New family member..

Here is our new cat, Beast! We adopted her from the Animal Care Center here in town and brought her home on Friday. (an early birthday present for "Steve") She is one year old and has a super affectionate personality...except when Rella (our dog) is around!

Family dinner time...

The girls both have dance on Monday night...at different times. So, from 5-7 one of them is at the studio. MG goes last from 6-7 and so by that time everyone else has gone home and eaten dinner. Monday night as we were driving home from dance, MG said she doesn't like dance nights. Now I know she LOVES dance class, so I asked her why she said that. And she said that she doesn't like not eating as a family on Mondays! I was taken back a bit. We do make a point to eat together at the table every day except Mondays, but I guess I never thought it meant anything to the kids! Now I know! :)

Swimming...

So, last night I went for my first "triathlon-training swim" and quickly realized I am screwed!!!! I have always said running would be my issue because I never used to be able to run. But now I feel good running and am worried about the swimming aspect! It was really hard!! But I just keep telling myself that it used to hard for me to run even for a minute straight and now I kind of even enjoy running...so hopefully swimming will get easier also. If not, I may be doggy paddling 800m in the pool! Ahhh!! What have I gotten myself in to?

The verdict is in...

GA had a session with a speech therapist today and she has officially diagnosed him with a speech delay. Not a huge surprise on our part, but I guess it was nice to hear a "professional" say we aren't crazy and have her let us know that in all the other cognitive areas they look at he is just fine. We still have two more meeting with the woman from the AZ Early Intervention Program. She will come this Friday and do her own evaluation as she interacts with him in different ways and then the last meeting will be to set up a plan of action. I am hoping that our insurance will cover speech therapy for him because if not the AZEIP only does therapy once a month whereas a private speech therapist will do an hour weekly! I will have to check into whether or not our insurance will cover it. So, for now he will be in speech therapy either at home or in a clinic and when he turns 3 he will be put into the public school system and will go to a "head start" preschool (half day) that is built around each child's delay. I am sure we will still learn more from our next two meetings and as the therapy begins.

Easter gathering....

We had a group of friends (30 of them!!!) over to our place (actually the clubhouse where we live cause our house isn't big enough!) and had a great afternoon! :) The kids had a fun time during the egg hunt and playing out on the playground and the adults had fun playing all kinds of games and socializing!
The kids ready to go hunt down eggs! :)On the hunt...Checking out their goods....A little one-handed wiffle ball...Me and little Regan...she is precious! :)

Easter Morning....

Does it get any cuter than this????! :)My kiddos! :) Our worship service...

Eggs

Normally Friday night is our family movie night, but tonight we colored Easter eggs instead! We had a good time and made quite the mess as usual. GA even helped color a few this year, and surprisingly he never tried to throw one! :)

Rough day..

MG didn't have school on Friday since it was Good Friday, so she was able to come to playgroup with us. We decided to have playgroup at the park in our neighborhood since all the "big" kids would be joining us. MG was swinging and leaned back too far and did a complete flip and landed on her face! Ouch!!! I thought she broker her wrist because her hand was all cut up and she said she couldn't move it, but it ended up being okay. Her face on the other hand, not so okay! Poor thing. She had two huge lips for most of the day and has lots of cuts and scraps. She kept telling me that she didn't want to have pictures taken on Easter! :( It definitely bummed her out for a good part of the day today. She looked so pitiful. But now the swelling has gone down and we keep joking with her telling her she looks like she has melted chocolate on her face (the bloody areas have started to turn a brown color)! :) I was originally going to take the girls down to the park to play and have my friends watch them because I (GA) was supposed to have a meeting with the lady from the AZ Early Intervention Program again that morning, but she called and had to reschedule because her daughter was sick. Thank goodness, because MG would have freaked out even more if I wouldn't have been there!

"Steve" Update

"Steve" got in to see the orthopedic doctor yesterday instead of having to wait until Friday. He was given two options from the doctor...surgery to repair the shoulder or no surgery now and wait and see if it "heals" on its own and go back to the doctor in a month. "Steve" chose option #2 because he certainly would like to avoid surgery if possible. From what I have read, it sounds like the shoulder won't ever actually "heal" but will adjust to the injury and maybe scar tissue will take the place of those torn ligaments. (and he will always have a "bulge" over that shoulder where the bone is misplaced) So, I guess now we wait and see what his body will do. He is supposed to refrain from using that shoulder for a month until he goes back to the doctor to see if anything has changed. Right now he can't really extend his arm past the 90 degree point so hopefully some range of motion will begin to return in the next few weeks. And hopefully he will be able to regain full movement without having the surgery. Having the surgery himself and then needing a repair from that initial surgery, the doctor agreed with his decision to wait to see what his body does. Hopefully he will heal and can be back to his active self soon. And if not, he will probably wait until the "off season" (meaning after summer) and possibly have the operation. We have ordered a brace for his shoulder which will hopefully help but he does not have to wear a sling. The waiting game has begun...

Piercing eyes and ice cream cupcakes...

I absolutely love these pictures of GA eating an ice cream cupcake! My friend Judy has an awesome camera and got some great shots! :)

Sunday afternoon with friends...

Here are some pictures from a fun Sunday afternoon at our friend's house!

Pizza anyone?!?:)

"Steve" playing one handed basketball after his crash!

The illustration....ouch!

Here is an illustration of what poor "Steve" has done to his shoulder. He originally had told me he didn't know what "type" of AC joint separation he had...there are different degrees/types. But I looked on his referral last night and right there is was...3rd degree AC joint separation, which is not great news!

"In a type III injury, both the AC and CC ligaments are completely torn. The collarbone and the acromion are completely separated."

He has an appointment Friday morning with the orthopedic doctor...so we will see what they say. Poor guy! He is now in a sling to keep his arm somewhat immobile.

Mountain Bike Crash...

Saturday morning "Steve" went out with some guys to go mountain biking. He goes multiple times a week so I certainly didn't expect our day to turn out how it did! I got a phone call asking me what my mom was doing that day because we needed her to watch the kids so we could go to the ER! That's the phone call every wife doesn't look forward to! I wasn't sure what to expect and only knew he had crashed and hurt his shoulder. He didn't look to bad when he got home...shoulder looked a bit odd...but no major cuts and blood! So we took the kids to Grandma's and went and sat and waited to see a doctor. The doctor came in a checked him out and, just our luck, there was no x-ray tech there on Saturday so we left not knowing much! The doc gave him some muscle relaxers and some pain pills and said he would have to wait until Monday to be x-rayed. Now, "Steve" was pretty confident that it was just a strained or pulled muscle and he would be okay. He wasn't too concerned at that point because the pain had started to subside unless he moved! Well, he had x-rays today and low and behold....he really is hurt! His AC joint is separated in his shoulder and now he has to go see an orthopedic doctor to see what is next. That is all we know at this point but will keep you posted!

Luckily, his friends were taking pictures and got a picture of him right when he landed on his head!! Here is the crash...