Megan's First Reconciliation

Saturday was Megan's First Reconciliation.  Our church has a beautiful prayer service before the kids have their reconciliation.  It was so special!

We surprised Megan by taking her out to lunch at Sumo Sushi to celebrate!

And we surprised her with a gift of a sparkly, sequiny bible.  She LOVES it, and has been reading it like crazy.  She already knows how to look up readings from her First Eucharist workbook based on name, chapter, verse.  My holy baby!

My birthday

For my 38th birthday, I was treated to a wonderful dinner at Kruse & Muer!

This picture pretty much sums up our night out at a nice restaurant with three crazy kids

Whole fam

Katie made me chocolate chip cookies earlier in the day, so I got to have my birthday serenade at home with this:

Yes, that's a candle IN a cookie.  It actually worked!

Today I got my present - a trip to Bordine's for a cart FULL of houseplants!  I got two big leafy guys for the dining room, four cacti for the front room window, and two cool hanging glass thingys with bromeliads inside.  They're hanging in the dining room bay window.

Mid-winter break

The girls had Friday off school for conferences. We got those done in the morning, and spent the rest of the day at Target (clothes shopping), the dealership (oil change and lots of free hot cocoa), Barnes & Noble (two used books each), and McDonald's (thanks for the coupons, Grandma C!).

On Saturday morning, Katie had her last basketball game of the year. She had a rebound and a shot! G&G Christensen came up to watch the game, and we all celebrated at Sumo Sushi for lunch. The girls ate their weight in edamame, I think, because there were piles of shells everywhere!  Then we started our journey to Graytown, not knowing that there was a snow squall in downtown Detroit that caused many accidents and closed I-75 in two places!  It was a long, slow drive, but we made it.  We had chili for dinner, and watched MSU cruise to victory.

On Sunday, we went to church with G&G, then brunch at Blackberry Corners, then a visit at the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge.  It was way too cold and windy to go on a nature walk, but we saw a huge bald eagle's nest, and got to drive through the refuge, which is usually closed to cars.  We had to drive home Sunday night, because poor Chris had to go back to work today.

But the girls are still off school til Wed! Today we met our friends for lunch and for a play date at a gymnastics center all afternoon. My friend Shari works there, and told us about the open gym today.









The great thing about this gymnastics place is that it has open gym hours on Mon and Wed afternoons for homeschool kids! Katie's so excited to go back next week! Katie is at a sleepover tonight, enjoying time with her school friends. We'll get her back tomorrow morning, and find some new adventures together for our last day of mid-winter break!

PS - Update on Megan's finger - no real news.  We went to a hand specialist on Wed, at the advice of our pediatrician.  (The ER radiologist gave a conflicting report).  The hand specialist said it was likely fractured, but he wouldn't do anything but tape it anyways, so he didn't order any additional x-rays.  He checked movement of all tendons, etc and gave her the all-clear.  Meg's out of the splint and now is just "buddy-taped" with her middle finger.  She is sooo happy to have movement back!  Her finger and knuckles are still bruised and look terrible, 11 days later!  I saw three nurses today (friends) and they all said her finger must have been broken to be so bruised for this long.  We are lucky that Megan hasn't been in pain...such a tough kid!

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DIA - Chinese New Year

Today, I took the girls to the DIA for fun, and for a special Chinese New Year celebration.

Lion dance!

We were so close - first row!  Jessi has pigtails, and Katie has a french braid.  The lion came within inches of them several times!

Lion dance

Jessi tried out the Chinese drums used in the performance

Then Katie got a turn.

They got to touch the lion costume and look at it up close.  Amazing!

 

Megan tried one of the gongs

Girls by "Artie" the donkey - the only work of art in the DIA that you're allowed to touch.  Katie's friend came along with us, she was sooo nice and fit right in.  The girls are trying to feed Artie some parsley left over from the Lion Dance.  (the lion chased a guy around for parsley, ate it, and spit out the leftovers!)

After a snack in the cafe, we went to the classroom to do the project d'jour - making masks!  The girls had a blast customizing their masks.  It looks more like Mardi Gras than Chinese New Year, though!

We wandered around til the museum closed at 5pm, seeing as many galleries as possible.  Katie's friend had never been to the DIA, so the girls were thrilled to show off their knowledge and their favorite rooms and works of art to her...Rivera murals, impressionist paintings (lots of dots!), Picasso and Van Gogh, spiral staircase, virtual dinner, and every "Eye Spy" game we could find in the museum!  It was a super fun day!  (except poor Chris stayed home sick)

Daddy Daughter Dance

Friday was our gym's Daddy Daughter Dance - something we look forward to every year!

The girls always ask for their hair to be "curly"

Chris and his beautiful girls

Slow dancing with Jessica

Wild girl dancing

Slow dancing with Katie (how did she get so tall??!!)

Meg likes the dessert

Slow dancing with Megan

Cheers!

Katie and Megan doing the macarena!

Megan's finger

Edited:
Sorry I did not include the back story first!  This was an update from my iPhone as we were leaving the hospital.  I had sent out texts when we first got there, but didn't have time to text everyone back last night, so that's why I posted here.

ANYWAYS, the story is that Megan fell at recess yesterday. She was playing by the rock pile and a snow/ice pile, and she slipped.  I have no idea how she only hurt her ring finger and no where else on her hand.  She was wearing thick Thinsulate gloves, and they don't have a mark on them.  She has a big, deep gash on the underside of her finger, and a large, shallow scrape on the top of her finger.  Again, I have no idea how the heck this happened!

The recess mom took her right inside, and the secretaries sat with her with an ice pack til I got there.  (the longest 10 minutes ever!)  Megan didn't cry one bit, but the office staff knew it was bad b/c it swelled up so fast.  I took her to our pediatrician first (very close to our house and the school), and she took a quick look at it and then sent us to the ER for x-rays.  We were there for almost 3 hrs...or 29586 games of "I Spy" in a tiny room.

She is doing great now, no pain at all as long as it's splinted.  She played outside in the snow today (snow day!), and went to the Daddy Daughter dance tonight. I only painted 8 of her 10 fingernails, though!





We are home from the ER. Megan's doing fine. There doesn't seem to be a fracture, but there is a lot of swelling so she'll have to go to a hand specialist next week for another X-ray if it doesn't improve over the weekend. She can't bend it or straighten it, but it doesn't hurt unless she bumps it or tries to move it. Thankfully! She is in a splint for a week. Here are a few pics of my poor baby:







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