Ballard Banter

Our Wild Indian Turned One

Because Jake was the cowboy, Max is the indian

This is a picture Lindsey took for me on Thanksgiving. The day we celebrated his birthday was quite rainy. Emily stopped by to drop off poinsettias and had her camera so she took pictures at the actual party. It wasn't anything amazing but it was perfect. We celebrated with Grandma and Grandpa at their house. Granny had tied a bundle of balloons to the little rocker and that is where he opened his gifts. Grandpa Bruce made him a darling little tomahawk with a leather blade, fringe, beads and wood burned decoration. We had pumpkin spice doughnuts and cocoa as well as cold chocolate milk. We put one tall candle in his doughnut and let him eat that. He really liked that candle.

Look how much that daddy likes his boy!

I get a little jealous, but I love watching these two together.

Our Max can climb all the stairs. He gets very close to the edge of the bed and when you say "turn around" he does and smiles like he is quite clever. He has a toy piano that he likes to play with and when the BINGO comes on he wiggles to the music. He sits with his legs under him and bounces when he is excited. He loves to pull stuff out of the dishwasher and is always taking the chips and bread out of the drawer so he can get in it.

If he does something and you tell him no he does it 2 or 3 more times to make sure you know he is cute and see if you are really telling him no.

He pushes cars around and hums. He knows where your nose is. He will point to it but not to his own. He has started using sippy cups. We filled one with peach juice and that was the ticket.

He had his first broken eardrum at his 12 month appointment. He also had thrush. We went home with 3 prescriptions.

He weighs 23 pounds and is 31.5 inches long.

12 Months

Max turned one today. It took a lot of self-control to not have two parties. That is not to say that he didn't get extra loves and squeezes. The kids and I just kept saying how surprised we were that he was that old.
We are waiting until next week to celebrate because his daddy is hunting in North Dakota.

He did clap and smile when we told him he was 365 days old.

Predestined

Gretchen hyperextended her leg before Halloween. She was sure it was broken. She nursed it for the day but when I told her she wouldn't be able to go trick-or-treating it was healed. Then on Tuesday after Halloween she was telling me that it just wasn't getting better and she was sure she needed crutches. Wednesday morning while I was sorting through some laundry she asked me if she broke her leg if she could call home from school. I told her no. She explained that if it was indeed broken it would be my responsibility to pick her up and take care of it. I told her to wait in the nurses station until I got off work. Then I succumbed to the pressure. I said that if the bone was coming out of the skin I would come and get her. My dad said we could call 911 if there was a fence post through our chest.

Wednesday afternoon she called from an unknown number. She said that she had fallen off her bike and thought she broke her arm. She was pretty shaken up but not really sobbing. I called my friend Amity and asked her to drive down by the elementary and check on Gretchen. Ams took Luly home. Cleaned her off. Dropped off her bike and then took her to her house for monitoring. I couldn't really leave work because I was the only supervisor that day.

Once I picked her up she wasn't being real whiney like she had been about her "broken leg" so I put her off. I did squeeze her wrist pretty good and she said it didn't hurt. That was the thing that had me worried. If she had sprained it, it would have been tender. Angela was in town so we were all meeting at Sonora for dinner. I told her we would check with Dave.

Dave thought it was swollen enough that it needed a look. After dinner we went to the Instacare and got an xray. It was in fact broken. It was a buckle fracture just like Jake and Gracie. I should have known When my kids are really hurt they are pretty tough. Not one of them cried hard when they broke their wrists. They do however cry really hard when they get hit by another one.

Miss Greta got her cast on Friday. She was tickled to get out of school. Her daddy took her to get her cast. She was banking on purple but the glitter was just an added bonus.

Grandpa Bruce met us at Taco Time to give her a treat. He said it wasn't because she broke her arm because that would just be rewarding her for doing something dumb ;)

Every time she complains about the hassle of having a broken arm I remind her a leg would have been significantly worse.

This isn't really appropriate to share on the WWW but it was too funny not to. I had to have an EDG and a colonoscopy. When I was mixing up the prep potion Gretchen was pretty disgusted. To tease her I asked her to go get the plunger. She went downstairs and came up with 2 rolls of toilet paper, a bag of flush wipes & the plunger. She called the toilet paper the "good stuff" because I bought 1-ply and the kids hate it but they use too much.
Anyway, she went into the bathroom and came out to report. She had put the plunger by the side of the toilet, the wipes on the back of the toilet. Switched out the 1-ply for the "good stuff" and left the bad stuff out incase. Then she announced there were also a lot of pads.
I said, "Gretchen, what do I need a lot of pads for?"
She threw her arms out and proclaimed "You just never know what's gonna happen in there!"
She is so witty. I love it.

Vinyl Stickers

I feel like if people put those marathon things on their window, they should just run where they go.
-Gracie Ballard

Gracie and Ethan taking selfies at Ballard Family Dinner,

just 1 of 165,198,090,843

Strong Man

Fat Max was a Vintage Strong Man for Halloween. I got the idea from a blog I follow. His costume was the only one that I made this year. My dad made him a cute weight belt and Quincy shared her tights with us. Thanks for taking pictures Aly. I was not on my game this year.