The Price of Playing Ball

Bill has been playing basketball on Wednesday nights for a couple of years now without much incident. It's just a group of guys playing for fun at a school gym where one player is principal. This last week his luck ran out and he ended up with a terrible sprain in his left ankle. He's been hobbling around pretty pathetically for a couple of days, but is doing better with an ankle ace wrap (thanks Mom). Here are some pics of the injury...


The night of...I know it looks like his ankle is broken and hanging off and some horrendous angle, but it really is just sprained.

After compression, he turned seriously black and blue...it looks AWFUL, HORRIBLE!

Side-by-side comparison

Hopefully he will be walking normally soon. Even with this, he went ahead with his plans to take the girls to McAlester by himself while I stayed home and hung with my mom and sisters. What a trooper!

I can knit!

I've been wanting to learn to knit for a really long time but it always seemed so hard. My mom tried to teach me several times when I was younger, but I was never successful. I wasn't patient enough to get through the awkward stage and I hated making mistakes. I've been crocheting for several years (again, I was unsuccessful in my younger years when my mom and sisters tried to teach me. I just had to teach myself as an adult) and still enjoy making blankets, hats, and scarves, but I've always liked the look of a knit garment over a crocheted one. While I was rather impatiently waiting for Summer to be born last July, I borrowed a knitting instructional DVD from the library and learned the basics. Other than a dish cloth, I hadn't completed anything else, but I am working on a lacy scarf that takes a lot of time to do so I don't work on it much. Today I completed one side of an adorable little girl's top and I am so excited about it. The thought of making a garment truly intimidated me, but I was determined to try it and it came together really easily. The best thing of all is that it matches the pattern's measurements! The next few weeks are going to be pretty busy for me so I don't know when I'll get the other side done, but I can't wait to get it all together for Brooke. It is a size 4 so it may be a tad big on her now, but it will be perfect in just a few months I'm sure. When I complete hers, I'm going to make a matching one for Summer...they'll be so cute;)

I went ahead and had Brooke "try" it on. The shoulders will actually tie with the other half. Oh, and ignore the clothes underneath. She dressed herself today. Oh, yeah, many of you reading this didn't know that we cut Brooke's hair off...she loves it!

Six Months

I'm a few days late in posting this, but things have been hectic around here. But, our little Summer is now six months old! We just can't believe how fast the time has gone by. Summer is rolling over both ways and is also sitting up now. She is making some scooting movements as well, but that is mostly backwards and in circles. With all that, she can move quite a distance across the floor. She loves to busy playing with toys. Probably her two favorite toys are her Cabbage Patch baby we got her for Christmas and a Pooh Bear that a friend of ours sent her. When she sees them she reaches her hands out, opens her mouth wide, and just shakes with excitement. When she gets her hands on one of them she squeezes with all her might and, of course, brings them to her mouth. She's become quite particular about taking her bottles. She does NOT like to be idle while eating. If she doesn't have something to finger or fiddle with she will NOT finish the bottle. She usually likes her baby food, but has tried a few things she doesn't care for. She really likes things she can hold and chew on, like Mum-mum's and her mesh teether. It's a little mesh bag that you can put food in and as she chews on it, the food mashes up oozes through the bag. Since she's most likely working on the first steps of teething she really likes frozen foods in it. Her favorite snack is frozen bananas and blueberries...yum! We are so lucky to have this sweet little girl in our lives. We wouldn't be the same without her!

Three-year old sponge

It never ceases to amaze us the things that Brooke repeats. Lately she's has been very quick to tell on Bill or myself to the other parent when she doesn't like something we've done or said. I guess it was Thursday of this week that she was wanting to play in the laundry and was upset that Bill was trying to fold it. So she came to tell me all about it and said that Daddy "take all her fun away." I told her to go talk to him about that (we are trying to encourage her to work it out with the person she's upset with instead of "telling on them"). A minute later, I hear her say, "I no like thak. I no like your attitude down here."
How can you not laugh!?

Fire Drill

Since I do some part-time child care out of our home, I have to abide by state licensing rules. One of those rules is monthly fire and tornado drills, which I have failed to do until this month. Last week we did our first fire drill. Since we had never really talked about fires, what the smoke alarms are for, and what we should do in a fire we talked about that for a few minutes. Brooke was getting really nervous as I was telling them that we were going to practice what to do in case there was ever a fire. Anyway, the drill itself went pretty well, but Brooke was really shaken up and nervous for a good thirty minutes after. I had Bill check the library for some educational books and videos about fire so we could talk some more about the issue.
That night we read a book about "stop, drop and roll." The girl could not have been more serious. She was all business listening to this book. At one time Bill was reading about heat sources and began naming all the heat sources we have in the house. With each one, Brooke would nod her head slightly and say, "kay." She did the same thing all the way through the book every time there was new instruction.
Hopefully when we do our tornado drill it won't be so scary for her.

Paging Dr. Brooke

Today seems like a good day to post some updates and fun stories from around here.

A while back I found Brooke a Dr. kit on clearance and she loves it. At least once a day, she asks me if I want to be the "patienk" and gives me my "waxination." She uses her stethoscope to listen and tells me to "take a deep breaf." She also has an otoscope tool, but she's a little confused on that one. She puts it up to my eyes and looks through the other side, but when she puts it up to my ear she listens. I giggle every time! And the end of my "chep up" she declares that I am "all heaufy"
And of course, she loves to be the patient just as much as being the doctor.

An update in pictures

Sweet friends Summer and Mollie hanging out with Pooh Bear

Having fun at the indoor play-place at Crossroad's Mall. That's the only good thing left there!

Even Summer had some fun playing. Daddy was brave to let go

Look who can sit by herself now! Just a little cushion for when she tips over.

Finally got the exersaucer out. Brooke loves it just as much as Summer unfortunately