Our Little Engineer

I forgot to mention something in my last blog that happened last month. Kayla's school was holding a Young Engineers Fair where the kids where encouraged (especially the girls) to build a bridge out of Popsicle sticks and Elmer's glue. They could only use 120 sticks and it had to be one of four different kinds of bridges. The competition was to build a bridge that could withstand the most amount of weight. They had this cool machine that applied weight to the bridge until it cracked. The kids were then sent to talk to a panel of judges where they had to answer questions about their bridge. They were scored on two parts: A) Amount of weight the bridge could withstand and B) The judge's interview. With Jim's help - Kayla built her bridge and it turned out pretty dang good! We think it may have held more weight had we not done all the gluing the night before. It was still a little bit tacky in some spots because we waited until the last minute to put the bridge together. Shame on us. But, they divided the contest up: K - 3rd Grade in the morning and 4th - 6th Grade in the afternoon. Are you ready to hear how she did??? See the pictures below to find out!

Kayla's Bridge: A Truss Bridge

Here she is at the Young Engineers Fair

Waiting in Line For The Weight Test

The Bridge Being Loaded Into The Weight Machine

Adding More Weight

The Breaking Point: 262 Pounds!!!

Kayla Got Second Place!!!

Even if engineering isn't something that interests her - I'm still proud of her for doing it and actually being put in front of a panel of judges and answering their questions. I thinks he did a great job! Go Kayla!

So Much To Do - So Little Time

I'm thinking I just might have to make the title of this blog the title to my life story. I swear I just spent an entire day blogging about Valentine's Day and now here I am, the beginning of April, trying to get everyone caught up over the last two months!!! I guess times sure flies when you're having fun...or just really busy. On to the latest happenings in our household!

1. Hang on ... ... ... (okay I'm back) 84 Days until Jim and I finally tie the knot! Sorry for the brief pause back there - I had to open my blog in a new window to see my wedding day countdown for accuracy. But anyway - less than three (3) months away! Can you believe it? Last time I really thought about the wedding (like - REALLY - thought about it), we still had about 9 months to get it all together and save up some major greens for this trip! But alas - the final weeks are approaching and I'm stressing - but also getting pretty excited! Wanna know what I'm stressing about the most??? I haven't picked out my dress yet. I haven't even looked or tried anything on. I'm dreading it. I've been working out - a lot - hoping to drop a couple of dress sizes. I'm slowly getting there - but refuse to try on wedding dresses until I drop just one more dress size...just one more. Hopefully by the end of this month. We'll see how that goes. I may have to cave and try the no-carb diet (even though I know it's unhealthy in the long run - it just might help for that brief period of time). Wish me luck! The good news - is that we have almost everything in Hawaii taken care of thanks to my mother and our awesome wedding planner over there who is taking care of just about everything for us. We leave for Hawaii June 19th, get married June 25th and come home June 29th. It will be a great 10 days! I can't wait!

2. Kayla got her cast off a few weeks ago. I forgot to blog about it then - alright well I didn't forget, I just haven't had time. She's pretty excited but still has to stay of the monkey bars for another week or two, just to make sure everything is okay. I take her back in a few months for more x-rays to make sure the bones continue healing properly and also to verify that new bone growth is occuring. If not - this poor child will have to undergo numerous surgeries throughout her growing years to manually elongate the bones in her wrist. How sad would that be? We're keeping our fingers crossed. I'm just excited that her shirts all fit again!!! It was such a headache trying to find clothes every morning that fit over her cast. Never again.

3. We are moving...again. I thought we had until the end of May to move. I could have sworn that's when our lease was up. But I was wrong and we recently discovered we have until the end of April to find a new place to live. We like where we live. The location is nice and the area is safe. But with the hardwood floors - it's cold. And it's expensive. We've decided we can afford a mortgage payment the size of our rent payment. So - we're attempting to become new home owners. We've been looking in the Auburn, Bonney Lake, and Renton areas. We'll see how that goes.

