A Series of Unfortunate Events

The week before Jack's birthday, we decided to take a fun trip to the Museum of Play. The day started off as normal and everyone had a lot of fun. We saw Pikachu and Sonic...

The kids found a display of tons of rubber duckies...

We played with slinkies and sat in a giant baseball glove...

But then, the phone rang and it was the school nurse. Jack had a fever and needed to be picked up. We had to leave early, which is frustrating because it takes 30 minutes to get there and we only stay for 2 hours... but anyway. We all drove back to get Jack from school and he definitely wasn't feeling well. Poor kid.

Then later that evening, Ryan wanted to play downstairs with Callie. Ryan and Mom set out to walk down the stairs together... and then Ryan fell headfirst down to the bottom. He cried because he was scared and hurt, but then he just kept crying and saying his arm hurt. We decided we better have his arm checked out, just in case.

It turns out he had a buckle fracture on his wrist from trying to stop himself as he fell. He also got a few scrapes on his face from the fall. He'll have a cast for three weeks, and then he'll be all healed! He adjusted pretty well to the cast and he's doing just fine now. 

Jack, also, is doing much better. He was worried that he would be sick for his birthday, but he recovered just in time!

So we now have our first broken bone. Is it too much to hope that it is the one and only?

Ryan can crawl! (and other random pictures)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2BWFADGmVU&feature=youtu.be

Ryan figured out how to crawl a little while ago and he's been on-the-go ever since! (He's crawling at the beginning of the video, and the rest is just cute kids.)

This is what happens when you leave cans of pop in the garage when it's below zero outside! At least it was easy to clean up since everything was still frozen. If it had melted, we would have had a bigger, sticky mess!

Callie fell in the hall a couple of weeks ago and hit her face on the hard floor. The poor girl tends to fall quite often. Hopefully she'll become a little more graceful as she gets older! She looked in the mirror and saw herself with her swollen lip. She said, "Whoa. Giant lips!"

The kids made a "rainbow" in the giant bubble. 

Jack's Big Head Strikes Again!

Jack hit his head on the ground again today. He didn't cry a lot this time, but it was a pretty big hit! He's got a huge swollen purple circle and another smaller red scratch.

We were on our way out the door this morning and Jack was wearing different shoes than he normally wears due to the excessive amount of snow outside. Normally, he can walk down the stairs in the garage just fine, but he tripped over his shoes and fell, smacking his head on the cement. Ouch.

On a lighter note, here are Jack and Dad making a popcorn string for the tree last night.

Unfortunately, making a popcorn string long enough to properly go around the tree would have taken a long, long time. That fact combined with the fact that Jack kept stepping on and crushing the popcorn string ended the project before it was completed. Maybe next year!

So much for family pictures...

Well. Jack had a little accident today at play group. It was right before we were about to leave and he was coming toward me in a big gravel path. I guess he was going too fast because he totally wiped out and hit his head into the gravel. It's a good thing he was wearing long pants- otherwise he would have gravel in his knees, too!

It doesn't look bad in the pictures, but the flash kind of minimized the swelling and purpleness of it all. It didn't bleed too much, but it looked pretty painful. Unfortunately, we had family pictures scheduled for this Saturday at JCPenney, but that's just not going to happen now. I guess we'll reschedule!

After he fell down, he cried for a little while, but got over it pretty quickly. He then started getting upset because his hands had gravel and dirt all over them. He wanted a wipe. We talked about getting a bandaid, and he seemed to like that idea, but he still didn't understand that he had a big gash on his head. When we got home, he looked in the mirror and just stared at himself for awhile. Then he said, "Owie right THERE!" and pointed to his forehead.

In other news, we got a double stroller today and took it around the block to try it out. We took a while to decide which type of double stroller to get, since there are several different styles.

We finally decided on a stroller that allows Jack to either sit or stand, and Callie can ride in the front. The price was right and it fits in the trunk of our car. Maybe if we had a minivan or something, we would have gotten something a little bigger. Jack is actually supposed to be sitting facing back, or standing facing forward, but he prefers to hang his feet into the storage area!

After our walk, we hung out in the driveway for a while. Jack wanted to try out some sidewalk chalk, and Callie just wanted to hang out in her bumbo seat. She is getting pretty mobile lately. She's rolling all over her bed and scooting a bit. She also has started getting up on her hands and knees and rocking a little bit. It seems too early for her to start crawling!

