Cole's 8th B-day PARTY!

Well, on Friday we had Cole's 8th birthday party. His birthday isn't until the day before Halloween--but next week will be busy, so we did it a little early. He decided to take his friends to "Jumping Jack's" and then come home for cake and ice cream. He had a blast! He loves dinosaurs so we did dino cupcakes, the funnest part was when Zadie smashed the cookies for the "dirt". She felt so big and was sure that Cole would be excited when he came home from school and saw 'em. The plates and napkins as well as treat bags were all in dinosaurs too. He made sure I knew that next week I would have to make him a cake for the family party as well...because he thinks mom can do anything and everything.

Here are few pictures of the kids having a good time at the party!

Porter's Halloween Concert

Okay, this isn't the best picture (it was so DARK, and I am not the best with the camera anyhow) but I thought I would put up a picture of Porter's 6th grade Halloween concert. Last Thursday his choir sang and the orchestra and band performed as well. The kids all had a blast dressing up. Porter went as a retired football player (he's in crutches) and Yanik his buddy, wore an afro and went as a "Bling-age Man" as Porter calls him. Lots of bling-age; a gold tooth, gold chain and rings, lots of gold rings.

The boys both were forced to take choir by their moms because of thier lack of practicing when they were in the 5th grade band. They both insisted that they mouthed all the words! 6th grade Boys, ya gotta love 'em!

RAD KIDS graduation

Wednesday night was Cole's RAD kids graduation. It is a "personal enpowerment saftey education program" that they came and did at his school. It is a neat program where officers and trained teachers talk to kids about stranger danger, scary situations and some physical skills that kids can learn and use. They have been learning things weekly for almost two months.

Cole was excited to go--but we were about 10 min. late and so he threw a fit before he finally decided to go out and join the kids. I swear sometimes he is more emotional than my girls. I am glad he finally did. He was confronted by a stranger, attacked by the man in the red suit (a police officer) who actually grabbed him and picked him up, and by "Bob" a dummy that the kids were able to punch and kick. A neat program that might help kids stay safe in this ever changing world.

Karee on the mend.

This month we have been hit pretty hard by illness. Between Zadie's pnemonia and Nick's shoulder I thought we were done. Nope, Karee ended up with the stomach flu and a UTI. Not fun for mom or daughter. I am glad to report that all seems to be well at the Christensen household--at least for now. We are glad that Karee is feeling better and back to school and life as she knows it. Thanks to our sweet neighbor Randy who helped Nick give her a blessing and the after hours clinic here in town she is much better.

Zadie also had a follow up visit and the pnemonia is all gone. She recieved a flu shot and didn't even cry. She ran into the house and couldn't wait to tell daddy how brave she was! She now has two new stickers: "I got an x-ray" and a new one that says "I got a flu shot today". Let's hope this is it for a while!

No More Sling! Yea!

We went to the doctors on Friday and got some good news--no more sling! Nick is pretty excited to get rid of it. They were impressed by his range of motion and did a few tests, but the short of it all was that he will not have to have surgery and after a few weeks of physical therapy he will be back to normal. Or at least as normal as my sweet Nick gets!

The tendons that were stretched will heal as best as they can, but will never be quite the same. He still has to be very careful, and it will take a little while to fully heal, but we are truly grateful!

Nick's Shoulder--big toughie!

Hello there to one and all. If any of you have been following the family trauma that we had last weekend I am glad to say that things are a bit better. Here it is Tuesday and Nick is back at work! He is doing much better...but we still won't know for about 2 weeks weather or not he will need surgery.

I took him to a Sports Medicine Specialist on Monday. They didn't take any x-rays, he'll have to have some when he comes back in two weeks. The doctor said that the tears in the ligaments are rated from a 1 to 3 and Nick's is a late level 2 or early stage three tear. So for now it is just immobility and his arm in a sling to see if it will scar up in the right place. The nurse beat him up pretty bad--she had to use this stuff that was kind of like duct tape and press down on the shoulder that hurt to get it back into alignment. She then strapped the tape from the top of his shoulder to the middle of his back while pushing on it with all her weight. He didn't even flinch. But after the doctor and nurse left he laid his head down on the table there. I asked him if he was all right and he said, "I'm just going to need a minute here."

The doc prescribed some muscle relaxers (his neck and back muscles were spasming because of the extra strain) and he is actually taking them. She told him to take 800 mg of ibuprofen 3 times a day too. So far he will take only up to 2 a day; which is pretty good for a guy who just doesn't take pills---I mean EVER!

Thanks to all of you for your phone calls and prayers. Kim Pierce (the other councilor in the Bishopric) announced over the pulpit that he was conducting for Nick because he was in a motorcycle accident. I had so many people come and ask me how he's doing. Later Sunday night, Kim and Janet Pierece stopped by with a shake for Nick and just to see how he was. It is nice to have so many wonderful people who care and love us.

Well, he's on the mend. I will give updates when anything changes. He has still had very minimal pain--and if you ask me, it's NOT NORMAL. He's lucky to have such a high tolerance for pain. But he's a bit of a PAIN to me when it comes to persuading him to take what the doctor prescribed.

Side note:
The only time I thought I might see him cry was when he realized that he truly wouldn't be going on the 3 day Moab trip motorcycling that was scheduled for three weeks from now! Just kidding HONEY--I love you!

"Daddy's Paradise!"--Insta Care Visit #2 this week!

Well, this past week end Nick took the kids out to the Sheep pits (some farm land that we've got permission to 4 wheel on a few blocks away). This was the 1st time ever that he took all of the kids and not me. I stayed home because I was very tired and was suffering with some sinus problems. Nick and the kids were gone motorcycling for a few hours and returned shortly after I woke up from a little nap. Nick took his new motorcycle that he had been dying to ride. Well, to make a long story short--or at least try, Nick ended up wrecking his bike and hurting his shoulder.

On the way home (after struggling to load the trailer and bike) he warned the boys not to run into the house and tell mom that he got hurt until I could see him with my own eyes. Porter then said "Wouldn't it be funny to tell mom that dad was paralyzed?" Nick told the boys that that wouldn't be funny. The doorbell rang, I could tell it was the kids and went to open it. That is when Cole came inside yelling: "Dad is Paradise! Dad is Paradise". I thought that he was saying "That was Paradise" or something like that. It wasn't until later, after seeing Nick and hearing the whole story that I understood what Cole was trying to say.

I ended up taking my dear hubby to the Insta Care and he had 3 x-rays. We have to go to the Sports Medicine specialist to have more x-rays taken. He is pretty banged up. Some abrasions and his whole right side is quite sore. I wasn't too worried until Nick started going into shock. We both thought that his shoulder had been pulled out of socket, but it turns out that the soft tissue or rather the ligaments that connect the lower bones to his collar bone are either torn or severed. His collar bone is sitting a bit higher than it should, or at least that is what it looked like in the x-ray. If they are torn or pulled then he will just need time to heal. If they are severed then it is surgery for Nick.

He still hasn't taken the medication that the doctor prescribed, but he has take a few 800 mg ibuprofen. When I ask him about the pain--you know, on a scale from 1-10 he says it is only about a 2. He has always had a high pain tolerance. We will see the specialist hopefully tomorrow. The last thing the doctor said to Nick was that he was glad that wasn't his shoulder. Not so encouraging!