EMMA GRACE BALLSTAEDT

She turned 6 in July. She is now in first grade. She loves to dance and play with dolls. She also loves to play with her brothers, but only tolerates all the star war games. She loves babies and always wants to hold Stone, Hallie, and Ginger. Her favorite color is not purple. (?) Grandma doesn't get it........Mostly she wants to be a princess all the time. She talks really soft and is very feminine. She loves to play dress-ups with her cousins and have sleep-overs with Kathryn.

Campainin'

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WE HAVE A PET

HE MUST HAVE COME BECAUSE HE HEARD HOW YUMMY THE GRASSHOPPERS TASTE IN OUR YARD. We don't know for sure but he guards the front porch now, and if you come over make sure not to step in the poop. Erin calls him "Fido". Our neighbors next door bought him some chicken feed, so he guards both of our homes and we can't persuade him to wander off. He is very nice, he lets you pet him while he eats.

PINS DRILLED IN SMITH'S LEG TO HOLD IT

This contraption doesn't have a pet name yet, but has a home in Smith's leg. I guess the Dr. had so much fun in shop class as a kid he decided to make a career out of building machines that you drill into peoples bones.

Okay the yuk factor is not nearly as bad as the pain he is feeling, but this should stay on for about 6 weeks.

His next of several surgeries will be in a few weeks, but the unamed contraption - (I guess we could temporarily call it "Helga") isn't going anywhere. This next surgery will be the beginning of trying to get his ligaments and tendons connected again.

What we can't see in this picture is the incision behind his knee where they connected the top of his artery to the bottom of his artery. Great thing because his foot likes the blood supply. The vascular surgeon did a great job.

MORPHINE KICKS IN FINALLY

Our son Smith was in a motorcycle accident and taken by ambulance to the hospital. No blood, just a mangled leg.

Here is a picture of him after a few hours in the trauma emergency room after they repositioned his dislocated knee cap. He was in a lot of pain except for this brief few minutes when the morphine finally kicked in and we got a little smile from him.

Then they whisked him away to surgery to put his leg back together, and the last thing he said as he was being wheeled to the operating room was; "mother, can you go mop the floor in the laundromat tomorrow?"

He can't remember saying that, it must have been a "morphine moment" kind of thing to say.

But I did mop the floor.

THE GRASSHOPPER HUNT

One of the things that the kids like to do when they come visit is to scour the mountainside near our home and catch grasshoppers. These are great pets because no one feels bad when you murder them, like what happened when River was running and slipped and feel right on top of his bag of grasshoppers, leaving no survivors. Mckay quickly gave River his bag to keep. Grandpa Rock suggested that we could fry them up and have a meal, but the parents of the kids said it was okay to catch them for sport, we really didn't have to eat them.

THE HOST by Stephanie Meyers

great read! It is called the sci-fi book for those who hate Sci-fi! I really enjoyed it!