Banging up baseballs and arms

Carter is on a kid pitch team this year and Grant is doing his second year of coach pitch. They've been so excited to play, but the weather isn't cooperating up here and it keeps raining during their games.
Another unfortunate piece of news- James broke his left arm on April 30 by rolling off the bed in my room and landing on top of his arm. He was already wearing a walking boot as well because he sprang his left ankle on trampoline on Easter Sunday. So, many people were casting him sorrowful glances this month as we went out and about together as he looked pretty gimpy for a while. But James was a trooper, and I think he complained less than I did about the cast and the boot.

Sometimes the fun is not in your yard

Madison noticed the neighbors were having a party, jump castle included, on a day when we were doing yard work recently. I happened to capture these joyful photos of Jeremy mowing our lawn while being annoyed that I was taking pictures (Iwas just taking a small break from yard work). Our kids kept looking longingly down the road, most likely wishing they could sneak over to the inflatable castle of fun. But this was a yard work day so I had to tell them that they could only imagine jumping in the castle because WE were working. FYI- I didn't win the fun parenting award for that comment.

Our Boo-Boo's and her smushed nose

How did Madison injure her nose you ask? These are her words:

"I snuck up behind Connor while we were playing flag football in PE. I grabbed his belt right as he was changing directions and the back of his head rammed into my face, also knocking me down. My nose started bleeding. Our school nurse said it was the bloodiest injury she'd seen that month. Sandy came to get me from school and took me to get an X-ray. The doctor said that the main piece of cartilage in my nose was not broken, even though it sure felt like it was."

Something about her nose is still wonky though. It's the end of December and Madison's nose is still slightly crooked and still sore to the touch. I asked her to pleeeease stop injuring her face.

I am extremely thankful that Sandy took such good care of my little Boo-Boo girl while I was out of town.

Long Lost Sombrero...

Grant wanted to eat at Azteca to celebrate his 6th birthday. We went there to eat last year as a family for Madison's birthday,and she got a sombrero picture taken along with singing and dessert. When we left the resturant for Madison's birthday we forgot our leftovers and the fun sombrero picture they gave us. Ever since we left her picture we've referred to it as... the long lost sombrero picture. I brought my camera when we just ate there for Grant's birthday so he wouldn't have to have the same painful experience as Madison.

Somebody Somewhere is being a STINKER!

We have been dealing with some mailbox vandalism over the course of the last year. To prevent any further problems with our mailbox Jeremy made it removable. Every night we bring "Blacky" (our mailbox) inside, then in the morning he gets put back out on his post. Since our mailbox is no longer available to steal, somebody resorted to ruining our trampoline and hammock instead. Things are replaceable. The feeling of not being able to leave anything whatsoever outside anymore, because it might get stolen or damaged, is not good. Somewhere somebody is being a stinker. I wish they could've seen how sad they made my kids by their misdeeds.

Traveling Woes...

Jeremy flew into Spokane to help me drive back from our spring break vacation to Idaho, and it's a blessing he did because we had some difficulties. Our tire deflated while we were getting some fast food about two hours into the trip. The inner part of the tire had blown out, but we hadn't heard it happen and only felt it when we stopped to get food. A guy that came over to look at the tire with Jeremy said- someone must have had their hand on you because that could've caused an accident. The good guys at Wal-Mart opened their tire center back up, after they had already closed, just to help us. When we were back on the road again, Jeremy spotted a sign saying the snowqualmie pass was closed, which landed us an Inn for the night. The upside to our woes is that we could've been hurt when our tire blew out, but weren't; we could've been stuck in traffic at the pass all night, but weren't; we also could've been driving without Jeremy, causing Shauna to have a panic attack, but he was there. We're grateful we prayed for a safe trip home because once again our prayers were heard and aswered.

Welcome to the house of ill fortune...

That's what I would have said to anyone who knocked on our door over the past few days because we were all sick simultaneously. It was James's first time being sick and it was very sad.

Feelin' Grinchy?

Warning- I'm about to complain. Skip this section if you don't want to read my murmuring. I've been sick for almost a week, we've been overflowed with snow, I'm not done shopping, my Christmas cards are not sent- ERRRRRR! I have been sending out Christmas cards for the last 10 years. To know that I'm not sending them out this year would normally make me feel ill, if I wasn't sick already! Procrastination is a plague.