Isaac doesn’t always take the time to add much detail to his drawings, or at least he hadn’t in the past, so when he came home from school with this drawing, I was impressed and decided it was worth hanging on the wall. I asked him the name of the picture and he said “wide seat for passengers†thus the title of this post.
Here is a copy with labels to help you decipher the drawing
Tomorrow is the first day of first grade for Isaac. He wasn’t very excited about going 
back to school as we talked he told me that he was worried that in the first grade they would skip playtime and lunch and do math all day. He later said that he thought they would just get one minute of playtime.
We met his teacher at the open house tonight and asked her questions about first grade. He was very excited when he learned that in first grade he’ll get 25 minutes of playtime which is 5 more minutes than Kindergarten. He thought the kindergarteners would be sad that they weren’t getting as much time to play.
Ila does this funny thing where she transfers items back and forth between her hands and her feet. Sometimes she just transfers them to her feet and then holds them with her feet while her hands play with them. She does it with every toy she picks up. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this here before, but it continues to amuse and astound me at times. All of the following pictures were taken over the course of about a half an hour, but she does this all day long.
Charlotte has a few favorite things to wear and unfortunately they don’t really match each other. We have been discussing what matches and what doesn’t match lately. Here’s the transcript of a recent conversation on that topic:
(Charlotte comes out wearing a brown shirt that says “I heart Chocolate†and a pair of colorful Hawaiian shorts.
)
Me: Charlotte, those clothes don’t match each other, you can wear either the shirt or the shorts
Charlotte: The word Chocolate is white and there’s white right here on my shorts.
Me: It doesn’t match. You can wear your blue shirt with those shorts or jeans with that shirt, Jeans match everything.
<<Charlotte runs off and comes back wearing pink pants>>
Me: Charlotte, those pants don’t match
Charlotte: They’re my pink jeans.
Me: Only blue jeans match everything.
Ila is not quite crawling yet, but she has developed her own way to get to where she wants to go. Also listen for Nicole saying Ila’s name in the background.
Remembering how much fun everyone had at the beach on Day 2, we just assumed the next trip to the beach would go just as well. We made plans to go to the beach with my cousin Brent’s wife Natalie and their kids at the beach next to my Aunt and Uncle’s condo. Unfortunately, both of the little girls started to cry almost immediately and wanted nothing to do with either the sand or the ocean. My aunt Dee and I took the little girls to he pool while Zach and Natalie played with the big kids on the beach.
Poor Nicole must not have been feeling well, because she didn’t leave my Aunt’s arms to play in the pool. She clung to her and even fell asleep in her arms in the water.
Zach brought the big kids over to play in the pool and wash all the sand off their bodies. He reported that they built a nice castle and a canal system, but we have no pictures since my camera was with me at the pool.
We went back to our room and decided to get ready and drive home since the kids were kinda sick and the last two nights of sleep in our room were less than restful. Everyone showered and got dressed. Zach went to fill the tank with gas and fetch some lunch (shrimp from “The Sea Shackâ€) with one of our remaining food vouchers while I packed up all of our things.
We drove home by way of Charlotte, North Carolina. It added an hour to our trip, but we really wanted to be able to take our Charlotte to Charlotte. We arrived around 8:00 PM and had a late dinner at IHOP in Charlotte. Everyone enjoyed chocolate milk, pancakes, bacon, sausage, crêpes, and coloring.
By the time we were done with dinner, the sun was setting and it was starting to rain. We drove to downtown Charlotte to see the skyline and look for buildings and signs with Charlotte’s name on them. Unfortunately our van’s wipers were terrible and it was pouring rain. By the time we pulled into a parking lot so that we could get a picture of Charlotte in Charlotte it was completely dark and pouring rain. Zach hoped out with his umbrella and the two big kids and they all came back soaking wet.
Before we could drive out of Charlotte, the rain poured down so hard that it was almost impossible to see the road so we pulled over to wait out the storm. After about 15 minutes, the storm died down enough for us to drive on and we were soon out of the storm and on our way home. We arrived home in the wee hours of the morning.
My dear grandmother died. I still miss her a lot. My family has been honoring her this month by writing about her in our family blog. For those who knew her (or any who wish they did), you can read what we’ve written so far here.
The highlight of day two was an absolutely perfect trip to the beach. All 4 kids enjoyed themselves. Isaac and Charlotte played in the water and in the sand. Zach and I each got to take a turn out with the big kids in the water. 
