2 ER visits in 2 weeks!!

I mean, I guess with 5 kids the odds are good that we will know our physicians on a first name basis but these past couple of weeks, we have had an abnormal amount of visits to drs. 

Right after getting back from FL, the baby got a stomach virus. After 2 days of throwing up we took him to the Dr who said he was dehydrated. We brought him home and hydrated him with a medicine dropper for the next 24 hours. When he continued to dry heave, we thought there might be something more serious than we could handle on our own so, off to the ER we went. 

Come to find out, we had done a good job hydrating him!  Sadly, his colon had telescoped on itself and was causing him lots of pain :(  So, that's why he was so miserable and dry heaving. After an air enema (yuck) and 24 hours of observation to make sure his colon would stay, we went home with a much happier - and very hungry - boy. 

Fast Forward a week and Chris and I had a date night!  We were so excited about going out and having some time together. About an hour in, our fantastic babysitter called in a panic. Imagine that moment when you hear all of your children screaming over the phone and hear that there is blood and a hammer was involved. AWESOME..... 

after instructing the babysitter to apply "direct pressure" we bolted from Barnes and Noble like it was nobody's business and headed up the interstate towards home. A neighbor came over and drove the babysitter and Creed to the ER while her husband watched the other 4 kids. Chris and I met them at the ER and took over from there :)  Checked him in, explained that his 3 year old brother had hit him in the head with a hammer - the best we could gather from the pieces of information - and waited to be seen. 

We were so thankful that Creed was ok. Its always scary to see your kid with lots of blood on them but once we knew he was aware of all of us, we figured it was a good time to start documenting :)  So, the pictures are a little gross but how else will we remember if it doesn't make it onto the blog? 

The wound :( - He was much better once Daddy had him!

Up close of the wound - this was when we figured out it was the claw end of the hammer......

The bleeding had stopped and the ER was SLOW so we entertained ourselves the best we could!

A super nice nurse brought a popsicle and that helped too!

several hours and 2 staples later, we were good to go!  

We are so grateful for people who pray when we ask them to and help us out. 

Neighbors, church people, family all over the US, we couldn't live this crazy life without them! 

and yes, we do know that there shouldn't be hammers in the boys room but we're human and didn't take it out of their room from where they had wanted to sleep with it the night before. If you watch the movie "Wreck it Ralph" hammers and little boys and this entire post  make way more sense. :)

More Fun in FL

One of my favorite things about our trip to FL was that on the property we were staying on, there is a washed out dam that would have controlled water in a spring fed pond. Since the dam was broken and gone, the water from the pond to the river was really low. Like ankle deep on the middles. So, it was a perfect place to play!  Low water, squishy mud, lots of sand, and FL sun makes for a perfect day in this Mama's world. There was literally nothing that the kids could really get hurt on and without enough water to be hazardous, it made for quite a bit of less-supervised play. 

There was also time when the adults did play :)  The Uncles had lots of fun entertaining all the kids. I am so glad that our kids have uncles and a Daddy who are fun. 

You can see behind the girls the big build up of sand. This is where the dam would have made a bridge that crossed over the water - had it not washed away.....

There were all kinds of crawly things and minnows in the shallow water. 

So, those were really fun to look for :)

Uncle Luke and Harmony came up with the idea to have 

"boat" races - with the boats, of course, being cupcake holders. 

and then the uncles made an aquarium complete with live things 

and "natural environment" stuff like grass and dirt :)

These picture make me laugh - not only because Rob and Luke came up with the idea to do pictures like this but because Harmony got the picture from such a great angle.

 I'm sure her version is much better than mine!

And then there was this piece of the washed-out dam. Uncle Luke and Uncle Rob decided that a tunnel behind that sticking out part was in order......

so they started digging.....

and dug some more......

and then all of a sudden, the entire thing collapsed!! It was awesome and funny - especially because there were no children buried under the big pile of dirt - just uncles :)

and after the collapse, it was like a whole new dirt pile to play on!

Proof that Aunt April ventured out to play too!

Spring Break Family Fun

After HelpWaterTaco we headed to FL to celebrate some birthdays!  Both my Dad and my sister April are born in April and since this year was Dad's 60th birthday, he wanted everyone to get together to celebrate. We don't need much of a reason to get together with family so this seemed like a great reason to hook up :)  

So, we loaded up the camper and headed to North FL because my Dad and his brother, Uncle Donald, have recently bought some property that we could all stay at. It was so great to be with family that we haven't seen for lots of years and that the kids had never met. I can't wait til we can all hook up and hang out again. 

But on to the birthdays.....

The cupcakes were arranged by Emily so we would know how old both April and Dad were. :)

Obligatory Family pictures.....there are lots of us and we are so bummed that Liz and Shannon were missing. But here's the rest of the Donald/Ronald Wilson Clan

 The Donald Wilson Part

 All the grandkids

 The Ronald Wilson Part

 The Wilson Girls -  minus Elizabeth

 The boys - yes they are identical twins :)

 And April - with Joy because she was helping hold the sign :)

 Everybody enjoying their cupcakes

I am so glad that we got to hang out with all this family. We were so far in the woods there was no cell phone service or internet and it was so much fun!  It's amazing how much you talk and hang out when there are no electronics to mess with. I'm thinking we should vacation here more often!