Oregon Zoo

Last Tuesday we had a busy day with my friend Jocelyn and her girls Eleanor and Phaedra.

We started at the library to sign up for their summer reading program and get a little concert from Eric Herman. I think Avery saw all the little kids there and immediately put on his 'too cool for school' attitude about the concert but thankfully he ended up getting into it when he realized the guy wasn't as dumb as he thought he'd be.

Then we headed to the zoo! We didn't realize it was $2 Tuesday (their site says once a month they have $4 Tuesday so I'm a little confused, maybe this was an extra special Tuesday?) so of course it was a mad house, thankfully we found someone leaving so parking wasn't bad.

Since it was lunch time we wanted to go have a picnic in the amphitheater first but on the way we went through the sea lion exhibit. This one kept circling around and swimming up in front of Avery and Carson over and over.


Once he did stop and float and just looked at me!


Phaedra likes Emmett. Remember Phaedra from the 18 Month Old party?


This is as close as I got to a group picture, but Carson is blocking Eleanor from view.


There's Eleanor!


Sometimes they bring birds out to train in the amphitheater and while we ate lunch a huge bald eagle was brought out. I had no idea they were so big! Anytime I've seen one they're not next to something that can give me a good scale. Of course, this picture doesn't show how big he is because they were only out for a few seconds and the dial on my camera got bumped so the couple shots I got were all blurry and as I realized what was wrong they left the stage.


With the bald eagle having been out, my boys decided to run around like insane birds. Although this is funny because it looks like sweet Carson just chose to be a chicken.


Well, hello! (I have no idea what this look is about)


Hello Emmett! Poor chin, too bad that evening Emmett stepped up the injury level and broke his arm!


Elephant!


Passing by the amphitheater again later, we stopped for a minute to watch a parrot in training. The trainer would carry him out to a pedestal in the crowd...


...and he'd fly back to the trainer on stage.


Drums in Africa




On to the lion exhibit. I thought I was just getting the boys sticking hands in the statue lion's mouth. Little did I know Avery was also inspecting another facial orifice...


Mrs. Lioness


Mr. Lion


When we got to the Cheetah the kids all jumped in the jeep that looks like it's driving right into the Cheetah enclosure.


Lazy Cheetah


Avery driving the crazy train. I mean jeep.
Or how about
Avery driving us (all crazy).


A different perspective


Hippo


Gazelle


Zebra which Emmett quite liked since he has a zebra book that's a favorite.


Lorikeets are loud and obnoxious! I seriously walked out of there with a headache. We were making our way back to the entrance so we were pretty done at this point anyway so the heat and my being tired probably didn't help, but still. That makes this red one the devil lorikeet.


Lazy tiger. Is the tiger ever not sleeping?


Lazy Emmett. Actually we got to the zoo a little before nap time so his stellar good behavior at the zoo was remarkable and he only fell asleep about 20 minutes before this. We tried to hurry to the car so he could go back to sleep and not be rejuvenated by a little cat nap and end up screaming on the way home. It didn't work, but at least he didn't scream. Avery fell asleep first, followed by Carson and eventually Eleanor. So, oddly enough, only the little ones still in nap age didn't sleep!


Fun times! We didn't see it all, but that's what a membership is for!

Unwelcome Guest

This unwelcome guest invaded our kitchen last Monday.


Eek! It's looking at me!


This picture has to be proof that all spiders are single-mindedly trying to attack me, as I've tried to tell Travis several times before.

Muddy Waters

Monday, during Emmett's nap Avery and Carson went outside to play. Carson came to me in the office after they were out a long time looking like this:


Seriously?

Worse though were the very dirty feet that had trod up my carpeted stairs. He had dutifully taken his sandals off first though, so how do I condemn?

Apparently they had found water left in the back little bucket of Carson's trike and decided to add dirt and make mud pie. Well, I didn't actually see any mud pie and failed to take a picture of the bucket full of mud in his bike, but they certainly got themselves muddy!

Shortly after Emmett woke up and I decided to let him have some fun too since baths were obviously inevitable. At that point Avery was playing in some muddy water they made in the wheelbarrow.




And since this is a dirty post... I did not realize what I caught in this picture until I saw it on my monitor. Do you see what I see? I've decided to spare you a closer crop of the image... You're welcome.


P.S. Yes, Avery has probably ruined that perfectly good white polo. There's a particularly stubborn spot that I'll have to try a few more treatments on...

First Broken Bones

Through all of our ER visits and injuries this is our first broken bone experience with our kids (Travis and I each had multiple in our day).

Carson is helping by pointing out the offending location. Yeah, Emmett took a header off that very spot two days ago.


We were getting the boys down for bed at the time and since it wasn't yet obviously broken, we decided to let Emmett sleep on it and we'd reassess in the morning. What a bummer end to a good day! The boys and I had gone to the library and the zoo with a friend of mine and her girls (I'll get to that post later) which meant Emmett didn't get more than probably 20 minutes of nap.

In the morning he woke way early (6:30) and he still wasn't using his left arm. Travis said it was in the forearm. When I looked at it I could tell it was the area just above his wrist hurting. The hurt arm meant he was very clingy and the lack of nap the day before and the early morning wake up time meant he fell asleep in my lap at 10:30am. When he got up several hours later I could see there was localized swelling at the spot I knew was hurting him so at that point I pretty much knew it was likely broken. I set up with Urgent Care to come in at 5:45 so Grandma H. could watch Avery and Carson while Travis met me at the clinic. I put an ace wrap on it which helped him a ton and I think he was glad to have it!


