4, 3, 2, 1

*** UPDATE***

The drama has ended with a best case scenario stamped all over it. After a visit to a pediatric orthopedist this afternoon, he came to the conclusion that Marianna's elbow isn't fractured at all! What appeared to be a fracture to the radiologist was a jagged edge in her growth plate. That means we have a healthy girl on her hands with no need for pins, surgery, or even a cast! Smiles all around as we celebrate what was indeed nothing more than a case of nursemaid's elbow to begin with. Yay!!!

Original Post

4 -- the number of times we have been to the ER with one of our girls.

3 -- the number of times we have been to the ER with Marianna.

2 -- the number of times we have been to the ER with Marianna in a 24 hour span this past weekend.

1 -- the number of doctors I'm hoping it's going to take to finally tell us what needs to be done.

This weekend, which began as a relaxing beginning to Nathan's vacation, turned into total craziness starting at about 9:30 Saturday night. We had friends over and the kids had been playing together all night upstairs. Some of our friends had just gone upstairs to get their kids ready to go, when I heard a thud and crying. It took just a few seconds to tell this was serious crying, and it was Marianna. I ran up the stairs, scooped her up, and brought her back down to hold her while she settled down. But she didn't settle down. She kept complaining about her arm, crying whenever we tried to look at it, and down right screaming when Nathan tried to straighten it. I don't have any experience with breaks, but to me her symptoms seemed tell tale of a fracture, so we decided we better head in and have it checked out.

Of course it happened on a weekend late at night. That's how it always happens =). So the ER it was. We checked in at 10:30, had had her x-rays by 11:00 and were hopeful about being home quickly after all.

That was not to be.

Three and a half hours later, we were finally called back to see a doctor. Marianna had been amazingly chipper up to that point, but by 2:30 am, her perk had fizzled and she wasn't interested in seeing the doctor. Especially when he took her arm, twisted it up and around and pushed, popping her dislocated elbow back into place. The good news, he told us, was that her arm was not fractured. He said she would be just fine, only a little sore while the torn ligaments healed. We were good to go.

We got back home and in bed just before 4:00 am. Marianna woke up happy and excited about her arm mobility, and our only indication of the soreness the doctor had warned of came when I tried to help her put a new shirt on. She couldn't move her elbow in a way that allowed her to get her left sleeve over her arm. I wasn't at all concerned, especially since she was feeling, what appeared to be, 100% better.

Fast forward a few hours when we were all settling in to take a nap in front of the hockey game, to a phone call we received from the ER. The nurse explained that upon second review by a radiologist, they discovered that her elbow did indeed have a fracture, one that might require surgery or pins. They told us we needed to return to the ER immediately to have a splint put on until we were able to see a pediatric orthopedist.

We were not going to be caught unprepared again for our second trip to the ER, so we loaded up an overnight bag with a pillow, Marianna's Leapster, DVDs, books, and food. This time we were there just over two hours, but the experience was surprisingly 100% more traumatic for Marianna. The splint freaked her out. Big time. She wasn't just upset about it; she was angry. Nothing, and I mean nothing, could make her calm down except time. After an hour, I was ready to call back up to the ER and ask them how to cut the thing off of her. It was awful. But an additional hour seemed to do the trick, and by evening, she was at peace with the splint and its effect on her mobility.

She woke up as bright and happy as sunshine this morning, and she is ready for her third appointment, this time in a doctor's office setting. We are hoping that the orthopedist will be able to tell us exactly what needs to be done, and I'm praying for no surgery. But whatever the case, I'm grateful for the second check that was done that caught the fracture. I hate to think that it might have gone unnoticed and caused her problems down the road.

I have never broken anything, Nathan has never broken anything, so this is new territory for us. It stinks having to see your baby go through something like that, but we are trying to make it fun any chance we get, and I'm awfully proud of her for how she's handled the unpleasantness. I'll let you know how it turns out today.

