Guess who is......

... riding a bike without training wheels!  Yeah!  All of our kids can now ride without training wheels.  

Kaelynn had been hesitant to try riding without her training wheels all last year, but since getting her new bike, she has been interested in trying it.  We tried teaching her on her new bike, but it was a bit much for her to handle.  So, we took the training wheels off of her old bike thinking that if she was able to get the hang of it on that one, that she would graduate to the bigger bike quickly.  

Andy took Luther to the airport this afternoon and I asked Kaelynn if she wanted to try it.  She said yes right away and we went to it.  It only took one time up and down our sidewalk and she was riding on her own.  

Here's a little video:

A circus birthday

Kaelynn turned 6 yesterday and we had quite the celebration!  When I heard the Shrine Circus would be in town this weekend, I knew we had to make that her birthday party!  It's been soooooo long since I've been to the circus and our kids have never been.  I called the first day the tickets went on sale and we got front row seats!!!!!!  I was so excited!  

Kaelynn was able to invite three friends.  It was a hard decision for this social little girl, but she chose three great little girls!  They came over at 5:00pm for some homemade pizza and cupcakes and ice cream. 

 We opened presents before we went to the circus.  This is Kiara.  She is in Kaelynn's class at school.  Such a sweet little girl!

 This is Allie.  She lives in our neighborhood and she and Kaelynn are very good friends.  They are not in the same class at school, but will both be at Eastwood next year and just might be together!

This is Emma, Kaelynn's cousin.  She loves to play with Emma and these two friends have had some fun times together!

Andy and I got Kaelynn a new bike.  She is trying to keep up with her brothers in the height department and is not disappointing.  She is one of the tallest in her class and very much needed a new bike.  We went to a 20 inch that does not have training wheels.  Guess what we will be working on this spring?  Yep, riding without training wheels.  

 Four precious, giggly girls ready to hit the road!

The circus was soooooo fun!  It was about 2 hours and 15 minutes long and the acts did not disappoint!  They were awesome!  I caught lots of wide-open mouths, including my own!  

What's a circus without cotton candy!

The elephants were my favorite!  They were so cute and did lots of fun tricks.  I didn't have to zoom in too much on these pictures.  We were this close!  It was definitely a great experience!

What a weekend!

This weekend was a whirlwind of activity, but an incredibly rewarding one!

We celebrated Kaelynn's 6th birthday with my family.  Her actual birthday is this coming Friday.

Karrie and Justin, Emma, Ava and Brendan came over to help us celebrate!

The day was absolutely beautiful and a basketball game was just what everyone needed to run off the sugar from the cake and ice cream.

Here's a cute pic of my mom and Kaelynn in one of her new outfits from Autie Katie, Uncle Rusty and family.

This afternoon, the Kingdom Kids Choir at Bethel presented the musical Let's Rock.  Connor and Carson are in the choir and I co-directed it.  It was so fun and went as smoothly as it could have gone.  To say that I am blessed is putting it lightly.  The kids were amazing!  They sing a song called "I Will Glorify" and the lyrics say, "I choose to glorify You Lord, in every way, every day
Lord be glorified in my life
No other one, no other Name
You'll receive my praise
Lord, in everything be lifted high
I will glorify"

When I saw 45 kids singing those words straight from their hearts on that stage this afternoon, the tears were flowing!  It was an awesome thing to be a part of!

Here are a few pics from the dress rehearsal on Friday night.

Connor and Carson had a non-speaking role as the video crew for the music video that was being produced in the plot of the musical.  They took this part very seriously and did a great job at it!  Way to go buddies!  

We have a full week ahead with Connor and Carson's school music program on Tuesday and a circus birthday celebration on Friday for Kaelynn.  The Shrine circus will be in town and we have front row seats!  I can't wait!  Hopefully a little rest will be had in the midst of all of it!

Oh what a glorious day!

You know the saying that March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb.  Not so the case this year in FM.  We have had an unbelievable winter and spring it proving not to disappoint as well.  Yesterday was over 60 and we are supposed to be in the 60's all week.  WooHoo!!!

We took advantage of the beautiful weather yesterday afternoon.  The clothing of choice for this beautiful day:

Yes, that's right a T-shirt, spring skirt, and winter boots!  Sometimes you choose your battles, and this was one I was not willing to fight.

Here are the kids on the snow mountain in our cul-de-sac wearing shorts:

 
The bikes came out:

And basketball was played:

I love the determination on Carson's face to make this shot.  He is passionate about sports in general, but his love for football and basketball far outweigh the others.  This winter he was outside most days shooting hoops after school.  This is from a couple of weeks ago.  

