Ben's movie making debut

For Christmas we gave Ben the Klutz book of movie tricks. Yesterday, he tried it out and made this film: The Neat Fairy. Hope you like it!

Courtney is adapting quite well to this broken arm

(Thanks to our awesome new iMac, photo and video posts are now a piece of cake and I will hopefully be blogging more  because of it.)

So, on Wednesday, Courtney collided with a soccer ball and this happened:

That day, Courtney was very quiet and melancholy. I think it was pretty scary for her. But since then, she has been happier than usual. This morning she came knocking on our door and asked:

(She is very quiet, but she says: "Can I have some medicine?")

Which, if you know Courtney, is absolutely a. maz. ing. She has also figured out how to make do with one hand in many situations. Today she changed her shirt on her own, with only a little help from me. More examples of learned independence:

That is a Beyblade, the biggest craze around our house right now. It took a bit, but she figured out to turn it around backwards and pulled the rip cord with her thumb.  The most impressive act yet of her one handed achievements is that she can now play violin one handed:

 She will not let this broken arm get in the way of playing the violin. This is her first year taking violin at school and it has made quite an impression on her. Her teacher says she is one of the more advanced students she has and that she will miss her. Courtney will not be able to play in the year-end concert, but her teacher is letting her keep the violin over the summer. She has already pulled it out 4 or 5 times since Wednesday to practice. :)

Disney photos...at last!

Taking the easy way out, here is a slideshow of some highlights of the Disney part of the trip. Enjoy!

Santa Fe in photos

My wonderful husband took two days off to celebrate my birthday.  Today we went downtown to try out our new photography skills.  Here are the end results of our day.  And just think, if you came to visit us in Santa Fe, you could see these places in person.  hint, hint :)  Enjoy!  (If you want to see a particular photo larger, just click on it.)

Really, Johnny?

Johnny: Mom, how many years are we dead?
Mom: Well...
Johnny: I mean, how many years are we dead before being a Grandpa?
Mom: Johnny, none of your living grandparents have died yet.
Johnny: Not even once??

Juanito

Johnny is in a spanish immersion Kindergarten class and is learning quite a bit...but not enough apparently. Kyle and I were talking in Spanish, you know, so the kids wouldn't understand.  Ben and Courtney immediately called Johnny, the 5 year old, to come translate for them.  "Johnny, Johnny, what are they saying?"  Johnny calmly informed them that he didn't know because his teacher hadn't used those words yet.  :D

Update...

You may or may not be wondering if Courtney and her sling got all the attention at school today. I drove the kids instead of sending them on the bus so I could help Courtney with carrying her things.  As soon as we walked in the classroom, all the kids were asking her, "How are you doing Courtney?"  "Did you break anything?" "Are you OK?"


It worked!  :)



By the way... it is true that Courtney wasn't feeling great yesterday but even more true is that she knows how to play up a situation.  When I pull out the camera to get a picture of how miserable she looks, she puts on her best sad/in pain face. She really is doing OK. In fact, after we changed her bandages this morning and then let her get dressed, she told me that people weren't going to know she hurt her knee because she was wearing long pants.  She was still limping a bit so I reassured her that the limp would clue people in.  Of course, when she isn't thinking about it, she doesn't limp.  Silly girl.