At urgent care the x-rays confirmed, definitely a break, both the ulna and the radius. They took three pictures, one with palm down thumb at 0 degrees, one with the thumb at 45 degrees and one with the thumb pointing up at 90 degrees. Here, in order of obvious breakage, are the x-rays which we were allowed to get copies of today.
Palm down you can see a little line and deformity at the edges about an inch up the radius (the thicker one) and deformity about a third of an inch up the ulna.


45 degrees shows lumps at those same locations where it should be straight


And at 90 degrees you can really see it. They put in the handy arrows that show all the spots.


So, time to get a splint! Too bad their smallest splint is way too big so his hand is much lower than it should be so that his wrist can be supported.


He's totally giving her a look like "what'd ya do to me!?" He's probably thinking how useless his arm will be now whereas the ace wrap let him still use his finger tips.


Today I called the pediatrician and we have an appointment for Monday morning to get a cast. Waiting a few days for the swelling to go down is going to be a pain with this over-sized splint! In fact, he woke up this morning with it off but the splint was still perfectly wrapped. I'm sure it would hurt too much for him to pull it off so it must have worked its way off.

PMPN's May Photo Contest

I won it! The theme for PMPN's May contest was "People at Work" and while I was reminded of this picture from two years ago of Avery "fixing" his train table, you'll have to head over to
Laurie Marie Photography for more details and to see the winning photograph! (It's from this project)

In Which Bath Time Ends Abruptly

But first there must be a gratuitous number (ten) of bath pictures.

This was last Saturday and we were trying to get a nice bath picture for my Mom per her request.

Two out of three boys isn't bad, but it's just not good enough.


Mostly we saw lots of splashing




And noise making (I love how Emmett always screams with his whole body tensed, arms pushing straight down)


I balanced stuff on my head, and they just waited for failure instead of smiling (I didn't even get smiles for failure!)


I counted down with gusto, and they just joined in


More noises




And in the end, this was about as close as we came to three nicely smiling boys


But this one is my favorite.


So, how did bath time end abruptly?
Well, here's some pictures from Sunday (the day after the bath) after church when we were headed up to change clothes.


I don't know why Avery just had to have me take his picture like this... but wait, what's that on Emmett?


That's the reason bath time ended abruptly.


He decided to climb the end of the tub with the sloping back rest and even as Travis and I were saying "sit down!" he slipped, conked his chin on the edge of the tub and slid down on his belly into the water with his face under. Seriously, never leave children unattended in the bath!
So Travis grabbed him up and set him on the floor and got his towel on him as I got down to comfort him. Only then did I realize he split his chin open! Three steri-strips later and a chinstrap of a bandaid and he was good to go. Now all three of my boys have accomplished facial scars. (Carson's, Avery's)I supposed this means Emmett will have a bald patch when he's old enough to shave. At least it's right under his chin...

You Can't Kill A Spider Plant

I have two small pots of spider plants in the house as well and since moving to our new house I put time on the window sill over our master tub. We've been in this house three months now and I think I've only watered them twice - after they sat ignored for two months! They were pretty droopy and not very vibrant green at that point but they perked right back up. Seriously, these plants stand up to neglect fabulously. That's probably why they are such common house plants.

Last fall a night time frost came early and got all my big outdoor potted plants. This pot has just been sitting in our garage with the dirt still in it ever since then. Then a few weeks ago I noticed some green poking out. Survivors! This pot had a few different plants in it, but it looks like the spider plant won the hardiness award. I wonder if it wouldn't have taken so long for something to show up if it had been in the light? Or maybe they had to rebuild a healthy root system in that time? So anyway, I put the pot just outside the back door and then the other day I took a closer look at the progress and it's looking great!


Such tiny little buds off the old stock!

Outside

Avery has a friend across the creek. They seem to be pretty good buds, when I came outside with the camera this day to look for any leftover Garden Spiders I heard the other boy say, "So wha-da-ya wanna do today?" Really? How much can they "do" from these spots? They certainly chat a lot though!


A little later the girl next door came out and (there's a section of fence between our properties that's just the black cyclone instead of privacy so they talk there but it's on the other side of the yard from this picture) came calling "Avery! Avery I'm over here!" Poor Avery stood there looking back and forth like "what am I supposed to do now?" Across-The-Creek friend can't see Next-Door-Neighbor friend otherwise I can only imagine the three of them chatting away the afternoons!

A little later a couple of the ducks that like to hang out on our section of the creek came along and stayed for a bit.


I know, I know, I just did a potato bug post last week, but this was a big one too and I noticed in this picture afterward that there's a partial potato bug shell at the bottom center of the picture that's kind of cool. I also wonder what the shiny clear-ish ball about a half inch in front of the potato bug is. A (future) grub?


Obviously Avery had to come see what I was looking at, so he had to pick Mr Potato Bug up. For some reason I like these guys. No clue why, I just think they're kind of cool.


I will try to refrain from more potato bugs for at least a little while now. :)

Garden Spiders

A couple weeks ago Avery came running to tell me about a big ball of little spiders outside. I went to look and this is what he found. I took just this shot and then went to call Travis to ask him to bring the macro lens home from the office for the weekend so I could get a closer look. Unfortunately, first it was raining and then I got food poisoning and was laid up for a few days.


Something interesting about these little Garden Spiders, they pack together in this ball and if the network of webbing is disturbed they will "jump" apart, all shooting down a separate line of web until the perceived danger is over and then they'll gather back together.

By the time I got back out to look it was a full week later and I was just hoping to find one left nearby. That's exactly what I found. One. But they're so tiny that the small amount of breeze had him whipping back and forth all over the place so he was tucked up in this little ball just holding on and I'm surprised I go a shot in focus. So, introducing: Mr. Garden Spider Butt.