Here's Jack signing his art. Well, he had Mommy sign his name, and he just put the finishing touches on.

And there are the kids, forever recorded in history... Well, forever meaning until the next rain comes along.

It's Bowlin' Time!

Before we get to the bowling, this is Jack's head after hitting it on the bedroom door frame. It didn't sound that hard, but it turned purple pretty darn quick after he hit it. Ouch.

We took Jack bowling on Friday for the first time. It's fun to be able to share so many first experiences with Jack. Well, everything he does is a first experience, but it's fun to document them as we go. Later in life, he can look back and see all the things he's done, but doesn't remember!

Here are Jack and Grandma hanging out at the bowling alley. He had a lot of fun watching everyone else bowl and even got to dry his hands on the little air-blower thing.

And here are Jack and Daddy waiting for their turn to bowl. (You can still see the big bruise on Jack's forehead from his previous injury!) Jack had a lot of fun yelling and cheering for his Dad. Go Dad, Go!

By the way, Jack has now taken his first steps and will soon be on his way into toddler-hood. We expect many more bruises on that giant noggin of his. Wish us luck with a toddler!

9-Month Check Up

Well the results are in! Jack had his 9-month appointment with his pediatrician today, and he's in good health! Jack is actually 9 and a half months old, but I think the doctor will forgive the two-week difference.


Here are his stats:
weight: 22lbs 3 1/2 oz (putting him in the 70th percentile)
height/length: 29 3/4 inches (the 80-90th percentile)
head circumference: 18.8" (about 95th percentile yet again)

Here he is showing off his huge noggin at the Baby Gap store. We wanted to get a picture of him with a red baseball cap on because Sander used to wear one all the time as a baby. Unfortunately, no one seemed to have any red ones. So here's a blue "GAP" hat instead!

This picture illustrates the darker side of Jack. If you look closely, you will see a large scratch across my collarbone. That would be from Jack's nails.

Ok, he didn't do it on purpose so it's not really his "dark" side. But it still hurt! And then he kept hitting it all during church, making it that much worse! It is my own fault for not keeping his nails short and dull, I suppose.

He also scratched himself on the forehead, so I guess we're even now. He is injuring himself more often these days since he is so mobile and fearless. I just hope he doesn't come up with any broken bones any time soon!

Oh, and just to clarify our moving situation--which is coming up faster than I realized--we may or may not be moving to New York. Hope that helps!

Poor Jack

First of all, I just noticed that the previous post (Fun with Photo Booth) was our 100th post. So Woo hoo for us! Jack has been pictured on the Internet more times than Britney Spears! Okay, maybe not. But he's more pleasant to look at that Britney.

And you may be wondering why Jack has no shirt on in these pictures. He wanted to show off his muscles, first of all, but he also got blood and juice all over his shirt earlier this evening. How did this happen, you ask?

Well, he tends to be very adventurous when he stands up, and doesn't really care if what he is standing against is stable. So he was trying to stand up in the kitchen using the side of the cabinets. The surface was a little too slippery for him, and he did a face plant on the kitchen floor. That normally wouldn't be so bad, but his two front teeth cut his lip open and he was bleeding out his mouth. I thought he might feel better if he drank some cold juice, so I gave him some, but I ended up spilling it down the front of his shirt.

He's a tough guy, though. He got over it pretty quickly and now thinks it's fun to suck on his lip since it feels different. So there is the story of Jack's first fat lip. He was sad, but now he's happy, so it all worked out in the end...

Ouch!

This morning I got Jack out of bed to find this big cut on his forehead. What he was doing during the night, I do not know. I'm pretty sure that's from his thumb nail cutting across his forehead, but who knows. I don't think there are any sharp objects in his bed... Maybe I should double check.

We got some Neosporin and a band-aid on that cut. We don't want any scars. Well, maybe Jack would like one so the girls will think he is cool.

Untitled...

So Jack has been acting a little strange lately as far as eating and sleeping. He's decided he wants to eat every 3 hours at night, and then not eat much during the day. It's not so much fun for me.

This evening Jack was having a really hard time going down for the night, so Sander was holding him on the couch trying to get him to sleep. Jack was just talking and cooing with his daddy, then decided to wiggle around and suddenly he was sucking vigorously on Sander's arm. Before we knew it, Sander had a nice dark hickey. Jack has done that before on his own arms while trying to fall asleep in bed. That boy just loves to suck on things! He wasn't even hungry. Maybe he's getting bored with his pacifier. Silly boy...