Home-made Slip-n-slide

This past week has been extremely hot--temps in the '90's and 100's with the heat index reaching 115 degrees at one point. Yuck!

To make it more bearable to be outside, I decided to build a slip-n-slide on Wednesday down the hill behind our neighbor's apartment so the kids would have something to do besides watch TV inside. I went to Lowe's and got a 25'x10' piece of plastic and doubled it up, making a slide that was 5' wide and 25' long. We got some huge nails to stake the top into the ground and then used a hose to water it down.

It was a hit! I'll let the pictures do the talking, but let's just say we played on that thing for more than two hours and were sad to go in to eat dinner.

Killian was the first to try it!

Jude thought it was fantastic and whenever he got to the bottom would sit and play in the puddles until he got knocked out of the way by another kid coming down.

Jude

Lance being crazy, as usual. :)

The kids liked to form "trains" and all go down at the same time.

Kendall

I stopped taking pictures for a few minutes to join in the fun. That slide was fast! You flew off the end into a mud puddle. Totally worth it!

Brothers.

Thanks to Jamie for taking pictures of us. Lance was trying to go on my shoulders, but that idea got vetoed pretty quick.

I love the look on the boys' faces. Jude was a little wary at this point because he got smacked by Lance a bit earlier and went head over heels. He gained confidence little by little, though, and was soon back in the action.

Jamie was a great sport and went down many times with 3 to 4 kids in tow.

Jude being brave.

Killian had to take a break. Everyone kept jumping in front of him in line and his feelings got hurt.

Britton came out, too. Move, Jude!

I think this picture is funny.

For $15, not a bad way to spend an afternoon. The best part is that I can reuse it whenever I want. We let it dry out and then rolled it back up and put it in the closet, ready for another hot day. We can't wait!

One man's trash is another kid's treasure

When I was probably about 8 or 9, we were visiting my Witt cousins in Moreno Valley, CA and they had just gotten a new washer and dryer. After the machines were unloaded, we were left with two huge, sturdy boxes. The adults constructed a great playhouse for all the cousins which we dubbed "Kid's Mansion" and we spent hours and hours playing inside. I remember it being huge with tons of rooms and doorways. I'm sure my memory has exaggerated a bit, but the fun I had was real and it has become a lasting memory for me.

Well, we were driving out of our development the other day and Lance almost wet his pants with excitement when we passed the recycling bins. Apparently, someone had ordered a couch and a chair and it was delivered in boxes and there on the curb were two of the largest cardboard boxes we had ever seen!

Trying to be the fun mom I want my kids to remember and spurred on by my childhood memories, I drug those huge boxes to our back yard yesterday. Okay, so it made the yard look all "white-trash", but honestly, those boxes have brought more fun in the last two days than the most expensive toy out there.

Yesterday, all we did was put them on their sides and let the kids go. They probably spent hours in there playing.

Lance and Jude with Killian. :)

It was a hit with our friends, too.

In an attempt to make it more fun for the kids (and so it wouldn't look like a pile of trash sitting in our back yard), today I took out my handy box-cutter and rolls of packing tape and turned the boxes into a house. The boxes had come with these great foam rectangles that quickly became couches and beds. I put some spare carpets I had lying around inside, and viola! A house!

The kids spent the whole morning playing inside, opening the windows, running in and out of the door, and taking "naps" on the "beds". While Jude was napping, I sprayed a light coat of white spray paint over most of the outside and after nap-time, we let the kids "decorate" their house with paint. A little ambitious, probably, but the kids had a blast!

Jude did a good job with the brush and except when he tried to paint our porch, did a decent job keeping the paint where it was supposed to be.

We had 6 kiddos all decorating at once: Killian and Kendall Elmer, Lucy and Bennett Smith, and Lance and Jude.

Working together.

Killian actually painted a sky with a sun and pretty flowers on his side.

 Kendall thought the roof needed to be red and spent most of her time meticulously covering the roof in paint. Lucy thought yellow was a better color. I think they met in the middle.

Bo Bo trying his hand at painting.

Jude is saying "cheese". This picture makes me laugh.

Lance really liked mixing the different colors together and seemed to always manage to get the same dark sludge at the end. He was please, though, and put his mark on the house as well. The brush was working for a while...

...but soon he opted for his hands. That was a fun mess to clean up. Oh, Britton came out to help, too!

Brother and sister.

The paint crew!

We let the paint dry for a bit but we just couldn't keep the kids out and for the next few hours they played off and on inside and out.

Hopefully the rain will hold off for a bit so we can get at least one more day of fun out of our little house. I know it won't stay for long, but at least Lance and Jude will have fun memories of their own special house. Just another day in Paradise!

Trauma on the Mountain!

A warning before you continue on this post: it contains some graphic pictures of an injury to Lance, so if you're a little squeamish, you might want to skip it.

Last Saturday, our whole family was up in Northern VA. Lance was spending the weekend with his dad and George and Jude and I were spending the weekend with George's family to celebrate his and his mother's Birthdays. That morning I was babysitting little Mason so Laura and Tyler could go to the temple together and Lance was mountain biking with his dad. I talked to Lance right before he left for the trail and knew he would have a great time. He's a good biker for being only 5 and has done this course with his dad at least once before, maybe twice.

