The injury...

Ethan went for his follow-up visit today. There was no sign of an infection so that is good. She was concerned with the swelling and decided that we not hold off until the stitches come out to see the orthopedic. He has an appointment tomorrow at 11:30. His stitches come out on the 20th. He has been unbelievably brave. I could barely hold it together watching them work on it today. I got a bit light headed and had to sit and recover.

Well, Will and Noah were not at all phased by Ethan's Razor scooter injury! They were out all afternoon jumping the ramp. Chris nearly had a heart attack when he pulled up and they were on the ramp with their bikes. It was bad timing. He happened to pull up just and Noah and Will wiped out. Ethan has been doing fine today. We have been keeping up with his pain medication and he took a nice long nap.

The injured...

Sunday evening while we were taking a walk with the boys who were riding their scooters, Ethan decided to take a break and walk for a while too. Poor Ethan fell while holding his scooter, and his body landed on the scooter with his left hand on the bottom. This resulted in a lot of crying and even more blood. After some deliberation, we decided that a trip the ER was needed. Ethan was certain that no stitches were needed and did not want to go, but we convinced him otherwise. He was so cute right after; he said that all he wanted for Christmas was to have his finger better and to not be in pain.

It's a good thing we went though, because he broke the tip of his thumb, fractured his index finger and needed to have his thumb nail removed to stitch the huge cut under the nail (which they later stitched back in place as a pseudo-bandage). Ethan was a real trooper while we were there. I still don't know where the bravery came from, but he got the through the whole thing with almost no tears. The ER staff even couldn't believe how good he was.

Well, he has to miss school for the next two days and has a couple of follow-up appointments in the next week. They even advised that we take him to see a specialist, just as a precaution I guess. Pictures to follow later.

Here are a few pictures from Universal yesterday.

The boys in front of one of the Macy's Day parade balloons.Our favorite roller coaster- The Flying Unicorn!

Yesterday we spent the day at Universal. We went to the character breakfast in the morning. Their breakfast was awesome. In addition to the food being really good, each of the characters spent 10 minutes at our table chatting with the kids and goofing around! Noah couldn't stop cracking up at Thing 1 and Thing 2. He just kept laughing and saying, "You're really funny, you're really funny!" Spiderman also spent a large amount of time chit chatting with Noah. He asked Will and Noah separately if he was their favorite super hero! Both said no!!! Noah said it was the Hulk and Will said Superman. Luckily, Spiderman wasn't upset with them. We zipped home from Universal, cooked dinner, and then left for Titusville to see the shuttle launch. It was pretty awesome. Chris got some great pics. He has only converted a few so I will post the ones that he has ready for me. I will have to post pics of Universal later since he hasn't converted those yet.

Sunday was a relaxing day. The boys have been begging us to put up our Christmas decorations. We managed to get the tree up Sunday. The outside is still bare. I suppose we'll have to do that soon! They are nagging about that now. We gave the boys free reign on the tree and they had a blast. This week seems to have flown by. The boys have been busy doing homework and playing the Wii. Today they watched How to Eat Fried Worms and loved it. I didn't get a chance to watch it since I was busy with laundry and dinner. I was told that there is a very scary witch part. There, that is your fair warning. The boys are very excited about all the fun in store for them for the rest of December. We are doing our Universal breakfast and parade on Saturday. The 16th is Ethan's birthday party and camping. Then on the 17th Grandma Ann arrives. The week of the 18th will be filled with Christmas parties and performances. Ethan has made plans for his "real birthday" on the 23rd which involves more partying. After Christmas Grandma Pat and Pop-Pop Bob arrive for a couple days. We plan on meeting up with the Gangloffs in Orlando while they are visiting Disney. Should be loads of fun! Hopefully Chris and I will be able to keep up with everything! We already are behind on thank-yous from Will and Noah's party and Ethan's is just around the corner. Thankfully he is old enough to write his own now! Ah...

We went to the NSB parade after the birthday party. We met up with Melissa, Bobbie, the girls, Colleen, Aaron, and Kyle. Ethan was on the Cub Scout float and was super excited to be in the parade! Here he is going over the bridge.
Walking along with the float.

His view of us!

Our view of him!

The boys had a wonderful time at their birthday party yesterday! All of their friends came and it went very well. They had a great time playing together.

The playground scene...
The wish...

Getting ready to sing...

The presents...

Poor us and our 80 degrees! From www.weather.com ...

High pressure will build across the southern states today, in the wake of the strong cold front which moved through yesterday. Much colder temperature will be felt across the entire south today.
The only exception will be across central and southern Florida, which will remain south of the cold front. This will mean a continuation of warm temperatures for that area.

We are preparing for Will and Noah's birthday party. We will post pics later. Ethan is also in the NSB parade today. He is really excited about that!

Here they are posing in front of the beach shop and the pirate gear!
Here they were watching the twirlers. They were all impressed with their skills. The finale was fire throwing. The boys promptly screamed, "Yeah, that's what I'm talkin' bout," when that began!

They were all amazed by Santa, the reindeer, and especially the snow!

The third grade chorus performing for the crowds. They did an awesome job!

