Howdy, friends! I was going to post some pictures from Sukkot, but we have over 200 photos and over 20 videos (which I still need to upload), so it'll be easier to just share the >>>link to the album<<<. Enjoy!
Here are a few of my favorites though.....
Jacob made it to the center, a.k.a. "King", in 9 Square!
We had to put the rain fly / tophat on....quite amusing.
Joe broke his arm just 3 days before we left, so we got the cast during camp.
The girls rode around on this golf cart a lot with their friends.
Alex was amazingly patient when teaching chess to some of the children and teens!
It's nice to only have a few dishes to wash!
My chocolate cake mix turned into brownies (on purpose, lol) turned out great!
It was hard to get them all together at once, but this was some of our neighbors. Awesome people! We're going to visit their congregation soon in Tulsa!
Some other awesome people we met! This is Joey and Krys and their beautiful children.
From the sunglasses on head, left to right.....Annie, Jason, Mark and Reanee. Fun and loving people!
Jessica is getting so big! She looks 12 here! Okay, maybe not *that* old.
Jacob turns 12 in 3 more days, and he is now taller than his 14yo sister! He's trying to hide from the camera here.
Jack's favorite color is yellow. :)
Jonathan actually joined in a dance!
And posed for a picture!
We didn't get many pictures of Jayla because we didn't see her much, so this one and the golf cart are about the only ones. Here she is playing a Minute to Win It type game. lol
I just wanted to post another pic of Joe. This one was actually before camp, right after he broke his arm but before he got his orange cast on. I love his smile! He doesn't look like he's in pain at all, does he? lol
That's all for pictures, but please click on the link above and take a look at all of them! I'll write more about Sukkot later and share the videos. It was a very blessed time.
I'll tell ya right now, if you don't wanna see any photos of the really nasty wound, scroll down slowly so you'll know where to stop. I'll post a warning. lol
It's been a full week since Jonathan was bitten by a copperhead. I'm sad to say, it has gotten a little worse and there is a *small chance* he could still lose the end of his finger, but the surgeon is hopeful. He goes back sometime Monday for the surgery (they'll call me), and we'll find out for sure when it's done! The surgeon is supposed to just clean it out really well and cut out the dead part, then he'll probably go back -- I assume several times -- for some skin grafting. That's assuming his finger will remain 100% intact. The surgeon just doesn't know how deep it goes, so he can't really say for sure just yet.
Jonathan is still having some pain, mainly because he cannot swallow pills very easily, so he tends to just refuse them completely, but it's not too bad. At the worst times he rates it around a 3-4, so not any fun, but tolerable. My c-section pain was more than that before I took something (I HATED the hydrocodone, which is what he was prescribed as well), but guys are just wimps when it comes to pain, right? What's up with that?! Haha!
***WARNING -- NASTY PHOTOS BELOW***
Okay, picture time. Here is the progression of his bite wound. I got 1 or 2 pictures for each day so far. Hmmm....I'm not sure I got one for day 6, but I'm sure you can use your imagination!
Here you can see a blister forming below the dead part.
And here you can see where the surgeon broke the blister to get a better look!
He had left the wound open for a couple of days and said it was less painful when it dried out completely, but the nurse covered it again after the blister was open, of course. You can also see the profile of his finger in this picture and how the edge of his finger is now missing! EWWWW!!!!
That's it for now. I'll update again after his surgery. In the meantime, I hope he's learned his lesson and stays away from snakes! He's so tired of us asking him if he has a question (because he's always holding his hand up in the air), and is really annoyed with the doctors and nurses asking him if he was sure it was a copperhead. He's told them many times that it was a BROADBAND COPPERHEAD. Haha! Yep, he knows snakes!
Jonathan got to go home the next day and didn't need a 2nd dose of anti-venom, although we're thinking about taking him back for one more because it's still swelling. His whole arm is sore now, like a bad bruise. The blister at the location of the bite broke before we left the hospital (around 21 hours or so after the bite). I won't go into detail.....it was pretty gross.....but here's a pic! This was about a day and a half after the incident, and now that it's almost been a full 3 days, I need to get another picture! He still has feeling on his whole finger, so you can imagine how painful this must be.
My daughter, who is about to turn 14, has been in dance since she was 5. The photo above is exactly like one costume she has had in the past, but it is one of the more modest ones. Thankfully, being in ballet, she hasn't had to worry too much about really inappropriate costumes, but we never know what they look like until close to recital, so we always worry at least a little!
Another costume (see more pictures here at this link) was worn for her 2nd year in dance and her first year to be in "big girl ballet"! She was allowed to go into the older class early for a trial period, and she did great and stayed in it! I didn't like the 2 photos the "professional" took of her, so I took some myself on our front porch with a black sheet behind her. I forgot to take the date stamp off though, so I later had to edit them out. I was pretty happy with them, even though we didn't have her hair piece.
Jayla has always been modest, partly taught and partly just her nature. She's sometimes extreme about it, but I'd rather her go that direction than the opposite! Modesty, even for boys, is something we've always felt strongly about, but our children are just modest, so it's not like we're hovering over them saying, "You can't wear that." or "Go cover that up right now!" Nope. I honestly don't remember EVER having to tell my kids to go change clothes, probably because the ONLY clothes we have in the house are modest. Makes it easy!
Back to my pointe (did ya catch that play on words?)......
