Another update

I was inspired by Amanda's update. So here goes:  

Brian: Brian is currently still on crutches from his surgery. When they opened his knee up for surgery, they saw his ACL had reattached. The surgeon said that he sees it about 1-2 times a year. BUT while they were in there, they saw that he had a cartilage injury. They ended up clearing out all this torn cartilage and then they used this mini-ice pick thing to poke the femur bone about 50 times to "Make the bone angry." So said the surgeon. He said the marrow cells will grow a patch over the cartilage. Oh, but you can't put any weight on it for 6-8 weeks. This was totally unexpected for Brian. He thought he'd be up and about after a week. He hates the crutches. (He may or may not have said some bad words while throwing the crutches at the garage stairs the other day... allegedly) I was thinking that it wouldn't be a big deal.. so he can't use his knee... WELL... since he his hands are on the crutches, he can't use his hands either! He can't pick anything up, carry his plate to the table, carry anything. We've all had to do a lot of helping. I'll leave it at that. He's anxious to be well again and back to work.
 
Allison: I was released from primary sing-time and put into Young Women's. I've been busy re-learning the ropes in YW and organizing activities. I'm also helping with Tristan's First Lego League program and I'm in charge of the project portion of their team assignment. It's not due until January, but I'm afraid with the holidays January will come really soon. I'm also coaching his Knowledge Bowl team at the elementary school. We meet Wednesday mornings before school and study and practice the science packet the district gave us. I also volunteer in Tristan's class on Friday mornings and Jack's class on Friday after I'm done in Tristan's. After school I drive kids around and crack the whip on homework.

Coleman: Coleman is finished with football this fall and is getting good grades at school. He just got braces on Friday and he's less than excited about them.  

Tristan: Tristan is involved in First Lego League robotics competition, Knowledge Bowl, scouts and he's starting Jr. Jazz in a week. Jr. Jazz will be twice a week, the rest of the activities are once a week. He LOVES his teacher. They are such a good match for each other. He loves Minecraft and wants to talk about it... a lot. (He has pestered me the ENTIRE time I've been writing this update to discuss Minecraft in more details. Ummm, no.) Tristan and Archer Skype and go on Minecraft at the same time so they can talk about all the things they're doing. Ok, it's actually a much more complicated game than it seems. He has to figure out how to wire things, use pistons and he probably knows more about computers than I do. I made Tristan take the gifted test on Saturday. He wasn't thrilled with this. He didn't want to spend 4 hours on a Saturday taking a school test. I don't blame him, but I'm happy he went.  

Jack: Jack won his semi-finals football game on Saturday. I was really proud of him playing in the cold and snow. It was a high of 35 degrees. He has practiced in the snow and cold and not really complained. We've had to buy things I never even thought of before... like a football hand-warmer muff. It was a mixed feeling win. If we had lost, we could be done with football, now we have another week of practices. Jack currently has football, for 2 hours, 3 times a week and he started wrestling last week and has 1 hour practices, 2 times a week. Good thing he loves all of it. He has more energy than any child I've seen. This week he's playing for the championship, at the high school stadium. They are currently still undefeated. He loves school and is really good at spelling. He's just a really happy kid.
 
Hudson: Ummm... Hudson is 2. enough said. No really, he's SO CUTE. I think Heavenly Father made them so cute at this age so we don't throttle them. He's a stinker. He brakes things (expensive things like the X-Box), dumps things out, etc. He's noisy in church, so whiny when he's tired and a general pain, but he's also super funny and adorable. He says the cutest things. He can't start words with a "K" sound, it becomes a "T". So, he snuggles down in a blanket and says, "I'm so tozy" or if he likes something he'll say "So tute (cute)". He also can't say words that start with a "S" blend sound. Like snuggle, it becomes "nuggle", smell becomes "mell". I got ready for church and he sees me and says, "Mom, mell good. So tute." See!!! It's priceless.