Surgery and Stitches and Staples

This is how Sean spent much of his holidays this year. His fall on Thanksgiving ended up being a crushed bone and a fracture in his leg. He got a nice brace to wear (which should have been made out of GOLD for the money they charged for it), and then he had surgery the weekend before Christmas. The surgeon went in and put a plate in his leg and a handful of screws into his bone and then sealed him up with 23 staples. He stayed in the hospital overnight. The surgeon said everything went well, and he came out of the anesthesia with no problem. He came home and spent most of the next week on a mattress in our front room. He went into work 6 days after the surgery for a little while (I guess it's good that it happened around the holidays because he already had several vacation days). He was able to be up on it more and more by the time Christmas came, and the pain was under control as well. He went in this last week to his doctor and got his staples out and was also allowed to take off his brace here and there if he wanted to. Things are healing up just fine and he should be able to walk around on it again in another 3 and a half weeks.

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a lovely Thanksgiving yesterday, minus the knee blow out that Sean got during his Turkey Bowl (football game) that morning. Poor guy can hardly move. We had our friends, the Bucks, over for dinner. Our feast included turkey, gravy, sweet potato casserole, green beans, peas, homemade rolls, raspberry jello salad, corn souffle, stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce, apple-ginger ale, and party punch. Later we went to some other friends' house for dessert (the table was packed with desserts: probably 15 options). It was a great day.

Earlier this month we had a Family Home Evening on Gratitude. Throughout the rest of the month we wrote down things we were thankful for on popsicle sticks and put them in our "Thankful Jar." Here are some of the things on the sticks:
Church
Running vehicle with no payment
Missionaries
Veterans
Jesus
Priesthood (and that we can be healed through it)
Food
God
Austin
Holy Ghost
Clothes
Nature
Daddy and Mommy
"Best Wife and Mom ever"
Holidays
Family

I also did a little photo session with the kids. I wanted to do family pictures for our holiday card, but then Sean broke himself and I didn't want to make him have to move around all over outside (we'll have to do the family one later).

Baby Lovin'

This little guy is so squishable and squeezable and kissable. Sometimes it's hard to get enough...but we try, believe me.

Body Art

I put Nathan to bed with normal, skin colored legs. The next morning he snuck up to our bed (which he still does occasionally) and this is what he looked like. Unfortunately it was permanent marker, so it took some good scrubbing to lighten up the color. It's been a couple of weeks now and his legs are back to normal. Always keeping things interesting.....

Salmon Snagging

Sean really wanted to try for better luck at the salmon snagging excursion (he had gone a couple weeks earlier with the scouts and got stormed out) so we decided to take a little family trip up to the lake for the weekend. We headed up after the kids got out of school on Friday. We stopped and had Blake's burgers and fixes the tail light on the van (after getting pulled over and given a warning for it) and then made our way to El Vado Lake. We reserved a little cabin right there by the lake. It was a cute two bedroom wood cabin right along the river. We hung out that night. Sean took Caelan and Ben over to lake and through in their line a couple of times. The next morning we got up and made breakfast right there in the cabin: eggs, potatoes and sausage. We caught two deer fighting in front of the cabin, which was pretty entertaining to watch. The kids played with a few dogs that were wandering around in front of the cabin. Then we headed over to the Lake Heron and fished. Sean helped the kids with their rods. We stayed in one spot for a couple of hours with no luck (there were probably 20 other fishermen around us and no one was catching anything). We tried another spot and there was no luck there either. We drove by two other spots and asked around, but apparently the fish weren't out and about that day. We decided to head home. The kids had a blast playing along the water front and climbing the rocks. We stopped in Santa Fe at a Spanish foods store and picked up some spanish sausage and then got dinner in Albuquerque before we arrived home. We'll have to try it again next year. It was a fun family getaway, even if we came home empty handed.

Baby Blessing

We blessed Austin on November 6. It was a small little circle: the bishopric, Sean and Grandpa Dick, but it was special. He was blessed to be a good influence on his family and to always know how much they love him. He was blessed to stay worthy throughout his life to do important things like serve a mission and get married in the temple. It was a good blessing and he was quiet as a mouse through the whole thing. Sean's Uncle Tom and Aunt Carolyn and cousin Rachel came too. We came home and had a roast dinner. Good day (also Megan's birthday so it was a celebration all the way around).

Twinners

Austin:



Nathan:



Little Twinners