Fun trip to the ER...

Last night, Billy took pictures of all of our super-heroes. The older 3 got dressed up in Ben's dress-up clothes and played in a "fort" daddy made hanging sheets from the bunk beds. After the fun was over, we got a light and read books inside the fort.


Our kids slept until 8 this morning. I got up, got the baby out of the crib, put biscuits in the oven and started cooking sausage. By 8:05 Ben was in his hulk attire. At 8:13 Ben was screaming that he had hit his head. I comforted him, and asked how. This was the response "I was trying to do a flip in the air and hit my head." This is when I saw the blood and knew. I carefully removed his hair from the bleeding area and found a nasty gash. At this point Ben had calmed down and I was trying not to laugh (I'm not heartless, innappropriate laughter is my coping mechanism and I couldn't get the picture of him trying to flip out of my head) then HE saw it. His hands had blood on them. Anyone with children knows that a scratch is a scratch -or in this case a gash is a gash - unless it bleeds. Blood makes the pain-o-meter go through the roof. I finally calmed him down and called our doctors office.

Our doctors office told us to go to the ER to get it stitched up - I'm not happy. Our co-pay just went up $70 and I was not pleased at the thought of the wait. FYI - Wednesday mornings at 9 am are a great time to go to the ER - we had their undivided attention.

Ben was timid when the triage nurse took his vitals. We were immediately put into a room and Ben chose to continue watching Sportscenter on TV instead of changing it to kid shows. Our nurse and resident came in to assess him. The nurse shakes his hand and says "Hi, my name is Evan." Ben replies, "I have a cousin named Evan." Ben relays his incredible hulk flipping in the air story and the doctor confirms that he needs a stitch. The two leave the room, but not before the nurse puts up the railing on Ben's hospital bed. This is when I wish I was my friend Kristi J. who ALWAYS has her camera with her. The railings on the hospital bed made for a perfect pretend gun. Ben has a wild imagination and began shooting spiders (no, there were not any real spiders in the ER at children's) then deer, then...Rudolph. At this point the nurse, and two doctors came in. Guess what? My son shot them too - and they played along. They pulled the privacy curtain and to Ben's shooting-crazed amazement it was decorated with animals - aka more targets. By this point we were all cracking up.

Ben was a trooper and layed still while they put one stitch in his head. I talked to the doctor (the resident actually did all the work) and we laughed about how I could have dropped him off, signed the papers, and had him call me to come pick him up. He left with one stitch, and the two syringes they irrigated his wound with, which happen to be the best water guns a $100 co-pay can buy.

The wound - post stitch.

I did learn that the attempted flip didn't happen, because he hit the corner of the wall first. I'm very thankful for a stitch, who knows what injury a flip would have caused! Ben said he "forgot" that he could only do flips in the air on trampolines.

Hope you all have a blessed Thanksgiving!

We are thankful...

Ben and MC had their Thanksgiving program at preschool today.


Merrie Cannon

Ben was most excited about holding the gun.

Ben shooting the camera...I hope.

All the Ivey kids.

I checked Anna Beth out to see the program and enjoy the Thankgiving feast with her siblings. Provided there are no tests, I always include them in supporting each other.

Last night at dinner, we talked about what we were thankful for. Here's what each of them said...

Billy: Healthy Kids
Bethany: Leaves changing and falling - Billy did not share the falling part.
Anna Beth: Barf Buckets -the stomach bug was here a few weeks ago.
Ben: Water
Merrie Cannon: Friends and Family
Abe: Bottle (I don't think he actually knew what he was saying, but it was very appropriate.)

Clean, Sanitary, and Orderly

The highlight of our week last week was a trip to the Hoover Jail....

To get fingerprinted. Billy set his status on facebook to...I just got fingerprinted at the Hoover jail, and was loving the responses until our brother-in-law ratted out that it involved a minor. All went silent until Billy explained he was actually just fulfilling requirements to become foster or adoptive parents.

