Happy Holidays!

Here are a few pics we snapped at Christmastime this year. Aubrey showing off her new presents (hat, gloves, socks, and jammies).

The stockings filled by Santa.

Sara's gingerbread house creation.

Our fireplace roaring away...

Uncle Paul's funeral

December 2nd, we lost a beloved family member, Uncle Paul Olson. Fortunately for us, we live close enough so Aubrey and I drove to Minneapolis to support Aunt Carolyn with her loss. Here are some of the family members we got to visit with. Uncle Ray and Aubrey
Uncle Harold & Aunt Shirley

Uncle Ray and Aunt Carolyn

Rachel Kelley, Valisa Higman, Bob Titus and Debbie Hill

Green Bay

Today we decided on the last minute to take a drive (3 hours) down to Green Bay and see the sights...this is what we saw...

The kiddie train ride...

Lambeau Field

The Cheese-heads!

and we actually went to a Chuck E. Cheese (1st time in 7 years!)

Where has the time gone?

Sorry it's been awhile since I posted...a lot of things going on now that it's summer. We are officially moved into our new rental. It's a little cramped but a LOT less money so we are managing. The home is older (circa 1950's) and a little outdated but we are getting new toilets on Thursday so YIPPEE! The old ones leak so lucky us!

We spent the 4th of July down with Uncle Ray in Escanaba and had a wonderful time! The kids can't wait until next year! Here are a few pics of the festivities!

Yes, he is taller than me now!

Sara riding to the park.

Craig sending his greetings.

Sara enjoying the beach with the rest of the gang in the water.

Our little cookie.

Aubrey Rose in all her glory!

Josh on his way to the park.

The gang

Hot Soup - Week 11

Here's what Rachel's foot is looking like these days. She's able to swim again, wear socks and shoes and even is playing on the softball team!

Spring in the UP

So the weather has finally started to warm up and Craig had to take advantage of it and play with the girls at Picnic Rocks Park. It had to be in the 60's but the water was still frigid. They had a great time remembering back to October when we had gone there to play in the sand before the snow came.

Baptism Day

I remember back when the kids were little and we were still adding to our family, thinking that baptism day for them would be so far off. Well, reality has set in and our final child, our little Lauren, was baptised on May 2nd.
As you can tell by the picture, the entire family wasn't able to be there due to extenuating circumstances, but she was lucky enough to have been baptised the same day with her good friend, who just happens to be named Lorin too!

Old Time Photo...

The last time we had a family picture officially taken, Lauren was still in pull-ups, so when we visited the wonderful Mall of America during out Easter trip to Minneapolis, we just couldn't resist having these taken of our brood.

Skipping Stairs, part 2

So, turns out Lauren's 15 minutes of attention came to a quick and painless end as we saw Dr./Bro. Blotter a few days after the fall and he told us that there was no break and that the temporary cast was coming off. YIPPEE!

Skipping stairs...

...we all have done it, right? How many stairs can you skip? Well, Lauren was asking herself that same question last night and decided to see. "Three" she figured, but what she didn't count on was her hand slipping as she skipped said steps. Head over heels she went down the stairs and ended up on her back on the landing. Initially she was pretty banged up, her arms were scratched and a little bruised, and she complained of her forearms hurting. I figured, well of course your arms are going to hurt, you just fell down the stairs! They didn't look obviously broken to me and she could squeeze my fingers so I was going to just put her to bed and see how she was in the morning. Mr. Mom had other thoughts on the matter and off to the hospital they went.

Now 9 times out of 10 I am right about the kids and their injuries or lack there of. This was that one time when I was wrong. They took 8 films in the ER and found something that may suggest that she broke her elbow near a growth plate. So they wrapped her arm in a temporary cast, put it in a sling and gave Craig instructions to call Dr. Blotter for him to take a look at it. Lucky for us, Dr. Blotter is also known to us as Brother Blotter, the Young Men's President at church, so Lauren was quite thrilled to know that she would get to see his office in the near future. She was eager to get up this morning and go to school to show off her newest accessory to anyone who noticed.

Hot Soup - the video

Rachel took this video at Dr. Geissler's office (the platic surgeon) on day 2 when he broke open the blister to allow it to drain. It's pretty gross...

Hot Soup - week 4

So, week 4 has come and gone and we are continuing to watch Rachel's foot improve. We have stopped going to hydrotherapy every morning, thank goodness! I still have to change the dressing but it's much easier now as the deepest part of her burn has begun to sprout new tissue buds (previously white, now red spotted) and the other parts of the burn have healed over with new, glossy skin. It's been quite a process to witness!

Her cute little toes seemed to have weathered the burn the best. They never lost their nails either, which is common in burns.

She was able to join Aubrey yesterday at softball try-outs and did FANTASTIC despite having to wear her slipper instead of a shoe on her foot. I guess the old saying of "Time heals all wounds" is especially true in her case!