We taught them to “ride the waves.†At one point a wave crashed down on Isaac, hitting him squarely on the bottom and he announced that the wave had “spanked†his bottom (see video).
All the kids enjoyed playing in the sand. Ila and Nicole didn’t like the water much, but they both enjoyed the sand. 
We dug out a little hole in the sand in front of Ila and let it fill with water so that Ila could splash around in it. 
Unfortunately as you can see in the video below, she also sampled some of the sand.
Before long the water started washing further up the beach enough to cover Ila’s legs with each wave. 
Ila started to yawn so I scooped her up and wrapped her in a towel. I put her in the stroller and turned the stroller so that her face was not in the sun. She watched everyone play for a little while before falling asleep.
A collection of fountains between the beach and the car helped the kids to rinse most of the sand off of their bodies.
Back at our room, everyone got showered and dressed. We ate lunch before attending a timeshare sales pitch that not only paid for most of our room, but also provided us with some food vouchers. After another stop at our room and a little down time for the kids, we choose a nice restaurant off of the list of places that accepted our vouchers. The name of the restaurant was “Robert Irvine’s eat.â€
It was a very nice restaurant that wasn’t accustomed to serving children. They only had one high chair and no kids’ menu. I have to admit to being a little nervous about taking the kids there. Every table had these fragile looking water glasses and the atmosphere was very pleasant and peaceful. I must not have been the only one who was nervous because as we left the restaurant, we got many relieved compliments on how well our children behaved. My favorite dish was the fried green tomatoes with feta and sprouts (pictured above). At one point, Ila dropped her pacifier and a waiter washed it off and returned it to us on a dish.
Day two ended with movie night in our hotel room. Ila fell to sleep easily and although Nicole still required extra attention to stay in bed and fall to sleep, she did seem to fall to sleep quicker than the night before. 
Unfortunately she also woke up in the middle of the night and threw up all over the bed.
We had an opportunity this summer to go to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. It’s a resort town with lots of beautiful beaches. Our trips started out with a 7 hour drive. The kids did well, as always. 
For most of the trip, they entertained themselves looking out the windows and at books. We had no snacks in the car and stopped off for lunch at McDonalds about halfway through the trip. Also about half way there, we hooked up a portable DVD player to the van’s little TV screen and let the kids watch a few episodes of Curious George to pass the time.
Ila didn’t cry much. She did practice her trick of transferring toys back and forth between her hands and feet.
All of the kids took a nap in the car
We checked in, got unloaded and then headed out for dinner at Fat Baby Pizza. We ate peppers stuffed with prosciutto and cheese and a delicious thin crust pepperoni pizza. The kids were not fans of the peppers, but they tried them.
After giving Ila a bath in the hotel sink and feeding her, I put her to bed in our pack and play to let her cry herself to sleep. 
She was very distracted by everyone in the room so I took the other three kids out on a walk to acquire more pillows and ice. She was still crying when we got back so I decided to take the kids on a bedtime swim at the hotel pool. 
Our pool trip was cut short unexpectedly for reasons I won’t detail here, but our rush back into the room and the changing of all three kids out of swimsuits and into PJs awaked Ila just after she had finally fallen asleep. The rest of the night was difficult as Ila and Nicole both had some trouble falling asleep and as a result, Zach and I also got very little sleep.
She went from crying in pain all though the day and night, to getting her cast put on, but not knowing how to move. She learned to crawl, climb, and walk. She cried over not being able to bathe, she hated having her hair washed in the sink. The cast cover was a bear to put on and take off, but it allowed her finally to bathe and swim and enjoy the beach. In some ways it’s been a long 4 weeks, yet it also seems to have flown by.
Zach and I both wanted to go with her and we thought Isaac and Charlotte would want to see it come off. Ila came along for the ride.
The nurse said that her mother makes these bears for the little children when they have their casts removed. Nicole liked the bear and hugged it right away. She cried in the van when she dropped it and couldn’t reach it. 
She cried and thrashed as the nurse tried to remove the cast. Zach did his best to hold her down, but she was panicked. 
I was pleased to see that there were no toys or pennies inside. Her leg was covered in dead and pealing skin, but not terribly dirty and the muscle had atrophied so that her right leg looked skinnier than her left. The sore on her foot looked worse than I expected, but after a bath the blood and dried skin washed away and I could see that it was healing ok.
