The next day...

• The next day, I slipped on ice in my driveway and broke my ankle.
• I had a Harry Potter foot.
• A trip to the emergency room determined I had broken my ankle, dislocated my ankle and tore the ligament.
• I had surgery that day.
• The doctor put a plate and seven screws in my ankle. OUCH!
• I stayed in the hospital over night.
• Luckily Adam was able to cancel his work trip and work from home all month long.
• He took over for me.
• Ran car pools, cooked meals, ran kids to soccer, basketball, dance, and tumbling. Went grocery shopping, helped me with everything. I mean everything!
• I went to the doctor two and a half weeks later and things look good.
• Still have to go another four weeks with no weight on it.
• All in all he said it will be 12 weeks of casts/walking boots and such.
• But I got a cool little scooter thing to use instead of the darn crutches.
• AND
• a handicap parking tag!
• It's the little things that make me happy! :)
• It hasn't been hurting much.
• Nothing a Tylonel PM can't make feel better. :)
• It's not been fun.
• Sitting around the entire month of December.
• But through it all, every single need has been met.
• Adam has taken such good care of me.
• We had ELEVEN meals brought in from friends and family.
• Everything that needed to be done was done by someone.
• I have been blessed.
• I have definitely been blessed.
• Just counting down the days until March gets here!
• About 64 days to go.....

Hagen's Soccer Tournament

We went to St. George for Thanksgiving this year. Hagen's soccer team "The Strikers" signed up to play in a tournament on Friday and Saturday. We thought that since the kids were out of school on Wednesday we would make a bigger trip of it and spend a few extra days playing in nice sunny St. George. We had been planning this trip for several months and right off had decided to take our trailer with us so we could use it one more time this year, cook our own breakfasts and lunches easier, and most of all, take LulaKate. It just seemed like a great idea!
The "Great Blizzard" arrived on Tuesday and really wasn't so great, so it didn't really change our plans except give us colder weather to deal with. It made parents and grandparents really worried though!
Long story short we had a great drive down to St. George. We stayed at a really nice campsite area right in the middle of town. Spent some great time together just hanging out as a family. Went to a Dinosaur Museam, went shopping at the outlets, played Set (a new math game the boys have been playing at school). Adam and I even walked to a movie theater that was right next to our campground area and saw Harry Potter.
The soccer tournament started on Friday and Hagen's team did great. Hagen was able to play goalie for the entire time so he was very excited to practice and prove his goalie skills. They played two games on Friday and won both of them. Hagen only let in one goal in each game! Since posting pictures on blogger is way time consuming and it still wont work sometimes, I can only get one pic to post of him as goalie.

The first of potentially three games on Saturday turned out different. In the first 10 minutes there was a play that Hagen bravely jumped into to stop the ball and he got kicked in his hand. I happened to be standing right there very near when it happened (taking pictures). Hagen grabbed his hand and started rolling around on the ground like it was hurt pretty bad. I took off his glove (which is very nice and has lots of added protection built in) and his hand was hurting pretty bad. He went and sat on the side lines and Adam and I tried to not coddle and baby him so he would mabe toughin it up and go back out there to play. Hagen was the only goalie for the team. He did put his gloves back on and Adam threw a couple of balls to him and the second one was too painful. It was clear, he was done for the game. It was a fierce game against a team from Logan (that we have played before) and it ended tied at 0 to 0.

We took him to an instacare after the game and x rays were taken to prove the worst. He had broken two bones in his hand. My pictures are out of order, but I took a picture of the x ray with my phone. See below! A hard/soft cast was put on his arm and ordered to be done with soccer for the rest of the tournament. His hand was hurting pretty bad, so Hagen was kinda ok with that. We did go and watch the next game though! We had to support the team!!!

The fourth game was crazy. We were both tied for first place. And as long as this game did not end up a shut out (someone with no points), we were to play them again for the final.There was a lot of bad sportsmanship from the other team. So bad in fact the refs made the entire fan section of the other team go to their cars. Long story short on this. The other team was kicked out of the tournament. And are not ever welcome back.

Our team took first place in the tournament!

Hagen was the first to recieve a gold medal since he had sacrificed the most!

His Hand!

Go Strikers!!!

Hagen and his best soccer buddy Matthew!!!

After the awards were given out, the entire team went to In & Out for dinner! It was crazy busy but all the kids had a ton of fun! Since there was another storm coming due to hit the freeway at 3 am. Most of the team decided to leave early. Like right after dinner. Instead of going home on Sunday morning. We had our trailer we were pulling (the only ones), and we thought we had better leave early too. The thought of sleeping in late on our own beds sounded so dreamy. So we went back to the campsite. Adam hooked up the trailer. I secured everything in the trailer. And we left at 8:30 pm. The drive went pretty smooth. Except when Breeley coughed so hard she threw up all over herself, and her blanket. We pulled in at about 2 am. Backed the trailer onto the driveway, off the road. Walked into the house and all went to bed.

