the good, the bad and the ugly

Where to start? I guess with the ugly. A couple weeks ago Ethan woke up screaming in the morning. He would not calm down, so Joel took off his pajamas and yelled for me to come in. Ethan's second to baby toe was shriveled up and purple, like it had been strangled to death. I freaked out and was ready to take him to the ER. I started massaging his foot as Joel was getting stuff ready for us to go. As I was massaging his foot, the toe turned pink again. Hooray! But it kept getting bigger and bigger. It eventually got a lot of blisters so we had to go into the ER anyway. The doctor said it was a spider bite and the toe had shut off blood supply so as to not spread the venom. So by massaging it, I SAVED the toe but SPREAD the venom. AAAHH! So scary. The doctor cut off the blisters and wrapped his foot. His toe looked like a burn victim. It was so sad to see my baby like that! His toe is doing much better now.

Onto the bad. Joel's car broke down. And now we have only one car. I totally called it, too! I just knew that on my last day of school, since I was quitting, Joel's car would break down and we would have no money for a new one. I should have knocked on wood. Actually, the car didn't wait for my last day. It died a week early.

Now the car breaking down, that just sucks. This next one is heart-breaking. Be prepared. Cassidy LOVES dance class. It is her favorite day of the week. She was very excited to perform in her beautiful fairy costume. Her performance was on June 2. I got her all ready to go. She looked SO cute!! I didn't have time to take a picture, because we were running late. So I thought I would just take a picture after the performance. She did one dance and it was cute. But, as she was exiting the stage, she ran into a pole and got a really bad bloody nose. It bled all over her dress and we had to go home before her second dance. As we got into the car, she said, "You fix my dress and I will dance again, OK?" Aww, break my heart!

This is the ONLY picture we got of her: Now for the good. Finally. I am done teaching! I got back on Thursday from Lagoon day with the 9th graders, and my 7th and 8th grade students had written all over my board. If you can't read it, it just says how wonderful and amazing I am and how much they'll miss me:)

I almost cried.This one on the right side it says, "Have another baby and name it after me." -Lexi. Hehe.On Friday I bribed my students with candy to come say goodbye. It totally worked. I have loved teaching and will miss my students. They were so much fun! But now I get to stay home with the kiddos. Hooray!Now for my favorite news: Ethan, with his foot wrapped and all, started walking just over a week ago. Yay! He's a big boy! He took three steps at my mom's house. He is so funny! He always opens his mouth so wide when he walks because he thinks he's so amazing! His record so far is 9 steps.
He looks just like Daddy.

This past weekend we went to a friend's cabin and had lots of fun. We went on a hike with the kids yesterday morning and they kept "hiding" so they could jump out and scare us. They were VERY good at hiding, as you can see.

This is them jumping out to scare us. Raaaaaaaaaar!

Ethan had a nice, easy ride.

The highlight of the hike was when the girls found a bird that sang to them.

In summary, life is hard, but life is good.