She was quite grumpy for the rest of the morning and cried when she tried to bear weight on her weakened leg and ankle. By the end of the day she was limping around the house, mostly walking on her toes like she did with the cast on but starting to try a little flat footed walking. Hopefully tomorrow brings more healing and more mobility.
Nicole loves the bath. Not being able to bathe because of her cast has been a challenge. She’d cry for a bath whenever someone mentioned one. Three weeks and two days after breaking her leg, she was ecstatic to be in the bath again thanks to a waterproof cast cover. I only wish we had thought to find one earlier.
Sorry to those who may be tired of our recent video dump, but I just can’t help but post two more that I took today.
Here is a video of Charlotte singing a song about Ila while Ila accompanies her on the rattle:
And here’s a video of Ila laughing:
I heard some noises that made me think Nicole was having some trouble, when I opened the door to her room, this is what I found:
Ok people, I want some advice. What do you do about nose picking and has your solution decreased the frequency of this behavior? I think anyone with a kid who has both fingers and a nose will at some point find the fingers in the nose. It’s embarrassing and gross. One time in church one of my children pulled out a particularly big, gross booger. As I reached into my diaper bag in search of wet wipes, I saw a look in the child’s eyes that said “what am I going to do with this†and I pulled a wet wipe out just in time to save the booger from entering the child’s mouth.
We haven’t made a big deal out of this behavior. We usually just tell the offending child that it’s bad manners, send him or her for a tissue, or make some comment about mining for nose gold, but the behavior is still witnessed regularly and I wonder if anyone knows a good way to decrease this behavior.
The process of getting this van completely ready for me to drive has been a little frustrating, but we’re almost there. Its a 2002 Ford Windstar. We ended up with a newer model of the same van (we had a 1995). We didn’t plan to get the same thing, it just worked out that way somehow. Ironically, the paint scheme is even the same.
Here are some pictures that I took today:
The interior is leather and this van has many interesting features that we didn’t have in our old van, like a built in garage door opener, built in VCR with screen, and a little mirror on the headliner above the rear-view mirror designed to allow the driver (or passenger) to see the kids in the back.
It has power sliding doors on both sides and buttons in a variety of places to allow you to activate the power doors.
This is not the best picture of the back, but with 4 car seats in, it’s hard to see it all well. It has captain seats in the middle and a bench with three seatbelts in the back.
It’s hard to see from the picture, but it has a nice wood trim around everything. All I know about the stereo is that it has a 6 Disc CD changer.
Anyway, you should get a basic idea of what it looks like from these pictures.
I took this video of Nicole using her walker this morning
Later, I turned on So You Think You Can Dance while I fed Ila and Nicole just got up and started dancing in circles without her walker
And finally, this last one is just for fun.
Awhile ago I was evaluating our books to determine which ones to keep and I came across this tattered old book. It was missing all of the little characters that slide into little slots throughout the book. It seemed like the perfect candidate for the trash, but I got an idea to adapt the book so that perhaps it would entertain a child in church. 
I printed out little wallet sized full body pictures of the kids and laminated them. 
I even went so far as to changing all the characters in the book to my children. I changed every character except Bear, perhaps one day I’ll be ambitious and change him to Mom or Dad. 
It didn’t work as well as I had planned, not only did it not entertain her for as long as I had hoped, the skinny little family member cut-outs kept slipping deep into the slot causing Nicole to cry out in frustration as she tried to retrieve them and before long, all of the pictures I had made were missing (the pictures above are the second set that I made) 
When Zach was called into the bishopric, I racked my brain for ideas on how I could keep Nicole entertained without him. I pulled this book out and made new family inserts, but was carful to make inserts that couldn’t fall completely into the slots and get lost or stuck. A week or so later I got the idea to add some of Nicole’s favorite cartoon characters (Curious George and The Man in the Yellow Hat). 
The last addition was a big hit. She spent the entire meeting on Sunday happily playing with ‘George’ and ‘Hat’ as she called them. She made them dance and hug and sing.
Lets face it, that hour of Sacrament meeting is challenging on Sunday morning when 
you have young children, possibly when you have older children too, but I don’t know about that yet. I spend a lot of time and energy fretting about how I can keep my children in their seats behaving well and for the most part we don’t do too bad. Having Zach on the stand now has presented some new challenges and I have not completely figured out how to deal with our children without him. So this particular blog post has two purposes:
1) To keep a record of how things are now, including a record of how they used to be and how we came to do things the way we do them and
2) To solicit ideas on how to improve the way I do things.
