Austin's 8th Birthday!

TGI Friday's
Scoop up the cotton balls! Hilarious
Pop the balloons
Stomp on everyone else's balloons
Silly clothes in a bag game

Megan's note to her dad!

I have to post this note Megan wrote to her dad and put in his clothes he had layed out for this morning. She is so sweet!

Dear Dad,
I am sorry you have to go to work at 4:00 clock a.m. or sometime earlyer. I want you to know I love you the most though I may not act like it. p.s. I love mom the same.
Your daughter, Meg
I Heart my dad

Pool Fun!

Carson loves the slide!

My kids have enjoyed going to some fun pools around town. This one has a slide for Carson which he has a blast on and a diving board and big slides for the big kids. I had a picture of Rylan doing his flip off the diving board but all you could see is the splash, oops! It's so hard to time that just right. Despite Austin's arm in a cast I decided to take the boys to the pool yesterday. Austin stayed home like a big kid with treats on the counter for him. His dad ended up coming home and taking him to see Ironman which he's been dying to see. They had a good time together. What a great dad! He was so tired from working such long days but felt bad for Austin.

Austin's elbow x-ray

Here is the x ray of his elbow. The break is just above the round bone in the joint from the left going up at an angle up. It's hard to see but it's the grey line. Now that isn't a beg deal, with time it will heal. The reason he needed surgery is if you will notice the bone above the break (top to bottom) bow's out instead of being straight. It's hard to tell unless you can see a normal elbow and how it should look which is what the dr. showed me to explain. Normally the bone should be straight and if you hold up a piece of paper to the bone you should see the round joint bone below, his does not cause it curves out. Hope this makes sense!!

Austin's Surgery

Out to dinner just 6 hours after surgery!
The World's Smallest horse at Phx Children's hospital!
About 2 hours after surgery! So he did have to have surgery after all. I took him to the Orthopedic surgeon on thursday to get a cast put on and then planned on taking the family camping at the Cinders in Flagstaff for the 4th of July. The dr. explained he needed surgery to fix his crooked bone before we could cast. Not what we had expected. I was rather upset considering we were just in the er this past saturday and they should have consulted the surgeon then. What could ya do. We got home and talked with dad about what to do. We asked Austin if he wanted dad to stay home with him or go ahead and take the kids and go camping as planned. He said "I want you to take the kids and go without me so they can have fun since I can't" With tears in my eyes and a proud smile on dad it was a sweet moment. Dad pulled out a $20 and told him to go pick out something when he felt better. So we loaded the trailor and sent them on their way early Friday morning and then left for the hopital. Surgery was scheduled for 11 but got delayed due to an emergency that came in. We were the only patients there considering it was a holiday. Austin got boared and hungry after sitting and waiting over 2 hours. The Life Specialist finally came in with a new webkinz and took him out to the lobby to meet the world's smallest horse. She then talked to him about what to expect before, during, and after surgery. She was so nice! She then brought in a playstation! Where was that 2 hours earlier?? He was content for the next 20 min. when they finally came to get him for surgery. They had asked him a few times what color cast he wanted and he told them he needed to see his choices. They forgot to ask him before they put him out so he got a red and blue cast since it was the 4th of July. He had a rough time when he woke up and was in a lot of pain. After throwing up a few times and finally taking a tylenol with codine and something for the nausea he was ready to go home. (Only about an hour) Once the meds finally kicked in he felt really good and rather chatty. I couldn't get him to stop talking for the rest of the night. Kam and Chad came over and we ended up going out to Texas Roadhouse to eat. I would have never imagined after being with him in recovery he would be going out to eat later that night! He continues to feel better and has enjoyed the extra attention, shakes, movies, slushies, cookies, and visits he has gotten but says it's not worth all the pain and would not want to do it again! Austin is bummed to have a cast for his birthday so we will have to think of something fun to do with him. I am ready for Richard to come home and I'm sure he is ready too! We have yet to have a vacation away with the whole family together. We've tried twice now and it hasn't worked out. Boy are we ready for our cruise!!

Austin's broken arm

Our family's first experience with a broken bone. He was a trooper. Austin made his second attempt to climb up the back porch of the cabin on Mt. Graham and fell back on his arm. It quickly became very painful and we realized he needed to have an x-ray to see if it was broken. We decided to load up everyone and head back down the mountain even though we had planned on staying another night. So we gave him some hydrocodone and made the long drive down with him on mom's lap in the front seat. Thank heavens for zip lock bags which holds throw up rather well! Don't ask Grandma where the bag of Rylan's throw up went though!!

I made an attempt to stop at mount graham family practice to see if they would see Austin instead of waiting for the urgent care to open. The lady told me no but Dr. Christensen walked out to my car and told me he would see me. He was so nice. We went to the hospital for x-rays and back to the Dr. where he said he had an angulated supracondylar fracture. We were told he need to see a orthopedic surgeon to get it fixed. The office was more than helpful in getting names of Dr's in the Phx area for us to see. Dr. Christensen even called one here in Phx and talked to him about the break. He recommended he be seen that night at Phx Childrens hospital because those type of fractures can go bad quickly and he can lose blood supply to the arm. Not what I wanted to hear. So we went back to Grandma Susan's and loaded up the car and drove home. Richard had just gotten home from being in Prescott for 2 days working on a job and was exhausted as was I. We decided to get some sleep and go to the ER in the morning. This is one of the few time I relied on that thing called "mother's instinct " and went against the dr's recommendation. We were glad we did cause the break wasn't as bad as origionally thought. We went to Phx Childrens in the morning and got right in. They were so good there. He did not need surgery. We will go see an orthopedic surgeon in a week to get a cast and everything will be just fine =) He now has steady pain but thanks to motrin every four hours he does ok.

Mt. Graham memories!

Rylan loved to help Grandpa Don!

The kids all wanting to help!

Carson loading up his truck!

Rylan and Megan peeling potatoes
(that we ended up cooking and eating
back home at mom's)