Head wounds bleed. A lot.

Another parenting adventure.

Last night, after the kids were in bed, Brandon and I were watching TV. We heard a loud CRASH and then a SCREAM come from Ady's room.
We both ran in there. She was on the floor crying. We asked her what happened, and she just said "nothing" - between all the tears.
Brandon picked her up and tried to comfort her. Then asked where it hurt. She pointed to her elbow, so he set her down on the bed so he could get a better look at it.

It was then that I noticed the blood.

All over Brandon's chest and arm where he'd been holding her.

So, we turned her over and saw that her hair was full of blood. We searched for the source, and found a gash on the back of head. It was only about and inch long, but we couldn't tell how deep it was.

Brandon told me that I needed to take her to the ER.

I know that head wounds bleed a lot, so I wasn't ready to rush off to the hospital just yet.

So, he decided to call friend who happens to be a pediatrician. He came right over and had a look at it.

He showed us how to clean it out. Then he said that he didn't think it needed stitches. He just had us put a band aid on it. He just said to keep an eye on it and make sure it doesn't get infected.

So, after all that, we went to bed.

Brandon was pretty stressed out about the whole thing. "That's my baby girl." he said.

Anyway, I think she'll be fine.

I don't think she was sleeping when it happened. She probably has learned WHY the monkeys shouldn't jump on the bed.

So, What's New?

I've been severely slacking in the blogging department lately. Sorry.
It seems that having three children and trying to run a business at the same time is finally catching up to me.
The baby is no longer sleeping for most of the day as she was a month or two ago. And when she is awake, she thinks I should be holding her.
I've also decided to try to save money by couponing. It is fun, and rather addicting. I already have a pantry and freezer full of stuff I saved TONS of money on. (checkout pinchingyourpennies.com and couponmom.com)
As if that wasn't taking up enough of my time, I got two wholesale orders in the last couple of weeks. They aren't nearly as large as the one I did before the baby was born, but it still took time. More so than I thought since I didn't have a lot of time to work on it during the day.

I haven't been sleeping much lately.

I finally finished the orders tonight and will ship them out on Monday. (yay me!)

Here's the latest picture of my baby girl


And a couple of the new Zadys that will be in my shop soon. (as soon as I take the time to put them there!)

Story Time - VOTE!

I should have posted this sooner, but well, I didn't.

There are only TWO days left to vote for the EtsyBABY Story Time Challenge.
There are some really great entries, but I'm really proud of my Wild Thing, and I really think I've got a shot!

So, check it out, and VOTE for your favorite!



Voting Ends at April 15th at MIDNIGHT Eastern Time!

What's in a name?

This is somewhat random, but I was thinking about it today...

Do you call your kid's by their given name? All the time? If you're anything like me, you don't. I just think it's a little ironic how we spent SO much time debating and deciding what to name our children before they were born, and now that they are here, we hardly EVER call them by their actual names.



When I was pregnant with Zander, we had his name picked out pretty much from the start. The only thing we discussed was how to spell it. We decided on Alikzander. I really thought we would call him "Alik". But, for some reason, once he was born, that just didn't seem right. So, we settled on Zander, and that's been his name ever since. His teacher calls him Alikzander (I think she sees it on the list and gets confused), and when I hear that it just sounds odd.

For baby number #2, I came up with the idea for her name before I got pregnant. There was a contestant on Survivor (I know, I know) who was named after her grandmother. The grandmother's name was Helen, and her name was Neleh. I thought that was just cool, so I thought it might work for my kids. I couldn't use my mother-in-law's name because it would just be child abuse to name them Anoz. (sorry, but it's true.) So, I tried my mom's name and came up with Adalen. I thought it was very pretty! I guess I figured that we'd call her Ady, but we had to decide how to spell it. Weird that it's just a nickname, and we have to choose the spelling. I went with A-D-Y mostly because I wanted to be different. *shrug* I guess if she doesn't like it, she can change it later in life.

With our third child, my husband told me that we HAD to stick with the pattern. All of our children's names start with an "A" and have a "Z" somewhere in the name (Ady's is in the middle name - she is named after both grandmothers after all). We had a few ideas. I really liked Alizbeth, but it didn't quite seem right. We finally came up with Ainzlee (again, we messed with the spelling). I chose the middle name, May, because it is a family name on BOTH sides, which is just cool. My grandmother's middle name is Mae, and I almost went with that, but, my grandfather's mother's maiden name is May, and Brandon's great-grandmother's middle name is May as well, so it works.
I didn't think that Ainzlee would have a nickname. There isn't one that just jumps out with that name. But, leave it to us to give her one. We've started calling her "Miss May". I don't know why. But it's stuck. Variations are "Baby May", "Missy May", "My little May"... you get the idea.

Anyway, it's just funny how much thought we put into "official" names for our children, but the nicknames some how just stick without us thinking too much about it.

Pray for Arvil

I don't think I've shared this here before, but this is really important.
My nephew Arvil, who just celebrated his first birthday, is in desperate need of prayers, as are the rest of his family.
You can read his story here at Arvil's Angels, a blog that my brother has been writing about the situation.

Here is part of the latest post:

We're back.

Not necessarily where we want to be. But here we are, back at Primary Children's MC.

Here is the scoop:

We came yesterday for a scheduled MRI. The MRI showed definite signs of progressing vasculitis in Arvil's brain. To translate, the blood vessels in his brain are constricted due to inflammation of the blood vessel walls. As a consequence of the vasculitis, certain areas of the brain are not getting the nutrition that they need. The MRI images that we saw show that Arvil's brain has actually begun to shrink because of this, and that he has had at least one additional stroke.

In addition to this information, Dr. Benedict, our neurologist, also informed us that she had just received results of a genetics test that had been ordered back in January. Arvil tests positive for the genetic defect associated with Krohn's disease and Blau syndrome. The current theory is that Arvil is exhibiting a "non-classic" presentation of Blau Syndrome, a rare auto-immune disorder that typically exhibits in childhood. It usually presents with eye disorders, rashes and arthritic joints. It does however, cause vascular inflammation and some liver problems which, together with the gene, point toward Blau syndrome.

Not good news at all. Please join us in praying for little Arvil and his family.
Thank you!

A Trip to the Zoo

On Wednesday, we went to the zoo.
There were several reasons for this trip.
The primary reason was that it was a field trip for Zander's preschool. This meant that it only cost $3 per person. Zoo admission is normally $17 for adults and $9 for children - so that is a REALLY good price.
Plus, we had been telling Ady, who is obsessed with monkeys, that if she learned to use the potty, we'd go see real monkeys at the zoo. She's been doing pretty well with the potty thing, so we figured we'd take the opportunity to go.
So, Brandon took the day off work and we went to the zoo!
It was really lots of fun. We did have some time restrictions because we had to meet up with the school group. They didn't leave the school until almost an hour after we thought they would, so that was a bummer. Although it was Zander's first chance to ride on a school bus (daddy went with him - the girls and I went in the van). He thought that was really fun.
The weather was perfect, the kids were pretty well-behaved, and we had a great time!

My cute kids with the zebra - Zander said these were his favorite because "zebra starts with 'Z', just like my name!"


Here's Ady with the monkeys. I thought she'd go nuts when she saw them, but she seemed a little unimpressed. She had a lot more fun in the petting zoo.


The baby was there too!


Zander thought it was so cool that he got to ride the bus. (The sun was in his eyes for this picture)


By the way, the cute purple hat that Ady was wearing came from Pink Alligator. We really like it!