BROKE?! What do you mean BROKE?!

Monday, like a bit more than a week after Jeff left for Alabama I took the kids to the gym, per my necessary (especially when Dad is TDY) sanity break planning on the normal weight lifting day. Not 15 minutes into the day and the childcare lady came looking for me. She said that Kale had been hurt coming off the slide and just wasn't calming down and didn't want to stand. Oh man! So I went back and checked him out and after about 10 minutes still didn't want to put any weight on his feet, I knew something was up (this kid will knock his head and keep on walking - it's a 2nd child defense mechanism, I'm convinced). Thankfully, friends (who also live up the street) were there working out with me and were able to let Haley stay and play while I took Kale to the Hospital up the street.

10:00 we walked into the ER and by 2:45 we finally saw a doctor. When we left for the gym this morning we didn't plan on a trip to the hospital so I had no snacks or even a sippy cup so another good friend was able to bring Kale a lunch and some food for me too. Seriously? What would I do without these friends of mine? Oh yeah, I'd have a starving three year old and a starving, hurt 21 month old, as the hospital for nearly three and a half hours! Awesome!

Anyway, they x-rayed him three times on his left ankle (where he felt most of the discomfort), and determined that there was no visible break but explained that with toddlers it can sometimes take five to seven days for a break to show up and that we should follow-up with the pediatric orthopedic soon and see what she has to say about it. They put him in a "soft cast" which was basically a fiberglass splint, wrapped with an ace bandage. He couldn't get it wet and was not allowed to put any weight on it. I was worried about the latter part of that advice, but it didn't seem to be a problem since he just didn't want to put any weight on it.

His new favorite hang out: by the tv with his babylegs on and his soft cast. Oh, and his Duplo blocks. He LOVES his Duplo blocks and has logged many hours with those things since getting his soft cast.

Favorite show? Yeah, lately it's been Strawberry Shortcake - I get it, it's Haley's favorite too, and it's all ranch/farm themed so I think it's less about the characters and more about the topics. But he runs around demanding "Shortcake... Shortcake!"

Yesterday (Thursday) we did the follow-up with the Pediatric Orthopedic (Dr. Mindy Siegel). She did some poking and prodding and determined that there was a "toddler fracture" on his left tibia. The doctor told me that she was almost certain that this was caused by his shoe catching on the slide as he was going down stopping his foot while his body continued forward. She also wanted to make him crawl to rule out a broken femur. Now, I've seen him crawl in the past couple of days but the doctor had to see it too. She asked if she could bribe him with s-u-g-a-r, and if you know me, it's nothing my kids haven't seen or been bribed with on a near daily occasion so, yeah, go ahead. We pulled out an entire bucket of suckers and nothing. Pulled his ga-gi away from him, nothing. Unwrapped the sucker, nothing. I finally went around the corner of the hallway and played peek-a-boo with the unwrapped sucker, and the ga-gi and he came smiling around the corner to see me and gave the doc what she needed to see.

She determined that he needed to be in a short cast for three weeks (for those of you doing the math, it comes off the day before Dad comes home). She also said that they now offer a Gortex waterproof cast but that insurance won't cover it so I can pay... wait for it... $10 out of my pocket. What? $10 so that when my kid inevitably sticks his foot in the dog water (happens once a week) I don't have to run back to the doctors and get a new cast put on? Yeah, sold. I would have paid a lot more.

Also, it's very much worth noting that my kid was an absolute champ getting his cast on. He sat there with no tears, fussing, not even so much as a flinch putting the cast on. To include when they had to use the saw to cut some off to free his baby piggy. He was a perfect angel. I just can't help but worry about when Karma is going to catch up with me for this one... he can't have been that good for no reason at all. Or, maybe it is my Karma for having to deal with a kid in a cast for three weeks. Yeah, it's going to take more than that. So, here are the pictures of The Dude and his cast.

This one says "See? This is my good foot!"

Haley and Mommy were the first ones to sign it. Haley chose to draw a picture of Mommy, Daddy, Haley, Kale, Gramma, Papa and Uncle Ben. Clearly.

