Um, thank you Chase?

Last week Chase picked up a present for Leda...he didn't find his gift at a store mind you, he found it for free outside and so kindly carried it up to his sisters room (in his Knights helmet) and was caught trying to place it under her pillow.




That's some serious love...wouldn't you say?

to be loved...

Tonight at the dinner table while Aaron was working late, I was trying to gain some control of the craziness going on so I asked each of my children to say what they loved about their siblings.

Here's the recap:

Leda loves Spencer because he thinks up fun games to play. Chase loves Spencer because he's funny.


Spencer loves Leda because she's good at coloring. Chase loves Leda because she plays doggy with him.

And let it be known that Leda insisted on stating why she loved herself. She loves herself because she's nice to her friends and also because she's good at smiling and taking pictures. Man she's a kick, this one...


Spencer loves Chase because he likes to play Hide and Seek. Leda loves Chase because he acts crazy when it's time to go to bed.


They love me tonight because I made good coleslaw for dinner, said I'd make them cinnamon rolls for dessert and played "Called to Serve" on the piano and let them march around the house before bed.



It feels really good to be loved.

Chase's big owie

Last Wednesday was a lazy morning. Spencer was home sick from school, I was upstairs talking to Aaron (contributing to him running a tad bit late to work)...when all of a sudden we hear Spencer and Leda screaming and crying, "THERE'S SO MUCH BLOOD, CHASE HIT HIS HEAD!"

Aaron and I FLEW downstairs to find that yes indeed, there was a lot of blood. The kids were playing in the garage/playroom and Chase had managed to climb up on top of an old couch (that we'd been meaning to get rid of for a week) and fell back and hit his head on our workout bench. It was awful, my poor baby!

I panicked because I didn't know how bad it really was. While scooping Chase up to take him to the sink, I may or may not have screamed Aarons name about a hundred times even though he was standing right there next to me. I've learned that this is what I do in a crisis. Just kinda frantically say, "Aaron, Aaron, Aaron, Aaron, Aaron, Aaron!" over and over. This isn't the first time I've done this. Aaron finally had to say, "Marce, STOP saying my name" lol

There's so much blood in a head wound that you never really know how bad it is until you can stop the bleeding and have a look. Once things calmed down a bit we saw that yes it was deep but not life threatening, so I was able to calm myself down.

Once my Mom and sister arrived at the house to watch Leda and Spencer, Aaron and I were off to take Chase to the ER. I happened to have my camera in my purse, so of course had to document Chase's first real big owie!

A few long hours in the ER, five head staples and one red Popsicle later we were on our way home and Chase was on the mend. Whew, what an exciting day! One that I don't want to relive any time soon. It could have been so much worse, though and I'm so grateful for how things turned out.

On our way to the ER--at this point the bleeding had stopped and Aaron didn't need to hold a towel to his head any longer.


The wounds. How he managed two separate deep cuts, we'll never know! At least he had cute matching jammies on though, I planned that well, eh?



He was so brave and digging the remote control to the TV


After, ouch huh?


He got to pick a prize from the treasure box. He chose bubbles. His nurse was so fantastic and so very cute with him!


Red Popsicle and thumbs up sign. All is well!

The tooth fairy

Spencer lost his first tooth this last Thursday, October 29th. It is all very exciting how it happened.

His teeth have been loose for a while now (come on, he's almost 7!!)...but they are stubborn little things (much like my son) and haven't budged no matter how hard I work with them!

So this past week, Spencer and I are walking hand in hand to school to attend his first grade parent/teacher conference and we ran smack into my good friend Rhonda Hynek. Rhonda used to be dental hygienist in days of old, so I had a brilliant idea to have Rhonda take a look at this loose, stubborn tooth of Spencers. She looked, and then what did she do? She grabbed a clean napkin from her glove compartment in her car, told Spencer to open wide and with one quick pluck the tooth was OUT!

And that was that! lol

Who knew that my friend Rhonda, who I met when I was pregnant with Spencer would be the one to eventually pull out my sons very first tooth while hanging out of her car window in the school parking lot. Very cool and Spencer was thrilled!

That night before bed we read to him a new book entitled "My tooth is loose". I found this book a while back and have been waiting to pull it out (no pun intended) for such an occasion as this. The book even comes with a cute storage tin inside for you to put your tooth in for the tooth fairy. Get yours HERE. It comes in boy and girl versions. Very cute and reasonably priced too!



Check out his "window" that he's so proud of


And here he's getting all ready for the tooth fairy



So, what does the tooth fairy bring to your kids? Spencer's tooth fairy brought him $2. I think that is a very smart tooth fairy, but I'm curious what happens at your house? So please leave me a comment and let me know how she works in your neck of the woods...okay?

A week of HaLloWeEn fun!

We had a fantastic Halloween week!

It began with our Ward Trunk or Treat



Spencer had a Halloween party with his First Grade class


Leda and Chase had a party at their preschool




The kids did some fun Halloween crafts


One night we took the kids to eat at Rubys and then visited our local Pumpkin Patch.





My three little pumpkins







and finally the big night where in the end the kids decided it was way more fun to pass out candy than it was to go trick or treating :)



Happy Halloween from the McLendons! Hope it was a great one!


Our Ninja (6), Ariel (4) and Doctor Chase (3)