Story to be continued tomorrow...

Thanksgiving

This is what we did on our Thanksgiving.

I hope you all enjoyed yours as much as we enjoyed ours.

We missed our families, but enjoyed spending time together.

We have so much to be thankful for. So much.

The darn blizzard showed up!

The blizzard showed up!

Adam has already plowed the driveway.

The roast is taking forever to cook.

The birthday cake is done.

Breeley is complaining.

Hagen is asking for lots of snacks because he knows he will not be eating any dinner.

Abell is cleaning his room.

Addison is at scouts. Three houses away.

Adam keeps saying things like "I will if I want. It's my birthday."

I am happy to be home tonight.

I am so grateful for a free evening.

Even if it involves 100 feet of snow.

Hagen is a rockstar soccer goalie!

This is Hagen.

All geared up for a game of indoor soccer.

He is playing goalie.

He is a good goalie.

He has strong soccer legs.

They won.

Hagen and his team are all rockstar soccer players.

The end.

Freakishly Busy Week.

Isn't it amazing.

This week we have had so much going on.

• Addison had to read a biography (he chose his birthday buddy Abraham Lincoln), answer some questions in paragraph form about Honest Abe. THEN MAKE A SCULPTURE! DONE
• Abell has had play practice every night until 7ish and the play starts tonight and is every night for the next three nights. HALF DONE
• Abell has a SCIENCE FAIR due friday. Are you kidding me? Everyone knows how much I love science fairs. Like NOT AT ALL. Anyway, it's DONE! (I think)
• Hagen has a wax museum on friday. Needs me to sew him a Mark Antony costume. Remember how much I love Halloween? I hate costumes! It's DONE. (and pretty cute) and it's going right in a box when Hagen is done and guess who Addison is going to choose to be for his wax museum in three years? Ding Ding Ding... Your right. Mark Antony.
• Breeley has books to read. Geesh, like I really have time to help her learn to read. I KID. I KID.
• Breeley also was lucky enough to bring home a math bag. Yippee!

Luckily for me though, Adam has been in town this week. I can't even describe how thankful I am that he has been around helping. It was like stuff was still getting accomplished... and I was making dinner... and I wasn't yelling. It almost felt like I had Doby around from Harry Potter. Only it was Adam. Helping kids with homework and getting them to clean up after homework. It was super great.

Random.

I was sitting watching Breeley during tumbling last night and noticed this amazing sunset out one of the windows. Luckily I had my shmancy new camera with me, so I ran outside and took some pictures. It was so amazing. I can't believe how great the pictures turned out. I think I took like a million shots (about 20).

Sing.... Sing a Song.....

Abell had his first choir concert in October. He is in two choirs this year. The Crescendo Choir, and the Celtic Choir. The Crescendo Choir is for 9th grade students, but they needed some more boys so they invited some 8th grade boys. Abell jumped at the opportunity.

The Crescendo Choir

The Celtic Choir

It was really fun to go and watch him perform. He has a lot of fun performances scheduled for this year. I am really excited to watch them. It makes me happy to see him doing something he loves. Not to mention I love to see two A's on his report card. Easy A's are just the bonus! :)

**Love ya so much Abell!**

"Breeley, Go get your room picked up."

Well she did what I asked.

In a very creative way.

I saw Breeley sneaking out of her room this morning after I had asked her to get it picked up before school. I thought for sure she had not done what I asked so I went in to inspect. She picked up the room all right. She was actually on her way to get LulaKate's toys for her to play with while she spent time in the drawer. I thought it was hilarious and was very grateful Breeley left the drawer open.

Btw, this is the drawer that she puts everything she doesn't want to put away. (Toys, garbage, stickers get stuck in there, even chewed gum)

A Witching Afternoon.

Breeley and I attended Witchapalooza at Gardner Village this year. We went with several of the Sassy ladies and mini ladies. Or should I say Sassy witches and mini witches. We all dressed in our finest, funnest witch costumes!

We first went to lunch at Zupa's. Witch happens to be Bree and I's most favorite place to eat! We both love the wisconsin cheese soup with a grilled cheese for Bree and a turkey, bacon, avacado for me. Breeley's favorite part is the chocolate dipped strawberry! It's so much her favorite part, that I NEVER get to eat my strawberry because Breeley begs and twinkles her eyes so much that I usually end up giving her mine to eat too. It makes her so happy!

Here is her sassy witch costume.
That is a hand made pettiskirt.

Hand made with 60 yards of green chiffon ruffle at the bottom!

All the cute sassy mini witches!

Breeley had glitter spider eyes painted on. She loved it!!!

Saasssyyy!

So cute!

I LOVE THIS STORE! I wish my whole house could be furnished by them. I loved all the hanging chairs and thought it fit well with a sassy little witch!

