Let's come to a consensus.

I'm a little undecided on how to pronounce the new year. Will it be "Two thousand eleven," or "Twenty eleven?"

Which will you use?

I'm not even sure what to title this post.

As you know, when you move to a new address, you get the pleasure of receiving all the catalogs, magazines, etc, marked "or current resident," that your house predecessor subscribed to. So let's just say we've been enjoying some new reading material these past 2 months.

LL Bean and Chadwicks? No problem; I'll look through them. Fancy speciality toy catalogs with ridiculous prices? The boys enjoy those. But TODAY, we got a Walkenhorst's catalog.

Not familiar with Walkenhorst's? Neither were we. In fact, the only people who WOULD be familiar with this publication are those ordering merchandise to ship to their relative/friend who is INCARCERATED IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA. Seriously. It's a whole catalog of stuff that has been approved by the CA Dept of Corrections. For instance, all the electronics are see-through, so no one can smuggle in a weapon inside your flat screen. Don't believe me? Click here to visit their website.

I should have known something was wrong when I read the tagline "Request Your Parole Clothing Catalog" on the cover. Wow.

Oh, Micah.

I came down the stairs just before church to find that Micah had taken all the couch cushions and piled them on the floor so he could jump on them.

Me: Micah, did you ask me before you took the cushions off?

Micah: I am going to ask. Right now.

(He continues playing. . .)

Me: So, are you going to ask me?

Micah: I already did!

Ridiculous

I usually don't post on stuff like this, so if you're not in the mood to hear me vent, stop reading now.

I came across this article today in the paper: Health Group Sues McDonalds Over Happy Meal Toys

Are you kidding me? OK, California Mom, if you don't want McDonalds marketing aggressively to your kids, then DON'T TAKE THEM IN TO A MCDONALDS. You are the parent, remember? That means that you, more than anyone else, get to control what your kids are exposed to. I am so tired of parents blaming their problems on everyone else.

There, my tirade is done.

Fun with Jordan

So. . . it seems a little late to be posting about our Thanksgiving, but I couldn't resist sharing about the boys having fun with their super tall, super strong cousin Jordan!

(Yes, this was after Eli hurt his leg. You can clearly tell how upset he is.)

Actually the boys had a great time with ALL their cousins. I think they interacted more with their cousins this trip than any other in the past, which was really fun! Here are the boys with their girl cousins: Jessi (age 15), Kelsey (19), and Natalie (12).

And here are all the young Bardwell men: Eli, Josiah (14), Micah, Jordan (18), and Kaleb (12).

(I sure hope I got all their ages right. . .)

Update on our little Sir Limpsalot

I have not blogged at all about this yet, so for those of you not related to us or local, let me fill you in: On Thanksgiving Day, Eli had some kind of mysterious incident that no one quite saw, but he was suddenly sprawled out on the floor screaming and refusing to stand on his right leg. He didn't walk at all for 3-4 days on it. Even after he started walking, he's had a persistent limp and has not been the carefree, happy child he normally is. We can tell he's been in quite a bit of pain.

We'd taken him to the doc shortly after this incident, where they did 3 rounds of xrays, all of which came back negative. Good news, but bad in the sense that it didn't give us any answers to what was wrong with him. His limp (and bad mood/apparent pain) persisted, so I took him back to the doctor on Tuesday. We were referred on to a pediatric orthopedist, whom we saw today.

It turns out that he likely DID break his leg! The doctor said it is about half healed, and didn't think putting a cast on it for the next week and a half would be necessary. So we are certainly glad to have an answer to Eli's issue, but I feel terrible that he's been hobbling around on a broken tibia for the last 2 weeks!

As you can see from these pictures, he's clearly agonizing in pain. I guess that's a little consolation for this Mommy!

I guess it was only a matter of time. . .

Living with 3 boys, I shouldn't be surprised to find a pair of underwear on our Christmas tree.

Christmas Carols with Micah

"Jingle bells. . jingle bells. . jingle all the way. . oh what fun it is to ride on one old slopin' sleigh. . ."