with their big brothers, and they loved coming home and examining their loot. Originally, I had thought that one of them could be Buzz Lightyear and the other could be Woody. However, in anticipation of 'Woody' being less than thrilled with his costume, I actually purchased two Buzz costumes and one Woody costume. I'm sure glad I did because when I tried the Woody costume on Nate, he was pretty disappointed. He kept looking at Drew's Buzz costume and then looking down forlornly at his own. I asked him if he would rather be Buzz and he said, "yes." When I pulled the second Buzz costume out of the bag, his eyes just lit up. Apparently, a fake gun and cowboy hat can't compete with a fake lazer! So, here they are:

Double Buzzzzzzzzzz!

Matt and Will chose their costumes. Matt, after much speculation and changing of his mind, finally settled on being a 'Ninja.' William very quickly decided he wanted to be a 'Ninja Turtle.' I enjoyed watching them parade around their schools. I also got to go into Matt's class to help with his party. It was so fun!

Will as a Ninja turtle, Matt as a Ninja!

We have a few fun Halloween traditions. One is the carving of our Jack-O-Lantern. I think it's funny this tradition is so highly anticipated because not one of the boys will touch the insides of the pumpkin! They just end up watching Warren do the whole thing, but they enjoy it and look forward to it all the same.

This year's creation!

Our second big tradition is our 'Spooky supper.' Last year, on a whim I made a simple dinner using favorite foods along with copious amounts of food coloring. I created a little menu out of cardstock and then burned around the edges so it would look 'extra spooky.' We ate the same thing this year. We had:

"Witches Hair" = Spaghetti noodles died green
"Worm Guts" = Spaghetti sauce
"Baby Birdie Brains" = Peas
"Eyeballs of Newt" = Pineapple tidbits tinted blue
"Crispy gnome fingers" = Pretzel sticks or crispy breadsticks
"Sparkling Bat Drool" = Ginger ale mixed with juice, or Grape soda

We eat by candlelight on black plates and the boys just love it! I will really miss these little traditions when the boys get too old for them. For now, though, they are a lot of fun!