MPM-Shopping

My weakness is a sale. For me, buying something full price is akin to being stuck with a needle at the doctor's office, and I absolutely hate needles. I will be the first to admit that I am a sucker, and at times I buy too much because the deal was too good to pass up. But I am really putting forth a concentrated effort not to buy anything that I don't like just because it's on sale. Ebay has been my own worst enemy in that regard ever since children, but I've made a committment to put that bad little habit to rest. I will not buy it if I don't like it. Not even if it's just $2.95 plus shipping. Not even if it's something I think I might be able to talk myself into liking in a few days if I just concentrate on the deal. Nope. No longer.

But all of that was just a tangent. I stray from the topic at hand. What is my most eventful shopping experience lately? Well, just today I was pretty happy to see that the Gap was having a 40% off everything in the store sale. A new pair of jeans for $35.00 is always a happy event!

But much, much better than that was my buy several weeks back at Ann Taylor. An email coupon for 40% off the lowest sale price enabled me to get a $178.00 cashmere sweater for $17.98. That kind of deal gives me an all over glow of a frugalista at her finest (a term coined by a Target commercial. I love it).

I would be cheating this post if I also didn't go back a few months and tell you about my shopping experience at Remember Nguyen. Back at Thanksgiving they were having a blowout sale on all of there summer merchandise, so I stocked up for the girls' spring and summer wardrobe. I didn't pay more than $15.00 for any of these outfits. Most were less than $10.00. I can't even make clothes that inexpensively!

So now you have it. A compilation of exciting shopping lately!

10 Things Wednesday

1. My sister-in-law called today and let me know that my blog updating has something to be desired. That's why I'm sitting down this afternoon and getting to it =).

2. I think Anne of Green Gables is one of the best movies of all time. LOVE IT! I've been watching it this week over the course of several days, and I have proven once again that it doesn't matter how many times I see it. I will always cry.

3. I'm crazy about my new camera. For those who have asked, it is a Canon Rebel, and snapping away with it is pure joy. Here is a picture from this week's snow.

4. I have decided to run in another half-marathon sometime in April. Motivation is what keeps me going, and I've had the chance to prove to myself that without it, I just don't run.

5. Adrienne is developing quite an opinion on just about everything. Gone are the days where she allowed herself to be pushed around by an older sister, or where she could be counted on to be an angel in a shopping cart, or when she wanted nothing more to share anything and everything she had. She is almost two, and she is letting us know =)

6. Overstock is my best friend. I just ordered blinds for my entire house for 1/3 of the price we had been quoted from a local blind company. Best part? They look fabulous!

7. I continue to be a complete and utter failure at early wake-ups. 6:30 alludes me every morning, no matter the pep speech I give myself the night before. Oh the things that could be done if I would only get up and get to it!

8. I am trying to find two new frames to hang pictures of the girls. I love fun frames, but I'm having a hard time finding just the right ones. Anyone have a favorite frame shop? I'm all ears.

9. I'm almost done reading a book that I'm sure will impact me forever. It's called Adopted for Life by Russell Moore, and I feel like it's a must read for those who have ever thought about adopting, and a great book for those who have never even considered.

10. I don't wish that I lived 100 years ago, but if there is one thing I do envy from that time period, it is waltzing. How I would love to waltz!

Mystery Post Monday-Decisions

My sister recently started a weekly post she is calling Mystery Post Mondays, and I'm going to jump on board whenever I can and participate! The topic randomly selected this morning pertains to decisions, and more specifically, the best decision that I have made this month.

I can tell you quite confidently that not only one, but three decisions I made after this morning's trip to Target, will no doubt prove to be the best of the month. Let me detail the perfect storm of unfortunate factors that left me feeling the need to apologize to any of you who have may have seen me and my children from 11:00-12:00, and which also consequently led to the making of the three fabulous decisions that will hopefully serve as protection for future outings.

Everything was starting off A-okay. Since it was right before lunch, I decided to let the girls have some popcorn while we strolled, in hopes of staving off the inevitable, "I'm hungry. I'm really, really hungry," remarks that begin pouring out as we go down the food aisles near noon. So I got the popcorn, and just because I really wanted it to be a fun trip I got the blue Icee too. I didn't stop there. I also allowed the girls to ride in that horrific contraption posing as a convenient way to push two young children through the store: the two-seater cart. The girls were ready for some serious fun.

