Buckle Fracture

   Our precious dude is hurt and we can't stand it! He has a broken arm! I want to be very careful not to sound mellow-dramatic because I am fully aware of how many very sick children there are around the world. But I am aching for my dude and his fracture will heal in a few weeks. The worst part is, that Caleb actually broke his arm last Wednesday but we thought that it was only a sprain. However, a fall on his sore hand today made it clear to us that this was not a normal injury.   
   We took him to Acute Kids Urgent Care (which rocks y'all) and he charmed the pants off of the entire staff. He made his doctor chuckle and earned the nickname Cutie-Pie; he answered all the doctor's questions and pointed out exactly where it hurt. He sat very still for the x-ray and loved to see the pictures. He wants to get a copy of it so that he can show his friends the picture of his bones. His nurse was an off-duty fireman (that Brian knows from his days at the Fire Station) which did not hurt matters in the least and our dude got to choose a yellow cast (his favourite colour).
   All was well until it was time for bed and he discovered that we couldn't take the cast off. Poor Caleb can not understand that the cast is not what is making his arm hurt and that he really does need it. I absolutely resorted to bribery. My grandparents sent me a care package when I broke my leg at Caleb's age, and it was full of little somethings to open each day. I did not hestitate to tell our dude that every day he didn't mess with the cast or throw fits about wearing it, he would get a little surprise...but now that I think about it, he will probably get a little surprise anyway..we need to make a trip to the Target dollar spot, dollar store, craft store...

You will have to take our word for it, but the fracture is there. It showed up very clearly when magnified, but the good news it that the fracture is small! Is it just me, or does it look like Caleb is flipping us off?

Since this is a temporary cast, we used some white ace-bandage tape to cover the rough edges...hence the nice look. The next sequence of pictures show a dude excited about his cast....

...then he found out that we couldn't take it off....

Mmmm Mmmm Good

So you know how I recently stated that I like to see things in magazines and pretend that I can make something as yummy and pretty but really can't. I might retract that statement tonight. Last night I was perusing a favourite blog, Confessions of a Pioneer Woman (YOU HAVE TO CHECK IT OUT IF YOU NEVER HAVE!-super recipes, homeschooling advice and great humour!), when I saw a post about Peanut Butter Stuffed Hot Fudge Cupcakes (sorry Cara-Lee). It caught my attention. I wanted some. But Brian and I don't eat a lot of baking and it usually just sits around and gets stale. Then it hit me. I had a LifeTalk meeting tonight where we are supposed to bring snacks! HUZZAH!

This afternoon I determined to make the beauties and incorporated the activity into our playdate with the Dennises. It was so much fun baking these scrump-dilly-icious goodies with Caleb and Leah. There are a lot of steps but it was totally worth it in the end. It was great knowing that we would enjoy the one each that we prefer and that the rest of the batch would not be wasted. They were a HUGE hit at the meeting and I highly recommend them to everyone. I personally believe that they are the best dessert I have ever made, at the very least, the best cupcake. You must try them! You have to try them. I even have two left in my fridge and if you call dibs you just might get one!

I usually subsitute out a lot of things (applesauce for oil, greek yogurt for sour cream, agave syrup for sugar etc etc) but I felt the need to leave these as is. So they are not waist-friendly, but they made us smile and how bad can it be if you only eat one?

Love to you all! GO GET THE RECIPE (the link to Confessions of a Pioneer Woman is on my sidebar!)!!!!

And these pictures were too adorable to leave out of the post:

Precious!

Caleb still envisions a future as Buzz Lightyear.

Brian's Big Nascar Adventure

For Father's Day Caleb and I gave Brian the gift of fast. Fast driving that is. He got to go to the Texas Motor Speedway for a ridealong in one of the Nascar racecars. Saturday was the big day, so we joined our pals the Dennises in the summer heat (which, remarkably, wasn't that bad since they had some great shade set up) for the ride of our hubbies lives!

From the moment I first showed Caleb a picture of what we were giving Brian, he told everyone that his Daddy was going to be Lightening McQueen. He was very excited about it and we even borrowed Trevor's Lightening McQueen shirt to commemorate the occasion. We actually took Caleb to see Cars 2 the weekend before so that it would cement in his mind what Daddy would be doing....this may have backfired....remember his uncertainty about the cars starting on fire...despite our dude's early enthusiasm for Brian's adventure, once we were there he started to declare that Brian could not go. Once Brian was suited up, he emphatically stated "Daddy. You take those off right now." At this point I caught on to what was happening and had a conversation with the dude about how nothing was going to happen to Daddy's car. After that, he was fine with it all and happily waved to Brian as he got in the car and sped away! Our precious dude just needed some reassurance.

 Brian had a great time. He said that they got up to 180 mph! He didn't see us waving because he was so focussed on how fast they were going! He deserves more than a fast ride in a fancy racecar, but so long as he knows how special he is and how loved he is, then we are okay with that! It was a fun experience for all of us and something we will likely be talking about for quite some time!

(Thanks Stacie, for doing so much to make this happen for our menfolk!)

Checking out Daddy's car.

Love this one!!!!!

This picture cracks me up! Sweet Emily!

Keeping Daddy presentable.

Brian makes everything look good!

Ready!

Brian got Jimmy Johnson's car which happens to be a fave driver of his!

Oh-so-fast! Caleb got so excited every time he came around the corner!

Daddy is in the car behind Caleb and our dude is so excited!

