stitched

It was bound to happen at some point and truthfully I am surprised it took us almost five years for something like this to happen...Braden had to get stitches! Well, only one stitch but still...STITCHES!

I was up in my room exercising and as usual my boys wanted to exercise with me. I use resistance bands for strength training and had just finished with my upper body exercises and had moved on to some ab exercises when the boys came up to "get strong with Mom." They both like to stretch the bands and normally I don't mid them pulling on them as long as they are attached to the door. But this time they got hold of one that I had left on the floor and decided to stretch it all the way across the room. I had asked them not to play with it but of course they continued to stretch and then Carter let go causing the handle to fly towards Brady hitting him in the face, cutting him just above the lip. Braden cried but was much more worried that he was bleeding rather than it hurting him. After looking closely at it I knew it needed to be stitched closed because the cut went into his lip a little. I called the doctor and was directed to the ER at Children's in Pittsburgh. I was really glad that Brady didn't have to get a shot, instead they used a numbing cream, and I was also really glad that it was only 1 stitch.

 Waiting for the numbing cream to kick in.

 The boys watching some TV to pass the time.

 Right before the stitch went in.

 All done!

Brady will have to wear a band-aid over his lip for the next week and then we have to keep it lathered in Zinc Oxide for the rest of the summer and into the fall to be sure that it heals well and doesn't leave a noticeable scar. I think he looks kind of cute with the band aid on, he reminds me of my dad when I was a kid with his goofy mustache. 

little pioneer children

These are my kids. I think they're pretty cute. Especially when dressed up as little pioneers!

 

Our ward has a summer picnic each year. Usually it's done in August, but this year (from the suggestion of our primary president) we had a Pioneer Picnic and it was so, so much fun. We began our day getting dressed up. I knew that I'd be able to make the boys some sort of "pioneer wear" by dressing them in button up shirts and khakis, but to make it a little more authentic I used 2 belts each and using safety pins, made them into suspenders.

As I mentioned, the picnic was a lot of fun. We had a yummy BBQ lunch with watermelon and corn-on-the-cob (our favorites). After lunch we gathered all the primary kids to play games (our primary president and I were in charge.)

We had 3 legged races...

sack races...

 (Carter did surprisingly well)

 stick pulling...

(Braden lost to a girl)

 (he redeemed himself by beating his friend)

 (Carter found a little stick so he could play)

 (I found a bigger one for him to play with)

 (Braden won, but Carty held on pretty long)

 

Hoop Roll...

 and Flag Tag.

 (Even though Carter was the littlest one there, 

he just had to play along with the big kids)

 (He didn't like getting his flag stolen though)

After the games we all drank lots of water, visited with our friends and then ate more watermelon and corn-on-the-cob!

 Happy Pioneer Day! We hope you had as much fun as we did!

 oh, by the way, I made my bonnet (and apron)!

little fishies

For the last couple weeks the boys have been going to swimming lesson. Both Braden and Carter love being in the water and are pretty good swimmers as long as they have life jackets on but I wanted them to try out swimming by themselves.

Braden took the pre-swim class where he learned some basic techniques. He was put in a special group within his class for kids that were more comfortable in the water which allowed him to spend a lot of time down in the deep end practicing all his moves: holding his breath under water, chicken-airplane-soldier, floating on his back and front, etc. On the last day of formal lessons he even got to jump off the diving board (he was wearing a life jacket for that jump.)

 Brady sitting on the bottom of the pool.

Front Floating

Carter wasn't old enough to go in the pre-swim class so we went together in the babies with parents class. It was actually really nice to be able to swim with Carter. Not only did it cool me off (it was soooooooo HOT in there) but gave me a chance to have some one on one time with Carter. Daddy even came to swim with Carter a couple of times too. Carter's class always started the same with the kids/babies learning to get into the pool by rolling over and going in feet first and then singing and moving in the water to "If You're Happy and You Know It," "The Wheels on the Bus," and "Ring Around the Rosie."

After the singing Carter would practice jumping in, floating on his side, back and front, and a few other things.

Carter's favorite part was the jumping in. He started with having to hold my hand to jump to jumping completely on his own. I was so excited to see his progress.

For the last part of the lesson the kids got to play with balls and noodles. Cater, who typically fell asleep right before his lessons and had to be woken up, didn't want to stay in the water for the play part of the lesson. He would always just want to get out and go home. 

He threw this little fit after asking him if he would like to get back in the water.

and this is Braden's reaction after letting him know 

that it was the last day of lessons.

the photographer

Sorry folks, no recent pictures with this post.

Why?

Well, let's just say that I've joined the STUPID club!

Before I tell you about my STUPID moment let me first recount some events leading up to it.

Carter is an up and coming photographer. He loves to take pictures. It all stared in nursery when one of the nursery teachers was out of town. To help fill the vacancy our nursery leader's husband joined her to help for the week. During that 2 hour block of nursery he showed Carter a pretend camera (I'm pretty sure it was a pair of toy binoculars) and one by one, set different animals in front of carter to photograph. This simple exercise has now lead to Carter taking pictures of everything.

