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:
This is a picture of Charlotte in the kid-size doll house at the Oak Ridge Children’s Museum. The kids had a great time running around in this thing.
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:
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.
For some reason, Charlotte has advanced the following theory more than once, but this last time that she said it, I wrote it down (maybe two weeks ago).
“Ila thought I was a boy when she was in your tummy and when she was born and saw me walking, she was so happy to see I was a girl!â€
I finally got around to scanning this picture. This picture shows the break best, but you can see more here.
I was trying to take a new video of Nicole moving around with her new cast on, but she didn’t really go anywhere. She just kind of wiggled around. I did however capture her trying to read this book filled with addition and subtraction problems.
I didn’t know that she recognized numbers yet, but whether she actually saw the numbers on the page that she named or just recognized that they were numbers and started saying numbers, I don’t know. I suppose it’s a silly video to post.
Charlotte and Paul have been the best of friends. They have played together almost continuously since Paul arrived.
They shared some frosted cookie. Charlotte told Paul that if you mix the blue frosting with the yellow frosting you would get green frosting.
Their fingers and mouths were not the only thing that became that bright blue color. . .
Here are some videos that I took of Nicole learning to move with her leg splint:
Here she does some climbing:
Here is a still picture with her cast:
So far she seems much happier in the cast. I think it’s less painful for her.
We’ve been on the phone detailing injuries to families for the last few days, but I know we have some close friends and family members who get their updates here. For their benefit, as proof for compensation after a traffic injury, and for our written record, I will write the details of the injuries sustained during our car accident on Friday night. Since the pictures are a little gross, you will have to click the “Read more” link at the bottom of the page to read about them and see the pictures. If you’re dealing with similar circumstances, it might be helpful to consult a car accident attorney to ensure you get the support and compensation you deserve. If you follow us in a reader, I’m sorry because you may not have the option to skip looking at the entire post. If you or anyone you know needs legal assistance, consulting a New York personal injury lawyer could be very helpful in such situations.
Read more »I got this idea yesterday as my children were struggling to come up with good questions during a round of Star Wars Guess Who:
I’m very pleased with the final product and it didn’t actually take too long. The kids enjoyed a few rounds today after they helped me swap out the Milton Bradley cards for our own. It was nice that they knew all the people well enough to ask and answer questions about them and they weren’t confused about anyone’s gender like they are on the other Guess Who games. Charlotte has in the past insisted that one guy was both a man and a woman!
I can provide a tutorial on how I did it if anyone wants one.
I reflected back to July 4, 2004 during testimony meeting today. That year, the 4th also fell on a Sunday, it was when Zach blessed our first Child.
Our celebrating mostly took place on July 3rd this year.
Video = While throwing Snaps, Isaac shows off his missing tooth, Jackson shows off something else.
We lit sparklers during the day and then again at night. Nicole held one too, but when it started the “popcorn†phase, she dropped it in the grass and ran away. 
The kids enjoyed chasing parachute fireworks.
Poor Nicole was scared of all the fireworks. She hid under my chair or hugged me or Aunt Dee whenever she saw Zach approach the launch site. 
She was even worse in the evening. She spent the majority of time under my chair, mostly with her face buried in the grass and her feet sticking out the front of the chair. A few times she sat in my lap and hugged me. When I tried to turn her around, she gripped the back of my chair over my shoulder and wouldn’t let go. I had her facing towards the fireworks once, but she covered her eyes the whole time and refused to look.
Decorate your own fruit pizza
A movie (Shaun the Sheep) helped pass the time until it was dark enough to light more fireworks
After fireworks we drove home. A good time was had by all and luckily, bedtime was simple: 
Nicole is at that age where naps are becoming more irregular. It seems too soon, but here are the details:
This picture is from today when she fell asleep on the floor in her room, watching a movie at 4:00. She woke up as the other kids were going to bed. 
What would you do?
