Never a Dull Moment

The weather here has been so beautiful lately! I love the fall in Cali. It's cool in the evenings and mornings and then perfect during the day to play outside and enjoy nature. Most people look forward to weather like this. If, on the other hand, you have five active children, it can bring a whole new element to enjoying the outdoors; danger!

Most kids have a certain amount of clumsiness. Being accident prone is part of being a kid. But, the more kids you have, the higher your chances are of those accidents actually happening.

Take for instance, a club house. It's just a bunch of branches that hang just right to make a little den, the kids have named it "7-up" (I have no idea why). The kids have been playing back in 7-up since we moved to this house 11 months ago. Then, all in one week, three of our kids slipped while climbing some branches and got some nasty scrapes. Beckhams' was definitely the worst and Parker asked to be removed from the picture (she's 9, do I need to explain any more?). (and I don't know why Beckham and Makay are wearing each others pillow cases)

This last Wednesday was a half day, as usual. Half days are fun because the kids can get their chores and homework done early and then have lots of time to play outside in the beautiful weather. Well, this Wednesday took a turn for the worse. Easton was playing with a friend in his yard and soon came home with a bloody tissue pressed to his leg.

Luckily there wasn't much pain with this gaping wound because it turned into quite the ordeal. Ryan had the car at work with him because they were running through disaster exercises all week. I called his work trying to get him to come home and he was out of the office doing a field exercise. The poor guy had to be tracked down with walkie talkies and told his son had to go to the hospital.

Ryan made it home, we all jumped in the car and took him back to work. Then I dropped the kids off at a friends house and Easton and I went to the nearest ER in Lompoc. I couldn't believe it was our first visit to the ER since we moved here. We were frequent flyers in Pittsburgh.

Anyway, Easton got 6 beautiful stitches and a frosty from Wendy's. (It has kind of become a tradition since Makay got one when she broke her clavical in Pittsburgh.) If things really do come in threes then I don't want to know what is coming next!

Along with our injuries have come some really good times and some pretty funny conversations. On our anniversery weekend we were heading home from church and Ryan asked the kids how they knew that mom and dad loved each other. Easton said he knew we loved each other because we are always hugging and kissing each other "in inappropriate places." !!!! What?!? Ryan asked him what he meant and he said, "Like how you always kiss in the kitchen and when you were kissing each other at the pool in front of other people. So gross!" Haha. We got a good laugh out of that one and our inappropriate kissing.

Here Makay got clever with a belt and made a "bunny pack"

For some reason, boxes are better then toys at our house. I thought the kids would have grown out of that stage once they were, um, 2 years old, but apparently not. Any new box, if not carefully protected by me, becomes subject to their imagination.

This one became a house that helped Makay sleep. She kept her head in it's house for three nights before it magically disappeared. She was very upset when she couldn't find it on the fourth night because "How am I supposed to sleep when my head doesn't have a house?"

How do you argue with that?