Quite a scare

So we had quite a big scare last weekend. We were visiting with my BFF Jackie who was up here in IL to visit her sister.  We had decided to head over to Rhonda's and all of us would then go to Oaktoberfest and let the kids shine at the zucchini races. We were having a great time, racing zucchini cars that the kids made, singing a little Karaoke, and just hanging out. After awhile we headed towards the stage and food area to get some lunch, Jeff was up ahead with the kid and Jackie and I were hanging back trying to catch up on about 5 years of life.  Jeff took the kids to the bathroom and I went and sat down at a table to save enough space for all of us...I assumed all the boys were with him.  Poor assumption on my part.

Jeff came back from the bathroom and says, "Where is Jonathon?" So I explained that I thought he was with Jeff and Jeff tells me that "No", Jonathon hadn't been with him.  So all of a sudden my emotions flare up, my heart starts beating super fast and we all head out in search of my 7yo.  I was truly praying the whole time, trying not to freak out and watching for his light blue sweatshirt.  Thom was on the other side of the street looking for him as well...we headed back to where we had been racing the zucchini cars, and there is my poor, sweet little man sitting on the curb, with his hands in his pockets and tears streaming down his face.  I was heartbroken.

The short of it is that when we all decided to leave, Jonathon had been immersed in looking for spare change on the ground and didn't see us walk away.  When he got up from the ground, we were all gone.  I praised him for staying in that spot, knowing that if he tried looking for us, he would most likely never have found us.  He said that while he was lost, he found a penny and threw it into the fountain and wished "that he would see us again". 

I hugged him often throughout the remainder of the day.  I praise God that we found him, that no one stopped to talk to him, and that he stayed right where he had been.  This was one of my top scariest moments as a mom...I pray it never happens again, and while we used it as a teachable moment, it's not something that I will soon forget.

Does Fall really have to come so soon?

I know, I'm being a negative Nelly, but I really don't like Fall...because I know it will lead to Winter!  I am NOT a cold-loving person, and so that's why even though I'm enjoying the cooler weather, I know that Fall is here and Winter will be too. Sad.

Biking in Chicago

Cousins

One of my favorite things about being in the States is that the boys get to see their cousins so often!! They are having a blast hanging out and talking Legos and playing swords and other fun boy stuff!

First Day of School

Long lost post from July!!

I can't believe I forgot to post about Sophia's broken arm!!!  It was such a big event for us!!  So one Sunday morning in July, Sophia apparently fell off of a little baby armchair onto her left arm.  I went to pick her up from Sunday school and she was crying, though not that much, so they mentioned that she had just started crying but the lady who handed her to me wasn't sure why she was crying.  It was a weird cry, one of those cries that you just know something is not quite right.  So we got her home and I went to change her out of her dress and noticed that she wasn't using her left arm!  I called Jeff into the room, showed him that she was unable to move her arm, and off we headed for the ER.  We stopped by the church to try to find out what had happened, as we knew it was something that happened there and that was why she had been crying.  Everyone had gone home, except for the Childhood Resource people, so they called up some of the workers and that's when someone mentioned that they thought she had fallen out of that little chair.

In the ER they did xrays and thought that maybe it was just dislocated (nursemaids elbow) and so the ER NP attempted to put it back in...Sophia was crying and the NP did it 3 times and it obviously wasn't working. After about 15 minutes of being out, she came back in and tried to get Sophia to use her arm, she coaxed her with a popsicle, but instead of trying to reach for it with her arm, she reached for it with her foot!! At that point the NP said she suspected it was something more than a dislocation and splinted up her arm and told us to see an Orthopedic specialist on Monday. 

Monday I called Gillette Children's Hospital and they got us in right away with a specialist.  He looked again at the xrays and couldn't find a break, but he also said he was sure it wasn't dislocated because of the pain and the fact that she STILL wasn't using her arm at all.  He said he suspected a hairline fracture in the cartilage of her elbow and ordered her to have it casted. 

Sophia picked out a lovely PINK casting material and ended up having to wear her sweet little cast for 3 weeks...it ruined her time of swimming, going to the lake during Family Camp, and not to mention what an ordeal it was to give her baths!!  She survived though, and about 5 days after getting it casted started using her fingers and then her arm.  It healed well and we are so thankful, once again, that we are near good medical care!

Wheaton, IL

We arrived in Wheaton on August 16th, and began moving things in to our lovely, fully furnished 3 story duplex!!  It's part of the Furlough Homes Foundation, a ministry of College Church here in Wheaton that provides homes for missionaries on furlough.  It's just perfect.  It has everything we could need inside, it's 2 blocks from the boys' school, so we can walk everyday, and there are tons of MKs (Missionary Kids) for the boys to play with who also live in homes similar to ours. You can see in the picture that we were completely loaded down...the Tahoe has 2 bikes on front and 4 on back, plus the car top carrier and full of suitcases in back!!  It was soo fun to travel together, we also had our small Toyota Corolla packed to the gills as well...I drove that with 2 kids while Jeff drove the Tahoe with 2 kids.