I feel it should also be noted at the end of this post, that I'm creating a new label for this post and quite likely future posts: Injuries. Like they've told me at the ER... I have a boy, this probably won't be my last time in the ER. For the record, it's number 3 for him, the first for injury.

Kinda Crafty, This Girl Is

So, a while back my sister came out to visit and we took her to this little Hippie town at the base of the mountains out here called Manitou Springs. We wandered around the town, looked at the creek that goes through town, shopped, hula-hooped on the sidewalk outside of a store, shopped, played on the old arcade rides, and shopped some more. It was a really good time, and that day the weather was great for Colorado in October. Well, we found this really great shop called Safron right at the edge of the shopping area that had a ton of purses that Molly just loved and some really super adorable dresses and aprons for little girls. They were pricey for kids cloths but so cute and Molly really wanted to buy one for Haley, I relented knowing that one pricey dress could equal many more if I had something to model it after. The super cool thing about the dress (aside from the awesome retro prints) was that it was reversible. Fast forward a few months to wearing this to like the third birthday party and my ever so careful three year old spills cake on her dress. No worries, we just flipped it and she had a clean outfit in pictures again. PERFECT!

The original "birdie" dress. The flip side of it has the trees on the pocket for the main print and the birds and eggs for the pocket. Stinkin' cute!

So Jeff is TDY for some training and I've been just kind of hanging around the house with a couple of kids. When a coupon for 50% off at JoAnns came through the Sunday ads, I knew this was the perfect time to start on my projects. For just more than $30 I was able to get all the supplies I would need to make three dresses, and have a bit of fabric left over for other projects. I started in the afternoon making and cutting patterns, transferring them onto fabric and cutting them out. About 6 hours later I still couldn't figure out this crazy dress. Our neighbor came over to help, and I probably ended up ripping out the seams on every edge at least twice (some places lots more). I finally gave up for a bit and put the kids to bed. A bit of Googling past bedtime and I found the answer here. Stupid easy, just like I suspected, and only took about 45 minutes of sewing. This is the first dress:

Just like the name it's kitties and flowers. I made a couple of modifications from the tutorial dress... I added the pocket just like her birdies dress, and instead of having the bows tie the shoulders together (which would drive my daughter nutso, resulting in her untying the bows causing her dress to fall down around her ankles), I put them in the back, you can see how in the pictures.

Dress number two is a pattern of adorable owls and a coordinating striped print. Very "her". In fact, after I took the pictures she didn't want to take the dress off so she's still wearing it (with pizza stains already, guess it's time to flip it).

Dress number three you'll have to wait a bit for. I picked up a couple of green damask prints (one dominantly green the other dominantly white) and will use them to make Haley's dress for an important bridal shower and rehearsal dinner coming up this summer.

So that's what I've been up to keeping myself busy... among a few other things, but we'll get there next.

El Duda

that's right, we call him "El Dooda", or "The Dude" to you. He takes satisfaction in the liberation of toes from the oppression of socks and shoes, and his signature is rubber boots for every outfit. Don't mess with "El Dooda".

In reality we stopped by Dairy Queen and Jeff got an ice cream cone that Kale was all too happy to help him eat, thus resulting in the chocolate (or "chok-it" as he calls it) mustache.

And because it's the goofiest thing he does... "Cheeeeeeese Face"

Haley was asleep for the trip.

Birthday Party and Easter Day

So it was a busy weekend for us at the Roberson Homestead. Saturday was Hailey Madison's birthday. Hailey is Haley's same name friend from way back when Crystal and I were pregnant. They're BFF's whether they like each other or not, the or not doesn't seem to be a problem. Anyway, Hailey Madison turned three this week and we got to go celebrate. Crystal planned a bunch of really fun games for the kids to play and they all had a ball (then went down stairs in a sugar rush and tore up the playroom in the basement... good times).

This is Kale with our friend Owen. Poor Owen drew the short straw and got Kale for his partner, and he was such a good sport about the whole thing, just put his arm around him and was so patient and helpful. They didn't really move very far from this spot for the race, but everyone got a prize.

