Samuel's wagon

Samuel's going to illustrate how to have fun in a wagon.

First you get in. Make sure you have your milk. Oh, and you'll have to whine for someone to open the wagon door for you first.

Drop your milk in your excitement to sit on the wagon seat, while looking pretty pleased with yourself.

Reeeeeeaaaach to close the door.

Look pretty pleased to have accomplished the close-the-door feat.

Grab your forgotten milk and place in proper cup holder.

GULP!

Exit the wagon, careful not to fall on your face.

That's how it's done folks. Hope you took notes.

flying turtles

This is a flying turtle.

This is Noah (pre-busted arm) on the new flying turtle Terry's dad just got for us. The kids have been having a lot of fun on these things on the back patio, especially since they have two of them now. They propel you by moving your legs and arms side to side. The kids get going pretty fast.

When the kids go out on them, people always stop and stare after us and ask questions. Terry's grandfather bought a whole bunch of them when the hot tub/pool store he used to own sold them. But you can find them online too, though I had no idea they were so expensive.

My parents got this Plasma Car for the kids a few years back that works on the same premiss, but not nearly as well...especially for Samuel.

shenanigans

Recognized the photo below? What about the story behind it illustrating how crazy Samuel is?

Well now I have more stories. We often call Samuel "Destroyer Baby" because he gets into everything, wreaking havoc wherever he is - just this minute I had to take sunglasses away from him from a drawer he's not supposed to be in and put away files he pulled out that again, he's not supposed to be in.

But perhaps he gets it from my brother Nathan since in this photo from the 1980's, Nathan was doing something very similar to what Samuel did this week - getting into the corner lazy susan cupboard in this house. Nathan was after saltine crackers...

...Samuel was after Cheerios. Snap enjoyed this particular excursion.

I had stepped into the house for a few minutes while the kids were on the back patio playing. I went back out when I heard Samuel crying, just carrying on and freaking out. I found him stranded next on this "ledge" next to the window. Yes, I proceeded to go back inside to grab the camera before I rescued him. He was fine by the way. Anyway, he's fallen farther :P

While Noah and I were at the surgery hospital getting his broken arm re-aligned, Samuel grabbed Evie's milk off the table and spilled it on his face. I love the fact that Terry grabbed his phone and snapped a shot before he cleaned him up, just like I would have done.

And the icing on the cake is that last week after Samuel had been in the back yard playing for a while, I found two pieces of Snap dog poop in the cup holder of his wagon that he had apparently been playing with. I proceeded to go on pooper scooper duty, though there wasn't even that much on the lawn since it had only been a couple days since I had cleaned up after Snap poop dog face. I wonder what shenanigans Samuel will get into next?

broken wrist

Noah is seven, and as such decided that he was ready to take off his training wheels. He was right. He learned very quickly only about three weeks ago and has been wanting to ride every day. Last weekend we even went on a five mile bike ride as a family and Noah did fantastic. He's even improved mounting his bike and turning and going up hills.

However, Noah had a bad bike accident as of Tuesday May 22. He broke his arm. The radial bone in his forearm, to be precise. You see how his arm is kinda bowed or bent down just below the wrist?

That's because it is. Or was. The radius broke downwards. It was a complete break. In this xray, you can see how the top bone is displaced downwards. It's supposed to be even with the bone underneath it - the ulna.

The Story is as follows.

Noah was making some laps around the street in front of our house accompanied by daddy due to the busy street. He was coming down the street and making his left turn to cross the street and come home because we had plans out for the evening (I even had a side dish prepared). However, he either lost speed or lost his balance or both. He turned his bike too sharply and just fell over on his left side. He didn't scream bloody murder out of anger and frustration like he usually would have. Terry says it a much different reaction. Noah got out from under his bike, left it there, cradled his left wrist while crying and insisted on going to the doctor. Terry saw that his arm looked like Harry Potter's when Lockhart removed his bones and brought him in saying he thought we needed to go to the doctor. He neglected to mention the bent angle of Noah's arm so I didn't believe either of them because Noah tends to freak out (bloody murder scream mentioned above). Until I saw it and then we immediately went to Urgent Care.

After the xray, they said the bone would have to be re-set before it was casted and that was best done under general anesthesia due to the pain that would cause. So they splinted it and set us up for the following morning at a Surgery Center. Noah did very well and it only took minutes to re-align the bone once he was knocked out. You can see the break on the left long bone but now it's in alignment.

You can tell even better from the side that it's back where it's supposed to be because you can no longer see the bone underneath it.

Noah was pretty disappointed to hear that he couldn't get his red cast yet due to the swelling. So he's in a splint for the next two weeks. He's doing really well with it too. He's not complained of pain at all. Guess we'll have to add wrist guards and knee pads to his bike riding gear!

ranch visit

One thing we were looking forward to about moving home was having a place to get out of town to, for the kids to run around a little. Terry grew up on a ranch outside of Sturgis, SD and knew nothing of neighborhood wanderings and the trouble that ensues, etc. So last weekend we went for a ranch visit to see Terry's family and mom for a late Mother's Day.