This was her first year in pointe. She has always dreamed about being a pointe dancer, and she's loved every minute of it. But she may not be able to continue. Wanna know why? Because we cannot find a single dance studio that does NOT teach the girls (and boys, but they are few) to SHAKE THEIR STUFF!!!! Seriously, it's disgusting, not the girls themselves, they've been taught this and don't know better, but by the teachers and parents who should know better! Honestly, some don't care, and others won't step up and say anything. Jayla took tap this year for the first time since she was 5 (a ballet/tap combo class), and the girls shake their hips/butts and shimmy many times. While many of the costumes could have been more modest, they were much better than a lot of costumes I've seen through the years, but it's the costumes AND "dance moves" that will keep her from being in tap again next year, and possibly out of dance altogether. And I'm sad about that because I know how much she LOVES pointe, but we won't compromise. Who knows what kinds of creeps are sitting in the audience looking at all these beautiful LITTLE GIRLS showing off their bodies? And all the boys in the audience, mostly brothers of the dancers, sure don't need to lose their innocence! Why can't their be something more modest all around?!?
For this very reason, Myles and our boys didn't get to go see her dance. I don't think the older boys wanted to go anyway, and I got her on video if they want to just watch the 3 dances she was in, but it's very sad that we don't feel comfortable going to our own daughter's dance recital. I was so embarrassed for those girls, from ages 3 up to 17 or so! Awful.
Well, guess what. There are not very many modest dance studios/schools around, but they do exist! Jayla was able to attend a dance studio where the owner's mother sewed ALL the costumes every year, and they were BEAUTIFUL AND MODEST! And they also made a point to not do any kind of suggestive or compromising "dance moves", and while it may seem silly to some, she even called "hip hop" "hop hop" because they don't shake their hips. I loved it! But then we moved too far away. :( When we did move closer about 2 years ago, she was going to go back there again, but the owner and family moved out of state! SO SAD!!!! Here's an example of her incredible recitals (we saw several of them through the years)! She had a theme (of course), and a variety of tempos, etc. This is one Jayla was in (below). (I know it's hard to tell because of the quality, but she was wearing pink and was one of the smaller girls.)
So, she is going to try to start something up herself, probably as a homeschool co-op class to start out, but she does want to teach/own her own dance studio one day. She's even talked about having dance classes for special needs children of all kinds! I think that is such a great idea! She has a big heart!
We'd love to hear any feedback, agree or disagree, dos and don'ts. There are so many things we want to do but don't know where to start!
I'll leave you with one more video. Jayla is front and center. She taught all these kids this dance at Sukkot (except her older brother in the back) when she was just 11 years old! It's something she loves, and you can see it in her face. :) She's about to turn 14, so this was almost 3 years ago. She really wants to teach regularly!
All I can say is HALLELUYAH that this happened to my oldest child and not the younger ones (IF it had to happen at all) because he is bigger than my husband was when we got married, and also that it wasn't a rattle snake! It always hurts to see your child suffering and in pain though, especially when there isn't a lot you can do to help.
So here's what happened.....around 2:00 this afternoon, Jonathan was outside cleaning the back yard. We've only seen a couple of snakes this year, none of which were copperheads, but we know they're around. We saw a LOT of them last year, so we know to watch. Well, the cat found one, and since Jonathan has handled them successfully before (even when I've told him not to!!!), he thought he'd "save" the cat from getting bitten.....but it turned it's head around and got one fang in the tip of his middle finger. Lesson learned!
So we grabbed the activated charcoal, and he just threw some on it and made a big mess. Then we rushed to the hospital about 25 minutes away. THREE HOURS after the bite, he FINALLY got his first dose of anti-venom! They wanted to wait and observe the swelling and other symptoms to see if maybe it was a dry bite.....it was not. I totally understand why they didn't give it to him immediately, but I felt pretty silly for rushing him there! They transferred him to a room in ICU to watch him closely overnight, and so far it looks like he'll probably go home tomorrow and may not need a 2nd dose of the anti-venom. Other than the pain and other annoying symptoms, he's kind of enjoying being pampered and waited on! He said he'd never go through the pain again just to get this treatment. What's funny though is he just had his 2nd dose of MORPHINE, even though he only rated his pain as a 4 on a scale of 1-10! Haha! I'll humor him, but I think he'd agree he doesn't have a high threshold when it comes to pain. And all kidding aside, I don't think most men can handle pain well. You would have thought he was dying!
Here's a few pics of his hand. The doc said it will probably look worse in the morning, and he'll probably lose all that skin that turns black. I'm just thankful he probably won't be losing his finger!
P.S. I really believe the activated charcoal helped at least a little bit. I may never know exactly how much, but I do think it helped! I was so glad to have that on hand.
Both girls, one brown and one black. Aren't they adorable?! :D I'll be getting a video up of them soon on my YT channel, so subscribe and be watching! We'll reveal their names on the video. :)
My "baby" turned THREE on 1/1 of this year. Where has the time gone?!? I wish I had more photos and videos of her, but being the youngest of 6, yeah, statistics stink. :P But seriously, I'm determined to get some great photos of her very soon!
Just this morning she's already made me giggle several times at some things she's said, so I want to get them recorded here before my "permanent pregnancy brain" takes over. My memory is BAD these days.
I was playing a game on my tablet when she woke up, so she watched me finish. When I told her it was over and I won, she said, "Yay! Now I'll give it a shot." Ha!
We were talking about twins (we have new neighbors with twin baby boys), and I was explaining to the younger 3 what twins were, and what they are called when there are more than two: triplets, quadruplets, etc. Jessi held up 2 fingers and said, "Two-pul-ets, (then pointing at me) you-pul-ets, (continuing to point at the appropriate person......) Joe-pul-ets, Jack-pul-ets, Jacob-pul-ets...." Maybe she'll get it one day. :)
The other cute/funny thing she said this morning was when I told Jayla to come and get her from my bedroom. She didn't want to go, so she told me, "No, I'm fine."
Another of her new phrases that she has already used several times relates to cookies or candy! My feet have been hurting some lately, so hers have too, and apparently "Cookies feel me better." It works, too! A cookie really does make her feet feel better.....until it's gone, and then she needs another.