On another note, I really, really love Kaelynn's hair!  It has gotten so long and pretty.  However, I do not like the tangles that come with the long hair.  Brushing her hair in the morning has become quite the battle.  We have been in the process of growing out her bangs since last summer and they are about to her chin.  Her best friend at school has curl, long hair and Kaelynn wanted to have curly hair. So, instead of standing in the bathroom with a curling iron for an hour and a half, I decided to french braid her hair while it was wet and then she slept on it.  Here's the results on Sunday morning:

She was so excited, that she wanted to do it again on Sunday evening for Monday.  It didn't go quite as smoothly as she had quite the tangles to comb out first.  It was fun for something different though.

 

Update

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers for Andy.  He is doing much better and is on the road to recovery.

We can attribute all of the craziness to a giant muscle spasm.  Who knew we'd use all of our flex for the year on a muscle spasm gone wrong!

Seriously though- Andy got out of the hospital on Wednesday was tired, but feeling for the most part okay.  His hip was still sore and stiff, but the rest of his body was pretty good.

He went to a chiropractor today and is getting some relief.  The chiropractor thinks he will be back to training in 3-5 days.  Hmmm!

In other news, we are gearing up for a busy week ahead with the children's musical next Sunday 3/18.  Connor and Carson are both in the chorus and have a non-speaking part in a couple of the scenes.  They are taking this part very seriously and feel quite important!  I am super excited for it.  I love directing this choir and love seeing the kids' hearts to worship God shine through their voices and faces.  It gives me joy beyond measure!

Again, thank you all so much!  We love you and feel blessed to have such wonderful love and support.      

From bad to worse in a hurry....

It's pretty late on Tuesday evening, but I'm pretty jazzed up from the last few hours.  Andy is lying in a hospital room right now for overnight observation.  He's okay!!!  There is a story to tell though.  Here it is:

Andy has been training to run the FM 1/2 marathon in May.  He has been running 4-5 times a week and has lost over 20 pounds.  I have been very proud of him!  This morning he did what his program told him to do- run at an incline of 3 for a certain amount of time.  He hadn't run at that steep of an incline before, but thought it would be good for strength training.  After his run, he was a little sore and when he moved a certain way, he felt something wasn't right in his hip.

He went about his day with a little pain, but not too bothered by it.  This afternoon he went into the balcony to work in the production room and when he sat in a chair, something happened and he immediately felt excruciating pain in his hip.  So much so that he couldn't put any weight on it!  He called for some of his staff to come help him down the 30+ stairs of the balcony and called the ask-a- nurse to see if he should have it looked at.  They said since he couldn't walk on it, he should go in.

He called me at 5:15 and I got the kids in the car and went to get him.  Jonathan wheeled him out to me in the church's wheelchair, and I thought, "This could be bad."  Little did I know, bad can get worse pretty quickly....

I was back and forth throughout the evening from the walk-in, to getting supper for the kids, to taking them home and arranging a babysitter for them and back to the walk-in.  Andy was given a few different pain meds and was taken for x-rays.  The nurse said the pain meds were very strong and that he would feel pretty crazy.  He did start to feel a little loopy, but they did work and the pain started to get a lot better.  When the Dr. came in from reading the x-rays, she said there was no bone damage and that it was possible that it was something with the muscle. She asked him if he could he stand on it, which he thought was possible and he kind of stood up.  Bad decision!

About 3 minutes after he sat down, he got completely white and said he was going to puke.  He then passed out while in the wheelchair.  They couldn't get his head down between his knees, so he lost oxygen to his brain which then caused him to go into some sort of a minor seizure.

Can I just tell you, after Kaelynn had her seizure when she was a baby, I really didn't want to see another one, and now my husband was going through one!  Not cool!

I backed up into the hallway and tried to stay out of the way as best I could.  There were about 6-7 people in a tiny waiting room trying to figure out how they were going to get him lying down to get oxygen to his brain.  They got him into a little bigger room when he regained consciousness, but then the words, "Rapid Response Team" were announced several times over the loudspeaker and about 15 people with all kinds of equipment came running from every direction.  Not kidding!!!  I was doing okay with it all until I heard the sentence, "We need a crash cart in here now!"  I lost it at that point.

Thankfully, they didn't need to use it!  He was able to come out of the hypertension and regained oxygen pretty quickly.  After several hours of lab tests, and solutions being pumped into him, they decided to admit him to the hospital for overnight observation.  When I left him, he was doing ok.

So here I sit, recalling the story, trying to get tired enough to go to sleep.  Tomorrow is another day and I am so thankful that I get to spend it with my husband and kids!!!!!  Praise God!

It sounds like he will be released tomorrow sometime.  We are still not sure about the hip thing.  He is on the orthopedic wing of the hospital, so I'm assuming he will have someone come take a look at his hip before he leaves.

Nothing like a little drama to start off an already crazy couple of weeks...........