As most people know I am so not a fan of dressing up. I dislike Halloween. I just do. I try not to, but I do.

But we did have fun. We received so many comliments from other ladies at Gardner Village about our witch costumes.

Most of all though, it was fun to spend the time with Breeley.

Instead of folding socks... I thought I would blog.

Seriously... I was folding laundry today (tons of it) and got to the end and had the big pile of socks. I stared at the socks and tried to think of something else I could do. Anything else I could do. Blogging... I havent blogged in awhile. I will take a picture of the clean socks and then leave the pile sitting on my bed and go blog.

And then I thought about how good it would feel to actually have the socks folded AND have blogged. So, I sat down, watched the end of "Confessions of a Shopaholic" and folded the darn socks. Then Breeley came home for school with the Star of the Week poster. We HAD to start working on it NOW. Then I sewed some patches on scout shirts, I made Breeley lunch, I answered 500 questions to renew my life insurance policy with some nice guy. Now, I am blogging.
I have no real purpose to todays post. Just that it seemed like a good thing to do. Lets see....
THe kids are doing good in school. Soccer is kinda over, but not really. Abells play is almost here which means an end to play practice is getting closer. I have to sign up Addison for Jr Jazz basketball. Hagen is starting on a comp basketball team. Dance and tumbling continue. Life is good and busy. Busy and good.
I have been spending my days searching for Addison's missing Nintendo DS. And his iPod which is attached to Breeleys nice headphones. When stuff like that goes missing it drives me crazy thinking about where they can be. I need those things in the near future. So they need to be found.
I took this picture with my new camera. I thought I would include it for fun.
Have a great day!

This is my new motto.

I am going to try and remember it at all times. Especially times when I am dealing with the teenager. I am going to even try and remember it when dealing with the 11 year old, the 8 year old and even the 5 year old. Heck, even the 30 something year old. AND the puppy!
I found the saying online and tried my best to copy it in my prefered colors. I hung it in my newly painted bedroom so I can see it right when I walk in the door. Hopefully I will read it daily and not tune it out.
We have been keeping busy around here. Running around everywhere trying to keep all the balloons floating in the air. Our life is a lot like that game on "Minute To Win It". Except we are trying to keep 20 balloons afloat at all times. Just for fun I was thinking of posting our weekly schedule for your entertainment. In 15 years, when all of the craziness has slowed down, I will be able to look back at the post and be so proud of myself for staying alive through it.
Well, I am off to finish making a yummy dinner of Manicotti, homemade breadsticks and pumpkin something or other for dessert. YUM!

First Day of School!!!

Abell 8th Grade!

I take a pic from the back every year.

The elementary group! (Abell had already left for school.)

Hagen 6th Grade!

Addison 3rd Grade!

Breeley Kindergarten!

(In her "Old Lady" pose.)

Breeley Kindergarten!

Well, this is a big year for our family.

All the children are in school part of the day every day.

I begged Breeley and Addison to stay home.

I promised them lots of fun things and exciting adventures if they would stay home with me all day. They both said no. (Rude!)

All the kids were excited for school to start.

(Different levels of excitement of course.)

Abell is back in Junior High.

He is in the 8th grade boys choir and also the 9th grade choir. He has already tried out and received a part in the school play Annie!

Hagen and Addison are attending a new school this year. We had a pretty rough year last year for Addison. Rough as in his teacher didn't try and really teach him anything. He started the year so far ahead of the rest of the class, that she just kinda put him aside and let him do his own thing. He took his encyclopedia's every day to read. I was pretty disappointed with her all year. So when an opportunity came for him to have something better, I really felt like I needed to get him in there.

Hagen has received a letter for the spectrum program every year. I never felt like it was the right place for him. So I never sent him to be tested. But after the year with Addison's teacher, and then both boys received a letter, I thought we would investigate it. They both took the test and were accepted. I had planned to wait and see what teachers they were assigned to at their current school to help me make the final decision. But once we accepted the spectrum positions, they pulled them out of their current school. So the decision was made. I let Hagen decide what he wanted to do. I was proud of him for deciding to go. He knew it would be harder. He knew he would have homework. He knew he wouldn't know anyone. But he still chose to try it. I am proud of him for that.

So far it has been great. I think I had the hardest time leaving Hagen on the first day of school. The spectrum class he is in has been together since 3rd grade. He was the only new boy in the class (one new girl too). But luckily for him there are two boys he knows from his soccer and basketball teams. So he already had friends. That was a great surprise!

Addison seems to really be enjoying learning. It seems like he is really getting something out of it. Like he is having to put forth a little effort.

So far, I feel like we made the right decision.

Breeley is attending kindergarten in our neighborhood school. That way, she can be with her friends. So, out of four kids, we have three schools to try and keep track of. Not to mention giving up our carpools that I loved so dearly. I have gone from driving once a week, to driving every day, there and back. But it feels good to be going the extra mile for them.