Brant

Brant had quite the summer this year. He was outside in the backyard playing with Mia and Mason and somehow managed to break both of his arms. Since neither Mia nor Mason actually saw what happened, we'll never know exactly how he broke them, but he must have fallen somehow. Anyway, we didn't even know they were broken till later that night he kept waking up and fusing and favoring one arm when he would try to crawl out of his bed. So, I took him to the ER where I had to convince the doctor to x-ray him because he didn't believe anything was wrong. So, they found a small break in his left arm and we put a cast on it two days later. That night we noticed that he was not using his right arm either. I think that he must have broken both arms at the same time, but the left was worse. Then once he got his left cast on, he tripped a few times (since he is a clumsy 17 month old) and landed on his other arm since he couldn't catch himself with the other arm in the cast and I think he made it worse. So, we took him in and got that one checked....yup broken. The good new is that he only had to wear them 3-weeks; the bad news is that we had them taken off while we were in Malad and the doctor there used ANCIENT equipment and CUT him 3 times trying to get them off. I felt so bad for Brant, but other than the many traumatic doctor visits this summer, he was a happy kid and had fun in Idaho.

Mia's 2nd grade field day

Mia's 2nd grade field day.

Mia sings at the Rockies game

In May Mia and her school choir sang the National Anthem at one of the Rockies games. About 100 schools in the area tried out for the spot, and Mia's school won. She was really excited and it ended up being a pretty cool experience for her.

The final product: House pictures

OK, here are the pictures. I know there are tons, but this is our first house and I'm a little excited.

The house overhaul

I finally got the house clean enough that I thought I was ready to move EVERYTHING over. I had been bringing large loads over to house everyday; once in the morning when I took Mia to school and once in the afternoon when I picked her up then cleaned for a few hours till Brant couldn't handle it any more then went back and packed up some more. But last weekend we rented a truck and moved everything else over. Jared's Dad got here that night and began overhauling our bathroom.(The tile and the walls behind it were really messed up). I think we about killed him, he worked so hard and he was a big life saver. He also helped overhaul the yard. Jared's sister and her fiance came for a few days which was such a huge help to keep the kids busy. We LOVE Sara's fiance, Brad. My kids have liked a lot of her boyfriends, but this guy hit it out of the park! Mason is absolutely sold on him. Brad played with him for hours on end.....Thanks Brad and Sara for keeping my kids happy during a crazy week. Then my parents flew in on Thursday and didn't stop working and cleaning and organizing for the next three days. I can't believe how much work got done this week. I LOVE the house now and the yard went from a complete disaster to something we can now work with. We filled 18 huge bags of leaves that hadn't been raked last fall. Then Russel and my dad hauled 2500 pounds of yard waste to the junk yard! What a transformation. I went from being completely overwhelmed with this new house and yard, to relieved and so happy with the way it all turned out. I have the best family in the world.