Today we kicked off the holiday season by going to Light Up Flagler. For those of you that have visited us, that is the street in NSB with all of the shops that ends at the beach. The third graders from out school performed and some of the kids I work with were twirling. The boys had a lot of fun. Mary and Emily came along with us and we met up with Melissa, Bobbie, and the girls. We also ran into Sam and her adorable niece. The kids had a lot of fun running around the street (it was closed down) and visiting with Santa. They were most impressed with the "snow" falling in the 80 degree weather!

I almost forgot... HAPPY BIRTHDAY AIDEN AND GREAT AUNT TERRIE!

Will and Noah celebrated their birthday for the 4th time tonight! Emma, Paige, Sophia, and Emily came over to help celebrate. They had pizza from Alberto's and chocolate cream pie. They had asked for pumpkin pie but changed their mind at the grocery store when they saw how tasty the chocolate cream pie looked! They have gotten lots of calls from Great Grandma Owens, Grandma Ann, Aunt Stephanie and the rest of the Delaware crew, and even Geoffrey the Giraffe! Emma was most impressed with the call from Geoffrey. They opened all the cards with generous money falling out at them. They loved the "golden coin" that Great Aunt Roey and Great Uncle John sent them! They were also excited to open a card from their Great Aunt Mary that they had just seen on our trip to Maryland. They are looking forward to their real birthday party on Saturday and their character birthday breakfast the following weekend at Universal! They are having six celebrations for turning 5! I don't know what we'll do when they turn 16. Thanks for all the phone calls and well wishes. I'm sure there are more to come tonight. I know it means a lot to the boys.

My babies are five!!! It's a sad, sad day. Will and Noah are having a little party at school today. They requested pizza and pumpkin pie for tonight. Their real party is on Saturday. We are looking at 20+ kids. Should be fun!! I'll post a picture of the birthday boys tonight.

Will resting in the tree.

Noah hanging out in a tree!

Will and Noah celebrating their birthday early- for the second time!

Aidan doing his part to keep the yard looking nice.

Ethan enjoying the tire swing.

More fun on the tractor.

Although Pop-Pop threatened to dump them from the tractor bucket into the pond, they came back still in the bucket and dry!

Noah especially enjoyed operating heavy machinery!

Pop-Pop and the boys visiting with Duke and Dunny.

Riding the 4-wheeler.

After the Schrader's we went to the mountains. The boys had a blast there riding the 4-wheeler, driving the tractor, feeding the fish and horses, building campfires, setting off fireworks, hiking through the mountains, getting spring water from the mountain, feeding the deer corn, going out to eat, and visiting Cumberland. Lori, Alina, and Aidan came up from Wednesday to Friday to spend some time with us. Alina and Noah hit it off and were inseparable.

Getting ready for a round of Cranium Pop-5. Ethan was quite good at the game!

Noah, Will, Ethan, Leigha, and Aiden hanging out at Grandma and Pop-Pop's house!

We had a fabulous trip to Maryland. We left for MD after school on Friday and arrived at the Schrader's at 3:15 am. It is never a fun drive, especially from about midnight on. The boys woke up bright and early to play with Leigha and Aiden who had spent the night. They played throughout the day until the rest of the Schrader clan arrived. All of the kids had a fun time playing together and Mom and Dad cooked a terrific meal! I will have to post pictures later since Chris had to "convert" them. We also had a little birthday party to celebrate all of the November birthdays. The boys were very excited to get their Nintendo DS Lites as their joint Christmas/birthday gifts! On Sunday we of course had to do lunch at Baja Fresh! After lunch we went to Kate's new house. She set us up to expect the worst, when in reality, her house is absolutely adorable! Once she is finished with her renovations I am quite certain she will fall in love with it. I can't wait to see it when it is finished. Kate has picked out some really cute stuff and I can't wait to see it all come together. Here is a picture of Noah asleep after his Baja lunch on the way to Aunt Kate's house. He fell asleep playing his DS! Then there is the picture of the boys in front of Kate's new house.

MY VAN IS NOT READY!!!!

Well, in an effort to have fun outside, we went to play soccer out front. Soccer lasted for about 10 minutes and then they moved on to scooters and bikes. Within 5 minutes Ethan was on the ground declaring that we need to call 9-1-1 because of his hurt arm. Now, those of you that know Ethan well, know he can be a bit dramatic when it comes to injuries. He has been sitting at the kitchen table for 20 minutes with ice on it and still claims that it hurts "super bad." He even decided not to go to Cub Scouts since it hurts so much. Hopefully it is one of his dramatic moments. There is no sign of swelling or bones sticking out.

Spoiled, spoiled Will!! Tonight at dinner Will announced that he had NO fun this weekend. This is coming from a child that went to the Eagney's to play on the playground, went to Moe's (one of his favorite restaurants) for dinner, went to the video game store, went to Universal Studios, went to McDonald's for lunch and played on the playground there, went to the beach, had Dunkin Donuts for his "second day of the weekend breakfast," had a friend over to play the entire day, AND went to the river beach playground all in ONE weekend! And that is just the stuff that I can remember. I was just excited because Chris finally fixed our leaky toilet! Simple pleasures!

We had a great time at the beach this afternoon. It was nice and warm. Ethan woke up with an ear infection this morning. Luckily, he has a really nice pediatrician and she called a prescription in for him.

Look out, it's Clark Kent!