Broken

We were warned to start looking for fractures once Natey started walking. Sure enough, just a few days after he took his first steps, he got hurt. We took him in to the doctor last week to get an X-ray. Based on what seemed to hurt him the most, we thought the fracture was on his right side. They X-rayed his right femur/hip area.  They told us that they only saw one small fracture on his right femur that was 5-15 days old (based on how much it had healed). Well, that was a surprise, since we had no idea he had broken his leg two weeks before.  Our wonderful pediatrician told us she didn't want to take more X-rays and just keep guessing where the injury might be.  Especially because he already has to get X rays so often.  We got some pain medication, and took him home.  We let a few more days go by, and long story short, when he started to feel well enough to start crawling on Thursday, he finished off the injury he'd started earlier in the week. He seemed hurt worse, but we still couldn't tell where exactly the fracture was (femur, pelvis, hips?).  Then, his left leg started to really swell up. We went into the doctor yesterday, and confirmed that his left femur was fractured. They considered putting on a spica cast, but in the end we all decided to go with a splint that is much lighter weight (Natey only weighs around 16 lbs, and the cast would have been almost as heavy as him!).  He will have it on for 3 weeks, at which point we hope he'll feel well enough to pick up where he left off, and be walking again in no time.

Natey's splint - it's amazing how much this has helped with pain control

Nasty fracture (I snapped this with my phone when they had it up on the screen)

Miracle

When Nathan was just one day old, the pediatrician at the hospital told us his legs were not the same length. When he was two days old she told us he has OI. For the first few weeks (maybe even months) Lindsay and I wondered whether he would ever be able to some of the basic things every child should do.  Most importantly to us, would he ever be able to walk. There have been a lot of little miracles in his life already, but to us, this is a big one. He's walking.

The Drive-In

For family night this week we took the kids to their first Drive-in movie. Since it was a double feature, the kids watched the first movie, and slept in the car during the second movie. It was a late night, but well worth it.

Cabin Fever

We spent last weekend at the Bench family cabin. The cabin was built by Lindsay's grandpa (not sure if it was her great grandpa or her great-great grandpa, someone in her family is going to have to remind me!), many years ago. It's a great place to gather with the family, and it still gets lots of use. Our kids love the cabin. They get to capture butterflies, caterpillers, and any other bugs they find, and, most importantly, play with their cousins. The trees are changing this time of year, and it was absolutely beautiful.

The "driveway"

Natey enjoying some watermelon

Foil dinners

Linds and Natey

The kids down by the nearly dry creek

Hailey, Blake, and cousin Embry

They played all day in their PJs

still playing...still in their PJs

Summer of 2012

Well, I missed July, and August, and now part of September, so here's a brief recap.

We had a lot of visitors in June and July. My sister Kim and her husband came and stayed with us for a couple of days. My brother Greg was in town visiting for a few days during the 4th of July week. A couple of weeks later, my Grandma Mills passed away, and Kim came back to town for the funeral. Grandma had been sick for a while, and had been ready to let go and see my grandpa, and the rest of her family. At the service I had a chance to talk to some of my extended family, and learn more about my grandma, and her life growing up. She really had a tough life, and it's amazing what she and my grandpa accomplished during their lives.

Finally, my sister Shelly was in town at the end of July with 5 of her 6 kids. It was so much fun to see my family so much, we usually only see each other once or twice a year. Most of them live in Colorado, and we try to go out there in the summer, but we weren't going to get out there this year, so it was great they all came to see us.

Hailey started kindergarten just a couple of weeks ago. She seems to really like it (although she did start the "I don't want to go to school today!" talk this morning, so that didn't take long!). She has a very good teacher, and is making friends.

Blake started his first year of preschool. His preschool is at the same school where Hailey goes to kindergarten, so it's nice that he gets a chance to get used to the school, although we're not convinced he's going to learn much based on what we've seen the first couple of weeks. That's mostly okay though, he still has a couple of years until kindergarten, and it's nice for him to get away from home and meet new kids.

Nathan is still getting faster and stronger. He's finally tall enough to climb stairs, so a few weeks ago he started really cruising up and down the stairs. Considering his brittle little bones, we are not so excited about the possibility of him falling down a flight of stairs, but he needs to figure it out, it's just scary for mom and dad. Along with the stairs, he likes climbing into or onto pretty much everything.

My little sister and her husband moved in with us at the beginning of August. They will be staying with us until April or so, when my sister finishes school.  She is getting her masters at the University of Utah in speech pathology, and he just finished up his bachelors at BYU, and is applying to graduate schools. The kids love having them around. Hailey begged Aunt Julie to do pedicures and facials every day for the first two weeks after they moved in, and Uncle Trent is basically a human jungle gym.

We're looking forward to the fall. The kids have already picked out their Halloween costumes, and we have close to a dozen pumpkins growing in the garden, ready for carving (we only planted a single pumpkin plant, thinking we'd get 2 or 3, but it has gotten out of control!).

June

June is a busy month in our family. First, we had Hailey's 5th birthday. Next, Lindsay turned the big 3-0, (I know I'm going to get in trouble for publishing that), and finally Natey just turned 1. Also, because it is an even month, that means we spent a couple of days at our favorite spot, the Shriner's Hospital, getting Natey's treatment. Which didn't exactly go well this month, but that's a story for another time. As if we weren't busy enough, we have had a nasty flu-like bug going around our house. We've had at least one ill person in our house for nearly the entire month so far. Miserable.

