Inside Jonah's Outside

Summer is flying by.

I am enjoying having everyone home, but I feel like they are growing up even faster!

I also feel like I am unable to keep up on the housework, laundry and keeping the fridge and cupboards full!  I am afraid this is only a glimpse into my near future with a house full of boys!

Along with feeling behind in every aspect of my life I also am WAY behind in blogging. 

So just to keep our summer exciting,  Jonah joined the broken bone club.

He was hurdling a bush in my parents backyard and ended up with a broken collar bone rather than landing on his feet.

The worst part was I had just pulled into the mall in Fargo with my mom, sister Nikki and Olivia for a ladies day of shopping and fun.

Richard called to see if there was a clinic he could take him to or if the ER would be the only route.

I offered to turn around and come home, but he insisted we stay and he could handle it.

So he went through the McDonalds drive thru grabbing lunch for the 3 boys and headed to urgent care to be seen.

While we (my mom, sister and myself) frantically were searching for someone in Grand Forks who would graciously give up part of their Saturday.

My sister's sister-in-law, Maggie saved the day!

She was sweet enough to drive to the ER, pick up the little 2 and take them back to our house until Richard and Jonah were done.

After waiting an exceptionally LONG time for an xray, it was confirmed that Jonah had a broken collar bone.

After being given a sling for his arm, they headed home to rest.

He has been struggling with his inability to do anything physical and his brothers have been struggling with keeping their hands off of him and continue to legitimately accidentally bump, push, or pull on his bad arm....which unfortunately happens to be his left.

And, he happens to be left handed.

Poor guy.

He has been a good sport and is doing well eating with his right hand and doing most everything with just one hand.

We are praying it heals quickly as he is bummed for missing out on fun summer activities like t-ball, swimming, and just being a kid.

In the grand scheme of things, this is rather minor, but still a bummer.

Welcome to the broken bone club Jonah, I am sure it won't be your last one!

I ❤ 2 Year Olds

We recently had our family's pictures taken by my good friend Stacey Rygh.

She is very talented and has been taking our pictures for the past 3 years.  I LOVE how she is always able to capture the craziness of our family and that they are so real.

I have only seen a few pics, but I am in LOVE with them!

We went urban this time and were in front of a random super fun blue building and downtown and they are AMAZING!  You can see the preview here.

During the photo shoot she was asking us about Isaac's personality...and it got me to thinking about him.  He is a limit pusher, a dare devil, independent, a comedy show, and on more than one occasion has made me feel like a novice mom. (Not that I claim to be an expert on motherhood, but after a few years of experience there is a bit of confidence that builds helping you with future children).

Isaac pulls the little bit of confidence that I may have had right under me on a daily basis. 

He challenges me to practice deep breathing, patience, and to "embrace the craziness" as Richard always encourages me to do. 

So this got me to thinking about Isaac and how I daily pray for God's wisdom and guidance while encountering specific "toddler" situations as he explores his world. 

He is so stinking cute and is often innocently getting himself into trouble. 

As the kids get older and enter into a new stage I find myself loving the next stage more than the previous one. I am not sure that I have ever enjoyed year of the twos as much as the other stages. 

When I am frustrated with Isaac, I will often say I love 2 year olds instead allowing other choice phrases to slip out of my mouth. Of course, there may be a tad bit of sarcasm in my voice while doing this!

So I though I could share a few incriminating pictures of my favorite 2 year old... 

I ❤ 2 Year Olds...

who think they should read books instead of napping.

I heard him talking in his room when he was supposed to be napping and I found him sitting on his bookshelf, behind the shade because it was so dark, reading a book. 

I ❤ 2 Year Olds...

who try to go potty by themselves and realize while they are peeing they have to poop and leave a small trail of poop on their way to excitedly tell me about the poop.

I also  ❤ lysol wipes.

I ❤ 2 Year Olds...

who unfold a whole basket of laundry looking for some socks...

I ❤ 2 Year Olds...

who sample the watermelon I was in the process of cutting up and had to leave unattended for a few minutes. 

I ❤ 2 Year Olds...

who help themselves to a snack after asking their mom to get it for them and she told him he would have to wait until she was done feeding his sister.

I ❤ 2 Year Olds...

who want to go for a bike ride or a walk when it's time for nap and climb into the bike trailer and hide from their mom who was changing their little sister's diaper. 

notice the precious basketball that is also in the bike trailer that was not allowed to be in bed for naptime since it is a bit of a distraction. 

Who else  ❤  2 Year Olds?

Our Little Salamander

Isaac's hand is looking great and I am amazed at how well it has healed!

The surgeon joked so many times how children are like little salamanders and heal so quickly and he was right! We are thankful this was only a minor surgery and that Isaac tolerated it so well. 

Going into this hand surgery I felt a bit overwhelmed simply because the nurse in me wanted so many answers.  What will the recovery time be like? How long before he can get it wet? How often do we need to change the dressing? Should we be worried about function and pain control?

I was also a bit worried as the surgeon thought we should have done this a year ago. 

Although looking back I am sure this would have been so much harder on Isaac and myself a year ago.

It was hard to explain to him what was going on, but he was such a trooper and after a bit of a struggle with pain control he adapted quickly to only using one hand to do everything. 