We love you Daddy/Brian!!!!!!

We Recommend!

Okay, so this post constitutes another catch-up...but a really good one!

Last Saturday (not yesterday) was a really fantastic family day. Since May, we have had TWO Saturdays (yes, count them...only two) that were both at home and did not require leaving the house early for soccer. Last Saturday was one of those two days and we were PSYCHED! So here are our recommendations based on that most wonderful of days and the week that followed:

1. Have a lazy Saturday!

We forgot how great they are and have now scratched plans to do T-Ball in the fall...we want a few more of those Saturdays before fall craziness kicks in! Sorry no picture. We were chillaxing.

2. Cars 2!

Caleb has been asking to see this, so we complied and took him to see an early afternoon showing of the much anticipated flick! I had a purse full of snacks in Cars-themed brown paper bags and off we went. We think he liked it, but the cars catching on fire seemed to have disturbed him a little, since he talks about it a lot (was it because they didn't show the firetrucks putting the fires out?). But even given that, we highly recommend Cars 2! It was a wonderful family activity on a way too hot Saturday afternoon!

3. Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

This is a book we borrowed from the library a few weeks ago, at which point all other books ceased to exist. Caleb LOVES this book. To avoid the inevitable drama when the book came due, we took him to Barnes and Noble after the movie to get him his own copy. This is a great book. If you don't have it, you should really ask yourself why you are missing such a critical piece of literature from your personal library and immediately run out to get one! Seriously!

4. Octopus Hot Dogs!

Even if your octopus comes out with four legs instead of eight, it is still a big hit with the dude! We even gave it black eyes with some icing, but you can't see it in the picture and Mommy may or may not have slyly wiped them off before he actually ate his food...he didn't notice! The spaghetti seaweed was a hit too!

5. Baking and crafting with Grammy.

She was all ready for our visit last Tuesday with cookies to cut out and bake and even bags to decorate (to take the cookies home). Of course the decorating involved stamps which is a sure sell for our dude. So we highly recommend baking and crafting with Grammy (or whomever else is around) and stamps are a must!

6. Swimming with Pop.

Caleb's day also included a dip in the pool with Pop which is always good for fun and plain 'ole cooling off! We highly recommend Pops and pools! In fact, we just highly recommend Caleb's Grammy and Pop. They are super fab and always willing to "adopt" Caleb's friends!

7. In N Out!

We finally decided to brave the frenzy that surrounds Frisco's newest institution...In N Out burger. TOTALLY WORTH IT! We are now fans and we don't even like fast food! Caleb likes the hats too....

9. Safe Headphones!

And finally, we recommend child-safe headphones that won't let the volume go past an unsafe level no matter how much your dude turns it up. We have held off of getting headphones since we were worried about hearing damage and these are the perfect solution. The dude is in heaven, thinks he is a big-boy rocker and he doesn't complain about how he can't hear his game or movie in the apparently too-loud car anymore! Win-Win! Wahoo! We got them at Mardel's by-the-by.

So there you have it. We hope that you like our humble recommendations!!!!

Take them or leave them but we love to share a good thing!

Love to you all!

p.s. I have one more post to catch up, so stay tuned for Brian's Nascar Adventure from this past Saturday! Coming soon!

Tired of Quotes?

Are you tired of quotes yet? My evenings have been full of activities for the LifeTalk fundraiser, M2M playdate schedules and the Rhea Lana sale...so our posts have suffered. Sorry y'all! But that doesn't mean our summer adventures have suffered or that my camera has laid about forgotten and neglected! About two weeks ago I took Caleb to the new SeaLife aquarium in Grapevine for one of our M2M playdates. IT IS FANTASTIC Y'ALL! It is completely geared towards children and SO WELL DONE! There are a lot of pictures so that you can see for yourself!

Across from the aquarium is LegoLand. We saw Buzz and had to get a picture. And yes, this is next on our list of destinations. Afterall, Caleb is our lego master and comes up with great quiet time creations!

Oh, and he still insists that he wants to be Buzz for Halloween again...

Caleb has a knack for poses, wouldn't you say?

Grammy and Pop came too! Pop came in really handy for viewing sharks!

My favourite part of the aquarium was this bubble tank full of sting/manta rays! Love it!

Caleb and Gillian (very much attached the whole day) loved the view from the top.

Caleb pretended he was a frog and hopped through the whole aquarium. He found a worthy playmate in Gillian!

Ah, the fish tunnel! Much fun. Check out our dude, aka Caleb Frog.

OOOH!!! OOOH!!!! OOOH! LOOKIE!

Caleb and his pals. I love, love this picture!

He almost put his nose in...

If only I had spy tools and could hear what they were saying...

Trevor adopted my Dad. Previously Trevor has been afraid of my Dad (who is the least scariest person I know!), so this was very touching! When he hugged "Pop" good-bye after lunch, my Dad promptly declared that he had a new addition to the Christmas list!

Where there are pennies to be crushed, you will find the dude! We have a booklet of his treasures!

Says it all. Your heart must feel a little lighter and a little warmer now!

"Daddy. Why is your brain slobbery?"
(while on Brian's shoulders examining his Daddy's sweaty head)
Caleb never fails to make us laugh!

Yet Another Reason Caleb is SOOO Special....

"Hot days cool me off."

Stated very matter-of-factly while walking to our car in stifling 100-plus temperature even though it was after six in the pm.

If only we could all be a little more like Caleb....