Camp Oak Hill Banquet

We had the privilege of attending a banquet Tuesday evening for Camp Oak Hill, a camp we go to each fall with our youth. A dear couple in our church, Ernie & Linda Baker (board member) have strong ties to the camp and invited us to be there guests for the evening! We had fun fellowshipping, eating yummy food, hearing testimonies and listening to the keynote speaker, Duffie Robbins! Jody was so excited to hear Duffy was going to be there! Duffie is a well known christian author and Jody has read many of his books. We tried to get a picture with him, but he left as soon as the banquet was over :-( Here is a picture of Ernie, Linda, myself and Jody. They also had a silent auction that was a lot of fun!

Thievin' it

Our little cupcake thief (not the only one either). . .she is so mischevious and gets into everything! She loves to climb and still hasn't reached the age where she realizes "DANGER"!

Here she had pushed a stool up to our kitchen island and helped herself to some cupcakes while being as quiet as a mouse of course! She is awfully cute, it's hard to discipline when you are laughing so hard!!!

Nursemaids Elbow

Quick update on Anna's elbow. Many of you know her left arm has been dislocated quite a few times, the doctors call it nursemaid's elbow. Nursemaid's elbow is a partial dislocation of the elbow, which occurs when the lower part of the arm (forearm) slips out of its normal position at the elbow joint. The injury is also called radial head dislocation, see picture below.

When this happens she immediately starts crying and her arm goes limp. The only way to fix the dislocation is to manually put it back in place. Since it has happened so frequently her doctors showed us how to put it back in place (which she will only let Daddy do). She had her first incident at 10 months old, we thought she broke her arm, but after a trip to the ER, x-rays and exam they didn't know what it was? We took her to her pediatrician the next day and she discovered the nursemaid's elbow, put it back in place and within a minute she was using her arm again. Her doctors told us the more frequent it happens the easier it is to happen again and that she should grow out of it. It has happened 5 times in the last 7 months (more frequency) and it seems it takes less "pressure" to dislocate, so we decided to take her to her pediatrician to check her out again. We took her a week or so ago and found out she is practically "double-jointed" which basically means she is very flexible. This could also be the cause of her elbow problems, they don't really know. Her pediatrician recommended we take her to see a pediatric orthopedic doctor for an evaluation (in rare cases they can do surgery) but he thought she probably wouldn't have the problem again. I called and made the appointment, the earliest was May 6th, and I'm glad I did because it happened again Saturday night! We are concerned because we have to warn everyone about her elbow and watch carefully when she plays with other kids or adults! Hopefully we'll see him and he'll say there is no lasting damage and they will simply have a baseline in case she has problems later. We'll let you know how her appointment goes. . .

Do you know what a walrus is?

The girls played outside for a good portion of the day yesterday. . .in and out. When I put "the sisters" (as Emma calls them) down for their naps Emma noticed there was a "walrus" by the front door. She kept telling me "mom there is a walrus and you need to kill it"! Of course I came to check out where the "walrus" was, thinking it was some animal in the front yard she had never seen before and had made up the name, but she was dead serious (and very confident) when she pointed to a fly trying to get out the glass door??? I have no idea why she called it a walrus! Since she is 5 I am always wrong on what things actually are and she always know the appropriate name for everything. Could that be why we have "sloths" flying around our front porch light at night too? I have enclosed a picture of both a walrus and a fly for you to compare...

Can you tell the difference???

Movie, Baby Shower, VW Swap, AWANA. . .

Beware. . .this one is a long one. . .

We began the weekend with a surprise (to all of us) trip to the movies! We never go to the movies, mainly because I think it's a waste of money to pay so much to see a movie a few weeks before it comes out ONDEMAND or DVD. The girls had been wanting to see Horton Hears a Who, so we were near the theatre, saw it was playing during the day (which is cheaper) so off we went, yes with all 3 kids. Of course it was fun, Lizzy decided 30 minutes in she was done with the movie and walked up and down the theatre stairs, eating popcorn off the floor and then yelling "Boop" because she pooped! The rest of us enjoyed the movie, it was a good kid movie.

Our good friends Matthew & Laura Hart are having their second baby in June and had a baby shower for baby #2 on Saturday in Winston-Salem! Emma went with me to the shower to hang out with Matthew & Laura's Lindsey (almost 5)! Jody was able to hang out with Matthew w/the other 2 girls while we were there, a small blow-up occurred but daddy was there to clean it all up! After the shower we went back to their house for dinner and to hang out for a little while and then back to our hotel! We stayed over night because Jody was planning on going to a Volkswagen show in Mocksville on Sunday.

We woke up Sunday and were surprised by a call from Jody's dad, Jeff, saying he was going to meet us at the VW show, Jody was really excited, Jeff is also a VW enthusiast! He lives in Tennessee, about 3 hours away from where the show was, we don't get to see him very much so it was a real treat for him to come! Jody was really happy to see him and hang out with him for the day! The girls were excited to see Papa J too! I do have to admit I had fun looking at all the VW's and even entertained the idea of driving a VW bus as my primary vehicle!

We ended the weekend with our AWANA awards program Sunday night! Emma is so excited because she moves up from Cubbies next year, which she has been in for 2 years now! She has already started calling herself a "Sparkie" and asked me the other day if she could go ahead and get her book now. Anna is excited because she will actually be in AWANA instead of Nursery (although she thinks this is the name of her AWANA class already). She was dissapointed because she thought she was going to be in Cubbies next year, because the school system here is changing the cut-off date for school she is not going to be able to :-( She was unhappy for about 30 seconds until we told her she was going to be in Puggles (AWANA for 2 & 3 year olds) instead! Lizzy will still be in nursery because she misses the Puggles cutoff by 3 days! Oh well, at least Anna & Lizzy aren't in the same class!!! Below is a picture of my 2 brothers, sister-in-law (my niece inutero), my dad and Jody's mom, my mom was sick and wasn't able to come :-( after the AWANA awards ceremony!