Happy Easter!

We had an interesting Easter this year. It was pretty low key and just not terribly exciting. Which is good! Our church had 11 services, so we volunteered for 4 of them (instead of our usual ALL). We served the 2 Friday night and 2 Saturday night services. David does Campus Support (which is like the security team I guess) and I do check-in for the kids and pre-k, and Riley helped with the Easter hunt in pre-k, and Regan helped out in her 2 year old class. She also brought friends for the Saturday services, and they had fun. I sat in one grown up service and one kids service. The kids services are just so much more fun!

So on Sunday it was strange to sleep in and not get dressed up in an Easter dress and head to church! Instead we spent some time together and headed to Mimi and Papa's for lunch. Riley brought his bike so he could ride the bike trails at the park near their house, and we just ate and cleaned up, the guys took a nap and Regan watched a movie. Pretty low key!

And the best part about it...leftovers! I love ham leftovers. Then it was time to get the kids to bed early for the week of dreaded STAAR testing. Ugh. I hate standardized tests.

New Easter Cast

Regan was very excited to finally get some changes. Her pink, short arm case was cut off and replaced by a splint for the next 3 weeks. The purple, long arm cast was removed and replaced by a cool, Easter pink and blue striped short arm cast for the next 4 weeks! X-rays looked good, new bone growth around the breaks, and she got to wash her arms in the sink with soap and water and everything! She stood there while I washed and rubbed the dead skin off. Yuck, it's amazing how nasty it gets under those casts. She's much happier now that she can move her right elbow again!

David came with us since we all had the day off for Good Friday and so we took Regan to her new favorite place for lunch, Arpeggio, a Mediterranean deli, she loved it!

Family Visit!

Family visit time! Dad and Cathy came down from Dallas, and Kenzie came with the kids, and David smoked a brisket! Riley was at Sea Cadets, so we missed him, but we spent the day visiting and catching up. The kids are a handful, that's for sure! They're cute though, but Elise only wants to be held by momma, and Eli was a mini-Riley, running all over the place, and getting into everything. He was having a good time playing with the dogs and cat though.

Mimi was out of town, but Papa came over for dinner, and we got to talk and hang out for a bit. Then when Kenzie headed back to her neck of the woods, we went to the Domain with Dad and Cathy for tea and Creme Brulee. Yum.

On Sunday, after church, we went to lunch with everyone at Threadgill's. Regan enjoyed getting her picture taken on the old tractors in the back. It was fun, and it was good to see everyone. Have to do it again soon when Mimi and Riley can be there too!

Not much to Report

Not a lot going on these days. Regan has one more week in both casts, then one comes off and one gets replaced with a short cast. She's very happy about that but I have to brag on her a little bit. She's handled this whole thing so well. I know I would be Captain Complainer if it were me, but she hasn't once complained about it. She gets irritated with herself for not being as independent as she used to be, but she's had such a great attitude with the whole thing. Very proud of her for that.

Hunter is getting huge and is quite the handful. He just roams the house seeking what he can devour (sound familiar, um, like SATAN?) He's not on my good list right now. But, we found out he LOVES the water hose, so I take him out back and spray him down, he loves it. And it's getting hot enough these days I might hose myself down with him.

Riley is off to drill weekend right now. It's inspection this weekend, so he's not looking forward to it. Time to get the head shaved again, make sure all the uniforms are ironed the right way and shoes are shined to perfection, patches sewed on in exactly the correct spot. The military is pretty particular about that kind of thing, who knew?

David has been going to a chiropractor friend from church and is feeling MUCH better. Which is good because we have so much to do around the house! He got a job offer today which is great news, but he's holding out a little bit for a different job that he really wants, so we are praying they offer him something soon, or he will take this other one. Either way it means more money which is an answer to prayer!

Kenzie and the kids came by one day to pick up mail, and it was good to see Eli. Hadn't seen him in a long time, so of course, took some pictures. It was hard cause he's a mini-Riley and didn't want to stay still for longer than about .02 seconds.