4. And now for the big news...I'm done... Completely done with Dental Assisting school! Last week I finished up my extern hours (all 150 of them), took my Organic Chemistry final and now I'm done. I have one more class that I need to take for my Dental Hygiene prerequisites. But I seriously just needed a break from any kind of higher education. Sadly - I'm not done with school though. Over the course of the next 10 months, I need to take my Public Speaking class, take the HOBET test, and fill out my paperwork to apply for Dental Hygiene school. Everything is due in February 2010. I've had mixed feelings about going on to Hygiene school. I've found myself to be content with where I'm at. But - I know my long term goal was to go to Hygiene school, so I feel obligated to myself to follow through. All I know - is that I love the dental field. I don't know why it took me so long to figure it out. But I love it...which leads me to....

5. I have a job! A new job that I absolutely LOVE. But not just any job. It's not often that you walk into a position as the lead Dental Assistant in a Dentist office. Seriously - you have to pay your dues...usually. I somehow managed to make it happen. I started my extern at an office here in Kirkland around February of this year. In the middle of March, I was officially offered a position as lead dental assistant once I was done with school (their assistant was having a baby and decided to be a SAHM). So I'm done with school - and my first day was March 30th. I love it! I love the office - I love the staff - I love our patients. It's been a great experience.

I think that's it. We've been keeping busy. If it weren't for my mom - I think we would be postponing the wedding. She has been the one to keep all the plans going. I owe her big time. But okay - expect another update after about June 29th....I just might find time after that time for another update.

Peace!

Our Valentine's Day Weekend (Picture Blog)

A lot has been going on the last couple of weeks, so I'm just going to quickly post a picture blog of our Valentine's Day Weekend. We picked up Jim's girls Friday night and took all three girls out to dinner because we were heading out of town on Valentine's Day for my cousin's wedding. We had a lot of fun!

Kayla's Valentine's Day Party - Checking Their V-Day Goods


She Got Extra Excited Over Something...I Never Figured Out What

Yummy!

Snoqualmie Falls - Valentine's Day

The Girls @ Snoqualmie Falls

Our Family on Valentine's Day

My Parents & The Girls

Kayla & Kelsey After The Hike Back Up

Kayla & Grandpa

Kelsey's Fishy Face

Kayla & Kelsey Helping Uncle Randy On The Tractor

They Loved The Tractor

Our Family @ Cousin Richard's Wedding

Jim & I On Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!

I'm just now realizing that today is also Friday the 13th...not that it really means anything. But apparently people are pretty excited about a couple of scary movies that are coming out today. Seems a little bit odd to have horror movies coming out Valentine's Day Weekend.

I've never really been a HUGE fan of Valentine's Day. I mean, what girl really wants her significant other to actually put some thought into planning a special day for his loved one and go out and spend a TON of money on overpriced flowers and a nice evening out when everybody else and their grandma's dog are doing the same thing? Okay, I'll admit! I DO!!! But not necessarily on Valentine's Day. I only feel this way on Valentine's Day because I'm reminded how often we DON'T get to spend a nice evening together. Some day.

For now - I have been having fun this morning, baking Strawberry Valentine's Day Mini Muffins for Kayla's Valentine's Day party at school. They turned out better than I expected and hopefully they will be a big hit (so I don't have to bring any home and ruin my diet even further).

I am reminded why I HATE baking.......the mess:

The finished Product:

Good times! Tomorrow we are taking the girls to Ellensburg for my cousin's wedding. Should be fun to get away from the house for a day. We are going to go a little early and find some cool trails to take the kids hiking on. Hopefully it's not too cold!

The Latest Broken Bone Update...

I finally set aside some time this afternoon to upload all my pictures from this month onto our computer. Some are from my camera and some are from my phone - but they are here. So I thought I'd put together a little picture timeline of recent events:

Kayla Being Her Dorky Normal Self (Beginning of January 2009):

The Injured Wrist - Pre Dr. Visit (January 15th)

In Pain - Pre Dr. Visit (January 15th)

Knocked Out In ER - Post Wrist Reduction (January 23rd)

Starting To Wake Up - Post Reduction (January 23rd)

What a Trooper! (January 23rd)

Getting Hungry - Waiting For The Orange Popsicle They Promised (January 23rd)

Finally - The Long Awaited Pink Cast! (January 29th)

In other news - Kayla's school randomly has Mark Twain Spirit Day where they pick a theme for that day and the kids are supposed to come to school representing that theme. Today was Crazy Hair Day so we decided to dye Kayla's hair pink and purple using the old-fashioned Kool-Aid method. We put the Kool-Aid paste in her hair last night and she slept with it in. We had to wrap her head in a grocery bag and tape it around her face. It was quite a site to see:

In the morning, her hair looked like this.