My first clue that trouble was lurking came the moment I stuck the straw into the Icee. Up to this point, Adrienne has had no desire for anything but milk or water, but let me tell you, all of that has changed. As soon as she saw the icy blueness, she went crazy. She wanted it. All of it.

If you've ever been in similar circumstance, you can pretty much guess the rest. There is nothing fun about refereeing one small Icee between two thirsty girls, while manipulating that beast of a cart, and (yes, I really had dreamed to the moon and back) carrying my Starbucks. But that was just the beginning. The fun didn't really start until the popcorn, which had been placed in a nook at the feet of the girls, got kicked over in one of the Icee confrontations. Like a covering of snow, the popcorn blanketed the bottom of the cart where the girls feet went. This problem was magnified by the fact that the bottom of the cart actually had small slats instead of solid plastic, which allowed all of that popcorn to drop out, piece by piece, throughout the store. I spent the rest of the trip picking up popcorn as it dropped, every few feet or so, and sometimes, actually getting down on all fours to sweep it into piles with my hands. It was ugly, I'm not going to lie to you. And the worst part was knowing it was a mess of my own making. The girls would have been just find sans the food, drink, and fancy cart. Sure, Marianna might have said she was hungry and Adrienne might have reached her hand out to a box of crackers, but since when did that hurt anybody?

The self-induced torture was completed while we were checking out. The buckle on that dad gum seat couldn't keep Adrienne contained, and while she was taking advantage of the still cart to scramble out, the Icee was knocked out, right in front of a perfectly put together mother of two, whose knees weren't blackened from frequent encounters with the Target floor, and whose children were sitting, quiet and content in a normal cart. I scrambled to pick it up, and found that a small puddle of blue had leaked out. I looked around for anything I could grab to clean it, and of course, came up with nothing. In desperation, I grabbed the paper that I had written my Target list on, and got down on my hands and knees, again, to clean it up. We all know paper isn't absorbent, and unfortunately my embarrassing circumstances didn't change that fact. I was sincerely hoping that, just this time, the paper would do the trick. Sadly, it didn't.

Finally I escaped (but only after my cart gave me one parting stab by getting stuck against the register station) and by the time my feet touched the parking lot pavement, my three decisions were made.

1. I will never push that dreadful two-seater cart ever again.

2. Popcorn anywhere besides a movie-theatre is a menace. Stick to a sucker.

3. Icees will come in twos or not at all.

Those are the guidelines I will be living by for all future Target trips from now until forever. And even if they are not the best decisions for the month, they certainly come with the best story.

the zoo...

is, among many things, a great place for camera experimentation! I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm enjoying pressing buttons and finding out through trial and error what works. One day maybe I'll feel competent behind a camera, but today that is definitely not the case. I'm trying not to become frustrated or overwhelmed, and instead to focus on the little victories. Like taking a picture that I can share with you that doesn't look half bad! Here are a few of my favorites from this morning's outing.

The last one is of my niece, Allie. This sweet little girl just found out she's a big sister! For Marianna and Adrienne, that means one more beloved cousin, and there just can't be enough of those.

the battle of the (in)dulge

I love January. It always feels so fresh after the crammed excitement of November and December. I love how it inspires people to try and aim for better things in the year to come, namely in area of food and exercise. I remember several years ago when I worked at Starbucks the company went all out with a January campaign for fat-free, sugar-free, vanilla lattes. It made me laugh to think of the slightly hypocritic promotion department that had been cramming peperment mochas and white chocolate mochas and every other kind of indulgence down consumers throats for the previous months, now encouraging their loving public to drink responsibly.

January is a month to fight the indulgence from the year before. Did I waste too much time last year? Did I forget to exercise during the past 365 days? Did I get lazy in my relationships? Did I let the closets and junk drawers go to pot?

Any of that can change at any point, but there is just something about January. It's a clean slate, mentally if not literally, and it's as good a time as any to start. I don't think these things necessarily need to be resolutions either. Sometimes the word "resolution" is more of a set up for failure than anything else. But it is a time to aim for better, to set goals, to be more focused and less indulgent of our weaknesses.