We brought the kids' bikes and rode a half mile down to the creek. Terry cheated and took his old motorcycle. Evie is learning on her Strider. She did do pretty good but she's not extremely into it yet. I hope she catches on because the kids I've seen on these things are fast and look like they have a blast.

Throwing rocks into the creek. And enjoying the peace and quiet. And wind...

...and then they fell in. Kidding of course.

Snap did get his feet wet though. He loves it on the ranch. I'm thinking about leaving him out there so I can get a cat. Hehe

The kids and I enjoyed rides on the motorcycle with Terry. And I must say, it was certainly nice not to have to live at the ranch for a week like we used to when we visited. Now we are able to go "home" to our own place and space.

watering...

What's better, watering the children...or watering the yard? I think both are good. Gotta keep those kids occupied even if they get all wet and make a mess. And SoDak aint no Nebraska green so it needs all the waterin it cin git.

One neat thing about this house, my grandparents, is that it has a working water fountain off the back patio. Quite fun.

Hand watering is alright at all hours right?

safety first

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a very transparent and real person. I share this by way of introduction to a major mommy failure of mine that I don't want to forget.

Samuel fell out of a Target cart last week.

Yeah, not pretty. I thought we'd all go to Target for some fun...turned out to be zero fun. I was looking down at some pajamas for Noah. I looked up to ask Noah what he thought of them and saw Samuel stretching out over the cart. I dropped the pajamas and reached out for Destroyer Samuel, but it was too late - he was falling. I just missed him. He fell head first and I scooped him up too late. My parents came and got the two older kids (another good reason for living in the same town as them) and daddy met us at the pediatric clinic. Doctor said he checked out fine. She advised us just to watch him for signs of concussion or bleeding (vomiting, clumsiness, sleep difficulties, etc.). He showed none of these symptoms over the weekend and so I judge him to be just fine.

He was so fine, in fact, that we took another trip to Target yesterday, Monday. I've learned my lesson. ALWAYS harness the little punks.

get in your closet

We are renting my grandpa's house while we consider it as well as other housing, and as such, we haven't un-boxed everything. I didn't want to get all the toys out and so stowed quite a few in Noah and Evie's closet. They like to play in there. Sometimes I lock them in there... Just kidding. Forgive my dark sense of humor.

Noah

Little baby Evie squish.

Little guy Samuel.

off with the training wheels

Last week we got Evie a Strider but this blog isn't about that. It's all about Noah and his bike! After Evie got her new bike, he decided he wanted to take the training wheels off of his bike. It might have had something to do with the fact that he's seven now. And that his sister got a bike without pedals or training wheels.

These photos are only the second time Noah had tried riding without the training wheels. Daddy ran him back and fourth across the safe, grassy back yard to catch him and teach him the balance he needed.

And he was doing it so well so fast!

So the next day we headed two blocks down to the park where it's nice and flat and safe and worked on it. He's a pro! He just has to perfect starting and stopping on his own. And a lot more. But he can totally balance well!

play time after dinner tonight

Noah brought these big blocks out today and dumped them all over. Samuel spent some time watching Noah stack them up and apparently, he learned how to do some stacking of his own.

See? He stacked all of those by himself. I didn't know he could do that! Oh, and you can see his cute new shoes. He loathed them at first but is used to them now.

Terry went to lunch and played chess with a student today. When he told us about it at dinner tonight Noah wanted to play too (Terry had previously taught him). So Terry dug the set out of a box and Noah surprised us with how much remembered of the rules. That's more than I can say for myself. Perhaps if it was wizards chess I'd make more of an effort to learn.

And Evie told us a story that made no sense at all. Then she went into her own little play world of chess pieces.

twins II

The twins idea has progressed to triplets.

Noah dressed himself and Evie the same yesterday and then insisted I do the same. And for good measure I did my hair like Evie's. But her's looks better.

milk spill

I debated even enlarging these photos because they're so unsightly. We had our first milk spill on the carpet tonight. I wonder how many more we will have. And I wonder how bad it's going to smell tomorrow despite me and Snap's best cleaning up efforts.

It's a good thing we have my cell phone number engraved on Snap's dog tag because he ran away today. Thankfully I was called by a neighbor and so Snap didn't miss out on licking this up. And strangely you can't tell how worn this carpet is, but let me assure you - the milk wasn't hurting anything.

"twins"

This morning Terry originally chose to wear his Coke shirt. But since Noah had put his freshly laundered Angry Birds birthday shirt on, he requested that daddy do the same so they could match. He even wanted a photo for the blog because they were twins.

smell the flowers

Can't you almost smell my little flowers? Well perhaps not, but I sure am enjoying their scent.

How I have missed lilacs and lilies of the valley.

Now that we're back in Rapid, I can get all of the lilies I want from my mom's front yard. I love them. And lilacs remind me of Noah's birth when my mom brought me some fresh for our room.