Haley and Hailey waiting for the go sign... I think Hailey is talking some trash here and our Haley is backing her up. They did pretty well, but it's hard to beat a couple of 5 year old boys.

Speaking of trash talking, Kale may not have enough words to tell Haley to "Bring It!" but I think his expression says it all.

The party was a blast and my kids came home and crashed for bed. Crystal was a fantastic hostess (as always) and it was great to see everyone.

So on my way to bed Saturday night I realized that I had forgotten my camera at Crystal's so I sent her a text at 11:30 and was on my way to her house at about 7:00 in the morning to pick it up before the kids went downstairs to see what the Easter Bunny had brought.

Kale was super excited about his truck load of Easter stuff. That scratch on his face? Yeah he wouldn't share one Mega Block with his sister (we have about 500 of them), so she took four fingers and scratched him right down his cheek, that's the one that really stuck. I think we mentioned this in the post before this and the phone call to the Easter Bunny that ensued.

As you can see, we really followed through with that whole "just bring a basket for Kale" thing. She was excited about the stuff in her basket too, but when she saw the pretty dress that he brought her, she about lost it, jumping up and down and couldn't wait to put it on (Mean Mom made her wait till after she ate her breakfast).

After Easter baskets, we all got dressed up in our Sunday best and headed off for Easter Sunday services at church. It was a nice service and a great reminder of the reason for the special day. After that we ran home and got some things and headed off to our friends Ashley, Tim and Addison's house. Now here's an Easter rabbit trail for you: Ashley and Jeff went to school at The Academy and had a bunch of classes together, then were both stationed out at Vandenberg after school, and then went our separate paths. Fast forward a few years and I'm out at the pool at our gym and this girl asks me if I'm Jeff Roberson's wife, "why yes, I am... why?" Ashley re-introduces herself to me and we end up being workout buddies training for the triathlon together and now we spend pretty much 5 days a week at the gym accountable to each other. We're currently training for our half marathons together. She's a great motivator and most of all a great friend. But I digress, Ashley and Tim had us and some other friends over for a delicious Easter Brunch, and Easter Egg Hunt in their back yard. There were some rumors about them hiding champagne in the bushes for the adults (me) to find, but it turned out to be just talk. Boo.

Haley and Addison hanging out on the couch talking (like their mom's do) and reading books. They were such girls and so adorable.

Hey look! A family picture!! We're all dressed up and it's actually documented... a regular Easter Miracle!

Haley outside in her Easter dress. She also had little white gloves that matched, but they made it kind of hard to play. She's also wearing the necklace that she got from her God Parents at her baptism for the first time. She loved having her diamond necklace on (like Mommy)!

The Dude-A-Man modeling his Easter clothes for us. He kept looking at me and saying cheese, but I wasn't fast enough on the trigger.

Dad and Dude playing in a backyard with grass... they do exist! Hopefully we'll have ours by the end of next month!

Haley doing her best at the Easter Egg Hunt. She picked up a ton of eggs, including the ones that "fell" out of Kale's dump truck.

Kale pretty much just enjoyed following the other kids around and watching them pick up eggs, but he finally got the hang of it, then he would "dump" his truck when it got full (because that's what you do when a truck gets full... duh)!

Showing me his egg that he picked up, he really did have a fun time.

Haley, looking around suspiciously at the other kids while she loads up her basket. When the hunt was over she was only a couple of moments away from being that kid that takes eggs out of other kids baskets. We stopped in the nick of time.

So that was our weekend, busy but so great and full of nice family time. I think Easter is officially my favorite holiday, I went to bed Sunday night and could only think that it had been such a fun day.

Hippity Hoppity Easter's on its Way!

Yup, Easter is around the corner and the kids (me) are really having fun prepping for the holiday. To date there are 2 batches of sugar cookies mixed, rolled and frosted and put onto plates ready for brunch. For the record, frosting butterflies is pretty dumb. Jeff will tell you the best part about these two batches of cookies is that he didn't have to do one little thing... not even the dishes... he owes me. I baked the cookies while the kids were napping and when they woke up, they were more than excited to see them laid out on the table. Kale was given a butterfly with no frosting and gobbled it down, I guess he liked it so much he decided to try a bite out of a bunny, tulip and egg. But just a bite mind you.