There are couple areas I'm trying to hammer away at right now. The biggest item on my list is time. I realized how much time I was wasting with things that over time add up to a big fat zero. The internet, my black hole of time consumption, is probably the biggest culprit for wasted time, but there are other areas too. So instead of filling up my days with a bunch of distractions, I want to do more things that I look back on and think, "That was a great way to have invested time."

I was also inspired yesterday to prioritize organization! I'm not generally messy, but I'm big time guilty of letting my spaces (closets, drawers, storage bins) accumulate. More and more and more eventually adds up to junky, and there is just no getting around it: Organization require de-junking.

I have plowed through the girls closets, my closet, the play room, and most recently, my pantry! I'll throw pride to the wind and tell you that I found more than one item in the pantry with an expiration date of 2007 or before. And when I say more than one, I mean enough to fill up a 13 gallon trash bag. I knew it wasn't often that I reached to the back row of my pantry shelves, but goodness gracious! Some of that stuff must have been back there for upwards of four years. Oh my. Hopefully another half-decade will not pass before the next total pantry cleansing.

So there it is. Gut level honestly laid out for you all to see. I was not one to clean out pantries or closets, but that is true no longer! I'm trying to take an honest look, see where I've indulged in the past, and get to work to make it different.

Revving Up

Slowly but surely, I am going to get into the swing of things this new year. I haven't blogged in about two weeks, and no, I haven't even thought of any good topic for today. I've been on overload I suppose. So much Christmas, family time, birthdays, New Year's celebrating, getting back into the swing of work, and house cleaning that the blog has fallen by the way side. Fortunately no New Year's resolutions were made regarding blog faithfulness, so none have been broken =).

I have thought about it now and again, if that makes it any better. I would in passing think something like, "When in the world am I going to put something on my blog?" and that would be it. My self-question was never self-answered. Then my subconscious took it one step further. I had a dream two nights ago that our house had been burglarized—a very realistic dream, I might add—and I distinctly remember in the dream thinking, "Well, at least I finally have something to blog about." But thankfully I woke up and found that while I didn't have a blog topic any longer, I did have a house untouched by vandals.

So where to start is the question. Since I'm stumped, I'm going to go with my friend Laurin's ingenius method for blogging when inspiration alludes. So here goes 10 things about our life in the past 10 days.

1. This year was the year of stockings!!! I am lover of stockings, while at the same time recognizing that my stocking days are in the past. But this year both my mom and Nathan's decided to go old school in the stocking department, which means Nathan and I loaded up on gum, candy, and gift cards! Such a fun surprise.

2. We loved having Nathan's brother, sister, and three nieces in town for such a long, wonderful visit!

3. Cousins every day for 10 days=2 very happy girls.

4. It also=sleep deprivation for both of those happy girls, which at times made them into unhappy girls. But it was worth every sleep deprived second, especially since all the lost rest is made up for now.

5. Nathan is now dangerously close to entering a new decade. He turned 29 on the 26th, and I love him more now—middle aged as he might be—than I ever have before!

6. I pick out just about all of his birthday presents, making it no coincidence that I often like many of the things he gets. This year is no exception, with Super Mario Brothers for the Wii ranking at the top of Angie's list of favorite gifts Nathan received for his birthday. We have already beaten the game and saved the princess, in case you wanted to know ;)

7. The Adrian Rogers Legacy Bible just came out, and I am so excited about getting to read through the Bible with so many of my grandfather's sermons and notes right along side. Such an amazing thing!

8. After having spent two years in a row beginning our New Year's eve celebration at Shogun, I think I'm ready to make it a tradition. We don't eat Japanese food any other time of the year, but on New Year's eve, it just seems to hit the spot. Plus it take two hours to finish the meal, and with a whole night to burn before midnight, why not?

9. I have run four measly times since the race. And with the temps as they are, I don't see that changing any time soon. Maybe February will be warmer...

10. Adrienne completed her maiden voyage out of her crib without assistance today. I'm anxious to see how that will change life from here on out.