Pink Cast

Catherine finally got her cast put on this afternoon. It's pink! We had always assumed she would want a pink cast, and then about 2 days ago she decided she wanted a yellow cast. So we said she could think about it and get whatever color she wanted. She decided she definitely wanted yellow, but then they don't have yellow casts :( So we went back to option #1--pink!

Her arm is healing well. They did an x-ray today and it's still straight. I was surprised at how "bendy" her arm was when they took the splint off. They were being super careful to keep it straight. At the slightest movement it would bend, sort of like Gumby. It was very strange. I guess I thought it wouldn't do that at this point, but it's only been a week since they fixed it. She has to wear the cast for 5 weeks, so we'll get it taken off the week after we move (end of July). Still no swimming until then....

Catherine's Broken Arm

On Tuesday afternoon, Catherine broke her arm. She was climbing down off her bed and about halfway down, fell. When she tried to catch herself on her arm, it broke. I was standing beside her and literally saw her arm just bend. At first I thought "did I really just see that?" but then when I looked at her arm, I knew. It was definitely broken. Nobody's arm is supposed to look like that (especially my little girl's!) I immediately called my neighbor to come keep Will while I took her to the ER (trip #2 in 10 days). Jay met me there.

I naively assumed that if you go to the ER with a broken arm that they fix it. Instead, we came home with a splint and a bandage and were told to call the orthopedist the next day. So on Wednesday we went to see the orthopedist. He said that she needed to be put to sleep to fix it because the process of setting it would be pretty painful. So, Catherine walked around most of this week with a broken arm, which made me slightly paranoid. We went this morning to St. Francis to have her arm fixed. The procedure didn't take too long at all and Catherine did great. She was very brave and we were so proud of her. She really has handled it much better than I think I would have.

We'll be going next Thursday to get a cast (pink, of course). Catherine's biggest question about breaking her arm was whether or not she could still carry her purse. She's such a girl! She's very disappointed about not being able to swim and was sad to miss the rest of VBS this week. Overall she is adjusting well though and will hopefully be all better in a few weeks.

Catherine on Weds morning before going to the Dr:

At the Dr's office, checking out Virginia while we wait. Apparently her arm also hurts.

At the hospital this morning in pre-op. She was so brave and strong!

Swim Lessons

Catherine and Will took swim lessons at our gym this week. We signed up for classes, but we were the only ones who signed up for that time slot, so we had 1-on-1 lessons. I loved our teacher, Ms. Roslyn. She has 7 girls between the ages of 5 to 14, so she didn't hesitate to tell Catherine that she couldn't whine :) Perfect!

With Will, we worked on him being comfortable in the water, kicking his legs, reaching with his arms, putting his face in, blowing bubbles, and jumping in. Believe it or not, his favorite thing to do was just throw a ball in the water! By the end of the week, he really was much more comfortable and loved kicking, splashing, and jumping.

Catherine also worked on jumping. On the very last day, she even jumped in all by herself without holding anyone's hands! She practiced kicking her legs, using her arms to make strokes, floating, and even swimming underwater. She learned how to do the frog kick and even swam holding onto a kickboard. I was really proud of how much she learned and tried in just 1 week. She now wants to practice and show me all of her swim moves in the bathtub every night.

Two happy kids after swim lessons! They had a great time. I need to make sure I give them plenty of opportunities this summer to keep practicing and I'm sure they'll be swimming all by themselves before we know it. (Our new neighborhood will have a pool, so maybe we can practice there!)

On the Move

Our life is definitely "on the move" these days. We literally are preparing to move! Most of our friends and family know the craziness of the last few weeks. We put our house up for sale on Monday, May 18 while we were at the beach. We've been actively preparing for that since about March (remember painting week?) but the last few weeks of April and May were very busy with de-cluttering, organizing, and cleaning. So we went to the beach and on Friday (4 days later) had an offer on our house! We were totally surprised based on the current housing market. We had not even begun looking for a new house, so we had to start doing that immediately once we got back from the beach. We looked at 14 houses on Memorial Day, I saw 4 more that Wedsnesday, Jay and I saw 9 more on Saturday, and then I saw 10 more the following Tuesday. That's right--about 35 houses in 8 days. It was exhausting!

On that Tuesday, I saw a house that I thought I liked. It was a very different floorplan than the "traditional" homes we had seen and I wasn't sure if Jay would like it. We agreed that he should go look at it that Friday. We also had been seriously looking at 2 other houses and were having a really hard time determing priorities of space/function, price, location, etc. Well, on Wednesday morning our realtor called and said that someone else was putting in an offer on the house I had just seen the day before. If we were interested, we needed to decide that day and make an offer. We all went over around lunch time and had about 30 minutes to decide if we wanted to buy this house. Jay said he thought we should make an offer, so we did and they accepted it! We're now in the home inspection/repair stage of things and will soon get to the actual packing stage. We are very excited about the house. I really do think it's will be great for what our family needs.

It has truly been a crazy few weeks. I have no idea why God decided that it all needed to happen so fast. That was definitely outside of my comfort zone. He used the process to reveal a lot of my own sin to me (for example, what we need vs. what I want, my selfishness, etc). In the middle of the house searching process, I had a complete meltdown. I had lots of very patient family members and friends who talked me through it every day, and I'm very thankful for that. I still sometimes have slight moments of panic and think "what are we doing?" and I don't feel emotionally ready to say goodbye to our house, neighbors, and neighborhood here yet. But I know that this was all in God's plan. There's no other way to explain how it all happened. So I'll keep trusting Him with that and take one step of faith at a time.

And since you read all of my ramblings, I figured you may want to see Catherine and Will. We've been going to the park lots in the afternoon (I will really miss being able to walk to the park).

Catherine now likes to ride her tricycle to the park from our house. I think it's super cute.

Climbing all by herself. She's gained a lot more confidence with that sort of thing. She's even started going down the really big slide at the "big playground" all by herself.

Will going down the slide. He looks like such a big boy!

He loves to play and climb!

We also had our first ER visit with Will. He fell off the steps at the playground at church on Sunday and hurt his arm. He wouldn't use his arm after he fell and couldn't hold onto anything or even bend his arm to put a cracker in his mouth. He kept crying and crying--that "hurt" cry. It made my insides hurt. I was worried that maybe he had fractured or cracked something, so we went to the ER to check it out. Thankfully everything looked okay on the x-rays. The Dr said that he may have dislocated his elbow when he fell, but then it popped back into place on its own. His arm did still seem sore on Monday and Tuesday and he was reluctant to use it, but it seemed much better today. I feel like we're "officially" the parents of a boy now that we went to the ER!

We'll keep everyone posted on how things go in the next few weeks. We have VBS next week, will be out of town twice in July, need to pack and move all by July 24th. It's going to be really busy!