Smiles...

Finally, I am getting our St. Patrick's Day pix on here. We celebrated with smiley-faced and green pancakes. The boys were in awe of the smiles but wished the green pancakes would have been greener. (I did not dare do all of them green in case they were grossed out by the color!)

Here's a picture of the boys hamming it up for Paul before the band concert Monday:

Oh, the joy they bring to our lives each day!

Day at the Wild Animal Park...oops, the ER!

So the boys and I (Danae) were planning to meet up with our moms' group at the Wild Animal Park this morning for animal watching, fun and giggles and lunch. As we were gathering our stuff and put on shoes to head out the door (a little before 9:00 so we were going to be on time if not early!), Isaac ran back to his room to get one more thing. While I was strapping on Caleb's shoes, I heard a LOUD thud followed by piercing screams and cries! When I got there, Isaac was on the floor in the hallway with his baseball cap askew and holding his head. In his rush to run out of his room, he misjudged where the door was and ran directly into the little metal piece on the door frame that the door latches into and got a nice gash.

At first I did not realize what had happened since I could not see anything, but when I removed the cap, his hair was already matted with blood. He had sliced a small gash on the side of his head above his ear (maybe half an inch long), and it was just split open. Because of all the blood, I could not tell how deep it was. While he sat with a wet washcloth and cold compress on the side of his head, I called Paul (wanting somebody else to be there to help me decide what to do) and then our doctor who told me to take him to the emergency room.

Once we got through the three different parts of registration at the ER, we waited--Isaac colored while I read a book and watched basketball. When Isaac went "in," he was put on a bed in the hallway. He got to see many firemen wheeling gurneys with a variety of patients right past us (had to pull my feet in so they did not get run over). One fireman stopped to talk to him and give him a fireman sticker badge; you should have seen Isaac's face during this--he was pretty excited!


A nurse cleaned up Isaac's wound, and we waited for the doctor. The doctor wiped it with the gold brown iodine stuff (which really stung), injected some numbing stuff into his head using a very long needle (I did not look at that for long, and Isaac did not even see it), pushed hard on his would to make sure it was actually numb, and then stapled the laceration together with one staple. Isaac was so brave and so good! I was very impressed (& thankful I did not have to go through what he went through) with Isaac and how well he listened to the doctor. (At one point I was counting out loud to get his mind off the needle in his head, and Isaac spat out at me, "Mom! STOP counting! STOP!" I guess it was more annoying than helpful. :-)

After that we headed to McDonalds for his happy meal and then ate lunch at Calvin with Paul and Caleb where Isaac got to show off his staple. We did get a picture of the wound after it was stapled, but I did not think to take a picture while it was still split open--sorry that I was not that on top of things!

Reasons for thanks in this circumstance (or TYL moments as my mom would say):
~His baseball cap prevented the wound from being worse--softened the blow
~Our first trip to the ER for one of the boys
~Plenty of snacks already packed for the park
~Good medical care and great people working on him
~March madness to watch in the waiting room
~Paul could have Caleb at school with him
~A supportive school community
~A "short" time in the ER--only 2 hours.
~No "seriously" injured patients wheeled past to traumatize Isaac
~Happy Meal promise to get Isaac through the stapling process
~Many individuals praying...thanks!
~Generous teachers who offered their staple removers

We did not make it to the Wild Animal Park today...But things were a little wild, and Isaac got to see a lot of things he doesn't normally see. I guess this is what life with kids is all about--a lot unpredictable and out of our control. Thankfully, our God is taking care of us and has his hand on our little treasures! TYL!

Happy Days

Smiles are all around. The rain came and went, and the sun has come out again! Life is busy as usual, but we manage to always find a way to keep hopping. Life is good!

These two just know how to eat it all up! God is good!

We've got the dance moves that Hollywood dreams of!

I know...he gets his moves from his Dad. Hey, when you've got it, you've got it!

Tis the season...

Christmas time is upon us here in CA, even if we don't get the snow like all the rest of our family. We've begun the celebrating in our house by putting up the tree, making Christmas cookies, opening a few early gifts from Grandma B., and with new tree ornaments for the boys from Grandma and Grandpa N.

Here you can see just how exciting it is going to be this year!

Slug Bug No Return! (That is what Caleb is yelling!)

Family Pictures

We had our world famous brother-in-law take our family pictures a few weeks ago. They turned out wonderful and I thought it would be great to share them! If you need someone to take your pictures, look him him up!

http://markleonardimaging.com/blog/lapka-family/

There are more in his picture gallery if you want to see more!

4925.5 miles and one dead bird later...

We are home!

There is too much to include in a vacation that lasts one month. If you really want to see what we did, come over for a visit! We had a blast driving, visiting, swimming, laughing, playing and lots more. We left Escondido at 5 am on June 30 and returned August 1 (today) at 4:20 pm. We definitely feel blessed that we could spend time traveling like this! The country side is full of beauty -- if you count Nebraska I guess -- and our boys saw a lot of cool sights. I think they liked picking out the trains and cows!

I'd love to share all the pictures, but that would be crazy to upload!

Oh, about the bird. For the record, he flew into us!