This was Micah’s “good side” for Christmas (his other side was black & blue from his encounter with the headboard). The late afternoon light in Texas is always wonderful for taking good pics of these boys. We had a wonderful trip to Texas and enjoyed every minute.

Jacob got a new Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas in Texas and spent countless hours outside (even though it was cold!) shooting at tree stumps in the lake. He did some target practice with his Granddaddy and just had a generally great time!

Lucas got a great Chef’s apron and hat for Christmas and had a great time making special cookies for everyone with his Mimi.

I see a trend beginning to form.

The night before our summer trip to Hawaii we spent some time in the emergency room with Micah’s cut finger. Now two nights before Christmas we made a return trip with a flattened nose. I think folks are starting to believe us when we say this boy has been keeping us on our toes since before he was born!

This photo was taken on December 26, so you can imagine we’ve already been through quite a few shades of purple & blue and are now headed towards green. Here’s the recap:

We were in our nightime ritual with the boys’ friend Nick over for a sleepover - so we were a little later than normal. Micah was riled up having a new person over for sleeping. The boys were in bed reading, and I guess Micah decided to stand up and walk around the bed - nothing new. Except he tripped. And landed full force on the corner of the headboard - with the entirety of the blow being taken by the bridge of his nose.

I was in the other room, but Christi called to me immediately and it was one of those cries that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I was up and in the room in no time. Micah was crying hard and had his face all squeezed up with screaming - but the first thing I could see was that the bridge of his nose was essentially gone. I must say I have never seen anything like that. It looked like the bridge of his nose had been pushed into his face with a horizontal bar or a block of wood. I couldn’t help but think that the boy had just killed himself with a perfect ninja shot to push his nose back into his brain. We’ve been through some scary moments with 3 boys in our house, but nothing quite like that one. I’m usually the calm one in the house, but when I reacted strongly to this situation, I think I caused some serioius panic in the house. I just knew that we had to get to the emergency room fast and that this was not at all normal.

Warning. Morbid Story ahead. I read a story a number of years ago about a young boy on a playground who got hit in the face by another kid on the swing. The utterly terrifying story was about how the boy had walked over to his mother and told her that he had been hit in the face “really really hard”. He seemed normal to her, but within 45 minutes he was dead. This story haunts me from time to time and needless to say, I couldn’t help but think of it at this moment.

Christi was immediately on the phone to our friends Scott & Shelly and Scott was on his way. Christi and I didn’t wait for him to arrive (they live just around the corner) and we jumped in the car and high-tailed it to the hospital. Of course it took forever on this nite to get to see anyone. But Micah was alert and able to laugh and smile, and I took comfort knowing that we were standing in a hospital and if any serious signs showed up suddenly we were seconds from receiving great care. So we paced and waited for about 20 minutes. (There was a police shooting in LB this night and even though we were at Community Hospital and all the news trucks were at Memorial, it did seem to be a little more intense environment)

So to make this long story short - they took x-rays of his head (which he did great with) and found no bone damage. But because cartilage doesn’t show up on x-rays, there was no way to see any potential damage to the cartilage in the bridge of his nose. We were encouraged by how his nose seemed to be “bouncing back” while we were at the hospital. I must admit it was hard to imagine he would ever look the same again after what I had seen.

Cut to today. He’s had swelling from above his eyebrows to around both his eyes and his entire nose - but he’s looking much much better today. The majority of the bruising has been on his left side, as you can see in this picture. I’ve been flip-flopping in my feelings about whether we will end up having to fix a deformed nose later in his life. Still not totally sure, but today I am very encouraged that things might be resolving themselves for the most part. I can lightly touch the sides of his nose and feel that solid cartilage mostly back where it should be. He’s been able to breathe freely this whole time (although now he has a cold!) and his spirits have been up.

The human body is truly amazing. While I think it is likely that we will have more scrapes and bruises with our Micah - even if we have to make another trip to the emergency room, I hope never to see that sight again.

For him, its been about calling it his “boo boo nose” and mumbling about “Didis Bed” (Lucas’s bed). Santa delivered his dream come true - A giant “choo-choo” on a big red table - so all is well in the world.

We are certainly thankful for what we have this year. We hope that you and your loved ones have had a wonderful holiday and best wishes for a Happy New Year.

Christi made this outstanding Halloween cake complete with ghosts of many shapes and sizes. She even made a representative ghost for every person that was at our October Birthdays party. Isn’t it great?

Check it out! Our good friend Travis sent me this picture that she took on a road trip in Pennsylvania. We have driven by Dysart Road in Arizona…. but I didn’t know there was a Dysart town in the US! Thanks Travis!

Check this out! All the JLOOP team members came and enjoyed our first annual picnic with all their kids. Quite the group. Props to Jen for making all the JLOOP : MINI t-shirts. What a handsome bunch.

I took this shot with a cheap underwater camera in Hawaii this summer. Jacob and I swam with sea turtles nearly every day. Most of our pics didn’t really come out, but this one is pretty cool.

Jacob has had a long-time interest in sea turtles and it was a real dream come true to get to swim with them in the ocean.

I took these four shots using my rapid-fire function on my camera. Awesome step-by-step of Jacob getting a face full of Hawaii.