Our social worker called today, because we had failed to fill in some information on our fingerprint cards, and I asked her to tell me what on our list needed to be attended to now, and what could wait. We have a checklist that I have gone over millions of times, but I pulled it out again today to look at the items she has instructed me were imperative and noticed (for the first time) it says ***HOME & PROPERTY MUST ALWAYS REMAIN IN CLEAN, SANITARY, & ORDERLY CONDITION!!!*** Notice the three stars, three exclamation points and bold all caps. Coke almost came out of my nose I was laughing so hard. I try to keep our home that way, but I have four kids - 3 of which are not in school yet. Clean - funny, Sanitary - funnier, Orderly - funniest (unless you count the hours between 10 pm and 7:15 am. My kids go to bed at 8, so by 10 we have picked up and can see our floor. My kids wake up around 7 and by 7:15 all things orderly are out the window.) I hope DHR has as much grace and mercy as God does for all of my shortcomings - and housekeeping skills!

Our weekend re-cap....
We got our favorite babysitter to come Friday night so we could go to dinner with some friends from church. In true Ivey fashion, we had excitement. I return from AB's swim team practice to a very dark street and home. Only our street was without power, go figure. I don't have flashlights because my kids have broken all of them. We have one candle which was lit and our only other light was by cell phone - we originally did get them for emergency's. AB was spending the night with a friend, so we are searching to pack her bag by cell phone. We sent the sitter to Chick-fil-a with the kids, not realizing the cow was there, and all of Hoover as well. The power was back on when they got home, so all was fine and we enjoyed dinner as grown-ups.

We spent Saturday at my aunt's house with family and came home in time to watch our respective football teams play. I graduated from Alabama, and admit to being a crazed fan. Billy's dad played football for Vanderbilt, so he is their sole fan. Wouldn't you know they played at almost the same time, so we switched between games - it made me DIZZY. Bama continues its quest for the national championship with a win over Miss. State, and Vanderbilt is bowl eligible for the first time in over 20 years after beating Kentucky.

Sunday - church. Church was amazing. November is national adoption month (orphans are my new passion, btw) and what more appropriate than the baptism of our children's pastors child who was adopted from China. It was beautiful and brought tears. Being a pastor, the childs father had the privilege of baptizing his daughter. Apparently, when they met Hope for the first time she ran straight to her daddy and wrapped her arms around him. Her earthly father used it as the perfect picture of her running to her Heavenly Father one day and embracing Him as her Lord and Saviour. I'm tearing up as I write.

Sunday night the preschool choir did sang for their parents. Below is Ben doing motions while singing for us.



Today we enjoyed a trip to Publix - yes, my kids enjoy it - cookies! And daddy raked awesome piles of leaves in the yard for the kids to enjoy. Abe was napping, so he missed the fun and AB was at school, maybe I can get some more tomorrow with all my sweet babies!





Love to all my dear friends and family!

Baby Boys First Haircut

I took Abe to get a haircut Thursday. When it was hot and humid outside, his hair would curl in the back and looked oh so cute. With a change in the weather and humidity level, Abe was looking more like he had a mullet. He's almost 2, so time to cut that precious baby hair.


Before the scissors.


We went to my parent's house to watch the Bama/LSU game (Roll Tide, barely, but Roll Tide) on Saturday. My dad has a TV set up on the porch of his garage. You can watch the game and watch the kids playing outside at the same time. The boys were playing in a sand pile left over from the patio they added while remodeling their house and Ben comes running to the deck stripping off his shirt.

Ben loves to be shirtless - and shoeless (It's in his blood, I mean, I am from small town Alabama). Even though I thought it was too cold, I obliged when Ben said he was sweaty. Not 2 seconds later cousin Matthew was bringing his shirt to us. About two minutes later here comes Abe...lifting his shirt up and saying "shirt, shirt." I guess the haircut was a rite of passage into boyhood. All three boys played in the sand shirtless.






For all keeping up with our foster situation, we had our first home visit from DHR on Tuesday. We were pleased to find out that our home is suitable for children. Good thing since 4 already live here! We have some minor things we have to do to pass the official visit early next year. Now, its on to mounds of paperwork, fingerprinting, background checks, and medical visits. Have a great week!