Fortunately, it didn't turn out as dark as I had seen in some pictures on the internet. It's just enough to notice it but not enough to look completely tacky. Hopefully it washes out soon. But she was pretty dang excited and her friends all started screaming as I dropped her off at school this morning. Oh to be young once again.....

That's all the news I have for now.....Check back later for more fun and exciting times with the Brown Family.

Broken Bones...

So just to keep you all updated:

I got a call around 12:30 from the office at Kayla's school last Thursday. Apparently a boy had pushed her off the monkey bars and when she fell, she landed on her wrist so they wanted me to come take a look at it. I decided to take her home and figured I would have Jim look at it when he got home because really, I'm not a doctor. I'm not sure what the office expected me to tell them that they didn't already know. It was pretty swollen and she was having a hard time moving her hand. So Jim convinced me to take her to the pediatrician the next day.

Her regular pediatrician wasn't available for us to see her, so we met with this grandfatherly type doctor who was very nice and sweet - but not very convincing. They took x-rays - the first set turned out too dark so they had to do a second set. The doctor didn't see any broken bones or fractures and even though he was convinced there was a broken bone somewhere, he sent us home and told us to come back in 10 days when they might be able to see the development of new bone.....uh ok.

Over the weekend, the swelling hadn't even begun to go down and it was still very painful for Kayla to move her hand. She had limited to no range of motion of her wrist and even some of her fingers. And this is when we noticed really intense and dark bruising around her wrist. I knew something wasn't right.

So - I decided it was my right as a mother to seek out a second a opinion and called the Pediatrics office at Virginia Mason in Issaquah. The pediatrician there also ordered additional x-rays. She also didn't see anything abnormal and was about to send us home with the promise of a follow-up phone call after the radiologist had a chance to look at the x-rays. I insisted she call the radiologist right then and have him look while we were there.

So three sets of x-rays, three doctors, and two appointments later, it was finally discovered that Kayla has a displaced and fractured bone in her wrist! The only person who was able to identify this was the radiologist! What the heck am I paying these doctors for??? I'm frustrated.

So - they wrapped her wrist up and sent us to the orthopedic department at Seattle Children's this last Thursday. The physician's assistant at Children's told us the break affected the growth plate in her wrist which is pretty critical and can affect the growth in that area for the rest of her life if the bones are rubbed together too much. As a result, they had one chance and one chance only to put the bones back in place.

We then were sent to the Emergency Room where Kayla could be put under so the orthopedic doctor could be as aggressive as he needed to be to get the bones back into place on the first try. My mom was kind enough to take the afternoon off to go with me to Children's and we were allowed to stay in the ER room while they attempted the "reduction" of her wrist. About 10 minutes into the procedure, we hear Kayla very calmly say "Ow". No big deal - they told us that might happen. A few minutes later, she starts to talk again, only this time it was a more intense "Ow....Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, OW!" I was in a mighty fine position to kick the orthopedic doctor in the rear end and I was completely tempted. But the lovely nurse stepped in and gave her more drugs and she immediately calmed down. But this sent both my mom and I into tears - it was the most horrible thing to watch and listen to. Luckily, they also gave her a medicine that makes her not remember a thing so it was more traumatic for Grandma and I than it was for her.

So - the procedure went well and as far as they can tell, the bones are where they need to be. We go back to Children's again on Thursday for a follow-up to make sure the bones haven't moved and Kayla will FINALLY get the pink cast she has been DYING to have. But, because of the whole growth plate issue, we will have to continue following up every 6 months until they are satisfied with the growth of her bones. It's a sad situation.

If I wasn't 28 years old - I would hunt down the boy who pushed her and beat him up myself.

Random Christmas Picture Post...