Back to the fun stuff, Hailey had a Rainbow themed birthday this year. She had a few friends over, Lindsay made a rainbow cake (rainbow both inside and out), rainbow ice cubes for the drinks, skittles as party favors, and well, lots of other rainbow things. We had the party in the backyard, and the kids played watergames for a couple of hours, and Hailey got lots of wonderful presents.

For Lindsay's birthday we took a day away and went to the Zermatt Resort in Midway. It was pretty fun, the entire place has a Swiss theme, we had delicious fondue and a steak dinner at the chop haus, and some really good pastries from the bakery they have on the property. We played a little tennis, threw some horseshoes, and even played some shuffleboard (that was a first, and I have to admit it was a pretty fun game). Anyway, a night away was very fun, (although Lindsay couldn't sleep in, and couldn't help worrying about whether Nate had kept his grandma up all night.) The kids of course had the time of their lives. They stayed with Grandpa and Grandma Bench. Hailey said it was the best, Grandma let them stay up late, and have ice cream before bed. Blake especially loved having cookies for breakfast. Grandma is so much cooler than us.

Natey's birthday was really just a pool party at Grandpa Brig and Grandma Gale's house. Linds went with a banana cake for this one (easily Natey's favorite food, he wakes up saying "nana? nana?" most mornings). A monkey theme went nicely with the banana cake. Natey loves water, whether it's the bath or the pool, he just loves it.

What a year he's had. We're so grateful for the progress he's made. The last couple of months he has been crawling everywhere, and is now pulling himself to a standing position, and as of yesterday, climbing up the stairs. Speaking of which, he snuck away from me while I was upstairs getting changed after work last night, and he tried to go down the stairs. When we heard him fall, and finally land at the bottom of the stairs on our hard wood floor, we thought for sure every bone in his body would be broken. After a few moments of Lindsay and I both trying to calm him down (while shaking uncontrollably ourselves), we could tell that he was scared, but not hurt. Really, when I think of how easily his arm broke when he was just a few weeks old, i realize what an absolute miracle it is that he wasn't seriously injured yesterday.

Just for good measure, here's a photo of Blakey at the chalk art festival this last week next to one of his favorite superheroes, the Green Lantern

Is anyone still out there?

I realized this afternoon how nice it was to have the blog to keep track of the comical day to day with our kids, as well as some of our bigger life events, I've been going through the last few years of posts over the course of the last couple of weeks, and I'm realizing that without posting on the blog, and my utter failure to keep any semblance of a journal, we're losing memories all the time. So, even if we've lost all of our readers by now thanks to a rather extended hiatus, in anticipation of my future nostalgia when the kids are grown and I'm trying to remember all of the wonderful and silly things they used to say and do, it's time to get back on the horse and start posting again.

Hailey: Hailey is mature beyond her years. She takes care of the boys, including her dad. Lindsay is lucky she got Hailey first, otherwise, she'd be the only responsible one in the family. Hailey starts kindergarten in a few months. I think I'm going to be sick, just thinking about it. She still makes friends everywhere that she goes, and she is generally fearless. Yesterday she ended up a couple of aisles away from Lindsay and the boys while at WalMart, and she walked right up to the photo counter, and told the person behind the counter, "I can't find my mom, her name is Lindsay Renee Mills". Lindsay was probably less than 10 feet from the photo counter, so she could hear the employee snickering as she repeated Lindsay's full name into the intercom.

Blake: Blake is the family comedian right now, even if it's not on purpose. A few weeks ago, Blake was hurriedly trying to make it to the bathroom, he got into the room, dropped trou, and flipped on the lights, but the extra time it took to find the light switch lost him that split second he needed to make it in the toilet. Instead, he peed all over the floor. When Lindsay came to clean it up, she, rather calmly and gently, scolded Blake for waiting until the last minute to run to the bathroom. His response? With tears in his eyes, he said, "It was an accident.  Everyone makes mistakes, mom!" Also, Blake currently has an imaginary friend. He is English. His name is Todo (although he is most often referred to as "my English friend". He has blue hair. He speaks Spanish. And his favorite food is chicken and rice. Finally, Blake is still working on his pronunciation of certain words. One of our favorites, he calls Grandpa, Crap-pa.

Nathan:  He hasn't had any fractures since he was around two weeks old, and he is just a happy, sweet little guy. He is growing, slowly, but steadily. He turns 1 in a few weeks, but he's probably closer to the size of a 3-4 month old (he's finally out of the 0-3 month clothes and into the 3-6 month). He  weighs 14 lbs, and is about 24 inches long, I think. He's getting stronger every day, and we think he may be crawling by his birthday. He has started to figure out ways to get around, by scooting and rolling, and he is into everything. He is such a brilliant little guy, mimicking everything we do, and finding ways to communicate. He eats like a horse. At dinner, he's been known to eat more than Blake or Hailey. I'm just trying to figure out where it all goes, since he's not gaining weight or getting any longer...but we're just glad he's a good eater and he's so healthy. (Lindsay put the pink and white fedora on him at the store, a little feminine, but the kid looks cute in anything).

Lastly, a major event in our house, although less significant in the grand scheme of things. We have a functioning master bathroom again! We bought the house in February 2011, discovered a leak in the master shower due to an improper pre-slope on the floor, among other things, in October 2011, and by January 2012 decided that it was too expensive to pay someone else to do the shower for us. So, five months, and countless hours later, Lindsay and I learned how to put up dry wall, waterproof a shower, tile, and grout, and now we can finally use our own shower again!