The CAST is finally off - Broken Arm Update

His arm is still very bowed but the cast is off, and we are thankful for that. The doc says it will straighten out over time, I sure hope he is right.

Swollen Ear

I have no idea what stung Carter's ear but he came home from school with a huge ear. It continued to get even more red and swollen throughout the afternoon and evening. Now three days later it's finally back to a normal size. This is after giving him lots and lots of benadryl. I do have to say it was pretty funny. His ear was so fat and swollen that it became floppy.

Broken arm and fat ear....poor Carter.

5 Years

If you are reading this through google reader then the date is not going to say May 5, 2010. I am very behind on blogging so I am cheating and back dating my post.

Carter turned the big 5 years today. I think it's called your golden birthday when you turn the age of the day of your birth...or something like that.

Carter you were born 5 years ago today on 5-5-05. My labor with you was the best. I drove my self to the hospital and they started my pitocin at 6am. Daddy stayed with Bryson for a few hours longer and then dropped him off with our friends the Krantz's.

The doctor broke my water around 8 and then I got my epidural around 9 and then daddy showed up a little bit after. We talked about you and how excited we were to see you and on TV Disney World was celebrating it's 50th year anniversary. We talked about how we would like to go to Disney World with you boys. I had already been to Disney World but daddy and Bryson had not been yet.

My labor continued on and the nurse came in and said you would be born before noon. Daddy and I just couldn't believe it. Bryson's labor was 31 hours and yours was going to be less than 6. Sure enough around 11:30 the doctor came in and said it was time to start pushing. I pushed and you started to make your way when we lost your heart rate. They inserted a heart monitor and placed it on your head but it wasn't picking up your heart rate. Your daddy and I were very worried and were even more worried when the doctor and the nurse looked at each other and said we need to get this baby out now.

Thankfully you were alright. You were born at 11:55 weighing in at 8lbs 15oz. Daddy cut your cord and then had to step away for a few minutes and catch his breath and I grabbed the camera and started taking pictures.

You were such a good baby and you are a wonderful child. You bring us so much laughter into our home. You are always making us laugh and smile and the funny thing is you don't even have to try. You are shy around other people at first and then you open right up. Everyone that meets you once remembers your name, you just have that way with people. Kids in your class love to be around you and are always screaming...Hi Carter, or Bye Carter. I will ask you "Who is that?" and you will shrug your shoulders and say "I don't know!"

I love that you have a great imagination and that you can play by yourself. I love that when the month of May starts you think it starts your birthday. You think the whole month of May is your birthday. I love that we can still call you Carter the Farter.

Here on Kadena we only have one real American sit down restaurant. You would eat at Chili's everyday if we let you, well that and Burger King.

For your birthday today you woke up and had doughnuts for breakfast,

then you opened your presents. I took cupcakes to your school, and then Andrea(our next door neighbor) Chase and I took you to the boat races.

Andrea took you on a carnival ride, bought you a snow cone and cotton candy.

Then we took you Chili's with the Salas family. They wouldn't allow us to eat your cake there so we took it to Chris and Andrea's house and we all sang happy birthday to you, I think you had a great day.

Thank you so much for choosing us to be your parents. We love you so much, Happy Birthday Month Carter!!

You are 3 ft 9 1/4 inches, and you weigh 42 lbs.

Okinawa Photographer

So, I decided to jump in and make my hobby a part time living.

My website isn't completely done yet. I can't figure out how to add music to save my life but for the most part I think it looks great.

Go check it out!!

www.dawnhudsonphotography.com

Tokyo Disneyland and Mickey Mouse

Here is the video of Carter getting his cast signed by Mickey. At the beginning you can see that Mickey is trying to find out if he can actually sign it and then goes for it. There are a few Japanese that take photos of him signing it and then Mickey gives his arm a kiss afterwards.

Okuma

We went up to Okuma on April 18th just for the night.  We headed up their with the Salas family.  I use the  term "we" loosely because Joe wasn't able to get off work for one day.

How do you know you are really good at your job??  Because you never get time off.  In the military you get X amount of days off per month.  If you don't use those days then you lose them.  Joe has lost so many of those "Use or Lose" days.  When he was deployed he saved up all of his days and he lost all of them also.  We thought he would get to use them here but nope.  He wasn't even able to get time off when our household goods arrived to help me unpack.

The beach was a lot of fun and the kids had a blast.  Even Carter had fun with his baggy on his arm.

They had these awesome bikes there to rent.  Leann and I hung out with the babies and brave Ramon took the four older kids on a ride.  The kids all had so much fun.

That night we roasted some marshmallows and hung around the fire.

The next day before heading out we went back to the beach and had some more fun!!

The kids and I did have a blast at the beach but we will be looking forward to the time we can all go as a family together.