Family Pictures!

So here are a few of the pictures that we took on Wednesday. I can't wait to see the rest! :)

Halloween Pictures!

Halloween was super, as always. We went to Shane's work on Friday afternoon to trick-or-treat, had a Halloween party with all the Farr clan on Saturday (in which I was moronic and didn't even think to snap one single photo) and did the Main Street event and trunk-or-treat. Some of the kids even went out more after that, they had boatloads of candy.

Payton, once again, as Link at the elementary school parade.

Bella as a witch in the school parade. Thanks, Disney.com, for delivering her costume the day AFTER Halloween.

Rapunzel in her glory. I let her wear this costume all day after school on November 1st. At least it's a nightgown and she can wear it to bed every night, almost makes up for having to be a witch twice in a row.

He was half laughing, half crying. He wanted to GO, not pose!

He really is ruggedly handsome, isn't he?

"BRAAAAAINS!"

The Hero of Time. And a very nice Conner photobomb.

Scary!

"Don't worry Mom. It's me. I keel you."

 

The Too-Much-Going-On-Lately-So-Here-It-Is-All-In-One-Post Post

First up: The Birthday Boy

My little Wade has reached the wise old age of 5. I cannot believe five years have passed since he was just a tiny baby! Here's a little note to my sweet little guy.

You are my sunshine, the light of my life, the apple of my eye. Don't grow up. Although you're amenable to that request right now, I'm sure you can't wait. I sure can.

I hope you are always a momma's boy. Thanks for bringing sunshine to my life every morning with a hug and an, "I love you, mom!" Nothing is better.

Keep being smart. I can't believe you can read most short words and count clear to 100. You can play video games and work a computer as well as your big brothers. You're a whiz at puzzles, memorizing songs and getting what you want from everyone.

Stay sweet forever and ever. You're a boy who will share and sacrifice for anyone who needs you. Don't ever change.

 Wade's Kirby cake. Baked by Mom, frosted/decorated by Dad.

Wade's Raving Rabbid cake. Again, baked by Mom, frosted/decorated by Dad.

Blow out the candles!

ANGRY BIRDS! Wade's favorite presents, from the brothers and sister.

Wade also got a Lincoln Log set from Mom and Dad, two books and two puzzles from Grandma and Grandpa Curtis, and FOUR boxes of candy from Aunt Rachelle and Uncle Jared. Thanks everyone!

Second: The Zoo!

On Saturday we made yet another trip to the zoo. This marks 3 times this season for our family, and we still took a billion pictures. Shane's family couldn't make it, but mine all came. We rode the carousel and the train, ate dippin dots, saw all the animals and watched the bird and elephant shows.

Lastly: The First Day of School!

Wow, where has the summer gone? I want to play at the reservoir and the splashpad some more! I can't decide if I'm super happy about the quiet(er) house, or bummed not to have my crazy kids to talk to (and babysit while I dash to the store). I guess I should celebrate that we'll be able to keep a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk in this house for a change. Chance is in 9th grade this year, Conner in 7th (his first year at the Jr. High!), Payton is in 5th and Bella is in 2nd. Where does the time go? Wade is old enough now to go to Kindergarten, but we decided to wait one more year... he will be bigger, smarter, accompanied by his primary friends and hopefully I'll be more ready to let him go :) In the meantime, we'll be doing preschool at home.

Aaaaaaaand.......... the pictures!

The Jr. High Kids

Aw, look at them, pretending they like each other.

The Elementary School Kids

Too cute for words.

Whew! Hopefully life can calm down a bit now... as much as it ever does around here! 

But Y?!

Y, you ask? Because I SAID SO!

We got up at 6am to hike to the "Y" this morning. Shane and I have done it twice before and knew what we were up against, but poor, unsuspecting, fun-searching Chance and Conner? They had no idea. We sure had fun though!

It was AWESOME! We're planning to go every Thursday morning at 6am... it's a darn good workout!

On a side note, the hibiscus plants I put in the ground last spring have finally produced flowers! Well, one anyway. But there are several more buds! Check THIS out!

I love.

Stay tuned... Tomorrow is my Wader-bug's 5th birthday, and we're going to the zoo on Saturday!

Sorry!!

Man, I suck at writing in my blog lately. We have had a super busy, fun summer so far. The kids are registered and ready to go back to school, and I'm ready to send them. We've read the first Harry Potter book together, gone swimming and to the splash pad A LOT, taken several fun-filled trips to the cabin and to the zoo and had an otherwise exciting time.

Here's some pictures of the kids... notice that Bella is the one who doesn't think holding a fish is disgusting.

There goes the other one....

How in the world will she eat?!

My Own Little Nanny McPhee -

When you need me, but do not want me, then I will stay.

When you want me, but do not need me, then I have to go.

Up your nose with a....

peach bud?