Hot Soup - week 3

Today is 3 weeks since the incident known as "Hot Soup" occurred. We met with Dr. Geissler yesterday who stared for a few moments at her burn and said, "Well, we've come this far, might as well just continue with what we are doing." Fine with me! He did say that we can stop the whirlpool treatments (YIPPEE!) and that he'll check her again in a week. According to him, burns are supposed to heal completely in 3 weeks and hers hasn't. I asked if because of this, it was considered a 3rd degree burn and he said no, just a deep, severe 2nd degree. So, today marked the first day Rachel felt brave enough to join her sisters out in the snow. Luckily Daddy's boot was a perfect fit and she, Aubrey & Lauren frolicked in the front yard slipping and skating on the ice. What a welcome sight!

Hot Soup - the continuing saga

So after daily physical therapy whilrpool treatments at the hospital, we now are finally starting to see the proverbial "light at the end of the tunnel"! Today is day 16 and we are down to going everyother day to therapy. During the past 2 weeks we rented a wheelchair to help Rachel get around at school, which has helped tremendously! We also got some crutches to get her up and moving but soon found out that crutches and ice aren't a good mix!
This is how her foot looks now (a little blurry). The spot in the middle is where she suffered the deepest burn and where we thought we may need to do a skin grapht. Thankfully it's healing on it's own. All the red skin is new tissue.


She has softball season starting in 2 weeks so this has been new motivation for her to get up and move. Today she and Aubrey raced down the hallway at the hospital on our way to PT. A welcome sight! Right now she still can't wear a shoe on her foot so she's been sportin' my LLBean slippers, which seem to work just fine! We are hoping to get a shoe on her foot within 2 weeks.

Hot Soup - Day 2

So Sunday morning rolls around. I figure I'd leave Craig and Rachel at home in my bed to commiserate together since they were both less than 100%. I got ready for church along with the other kids. They were all intrigued by Rachel's burn and wanted to see how it looked so I gathered everyone in our bedroom so they could see firsthand what happens to skin when it is burned. I started to upwrap her foot and noticed something odd. Kept unwrapping and found that her foot had transformed into this...


















It was amazing to me that her foot could change appearance so drastically in just 8 hours! The doctors said that it may blister but I wasn't prepared for what I saw. So, I took the kids to church, dropped them off and headed back to the hospital for them to take another look. They weren't too shocked at what they saw and told me that blisters are to be expected and that they wouldn't break it open in fear of introducing bacteria into her foot. The did, though, recommend that we see a plastic surgeon the next day and have him evaluate it.

Hot Soup

Things were going pretty smooth for awhile. A few fevers here and there, a stuffy nose maybe, but nothing major. Then came that fateful Saturday night. Soup was on the menu for dinner, and I was trying out a new recipe given to me by a friend. Craig was upstairs in bed recovering from having his gallbladder removed, Josh and Matt were playing a board game at the dinner table with a bunch of guys from church and the girls were watching TV. I had just turned the burner off of the soup to let it cool and I began dishing it out to the kids. First was my girl Rachel, who is always eager to try new recipes with me. So I gave her the bowl and told her to be careful because it was hot. She said OK and proceeded to the other room. Next was Sara and I gave her the same lecture about the temperature and off she went to the kitchen table.



Then came the yelling, which promptly turned into screaming..."hot, hot...Hot...Hot... HOT...HOT!!!!!!!!! It was Rachel. Instead of choosing to sit at the table to eat her soup, she decided the couch was more comfortable. The TV was on and she got distracted by it as she sat down and spilled the soup on her leg and foot. When I entered the room I saw the couch littered with remnants of my cream of wild rice and chicken soup and Rachel on the floor trying to rip off her soup-soaked sock. As the sock came off, so did her skin and I knew that the situation had just taken a turn for the worse.



Sara immediately jumped into action and proceeded to tell us how to treat a burn (she had just completed her first aid training in health class at school), so I grabbed some gauze and an ace wrap and bandaged Rachey's foot and ankle up and we headed to the hospital.



This was the first real burn I've had to deal with in my lifetime so I felt a little like I was heading into uncharted waters, not really knowing how bad it was and what type of treatment we were looking at. When we arrived at the ER, I got the wheelchair and wheeled Rachel in. Luckily Sara came with us so she kept her busy while I parked the car. They rushed us through the registration process and took us into the trauma room. Her pain at this point was off the charts (a 10+) and she was very ademant that NO ONE TOUCHES HER FOOT! She can be very feisty when she needs to be and even though she was in shock still from the burn, she knew what was going on and watched everything they did to her. We tried to distract her by letting her play a game on my cell phone or listen to Sara's ipod which helped. At this point, the burn didn't look so bad so we figured it had been a slight second degree burn since she had a few small blisters and her skin did come off, but with a little time and TLC it would heal. The doctors thought this too and sent us on our way with some Silvadene cream with orders to change it daily and check in with our primary doctor on Monday.

So home we went.

Snowblowin' Fun!

Who would've thought snowblowing could be so much fun?

Rachel, Aubrey and their friend Kayla.

Game Night

Lately the weekends have become Game Night at the Collins home. It's fun! The boys round up their friends and ether play Risk or whatever video game they are currently obsessed with. The girls manage to disappear in the basement making forts and Sara...well, I"m not sure what she does, but she and Brittony seem to have fun!