Decorating the Tree

It's always fun to decorate the tree and pull out ornaments we've collected over the years.  Scott loves to blast the Christmas music to get us all in the mood.  The kids loved to argue over who gets to put on which ornament (all our sports teams ornaments are the most exciting for the boys) and you have to keep your eye on Addie or all the ornaments will end up on the bottom branch at the back of the tree.

Thanksgiving

One of the things I love most about living in Ohio is that I can drive to see my parents.  I've gotten to see them so much more since we've lived here.  We went down again this year for Thanksgiving.  Growing up we'd always have two Thanksgiving dinners, one at Nana's & Papa's house and one and Grandmama's and Grandaddy's.  For about the past 5 years they've started having Thanksgiving out at Uncle Stanley's farm.  It is so great!  The kids love it and so do I.  Growing up in suburbia, my kids don't get out in the woods very often.  The farm is great with tons of wide open spaces and woods to play in.  This year Amanda and Christian came home too.  We eat in the barn which is so fun.  I caught most everyone in mid-bite!

The kids table.

My plate.  My favorites are my dad's smoked turkey (it is the best smoked turkey ever!), Grandmama's creamed corn (I don't get creamed corn very often, the canned and frozen stuff you can get doesn't even compare), the cornbread & sausage stuffing I made (it turned out really good - at least Scott and I thought so), Grandmama's dressing, cranberry orange relish (so yummy).  Amanda also made a yummy salad that I'm planning on recreating.  Not pictured but still some of my favs are Grandmama's chocolate layer cake (the thinnest layers of butter cake with chocolate fudgey icing) and cream cake. 

Uncle Stanley is the best host.  He even made a hay ride for the kids this year.

Courtney is getting so big.  She is the sweetest girl.  She's always having to take care/entertain all the younger kids and she never complains.

Aunt Panders and Uncle Fanksten.  My kids are lucky they have aunts and uncles without kids.  I think sometimes once you have your own kids, you are so busy taking care of them that you don't spend as much time talking and playing with your niece and nephews.  Amanda and Christian ( & Aunt Donna who wasn't here) are so good at playing and hanging out with our kids.  We all think Addie looks and acts like Aunt Amanda (although I can't imagine that Amanda was as crazy as Addie when she was young).

Dad brings down the golf cart which the kids LOVE, LOVE, LOVE driving around in.  Parker even got to drive this year.

It's sad but everytime I see Nana I think it could be my last time.  She is definitely not herself anymore.  I'm so glad that I and my kids got to see her at Thanksgiving.

We also get to ride 4 wheelers when we are there.  These were ours growing up.  I LOVED riding the 4 wheelers through the woods behind the house.  The only bad part was how Dad made us clean them until they looked like new after every riding (I'm sure he actually did most of the cleaning).  My kids don't get to do things like this so it's so fun to see them loving it.

It was so great to see Grandmama too.  She is the sweetest most positive person.  I know her health isn't as great as it used to be but she always talks about how thankful she is for what she's got.  I love her.

The outside display Uncle Stanley set up for the kids.  Addie loved it.

Addie and Scott trying to make me laugh.

Part of the olympics Aunt Amanda set-up.  I don't think she realized how competitive my kids are, especially Owen.  She wasn't prepared for the freakout he had when he didn't win.

One of my kids favorite parts of going to GA is getting to hang out with the cousins.  Corbitt and Loretta have moved to AL but the kids came over for Thanksgiving (Mikey was just born so Corbitt & Loretta stayed home).  Loretta did end up coming over for a few nights so we got to see baby Mikey.  He is adorable and looks just like Corbe, lots of dark hair.

He's got an outdoor fireplace under one of the sheds with buckets full of pinecones and my kids loved throwing them into the fire.

Everytime we go to Grandaddy's the kids always want to have s'mores.

Why do kids love sticks so much??

Addie and Brady

More sticks.

More stick fighting (parker and Owen in the background)

Dad has a beautiful winter garden.  The kids were excited to help cut the brocolli.

Isn't this beautiful.

Addie and all the kids are becoming really good road trippers.