Carter will use just about any device to take a picture but prefers to either use the "real" camera or the camera on my phone. I have to be very careful of where I leave my camera because it's only a matter of time that he'll find it and start shooting. I usually catch him with it, battery completely drained and all the space on the memory card used up. He takes pictures of anything and everything but mostly his pictures are of his feet or legs or the back of the seat in the car when we're driving.

He also likes to use Braden as the subject of his pictures.

About a week ago Carter found the camera, which was in the diaper bag on the stairs, and took it outside for some shots of the kids playing. While he was out one of the neighbor kids decided to have a water fight and unfortunately my camera lost. It wouldn't turn on and I was sure that it was broken. I did salvage it by placing it in a bowl of rice overnight and that seemed to have done the trick. The camera started working and I was a happy mommy again.

Unfortunately that wasn't the end of it. The boys started swimming lessons this week so I took the camera with me one day to take pictures of them in the pool. At the end of lessons I placed the camera in it's case and put it on the top of the bag with the wet towels and swimsuits to take it home. The next day, laundry day, I took the bag and dumped it in the washer to get all the swimming clothes clean for lessons later in the day. This is where the STUPID happened. As you can guess, I didn't take the camera out of the bag. I forgot that it was in there and accidentally washed my camera. On the bright side my camera and it's case are both really clean but unfortunately the camera didn't recover from it's bath nor a full day buried in rice. Luckily I had purchased the extended warranty so my camera is off being fixed but I'm pretty sure a replacement is in store.

let freedom ring

We had a great 4th of July celebration. It was really hard knowing that we were going to be spending this, one of my favorite, holidays without our family. Luckily we have really great neighbors who helped make the day a lot of fun.
Our day started out with a yummy red, white and blue pancake breakfast. I got the idea from one of my favorite blogs: the idea room. We also had eggs, sausage and orange juice!

After breakfast we got ready for the day by sporting our colors. Braden was very adamant about showing his patriotism. He just had to wear red, white, and blue. I didn't know that it was going to be a big deal but I was able to adjust his lacking wardrobe by pinning a flag to his shirt. He was super excited about it.
When I was a little girl a tradition of our family was to decorate our bikes to ride in a parade put on by my grandparents stake. I always looked forward to doing this and was really excited to pass this little tradition on to my children. Even though we didn't ride in a parade, it was still a lot of fun and brought back a lot of memories of 4th of July's past.

(Braden is going through the awkward photo taking stage. 

He'll hold his head up towards me but will not look at me; ughh!)

A little while after decorating our bikes it started to sprinkle. So, as a family we ran a few errands and them came home to make some cookies and treats for our BBQ later in the evening.

While making our cookies and loading up the car the sprinkling rain turned into a down pour. I was really nervous that it would spoil our festivities but luckily it only rained for a short time and the sun came out just in time to set up and play.

Our BBQ was really fun. We filled a bunch of water balloons and the kids had a water balloon fight. We should have filled more because the fight was over in less than 5 minutes!

We also had a yummy dinner thanks to all the boys and their grilling skills as well as yummy concoctions made by my friends! 

On grill duty.

After dinner we let the kids roast marshmallows over some coals and made s'mores.

Yummy!

And we lit sparklers.

 

Carter liked the sparklers at first but one of the "sparks" must have landed on his arm and he didn't like it so he wouldn't hold anymore. Instead he sat here with Cade and watched the lights from a distance. (His facial expression is in response to me asking if he wanted another sparkler.)

Kam lit some snakes for the kids.

I also got all the kids glow bracelets. They loved them. My mom always gets these for the kids when we go to see fireworks so it was fun for them to receive them out here even though Bo wasn't.

Brother was very helpful in making 

Carter's glow bracelets into a necklace.

Thanks Brady!

Carter used his necklace to snorkel!

While we were eating our dinner it got really hot. The sun was out and we were all melting. (Thank goodness for ice cream!) However, after we ate, the threat of more storm clouds brought some much cooler air and since we didn't want to get rained out we did our firework show a little early instead of waiting until it was darker. The kids didn't mind at all. The kids' favorite firework was one called "crickets fountain." It was really bright and made a LOT of noise!

Just enjoying the show!

 Just as we lit the last firework the rain started to fall again. (Talk about awesome timing!) So we quickly loaded up and called the day done. Kam bathed the kids for me and then went to bed since he had an early clinical day ahead of him and then I loaded the boys in the car with a blanket and drove out to Latrobe for a firework show. The rain had stopped again so I thought, "why not!" Carter fell asleep in the car on the way there but he did wake up when we got there to watch the show. The boys both loved guessing what color would come next and were really excited about the loud BOOMS! 

On the drive home I couldn't help but compare this 4th of July with others in the past. We had a great time, probably just as much as any other year, but it really was different not being with our family. I really hope that in the years to come we won't have to be without them cause even though we had fun it just wan't the same.

Happy Independence Day!