And I'm just the grease in the wheels that make all this go 'round. I'm just counting down the days till our phone contract is up and I can get an iPhone (10 more days!) That's the highlight of my life right now. Don't hate :)

Spring Break

Normally I have tons of fun Spring Break posts and pictures of us going to Six Flags, or the rodeo and carnival, or something, somewhere, anywhere! But, it's been a different kind of spring break this year.

Regan is out of commission with two broken arms, Riley had to have a tooth pulled and a tooth filled on Monday.  On Wednesday, David hurt his back again, this time pretty bad and had to go to the chiropractor. He could barely move. And then yesterday he had a tooth pulled that had broken and gotten abscessed. So I've been nursemaid and entertainer. We did go see The Hobbit, which I really didn't want to see, but it's at the dollar movie and Regan had been begging us to go see it. Regan has spent a night or two with friends, and so has Riley, but other than that, we've barely left the house.

Yawn. I'm mentally making lists of things to do this summer to make up for this suckiness.

Two Casts!

Regan went back to school on Tuesday and came home wiped out! She was so excited to go back though, she loves school (yay!)

And I didn't realize how much of an ordeal insurance companies and referrals could be, but now I know! SO frustrating. I spent most of the week on the phone with some interesting conversations. "I need a referral" "Oh, I sent that for you last week!" "Uh, I need ANOTHER referral!" The ortho office insisted they needed two separate referrals, the pediatrician's office insisted one would do, we finally had to get the insurance company involved to say yes, one referral would be fine. It took 4 days of non stop phone calls to get that to happen. So, we finally went in for the follow up on Thursday.

They took more x-rays, everything looks good, her ulna bone is still wonky, there's a big curve in it that they say will straighten up eventually. The took her ace bandage off and she decided the purple looked best with the hot pink cast on the other arm, so now she's got a little cast-fashion going on.

There was a high school boy there in a wheelchair who had fallen asleep in the car with his feet on the dashboard and they hit a deer and the airbags went off, and he now has two broken ankles! Riley sits like that all the time so I told him he can't do that anymore!

Regan Update

Regan is doing much better. She had to wear her foam lego until last night, and it was a good thing because she was getting really tired of it. She slept a lot the last two days, and she is going to go back to school today. She had picked out a loose skirt and shirt to wear, but a cold front blew in last night so it's time to re-evaluate that. She does NOT want to have to go to the nurse to get help going to the bathroom, so we are trying to make it as easy as possible for her. It did hit me last night, she will need help with her lunch tray! Maybe I need to pack a bunch of finger foods for a while for her. I emailed her teacher and she is going to give Regan a writing buddy, so that made Regan feel better. This week is writing camp and she was really looking forward to that.

She got her very first flower delivery yesterday, from our Pastors at church, and she was so thrilled! And her friends across the street brought her a cute little stuffed horse. She's loving the extra attention, the only perk of having two broken arms!

Kenzie and Elise

I got to see Kenzie and Elise today! It's been a while, and a long story, but for now, I will just share pictures. Elise is the cuddliest, sweetest, chunky little thing! So adorable.

Another Big Break

It's been a long night. We went to Mimi and Papa's for dinner and game night and we brought Hunter to play in their massive backyard while Riley was riding his bike on the nearby bike track. Regan was out back with Hunter, they were running around the yard, playing chase. At one point, Regan went to run down the stairs and tripped and fell down the rock garden steps. I was right behind her so I saw her go down, and ran to help her up but before I could get there she stood up screaming bloody murder. She held her good arm up, and it was very obviously broken. It was hanging down, and not in a place where it should be hanging down from.

She was screaming and saying she was sorry and David just grabbed her and we ran to the truck and took her to the nearest hospital which was North Austin Medical Center. We got right back and then had to sit. Forever. They came in and took x-rays but wouldn't give her any pain medicine until they knew if she would need surgery or anything, it had to be done on an empty stomach. So we waited and waited only to find out they wanted to transfer us to Dell Children's.

