November 2014

Justin broke his leg! It happened Nov. 20 around 1pm. He was playing at school during recess, running down a little hill.... and then he slipped and fell on concrete. He screamed and screamed. It wasn't good -- the other kids saw it and were so worried about him. The school called me and I flew over there. There was an ambulance out front and four medics in a small room in the school with Justin. He was still screaming. He would NOT let them take off his boot. Mostly he just needed to be alone and calm down, but he was surrounded by people. So they carried him to my van and I took him to urgent care. Courtney Murdock, who is in our ward and also took Dallin's x-ray a month ago, yanked his boot right off and took his x-ray. Yep, very very broken.

We met with the orthopedic doctor (Dr. Dalling) who then had us meet him at the ER (at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center). And guess what? We were in Room 4! The same room Dallin had been in. He set the bone and wrapped his leg and we went home. A bunch of his classmates had given him little presents. They were so sweet.

The whole ordeal was very very traumatic for Justin. He had a hard time emotionally processing what had happened. So I spent some time talking to him about it, trying to help him figure out that it was ok to be scared and sad, but that he would get better. The best "therapy" for him was putting him in the car and driving him to the school. I pushed him around his school on an office chair and he got to go see his classmates. They were so excited to see him. And Justin just felt a lot better.

We also celebrated our first Thanksgiving away from family, so we invited the Mullins (who were in the process of moving out of our ward) to eat with us. I cooked and cooked and cooked. Phew! It was exhausting, but fun. We played games with them, and then the next day we played games with the Edwards family, and then the next day we played games with the Hurst family (my cousin Katie's family).


And our little Brynn is just too cute for words.

Quotable Sniders

Forgot to put eggs in the pumpkin pie! It's in the oven baking, so we'll see how it turns out. I promise I didn't hijack it on purpose.

"Get out of my clinic, Justin! I'm giving the reindeer a checkup!" says Sydney, aka Doc McStuffins.

It's sort of ironic that our kids were fighting over the Baby Jesus from our nativity set (the plastic one). Baby Jesus was in time-out for a while.

Just had a fantastic massage to take away the pinched nerve in my shoulder.... and the stress from caring for three recovering males in our house.

We woke up and Justin was shuffling himself down the hall in his full leg cast. Well dang. Can't keep that kid down for long.

Our kids take the song, This Girl is on Fire (by Alicia Keys) waaaay too literally. Says Sydney... "Oh no, she's on fire!!!"

Dallin (arm cast) and Justin (full leg cast) playing cards: "The one with the longest cast goes first."

Justin has a special bond with his baby sister, Brynn (6 months old). She was the only thing that would make him smile yesterday during his broken leg ordeal. There is something angelic about babies. She made faces at him when he was scared getting ready for sedation, and then she fell asleep when he was asleep.

While we are single-handedly trying to fund the entire Idaho Falls medical community..... thank you to everyone for your help. Justin is home with a full leg cast and feeling lots better.

*Piecing Justin's wet, crumpled, torn homework paper back together* Thankfully we have a copier on our printer. So now his homework is sorta legit.

Three kinds of stuffing will be on our table this year -- my mom's recipe, Jon's mom's recipe, and a gluten-free version. I still don't think we will have very many leftovers!

My boys popped out of bed and begged to shovel the snow (which was awesome). How can we re-direct some of this enthusiasm to clean their bedroom?

"It's not cold!" Say my kids who think 24 degrees is pretty warm compared to the 2 degrees it was this morning.

Sydney was hosting her own news show about monsters and mommies and babies. Then she switched to a vocal performance about aliens.

Bottle up four over-excited, extroverted children in the living room and that is our evening.... every single evening. They are hilarious, crazy, and loveable. And loud. ‪#‎MustFindEarPlugs‬

Justin: My tummy is bigger than ever. It's bigger than a shed, or a truck..... it will crush the whole world.

Justin: "Mom, come here!"
Me: "What?"
Justin: "Not you, the Little People (toy) mom."

This morning Justin's joints are still stiff and sore, and he needs help doing some things, but he's not crying anymore. He is so much better already! Thank heavens.

Justin is still in pain and has a hard time getting around or doing anything. Doctor said it's not clear what the issue is. We are ruling things out by waiting and seeing what happens. Most likely he thinks it's viral, but who knows? I just hope it goes away soon. If it doesn't, back for labs and such.

We have six trees in our backyard. We have six people in our family. So it's only natural that the kids have assigned a tree to each person. "Sydney's tree only has two leaves left!"

Brynn was kicking her legs all night. She must be starting the Crib2Crawling program.