lime green

 I've been waiting for that couch for a long time.  Dave, Lynnette and Mike are going on missions and so it was finally passed on!  The kids were happy for the additional furniture, as this is where they were hanging out one morning when I walked by.  Notice Isaac's Spiderman shirt and ninja face mask.  Not sure what is so wonderful about the shirt, but I have to point out the dirtiness or the fact that he has worn it for 5 straight days and "I am starting a load right now and will give it back to you in two hours" before he may (or actually may not), take it off for me to clean it.

 I told Adam Thanksgiving morning that I wanted to take a family picture to send out with Christmas cards.  Lily was at Nate and Audrey's so we went there and went out to pose, and while getting the kids set up Adam said "Why are we doing this, why don't you get a photographer to do it?"  Good question, and thanks for letting me know how you felt at the right time!  Anyways this was my favorite of the kids, all of their faces are awesome.

 Bentley Talent Show!  Lily played 'Angels we Have Heard on High', with no hesitation, of course.  She also teamed up with Brooklyn to do cartwheels in the background of Brooklyn listing off all of the U.S. Presidents.  Pretty impressive of Brooke, and pretty hilarious of Lily who was getting pretty tired and dizzy and feel down a few times.  Jackson asked to get up and do something, which I tried to help him prepare but he disappeared, and then when Dave called his name he popped out from behind the stage curtains, it was so funny.  He kind of bore his testimony, not sure what else to call it, as he said he was thankful for the universe, because if we didn't have the universe we would already all be dead.  Isaac and Ada did some gymnastics moves, mostly Isaac because Ada was trying to get to the treat bowl.  It was a great show and so fun.

 Games at the Dabneys, the kids started watching Back to the Future but it was too late for the littles.

Liz and Mom arranged to go to Veyo for skating!  It was awesome since you could bring bikes and scooters as well, so there is everyone but me, Adam is riding on the scooter with Ada.  This week was pretty close to how it felt as a kid, it was a wonderful weekend.  And the food was incredible!  I had a lot of fun this year making pumpkin pie cupcakes and a oreo crusted white chocolate mousse torte.  Tried out fresh vanilla beans for the whipped cream which was a lot of fun as well.  I haven't been creative with cooking/baking for a really long time, it was fun to return to it for the holidays.

trauma

Sunday October 25th at 3:45 p.m., I was in the kitchen about to start making home made macaroni and cheese, requested by Brooklyn for her family birthday dinner.  The doorbell rang, it was Chase telling me that Jack had crashed his bike.  I thought it was a routine fall, put my shoes on and walked out the door where Sam Reber was biking in circles saying "bee-do bee-do bee-do" like the minions.  He was smiling and wouldn't answer when I talked to him, so I continued to not worry about Jack.  I walked a bit faster to the corner in my high heels, then heard him yelling farther down the street so started running.  He was curled up in a ball, obviously in a lot of pain, with some blood on the street next to him.  I didn't want to look at him without Adam, I was pretty nervous by then.  I picked him up and ran up the street and into Liz, who was leaving with Jared.  She told me to go in her house and Jared would look at him.  

We laid him down and he started crying out "what happened??" in a really desperate way.  That's when I realized he had lost consciousness.  We tried to look in his mouth at the blood, I saw that his super loose tooth had fallen out, and sent Lily to go find it on the street (she did, which was very nice since Jack hadn't realized he lost his first one a few weeks ago and so I wanted to make sure he didn't lose track of this one too).  Adam came in and we took him back to our house and laid him on the couch, kind of trying to clean up the blood and get him to talk or respond to us at all.  We asked if he remembered biking to church that morning; no.  Did he remember stopping on the way to get me a flower; no.  Did he know his sister's name; Lil (small relief).  Did he remember going to a movie the day before; no.  He was starting to get upset so we let him rest.  I can't even remember when Adam and Jared gave him a blessing.  I couldn't even be in the room I was crying so steadily - I just stood in the doorway, wondering what was going to be.  When he woke up about 25 minutes later Adam put a show on for him - the Hulk cartoon - and within about 10 minutes he threw up a bunch of blood at the same time as Mom getting a hold of Uncle Kim who said to take him to the ER.  On the way there he threw up a bunch more (he later told the ER doctor "10 times"), was immediately admitted and taken to the Trauma area and got a CT scan and x-rays of his neck.  Up until the CT scan results came back clear, I was basically terrified and crying and feeling pretty hysterical.  Every time they asked him a question I was pleading inside that he would answer them correctly!  I remember some of the fear starting to lift when they asked who he was biking with and he answered "two cousins and two friends."  

We were able to take him right home to go to bed (threw up in the car, most likely from motion sickness).  I can't believe the relief of not having to worry about the other 3 kids and to be able to be with Adam in the ER.  Wouldn't have happened in Ogden; one of us would have had to stay home.  I don't think the kids even realized we had left (except of course Lily, who was super worried about her brother).  It is so different living by family.  The swelling took a while to go down, and in the meantime I can't believe how much it hurt my heart to see his face all banged up and his lips swollen so much he couldn't talk.  Chase came over to play once and after a few attempts at communicating, Jack finally just said "I can't talk." I sure missed that cute smile and deep dimples.

Some of the memorable quotes were when I was threatening Lily and Isaac with a consequence from fighting ALL OF THE TIME in the car, Jackson said "I sure got a consequence, right Mom?"  Also at the hospital he told us "I have two fat lips."  Also when I was saying it was pretty crazy how he crashed - tried jumping on his bike off a flat bed trailer - I asked if he was going to try it again and he was like "NO WAY!  I'm NEVER going to try that again!" with really big eyes.  I'm sure he will, just hopefully it will be with a helmet next time.