The First Day of School 2010

Johnny started pre-school this year at St. Thomas. He goes twice a week for 2 1/2 hours and he loves it! I think he wishes every day was a pre-school day. In the morning he asks me, "Mom, I have pre-school today?" and if I say yes, he say "Yeah!!"
Lauren started kindergarten! (finally! :) She's been ready after 3 years of pre-school! She goes half-day for 2 1/2 hours, so it's still short, but she loves it and she gets to ride the bus home with Camryn. Here she is showing her High School Musical backpack.
Here's the beautiful Kindergartner! She didn't seem a bit nervous, just really excited! 3 of her best friends are in her class and ride the bus with her.
Here is the beautiful 2nd grader on her first day of school. She has a great teacher and her best friend ended up being in her class too, so she was really excited.

Lauren Turns 6 at Chuck E. Cheese!

This was Lauren's new birthday outfit that she wore to school for her birthday. These are some of the things I love about Lauren: She is so full of life and energy. She is curious about everything and loves to learn. She loves people and makes friends so easily. Everytime we go to a park, she comes away having met someone new. She is a free spirit and always has been. She doesn't worry too much about what's going on around her because she's too busy doing her own thing. She is loving and a great big sister to Samantha. She's always the one I can count on to drop everything and run over to Samantha to make her laugh if she starts to get fussy. She's daring and adventurous, always coming up with new things to accomplish at the jungle gym (get across the whole thing without touching the ground, etc.) I have a feeling she'll accomplish many good things in her life. I love her so much! (And I love that she picked out these pink cowboy boots for her birthday--they are so Lauren!)
Lauren had been dreaming for a year (ever since her 5th birthday) of having her next birthday party and Chuck. E. Cheese. We're glad we could make her dream come true! :) She invited all her friends and had a great time.
The birthday girl!
Eating pizza and chocolate cake with her friends and siblings.
Camryn and Lauren and Chuck E.
Lauren in the ticket booth. This was definitely a highlight! So fun to watch her grab for tickets! It was so funny because some of her friends had token left after 2 hours, and some of the boys went through their tokens in about 5 minutes!

Fall 2010

My cute kids (before Camryn's accident) on our front porch.
Johnny on his first day of school wearing his new backpack.
Samantha! Oh I love her! She is always grinning just like this!
Handsome Johnny! 3 1/2 years old! (This is for you Aunt Allie!)

Camryn's Broken Femur Continued

They had to teach us how to get her around in a wheelchair, how to go up and down stairs, etc.
They had to teach Camryn how to get up and down a curb with her walker. How to get in and out of bed, how to go to the bathroom, etc. So many thing we take for granted!
We were so grateful that Grandma could come help! She helped us so much and Camryn was so happy to have Grandma with her!!!
Camryn back at home with her good friend Anna. This is our family room and you can see her bed off to the left. Doesn't she look great?! She's doing really well and making a lot of progress!

This is Camryn trying to put on a brave face and she tried to learn to use the walker. It was very hard and scary and painful at first and it took a lot of hard work to learn to go a little ways. She has since gotten very good at it. The physical therapists at the hospital were so great with her.
This is her fun wall of cards from all her friends.
Camryn loved getting visits, especially from her siblings. She said she couldn't wait to see them. Camryn fell in the woods in a huge pile of fall leaves and it took about 3 days for us to get all the leaves out of her hair!
Greg was able to take off work and spend a lot of time with her as well.

Camryn's Broken Femur!

On Saturday, October 23rd, 2010, Camryn was riding a friend's bike in her friend's neighborhood. She got going too fast and couldn't stop and ran into a tree and broke her femur! She was so brave. Many of the doctor's and nurses commented on how "stoic" she was and how they'd never seen a patient as young as she is handle everything so well. She had a four hour surgery that night, where they inserted a metal rod down the side of her femur and screwed it into the bone. She'll have it removed in 18 months. This picture was taken the morning after surgery. She had a catheter in, a tube coming from her leg to drain excess blood, and an IV.
On Sunday, she had lots of visitors from the ward, her bishop, and her best friend from school. She had so many cards up on her wall from the primary and young women and friends that the nurses couldn't believe she'd only been there for one day.
One of her friend's brought her this "pillow pet" that Camryn loved. Camryn said, "Mom, I'm glad you're not a visitor that comes and goes. I'm glad you're here all the time." Camryn was really brave, but it was hard and scary and many times she would hold out her arms to Greg or me and ask for a hug.