At 10:30 a.m. I get another call from Scott. Lance fell on the course and Scott was driving him to Urgent Care. From what I could gather from Scott, Lance had fallen off his bike, face-planted, and cut his lip pretty badly. Bad enough that Scott thought he might need stitches. The part that worried me most, though, was that Lance kept trying to go to sleep in the car and Scott had to keep talking to him to keep him awake. I got off the phone and immediately asked George about it and he said Scott needed to take him to a hospital, not an Urgent Care. I called Scott back to pass it on and was told by Scott that Urgent Care wasn't open and he en-route to the hospital anyway. I hung up and waited anxiously for an update. A little bit later Scott called and said that Lance wasn't tired anymore and they were going to watch him to make sure he hadn't injured his head while they waited for a plastic surgeon to come and fix his lip. I was pretty relieved!

I still has Mason and Laura and Tyler weren't back yet, so I told Lance I would meet him at the hospital in a little bit. Laura came back around 11:15 and I hopped in the car and drove to Fairfax Hospital. I wasn't sure what to expect when I walked in the room. I opened the door and found a content Lance talking to some nurses and his dad. He turned to me and smiled and I felt a little sick. It honestly looked like half his lip was hanging off his face.

I held it together, though, and gave him a hug and then checked his pupils to make sure they were reactive and round. You know, like a good nurse or a paranoid mom.

His front tooth was impacted and a little crooked where it went through his lip, his gums were cut up and bruised, and he had some abrasions to his face and leg. Lance was thankfully wearing a helmet when it happened so he was spared any further injury to his brain.

Apparently he was pretty upset when Scott brought him into the ER (no surprise--not only was he hurt, he's a little dramatic to boot), but had calmed down and when I got there was enjoying some TV and lots of attention from the nurses.

I was there for probably about 30 minutes before the Plastic Surgeon came. Because the cut was on the lip, the staff felt it warranted some extra expertise and I was grateful. They used Ketamine to put him under instead of Propofol (the medication they used when he broke his arm) which bothered me. George had voiced his concern before I left the house about their use of Ketamine and how it affects kids. I told the nurses and they assured me that they used it all the time and it was perfect for kids. I grudgingly said okay.

Basically, ketamine puts you into an out-of-body experience. Lance was awake the whole time, but staring off into the distance. His eyes would twitch but other than that he didn't respond to much stimuli. It was unsettling and the student nurse that was there with us almost fainted during the procedure and had to excuse herself from the room. After the stitches were in, Lance slowly came out of it. His first word was "Mom?" which melted my heart (he does love me!). 

The whole "waking up" part took probably 15 minutes and was nasty business. Have you seen David After Dentist? It was exactly like that. Most of what Lance said for the next 15 minutes was, "Is this real life? Am I dreaming? I feel funny. Mom? Mom? Are you real? I want to hug you. Are you real?" It was really sad. He started crying at one point and wanted to hug me to make sure I was real. Ketamine apparently does that to you, it makes you feel disconnected from your body/the world.

He finally woke up most of the way and gave me and his dad a thumb's up.

He was a trooper.

After the stitches.

Once he could sit up and walk on his own, he was discharged. He was so excited to ride in the wheelchair on the way out and actually thought they had given it to him. When we got to the car, he innocently asked where the wheelchair was going fit. :)

 

Outside the Emergency Room.

This is what he will be wearing next time he goes mountain biking. He's had it for a while, but it was so hot that Scott decided to wear regular bike helmets on Saturday. Live and learn, I guess.

And here we are a week later. You can't even really tell anymore, can you? Kids heal so fast!

And to end, here is a video Lance's dad put together of their bike ride last Saturday. He actually fell right at the end of the ride when they were on flat ground. Go figure. His dad put him on his bike and pushed him and carried Lance's bike about half a mile to get back to the car. But before that, they had a good time.

Birthdays, Birthdays, and more Birthdays!

We celebrated many Birthdays last week!

First up, on Wednesday we helped celebrate Killian and Kendall's 6th Birthday. Their family threw an ice cream party in the backyard and invited all our favorite people.

Blowing out the candles.

The boys enjoying some of the cake.

Birthday kiddos!

Lance and Killian found an inchworm they thought was pretty neat.

Unwrapping gifts.

That weekend, our family drove up to Northern VA to celebrate George's Birthday and George's Mom's Birthday. It's tradition in the Glass family to celebrate Birthdays before they actually happen (because if you celebrate after, it's bad luck), so we celebrated almost a week early.

Jude and Lance and I drove up on Thursday so Lance could see his dad. That night Jude and I stayed at Aunt Linda's house in Maryland with my brother Stephen and visited with Aunt Linda and Bethany. It was nice to see them AND I got some great clothes from my cousins that they were getting rid of. One of the perk of being the smallest person in the family!

Friday we spent the day with Lance while his dad was at work. He's been wanting to go to the pool for a long time now, so we went to the pool in my mom's development with Laura and Mason.

Laura and Mason. Mason loved the water!

Lance busy being a fish. :)

Jude liked the water, too...

...maybe a little too much! He kept walking out to the deeper water before he realized he couldn't touch. Silly boy!

Saturday started out like a normal day. Lance was going mountain biking with his dad and I was babysitting Mason so Laura and Tyler could go to the Temple. Around 10:30 a.m. I got a call from Scott that he was taking Lance to the Emergency Room because he had fallen off his bike and thought he needed stitches on his lip. I'll do a full post on that experience, but long story short I made it to the hospital before plastic surgeon came and got to be with him through the procedure.

Before.

After.

Fun stuff. When Lance was safely on his way back to Scott's house I drove back to George's parent's house to celebrate George's and Mom's Birthdays.

Aliyah (George's cousin Pei's daughter)

She and Jude were thick as thieves together.

George's mom and two of her siblings, Jen, and George

It was Tanganika's Birthday, too! 

Dad lighting the candles.

The three Birthday kids. :)

Happy Birthday!