Archive for March, 2009

Updates from March

Friday, March 27th, 2009

I can’t believe it’s almost April. Until this week the weather has been fairly mild, but as you know with March in like a lamb out like a lion. We are supposed to get snow tomorrow (Saturday). Can’t wait until that’s all gone, I am ready for spring.

Since it has been so mild out, we got the opportunity to play lots outside. Brayton’s cast has not slowed him down a bit. Hard to believe it’s been 3 weeks now, he goes to the Dr. on Tuesday to get it removed.

Uncle Nick came down a couple weeks ago and installed a new water heater and water softener for us, he also got to shoot some hoops with Brayton. Brayton has been getting better and better at riding his bike, and Lauren is starting to want to ride as well.

We got the opportunity to go over to Matt and Audra’s for an evening barbeque, the kids had a great time playing outside and then as the temperature cooled playing inside. In the video you can hear Brayton running around in circles squealing while Audra and Lauren have fun.

Brayton has been really getting into picking up worms, pretty typical for a little boy. Finally, Grandma & Poppa Anderson came down for the weekend and got lots of play time in with both the kids. Grandpa Anderson also helped Daddy install a new sink and garbage disposal, which turned out to be a much bigger job than I had anticipated.

All in March was a very fun month, and now with the new laptop we have and the fiber optic connection we can upload these videos in just a minute versus the old DSL that took 20 minutes.

Enjoy.

Posted in Brayton, Lauren, March 2009 | 2 Comments »

Highlights from the first week of March

Tuesday, March 10th, 2009

One of the side benefits of getting the new camera and having to learn how to compress the video files was that I now have the ability to splice and merge multiple videos into one compilation. As you’ll see I’ve even learned how to add titles! Imagine how good I’ll be at this in a few more months. The best part is I can make a 2 or 3 minute movie in the same size file as I could do for a 30 second movie before. Oh the opportunities to forever share the lives of our children…

The first clip is Lauren wanting to go poop, and of course, there’s only one potty downstairs. Also, her pants are a little too big so she has plumbers crack.Second is feeding the ducks at the zoo.Third and fourth are playing with Audra and Matt. They came over today and brought Lauren and Brayton new balloons and brought Colette some flowers for her birthday. In the 3rd clip I had hooked Lauren’s balloon to the back of her pajamas and she was like a little dog chasing his tail. In the last two clips it’s of the kids dancing with Dad, Audra, and Uncle Matt…They have such a ball dancing.

Enjoy.

Posted in Best Of, Brayton, Lauren, March 2009 | 1 Comment »

The Purple Cast

Tuesday, March 10th, 2009

So, here’s the photo you’ve all been waiting for. Brayton and his purple cast. This cast has not managed to slow him down in the least. Within hours of getting it on he was in the garage riding his bike. He was pestering his sister that afternoon also. The cast still seems to have a degree of novelty to it. I’m just glad he has not learned to use it as a club yet. That would warrant a long stay in the corner.

Posted in Brayton, Broken Wrist, March 2009 | 1 Comment »

Houston we have a problem…

Sunday, March 8th, 2009

Got Colette a new camera the other day. It’s a 10 MP (Megapixel) Canon. Nice camera.

I knew the photos and video’s would be bigger, but I had no idea how much bigger.

Thursday evening, Brayton was learning how to ride his bike, Colette had been working with him that day. He did really well, going round and round the van about 20 times in total. I was really nervous because he’d go up the driveway slowly then as soon as he turned he’d go scooting down the hill and – in my mind tip over or ride straight out to the street.

Colette did a great job taking the little movie of it, it was 37 seconds long. With the old camera that would equal about a 12 MB film clip.

With the new camera, that equals a 70 MB film clip…and an hour and a half of upload time.

Wow, I’m not sure how I’ll get these uploaded, but I’m going to try – if not then we’ll have to figure out something else or only post photos.
___________________________________________________
20 minutes later – well, thank goodness for Google and Microsoft. After a couple of search queries, I’ve figured out how to reduce the size of the video from 70 MB to 4MB. Lets hope the increased compression rate doesn’t ruin it.

I think it turned out allright…Alan and Colleen and Mom and Dad you’ll have to tell me if the video is okay…

One last note, this video was taken on Thursday – March 5th, two days prior to Brayton breaking his wrist.

Thanks

Posted in Brayton, March 2009, Ride Bike | 1 Comment »

Broken Wrist #2 (Click the Xray for a larger view)

Sunday, March 8th, 2009

Went to Jordan Creek Mall to play saturday afternoon. Was a very rainy day and all we’d done is run some errands and played inside. Decided it would be fun to get out and go play a little bit since the weather wasn’t cooperating.
Got to Jordan Creek, the kids played for a good hour. Running around sliding on the slides, and climbing on top of everything. Brayton is getting to be a really good climber, and Lauren is right behind. They have no fear, which is part of the problem.
Brayton was climbing to the top of a “log”. It’s a fake log of course, but it’s about 4 feet high and has a tunnel through the middle of it. Brayton would climb up to the top and then jump down, turn around and climb up again.
One time he wasn’t so lucky. I’m not sure if he lost his concentration and jumped hands first (versus feet first) or what, but he jumped and landed on his hands – specifically his left one.
He immediately popped up and grasped his left wrist carrying it around crying. We didn’t think that it was broken at the time because he could still move all his fingers and hand fairly well but it obviously was tender.
We went to Wendy’s and got a happy meal for the kids, hoping that would cheer Brayton up a bit. It didn’t, he wasn’t hungry at all. After he had jumped, we had considered taking him to the quick care clinic, but his injury happened at 610pm and all the clinics close at 6pm.
We tried to get him to eat as much as we could. We immobilized his wrist with the splint he had from the first fracture and after a good dose of ibuprofen his mood seemed to improve. By the time we got his pjamas on he was back to pestering his sister. So, rather than take him to the Emergency Room and wait for 6 hours plus the $300 copay, we’d just keep him in the splint overnight and take him in to see the Dr. Sunday morning.
Long story short, we went in Sunday to the Dr. She had x-rays taken and immediately it was obvious our B had broken his wrist again. This is not the same wrist, it’s the left one. He broke the right one back in October so the good news is it’s not a rebreak.
The Dr. didn’t want to cast it there because there is displacement in the bone, she wanted us to go see an orthopaedic surgeon (Dr. Schulte – that did Daddy’s knees) Monday. So, B got home and is back to normal with his splint on. We ate supper and read some good books tonight – aside from the splint and his shuddering every now and then when he tries to use his hand too much he’s back to normal. I’ll update the blog tomorrow after our visit to the Ortho…

Posted in Brayton, Broken Wrist, March 2009 | 1 Comment »