WARNING... pictures in this post are rated PG!

Yesterday was one of the most beautiful Memorial Days I can remember. Unfortunately, I was unable to get all our bikes into the van (let alone the fact that Leandra's required a new inner tube which I hadn't replaced yet) so we decided to skip the family bike/picnic day in Syracuse hosted by the awesome Kevin, Kathy, Zach (professional biker), and Eliza. Instead, I took the kids to the dollar show to see Paul Blart: Mall Cop, and then to Subway to split a $5 Sub. Afterwards, we back home for me to do much needed yard work and for the kids to play with some friends.

Later in the day, Kendra ended up down the street riding bikes with a friend - Bailee. Around 6pm I received a call from Andrea (Bailee's Mom) telling me that Kendra had had an accident on her bike and had cut her chin and was bleeding - she was walking her home and Bailee was walking her bike home. I dropped what I was doing (of course) and started down the street to meet them. Kendra was holding a dishtowel on her chin and was obviously upset and crying. I tilted the towel down to examine her cut and then immediately put it back - exchanging that "look" with Andrea.

Needless to say, I took her right to Jordan Valley Hospital's emergency room and Lee took care of the kids at home, bringing them to the emergency room a little bit later. Leandra was quite upset, and really worried about her sister; but Lee did a great job in helping her calm down and understand what was happening.

I was with Kendra at the emergency room until 11pm - Lee took the rest of the kids around 9pm to Wendy's (because they still hadn't had any dinner and were starving), and then home to bed since they still had school in the morning. The doctor did a wonderful job stitching her back up and they also did a CT Scan to make sure her head was OK... or at least as OK as Kendra's has ever been!! :)

Kendra was awesome through the whole ordeal, but was very worried about getting stitches. She just kept saying she wanted to go home and go to sleep. I have to say that I did pretty good as well, until they were giving her the numbing shots. I really felt the blood drain from my head as I watched... Ugh!

I thought it was kinda funny, while we were in the back room waiting for the doctor, Kendra asked me why she had to be the one who always got hurt in our family. She said to me, "I'm just like Aunt Alli!" (Love you Alli!)

This is Kendra before the stitches...

She actually did get a little sleep while we were waiting for the area to get completely numb...

After 2 stitches were finished, the doctor had to go and help another patient for a minute (she was the only doctor there). Here's Kendra with the 2 stitches...

All 5 stitches finished...

This morning Kendra woke up feeling really good. I did give her some Ibuprophen because her jaw was quite stiff, but her headache is gone, her nausea is gone, and her chin isn't hurting her much. We feel extremely blessed that Heavenly Father was watching over her so her injuries were limited, and very fixable.

Thanks for listening to my lengthy story... We love you all!

90 Degrees!

OK OK... so I realize that I've TOTALLY slacked on our blog lately... hopefully, this will be a fun way to get going again!

We have a pretty firm rule (guidline, of sorts), at our house in which we do not play outside in the water until it is at least 90 degrees. So, it was no suprise to me today when I was bringing the kids home from school that they noticed the temperature gage in the van reading exactly 90 degrees! I knew it was going to be hotter today than it has been all year, so I was already expecting to be washing a bunch of wet clothes and towels this evening.... Totally worth it for all the FUN the kids had. Here's just a taste of my CRAZY children!!

I guess this marks our "official" start of summer fun!!

No soccer today!!

Today was SUPPOSED to be the opening day for West Jordan Youth Soccer Spring Season..... however, Mother Nature decided she wasn't ready for that just yet! Instead, we spent the morning building our family out of SNOW!


It was a really fun morning, although by 2:30, half of our "family" had fallen due to Mother Nature's warmer weather. Ugh! Oh, well... I've heard horrible rumors that we might have more next week! How does the saying go??? "If you don't like the Utah weather,... wait a minute" ? Yea, seems pretty believable lately!

Reading...

I feel extremely blessed that I have children who are such excellent readers! Still, they never cease to amaze me.... Yesterday we picked up the mail and found a letter from Hayden Peak Elementary addressed to "the parents of Qiyana Thornton". I had a feeling it was the standard letter they send for all new Kindergarten students with information on the up-coming orientation for parents... needless to say, Qiyana was extremely excited about the letter.

Qiyana has been reading AMAZINGLY lately, and so I thought (just for kicks) I would give her the letter and see how well she did. She read the greeting and the first 2 paragraphs with help on only 2 or 3 words. After that, she thought the letter was getting a little long and asked me to finish reading it to her. Lee and I just kept staring at each other,.... I called Mom and Dad to do a bit of bragging... and then I decided to video her reading the letter for the 60 seconds that my camera will record.

I'm having a proud Mom moment, so please endulge me!

Here is the beginning of the letter which she read :

"Dear Parents of New Kindergarten Students,

We will be holding an orientation for parents that have children attending kindergarten in the 2009-2010 school year on Friday, April 17, 2009 at 2:00 p.m. in the Hayden Peak Elementary activity room. The orientation will last approximately 30 minutes.

This meeting is for parents only. Please leave children at home. At the orientation we will explain the kindergarten program and introduce the kindergarten teachers. They will answer any questions you might have."

IT WORKS!!

OK,... so I have to admit that I was pretty apprehensive about Leandra's kite-making assignment. Neither I nor Leandra have ever made a kite from scratch before,... and while I thought we had done a pretty OK job, we did not have a chance to test it before she took it to school on Friday because of all the SNOW!! Suprisingly, Friday turned out to be a pretty decent day, and Leandra's teacher was able to go forward with her kite-flying plans.

I was SO happy when I picked the kids up from school and Leandra told me the GREAT news! "Mom, mine was the ONLY one in the whole class that flew!!" She added that actually, there was one other kite that flew a little, but not as high as hers. Fortunately, the other kite belonged to Chayston (a very nice boy in our ward), so it was OK. ;)

Let's Go Fly a Kite!!

On Saturday, the wind sure let us know it was blowing in Sunday's storm! Out in West Jordan, it almost felt more like Kansas (in black and white)! Anyway, as yucky as the idea of another snow storm sounded (after so many GORGEOUS Spring days!), we figured we'd try to make some fun of it and decided to run down to the soccer fields to do some kite flying. Granted, we were only flying the $1 Wal-mart kites, but the kids had a BLAST! The wind did get a bit cold, but it didn't slow them down too much.

Kendra even decided to get a bit "creative" with her kite flying.... (could we really have expected much less??)

Leandra has one last "big" assignment in her school class due this Friday (before they go off-track again). They're supposed to make their own kite (no kits!) and then the class will have a kite flying event that morning. Hopefully, the wind will accommodate the assignment!

PIRATES!!

I came home from a song practice on Saturday morning and found pirates in my house!! Lee had the kids clean up their rooms, vacuum, and do some chores... when they were finished Jordan and Leandra (aka Jack Sparrow and Will Turner) decided it was time to battle some pirates! (via the PlayStation)...


Note the "beard" Jack is sporting.... AWESOME!!