I guess so. This isn't the ACTUAL peach bud Wade picked off the tree and crammed in his right nasal cavity yesterday evening at around 7:45, but this is exactly what it looked like. Don't panic: he didn't stuff a dime up there too. The dime is to show you the massive size of this 'nasal foreign body'.

After he did the deed, Wade came running inside the house freaking out, right behind Bella and cousin, Addison. Bella told me that Wade stuck a seed from a plant up his nose. I took a look, and sure enough I could see a little green object waaaaaaay up there. In my mind, it was the head from one of those dandelion stems that you pick to blow the white fuzzies. I asked Bella to go get me another one of whatever he jammed up there, and she brought me THAT, which I quickly slipped into my pocket. After ten minutes of trying to blow it out I ended up calling the doctor. Hooray for the pediatrician's office that has a doctor on call over the weekend so you can avoid the ER, right? Wrong. After about an hour more of blowing, the use of spooky-looking tools like this:

and plenty of shaking his head and bopping him on the noggin for laughs, the doctor informed us that he wouldn't be able to extract the peach bud because Wade couldn't hold still enough. The on-call seemed a little bit irritated at Wade, thinking the poor kid should be able to sit still. Give me a break, sometimes I can't even stand blowing my nose without a good shiver, let alone pulling a giant seed out of my head through my nasal cavity. A few minutes later we were back in the car, headed to the emergency room.

Many would find it surprising that, althought I have 6 children, 5 of which are boys and the oldest of which is 14, I have never been to emergency. As I'm walking in, I'm envisioning people bleeding and with broken limbs waiting four hours to see the doctor. I thought a peach bud in the nose would be low on the priority list so we'd be in it for the long haul. In reality there were only a few people there without any visual injuries. What the...? Here's Wade's smiling face as we waited...

and a picture of the area under attack, just because he looks so dopey...

We checked in with the nurse and were informed that the wait wouldn't be long. Each time someone asked me what was up there I would have to show them the peach bud for reference. I was very glad I'd decided to slip it into my pocket so they'd know what they were up against.

The nurse that checked us in put this tag on Wade's arm. It bugged him and he wanted to take it of until he decided it was his "ticket" to see the doctor:

After a few minutes we were taken to another nurse who took Wade's blood pressure and weight. Then we were led to a triage room to await the doctor. Nothing was on TV and Wade was BORED. What do you expect, 24 hour cartoons? Thanks a lot, Nick Jr. A training paramedic came in and I told him the story (this was probably my 6th time telling it, I was becoming a pro). Soon the doctor, who incidentally looks just like this guy:

came in and told us what I knew he would -- Wade would have to be knocked out and then they'd extract the peach bud. Soon we were moved into "Trauma B" which is an official operating room.

By that time it was about 11pm and poor Wade was getting VERY tired. I told him that he'd have to have a poke, then he'd go to sleep and the doctor would take the "seed" out of his nose. Of course, I'm terrified. My poor sweet 4-year-old has to go under general anaesthesia? Yikes! I was just praying that the doctors would know just what to do and he'd be safe through the procedure. I'd be allowed to stay in the O.R. for the procedure, so the nurse warned me that sometimes kids sleep with their eyes open or their eyes twitch because of the medicine so I wouldn't panic. I was panicked anyway.

Before the procedure, the doc wanted to try something. He had me plug the un-obstructed side of Wade's nose, then cover his mouth with mine, CPR style, and warned me that I would get covered with boogers. I blew a huge burst of air into Wade's mouth. No boogers (after all, we'd been blowing his nose for about two hours by this point), but no seed either. Apparently this works with a lot of crap shoved in a kid's nose, but doesn't work with an enormous peach bud. Now, aren't you glad you learned something today?

Wade was given a shot of Ketamine in his thigh... this is the medicine that puts you to sleep and makes you feel like you've lost an hour of your life. We're not talking about a tiny immunization dose either, we're talking about a huge syringe full. They jammed it into Wade's thigh and he cried for about a minute, then drifted off to sleep with his eyes open. The doctor waited until he was asleep, then used this to extract the seed...

So he takes this syringe, sticks the tube behind the peach seed, presses the button to inflate the balloon and eases the peach seed out of Wade's nose. Once he was knocked out, the procedure took all of three minutes, and that was after two tries. The doc then stuck a camera that looks like this:

up Wade's nose to make sure there were no extra pieces floating around in there. The biggest risk of having a foreign body in your nose is the risk of infection. Yuck!

So now for the long part, holding Wade's hand while waiting for him to wake up. Since his bedtime is usually 8:30, I wasn't optimistic about him waking up on his own at 1am. We had to shake him around several times before he lifted his head and became barely coherent, then we were able to finally check out.

Luckily, no adverse affects due to infection or the anaesthesia so far. What a relief!

I've been asking Wade all day.... "Should we stick THIS up our nose?" to which he replies, "NO! We don't stick things in our noses!" At least we seem to have learned a lesson.