I was under the impression originally that the whole process would be 2 weeks at the most. So when it took about 5 weeks I was thankful we did it earlier rather than waiting for the summer. 

So here are a few pictures of our little salamander healing...

Day 1: Isaac's hand pre-surgery

Day 7: During one of our many dressing changes....looking a bit swollen & bruised.

Snuggling after the dressing change.  

It was quite the process: Soaking it in soapy water in the tub, drying it with a hair dryer, puting bandaids with antibiotic ointment on them, then wrapping his hand in gauze, followed by an ace bandage and then a sock over everything with a hole for his thumb.

We did this every 1 to 2 days!

Day 24: Finally looking like an almost normal hand again!

Day 31: Stitches came out and Isaac was a CHAMP!  

Skin had grown over them (after being in for a month) and he sat perfectly still while they cut them off

I brought Richard with for the appointment to take the stitches out as I feared Isaaczilla would rear his roaring toddler head and attack the 2 very pregnant nurses who would be taking out the stitches!

He did so well and I was so relieved!

Elmo came with to the appointment (since he had come with the day of surgery) 

We celebrated by grabbing a quick treat at Starbucks afterwards. 

Isaac was sharing his juice and cake pop with Elmo

Our Little Salamander happy as can be to have his hand free from stitches and the dressing/bandages he had been wearing for the past month!

(Sorry for the poor quality of pictures...my phone isn't as nice as some other family members phone in our house)

The surgeon said we would most likely need to have this done again down the road as the web space that was created between his fingers won't "grow" with him as he gets bigger. 

However, he made it a little deeper than it needed to be this time so we could get a few more years under our belt before repeating the process.

I should have added a picture of the above happy little man getting dirty again for the first time in a month.  He is sure enjoying it now!

I am too because it was quite the task to keep a 2 year old boy inside and away from dirt, sand, and rocks! There is something not quite right about that. 

Boys just shouldn't be kept away from the outdoors.

7 Months Old

Only a few weeks late...but here it is!

Our little lady is 7 months old!

She is still sweet, but may have a bit of an attitude at times. 

We Richard has been letting her cry at bedtime a bit.

She is happy most of the time and even happier outside (just like her brothers).

It has been so fun to see how she really adores her brothers and how they just love her to pieces. 

They can usually get her to smile or laugh no matter what. 

Which comes in handy when you are trying to take pictures.

She was a bit freaked out by the grass during our mini photo shoot so I yelled at the boys to come help me get her to laugh.

Isaac thought Elmo could help.

Then she found a stick.

They made her laugh but she wasn't looking at the camera so I sent them away and she was a bit sad wondering where they went I think.

Then I told them to stand behind me and in the process a human dog pile occurred and this transpired into a wrestling match next to me that distracted her

Then she started laughing at them...

So we went inside and took a picture with her one and only doll that used to be just a bit smaller than her...and she smiled at me right away! 

I just realized I hadn't done a post about 6 months so I guess that will be coming up next!

9 Years Later

I can hardly believe that 9 years ago we were starting on this crazy journey called marriage together!

I feels like it has gone so quickly 

and at the same time feels like we've been together forever. 

Last night we were able to celebrate our Anniversary by doing one of our favorite things...

restaurant hopping.

We don't go out to eat a lot so this gives us opportunity to enjoy multiple places...in one night!

We started at one of our favorite date night spots...L'Bistro.

However, we prefer this location on thursday nights when they have 1/2 price pizza and live jazz music. So, since it was wednesday night we just had a drink and appetizer.

We sat on the deck and it was beautiful.

We talked about what we thought marriage looked like 9 years ago, what were our hopes and dreams for the future, and how have we managed to stay madly in love despite the chaos of raising 4 small children, working and keeping our house clean in a state that is mostly sanitary. 

Richard was a good sport and let me document the night with our camera and instagram pics on his phone...here we are at Stop #1: Drinks and Apps

We struggled to take a self portrait and get the restaurant's sign in the background...

Stop #2: Dinner

We had been wanting to try a new restaurant in town (Little Bangkok) and hadn't ever made it there...so we thought it would be as good of night as any to try it.

We have been to another restaurant by the same company (The Drunken Noodle) and really enjoyed it so our waitress was kind enough to give us some tips on the menu.

Richard was very brave and ordered sushi and sake.

I played it safe and went with pineapple fried rice with shrimp.

Overall we weren't overly impressed, but still had fun checking out a new place. 

Next we went for a little walk by the river to make room for the next stop: dessert!

The sun was setting and it was still beautiful out!

I Love this picture.

I LOVE this man.

I LOVE that I have been blessed to be his wife.

We set up the timer on the camera and I attempted to make a "9" while Richard was getting the camera ready...I think it needs improvement.

Then we headed to another favorite spot (The Blue Moose) for Stop # 3: Dessert

They have the BEST mud pie EVER!!!

I was so excited to eat it I forgot to take a picture of it!

We started a tradition of drinking Whiskey on special occasions years ago.

So we lifted our glasses to 9 years of marriage under our belts & to many more!

Our sweet waitress felt she needed to take a picture of us...

Overall it was a wonderful night, and we decided we needed to keep going on dates, spending time together, and encouraging one another. 

We also decided that 9 years later we were still madly in love with each other.

Happy Anniversary Babe!

Here's to many more years together!