Then we waited some more for them to clean up her knees that got all banged up again, and for them to splint her for transport, and for our discharge papers. A guy comes in that looks like one of her Kids Church pastors, Mr. Edwin, and she liked that. They finally did give her a pill for the pain, and one for nausea, and he put a splint on her arm and she was happy finally. We were there for over 3 hours before we left for Dell.

Got to Dell, and it was super crowded, but thankfully they got us back right away. Then it was another hurry up and wait. They got the x-rays and wanted to make sure they got all the angles they needed, they wanted her other orthopedic doctor to check them and see if she needed surgery or if they could just set it or what. So finally someone named Saturday came from the ortho's office and we talked about what she would do, and they brought in this huge x-ray machine that takes a continuous x-ray while they work so they can see what they are doing while they are doing it. Super cool (cha-ching). There were about 7 people in there during the procedure (cha-ching!) and I had to sit in the waiting room after they gave her a dose of ketamine. She thought it was pretty funny that we told her that was a horse tranquilizer. We said when she's a vet and she has to give that to a horse, she will be able to tell them she knows how it feels!

Finally, they got her arm set, they had to break the radius bone all the way through, it was broken about halfway but she broke it so it would set back together right. The ulna bone is still bent at an odd angle but she said that should straighten up while in the cast. So they put a huge plaster cast on, then had to saw it right in half since her arm was swollen, then she wrapped it in an ace bandage for now. We will go in later this week to get the hot pink cast cover on it once the swelling has gone down. And she also has this giant lego looking pillow that she has to keep her arm in to keep it up for 48 hours.

So we left Dell and went to Walgreen's to get her meds and to Taco Cabana for a late dinner and finally home at 4am. She's been resting every since. Everyone told me how sweet and polite she was, she kept telling everyone thank you for everything they did for her. She was very sweet. We had a nice long conversation, she asked how God could let this happen, and I explained to her that the devil is bad, and he wants people to blame God for everything. She told me as we were leaving the hospital, "Mom, I don't care if I break every bone in my body 1000 times, I'm still gonna serve Jesus!" That's my girl!

We Have Lift-off!

Finally, 2 pokey-uppey ears! He's getting so big! He's such a sweet boy but man, is he a handful. Especially around 6 in the morning. He has a lot of energy after sleeping all night. Too bad I don't :(

Buckle Fracture

Well, what a long day! We got a call last night from the radiologist and they said that Regan's arm is definitely fractured, and to take her to a pediatric orthopedist at Dell Children's ASAP. So I kept her home from school so we could go first thing in the morning. Well, that didn't work out like I planned! I recently changed their primary care physician, because we have new insurance. I was all the way through all the million questions to get the appointment when they say, "Oh wait, you need a referral from your primary doc!"

So, called the NEW PCP, and had to explain, well, we just switched insurance, had to pick a doctor off the list, we have never seen you, but we need a referral. Guess what? Not taking new patients, nothing they can do. So I call the old doctor, hey, I need a referral, quick! Well, they weren't listed as the PCP so they couldn't do the referral. A HUGE MESS!

I was on the phone for over 3 hours trying to get something set up, and they could find us a place to take us but we would have to pay cash, or we found a place that would take us but not until Monday, and I was getting more and more worked up, so I called David and passed the buck to him. He called back within about 30 minutes and had it all taken care of! He talked to a supervisor at the insurance company and they sent a letter promising that we have coverage and they will get their referral ASAP, so they got us in this afternoon finally.

Once I knew we were going to get in, we made our way downtown. We stopped for lunch at one of David's favorite places, Arpeggio Grill, it's a Mediterranean buffet and Regan LOVES that kind of food. She was in heaven. She had never been there before, but I think she would go there for every meal now!

Then on to the ortho, and more x-rays, and sure enough, a buckle fracture of the radius bone. She said it was like when a coke can crumples, and the bone is soft still since she's young and it didn't break all the way through but just kind of crumpled. So, nice hot pink cast, no getting it wet, no scooters, bikes or PE for the next 4-6 weeks! We go back in 4 weeks to see if it's healed up enough to take the cast off. Pretty crazy day! But, she's doing a lot better now. Last night she was in a lot of pain, I think from using it too much, so I think this will help a lot.