2nd grade Mentoring

I had the fun opportunity to be a Mentor in Halle’s class for a few weeks.  Basically, parents could pick whatever topic they wanted to teach the kids, plan some fun lessons and activities, and then the kids were able to sign up for whatever class interested them.  There were sports classes, science classes, vets, gardens, baking, etc.  I chose to do “Crafts for your American Girl Doll.”  I had 5 little girls in my group, and we had a blast making crafts for their dolls.  We made sleeping bags, tutu’s, tea sets, and duct tape dresses.  For one of our meetings we got to go on a field trip.  So, Jamie and I planned a cute little tea party, and the girls all brought their dolls to my house and had a fabulous tea party.  Good food, cute decorations, dolls…..what more could a girl want?  I’m so glad I did it!  I had a great time hanging out with Halle and her friends. 

Grace, Halle, Berlynn, Anna, and Quinn

New Additions to our Family!

We had so much fun going to Utah in March and visiting our new niece Gwen and our new nephew Leo.  We all loved snuggling on those sweet newborns!

Daddy Daughter dance

Here’s Halle and Rusty and the Annual Daddy Daughter Ball at Lifetime.  So fun!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter Everyone!  I just wanted to post the declaration about our Savior, Jesus Christ.  It is one of my favorites.  I had the opportunity to memorize it this year as part of my Personal Progress (Which I just finished), and it was an amazing experience. 

An Angry Bird Sling

Whenever Rusty is out of town I take the kids to the mall to kill some time. (Rusty says that sounds awful, but it’s true). We have a routine—shopping , dinner at the food court, and then play in the dinosaur play land.  When he went to New York a few weeks ago it was no different.  We shopped, ate, and were happily playing on the dinosaurs.  All of the sudden I heard Josh bawling, and another mom say, “Oh no!”  I ran over and Josh was laying on the ground holding something that resembled his arm.  My brain wasn’t sure what I was seeing because although I knew it was his arm, the u-shaped bend in the middle was throwing me for a loop.  As soon as my brain could process normal thought I knew it was broken.  Someone ran and got the mall “paramedics.”  They had to be the most ill trained people in the world.  They just stood there and looked at me and said, “What do you think we should do?”  Ummm….get a sling or a splint to stabilize his arm??  Turns out they didn’t have any slings or splints in their first aid bag.  So, I improvised….with an Angry Bird Hat.  All my years of first aid training finally paid off :)

I feel really bad that I took this picture, but Rusty wanted to see the sling.

He broke both the radius and the ulna.
Pre Morphine

Post Morphine

I drove him to the ER, and Jamie met me there to take Halle and Blake home.  What would I do without good friends?  My other good friend Fred manages the ER at Good Sam’s where we went, and it was so nice to see a friendly face.  Josh actually handled himself very well.  He didn’t cry much, he just kept saying, “My arm feels weird!”  After many x-rays and many hours the orthopedist arrived to set his arm.  They had to sedate him, but the whole process only took a couple of minutes.  They gave him a little morphine, and so when he came out of sedation he was feeling GREAT.  He got a popsicle and they sent us home.  He was kind of giddy at this point and kept saying how fun everything was.  Fun for who, exactly? 

Grandma Banks and Grandpa Banks sent him some balloons and a teddy bear.  It made his day to get a “special delivery” just for him.

He has adjusted to his cast really well, and doesn’t complain about it much at all.  We are pretty impressed—Josh isn’t normally a very brave soul, but he has handled this like a champ!

Baby shower

Mom, Natalie and I threw Carlie a baby shower over Christmas break.  Thank you to the blogging world for providing the inspiration.  Thank you to my Mother for providing the funds :)

We served Soda Pop with cute paper straws, popcorn, cake pops, rice crispy treats (snap crackle and pop), “pop”ular spinach dip, and "pop” something healthy (veggie tray)

See how happy I am NOT to be pregnant? 

Happy, Healthy Christmas

We had a Christmas Miracle this year—no one got sick on our trip to Utah!  I don’t think that has happened since Halle was born.  Because we were all healthy we had such a fun time!  Who knew Christmas could be so easy?  I usually come home so exhausted from traveling and taking care of sick kids that I can’t function for a week.  We had the usual Christmas Eve festivities at the Banks house—a yummy dinner (crab) and a cute little nativity program.  This year Halle played some Christmas songs on the piano.  She was so excited to play for her family, and she practiced for weeks.  She did a great job!  Opening presents with the cousins was total chaos, but it was so cute.  I know they are going to love looking back on these memories when they are older. 

Christmas Morning was at the Cornell house.  With Natalie and Carlie both pregnant, we disbanded the tradition of sleeping together in the basement.  Maybe the cousins can resurrect that tradition when they get a little older :)

Santa came!  Waiting to go see their presents

Blake got a “puppy house” (He loves to pretend he’s a dog—his name is Butch) and a dragon pillow pet

Halle got doll bunkbed’s from Santa with two tiny zebra pillow pets for her dolls.  Mom and dad got her a new bike!

I’m sad I don’t have a good pic of Josh, but he got an ipod touch from Santa which is just about the greatest present he could ever hope for.  He stared at it in wonder and said, “I can’t believe Santa gave this to me, I’m just a kid!”
His other classic Christmas line came when he opened up his pillow pet.  All the kids already have big pillow pets, and they wanted mini ones this year.  Josh has a dog.  So, he opened up his mini dog and started jumping around and shouting, “My pillow pet has a son!  My pillow pet has a son!”  He cracks us up.  He named the son Miniche.
It was the perfect Christmas!