He's the new cookie monster in town.

She didn't want to miss out on an opportunity to lay on the table and take a picture.

The kids have really been pushing me lately with their sibling rivalry and Haley has been especially fantastic with the behavior. You might notice in a few of the upcoming pictures of Kale he has a great big scratch across his left cheek. That would be his sister's revenge for him not sharing a block. After she did this I made a phone call to the Easter Bunny (who works surprisingly like Santa). It went something like this: "Hello Easter Bunny? This is Mommy. How are you? Are you getting ready for your big night? Oh great! Well I just wanted to let you know that you don't need to bring Haley her pretty dress, any candy or presents. Yeah, she hasn't been nice to her brother lately so you can just bring Kale's stuff and that would be fine. Thanks. Yup, you have a good Easter too. Bye!" She freaked, but has been a little nicer to her brother. She'll still get her basket, but desperate times call for desperate measures and when you have a three year old and an almost two year old, it's survival mode.

Then there's the main event of Easter (besides church on Sunday I guess). Dying eggs. This is Haley's 2nd year and Kale's first year. You can tell that the extra year of experience has really paid off for Haley.

I feel like I need to preface this whole situation by taking you back about 15 years to the first year I ever dyed eggs with Jeff's family. Jeff's mom was so wonderful to make me my own dozen of eggs and I really love my eggs to be beautiful and bright and just colors. Don't draw on my eggs, don't try to get all creative, they should just look like perfect one color Easter eggs. So I have my own eggs and I make a quick run to the ladies room, while I was in there Jeff took out one of my eggs and colored on it - I don't even remember what he wrote, but he ruined my entire dozen eggs with that one little coloring and I cried. I will never, ever, ever live this down.

So I told you that, to tell you this: I'm kind of particular when it comes to dying eggs in my own home and in trying to be a good mom, I'm trying not to pass this neurosis down to my kids. I really had to let go and let them be messy and put one egg into many different colors and just let them turn out as strange as they want them to be. This was no easy task for me, but I think it turned out fine and the kids had a great time.

The before picture with the white eggs that Kale is happily grabbing from any carton and throwing primarily into orange and yellow. We decided to do this on the kitchen floor and just threw an old sheet down (I couldn't find any newspaper and honestly, the thought of sitting on the newspaper was yucky to me).

See? Orange and Yellow. You can't see them all but there are three eggs in orange and five, yes FIVE eggs in the yellow. Three quarters of his eggs in those two colors (just let it go Mommy, let it go).

Haley didn't mind reaching in with her hands to pull the eggs out. This proved easier with the hands than with spoons, the spoons made the mugs too tippy.

Kale showing me his hand, not quite as yucky, but getting there.

Pulling one of three out of the orange, and still marinating the yellow.

This is the aftermath. Messy, and will probably be stained forever but it's pretty much just used for a dog sheet on our bed, or a picnic blanket in the backyard. Also, at one point when Kale was rough handling the eggs he picked one up and threw it at Haley, the sound of it cracking as it bounced off her head was a sound we couldn't help but laugh at (as we told Kale not to throw eggs at his sister).

More aftermath, and a painted leg.

Haley showing off her eggs. Now, after that whole story above, Haley's eggs are gorgeous. For the work of a three year old, I'll definitely take it. I can't help but look forward to years ahead when she wants to get creative to make beautiful eggs with rubber bands and marble paint, and glitter and who knows what else "they" and she will come up with.

Kale showing off his eggs. He's pretty proud. I don't think any of them came out with less than a few cracks, some were completely trashed and chunked up.

The finished products side by side. I don't feel like it's necessary to tell you who's dozen is who's.

Kale's name egg.

Not that you can tell, but Haley's name egg.

So I guess that's Easter for now around here. There will definitely be pictures to follow of them in their Easter outfits and likely of our brunch at friend's house Sunday morning.