Addie's Broken Arm

I had just gotten out of the shower on Saturday when Parker ran in saying Addie was hurt.  I'm shocked I didn't say I'd be right down after I got dressed because someone's always getting hurt around here and it's usually no big deal.  But thank goodness I went straight down.  As I rounded the corner I could hear her crying and then she stepped around the corner and I saw her arm!  I was freaked out because it was obviously broken.  I started screaming for Parker to call Scott (who was playing flag football so he didn't have his phone on him) and I scooped Addie up and took her up to my bed and quickly put some clothes on and got everyone in the car and headed for the hospital!  I was so upset driving to the hospital because her arm was so contorted I thought she had to be in a lot of pain and this was a serious break.

Thank goodness Scott was playing at a park right by one of my friend's house so I called them and they ran over to tell him to meet me at the hospital.  He was able to get there about 15 mins after we did.

She was screaming pretty had on the way to the hospital but as soon as we got there and she got right into a bed, she calmed down.  She got morphine probably with in 20 mins. of us getting there and they she was fine.  Scott McMahan and BJ Stanley were able to come over and help Scott give Addie a blessing.  I'm so thankful for these great guys!

Unfortunately, the Children's Liberty Campus doesn't have an ortho doc so after x-rays they sent us downtown to Children's.  We waited 2 hrs. before the took us back.  When I saw the x-ray, the radius and ulna were broken (obviously) and it looked like instead of going straight the broken part was at a 45 degree angle.  They said her arm was kind-of like a small green tree branch that you'd break, part was still together and the other was splayed out.  They put her under conscience sedation so they had to have multiple doctors in the room so it took a while to get them all to be able to be there at the same time.  I was trying really hard to not be frustrated it was taking so long and just be thankful that we live in a time where medicine is so amazing.  They were able to set her arm and they expect it to heal completely. Addie was a trooper.  When she got to eat her popsicles (they needed to make sure she could keep something down after her sedation it had been 12 hrs. since she last ate and by the time we checked out of the hospital, it had been 11 hrs. since we first checked in at Liberty.  It was a long day!  I'm so amazed at how well kids deal with pain!




This is what her hair looked like after two nights and all day in a hospital bed and no brushing!



And I forgot to mention how she broke it.  Apparently, she was sitting on the top of the couch and she and Owen were arguing and he kicked her off and over the back of the couch.  It's pretty amazing they we don't have more broken arms around here!

Sleepy Time

Scott and Parker came home from YM/cub scouts to find me, Owen and Addie like this.  Going to bed at 8:30pm AWESOME!!

Parker's First NFL Game

Scott got tickets (through work) to see the Bengals play in Monday Night Football.  Since the game started so late, it was just him and Parker.  Parks had a blast and it goes without saying Scott did too.  I don't know if there's anything Scott loves more than taking our boys to see sporting events!

Owen's Tonsils

On November 4th, Owen got his tonsils out along with his adenoids and a tube put in his left ear.  Since he was a baby, every time we go to the drs. office they would say he has a little fluid in his ear but it's not infected.  I never thought anything of it because when we were in MN he ALWAYS had a runny nose pretty much all winter long because you're stuck inside so much that there is always something going around.  Last winter after getting Strep 4 times in something like 6 wks. they referred us to an ENT.  When again he mentioned the fluid in his ear, I told him he always has that he told me that he shouldn't have fluid in his ear all the time even if it doesn't get infected.  They tested his hearing and saw he did have some hearing loss (nothing permanent thank goodness) because of the fluid.  After putting him on antibiotics and checking back over 6 months the fluid was still there so he told us he needed a tube.  Since he was going to be put under he said he wanted to take his adenoids out too and he was leaning towards taking his tonsils out since he'd gotten strep so much last year but he'd let us make the call on the tonsils.  We decided since he was going to be put under we'd go ahead and do it.

Owen was such a trooper.  He came home and didn't even nap the rest of the day!  They told us he'd be in and out of sleep for the rest of the day but not O, it was all we could do to keep his down and he wanted to eat everything!  He did have some bad days, especially the third day after surgery, but over all he was such a tough guy!

Addie Fixes Her Own Hair