Ode to Summer

For the past 3 months I've been trying to catch up on blogging. But it seems like I could only get 2-3 posts in at a time and therefore I've been consistently a month behind all summer. Well today I finally ignored all the other things on my To Do List and sat down to play catch up. So here's to the end of our summer - all that was crazy, but fun.

8.02.11 - We found Gma & Gpa's water flower in the shed and decided to set it up for the kids. They had a blast! It was fun to see them run around and inevitably get hit by water.

They played with it again the next morning. Emily had fun trying to control the water while Jacob kept trying to drink out of it.

8.05.11 - We had friends over for dinner and were just chatting when Jacob fell off a little indoor slide that we have. We didn't see it happen so we weren't sure what exactly was wrong, but he was favoring his arm quite a bit and wouldn't move it. After two hours of laying in my arms and crying if we moved him at all we decided to take him to instacare. My parents met us there and took Emily home with them and we spent the next hour taking xrays and talking to the doctor. He couldn't see a break on the xrays but really thought there was one around his radial head so he recommended us following up with an orthopedic on Monday. Of course something like this would happen on a Friday! So they splinted Jacob up and sent us home.

Fortunately Jacob slept fairly well that night and was pretty good about it. However he'd have nothing to do with the sling they gave us. He ended up sleeping in the same shirt he wore on Friday and wore it again on Saturday since the sleeves were big enough to fit over the splint. At first he wouldn't use his left arm at all but then eventually started figuring out what he could do with it all wrapped up. By Sunday the swelling was starting to go down and Jacob realized he could be just as daring with a splint on and continued to jump off things and climb all over. Making us more worried then ever and anxious to get a cast on it. After falling off the same slide 3 more times we finally took the slide downstairs to the storage room.

Sister was dressing up, so he had to join the fun

We decided to see an orthopedic surgeon in our ward and were able to get in to see him on Tuesday afternoon. When we got there they unwrapped his arm and besides not moving it around too much he was completely fine. They starting taking some more xrays and wasn't crying one bit. We started wondering if he really was injured when the xray tech turned his arm to get a different angle. He cried out in pain and it took a minute of cuddling with mom after to calm him down. Then the doctor came in and said he couldn't see any breaks anywhere and felt his arm all over and Jacob didn't even let out a peep. SO, the only conclusion we could come to was that it as nurse maid's elbow (radial head popped out) and the tech happened to pop it back in while he was taking the xrays. I was still a bit nervous at first with not knowing for sure what was going on, but when Jacob appeared completely normal I stopped worrying. We are all VERY grateful that it wasn't actually broken and we have a healthy, albeit still fearless, little boy.

8.12.11 - My mom, the kids and I met up with Jenny & Stacy and their kids at Jump Around Utah. The kids had a blast running around climbing, jumping, bouncing, sliding, swinging, wiggling, rolling and laughing for hours. Jeff ended up coming over and joining the fun for his lunch hour. It was a great way to wear the kids out before nap time.

8.15.11 - Jacob has learned how to turn on (and off!) the pinball machine and he LOVES to play it. It's the cutest thing to watch.

Emily spent some of her birthday money on buying a fancy net to hang over her bed. Well her daddy finally hung it for her and she just grinned from from ear to ear for the next hour saying, "Finally!!" We think she loves it.

8.18.11 - I pulled out some paint for a morning activity. Emily loved painting with brushes, rollers, and carrot greens from the garden (which actually looked pretty cool). Jacob just preferred his hands.

8.19.11 - I took the kids over to play at Gma Newman's for the morning. Emily had a ton of fun trying to climb up the water slide. Jacob loved running into and splashing around in the little pool.

8.21.11 - After church Jeff was playing with Jacob on our bed and Jacob threw all of our pillows on the ground. So Jeff pushed Jacob off the bed onto them. Of course this started an hour's worth of jumping, pushing and throwing. And we wonder why Jacob's such a dare devil???

Emily had to join in on the fun too.

Later that night we went to dinner at my parents. Jacob loves to jump on the tramp and he had a rare moment when he was able to do it without anyone else. My mom came out and was 'getting' him. She does such a great job getting him to smile and laugh.

8.23.11 - We went to This is the Place with my mom. We checked out the monument and visitors center - both things we ran out of time to do when we went with Jeff last month. It was fun to find out that one our ancestors, Erastus Snow, was heavily involved with the scouting,etc.

Orson Pratt on horse, Erastus Snow standing next to him

Thanks for coming with us mom! It was fun!!

8.25.11 - Jenn, Stacy, my mom and I all took the kids to a fun new park. They got to run through a bunch of different water fountains and play on a pretty cool playground. And they went back and forth between the two things all afternoon. We had a picnic lunch - in the wind. Of course we'd pull out bags right when the wind picked up. It was a fun afternoon - even with Emily getting huge blisters from playing on the monkey bars too much. Thanks for the idea Jenn!

The Cousins - Sara, Grace, Kate & Jackson, Lucy, Cameron

Later that night while Jeff and Emily were at soccer practice Jacob and I went out back and played.

8.27.11 - Our garden has done really well. We're pretty proud of it, especially since this is the first time either of us have been involved in a vegetable garden at all. We're getting tons of zucchini and cucumbers (if you want any come on over!) and it looks like our tomatoes are about to start overwhelming us too. Our pumpkins are getting bigger and some are starting to go orange. We finally have peppers (yeah!) and our carrots are looking great too. The kids love eating them. We've had some of our corn a couple times now and it is way yummy. Jacob loves it and is adorable eating it too.

We've had several strawberries as well this summer. I think I happened to taste one of them for the first time the other day. Jacob & Emily gobble them up as fast as they can. I've also had some herbs growing and it's been fun. We enjoyed the cilantro when we had it and I've now got parsley and basil.

The pumpkins completely take over - even since taking this picture they've grown a ton!

And I just had to include these pictures of Jacob. I LOVE them!! He's so fun to take pictures of.

And we are now saying goodbye to summer. Emily started her fall soccer on Saturday - she scored 2 goals! She also starts school this week and now football's starting too. It's predicted that temperatures will finally drop out of the 90's too! I'm not sure which one of those we're more excited for. Fall is such a fun time of year and there are so many great things to do. It looks to be a pretty busy fall, but we're excited for it all and can't wait.

Swimmer

Emily took 4 weeks of swimming lessons this summer from a neighbor up the street. It was SO nice to have it just a couple houses away and to be able to just walk over. Carter's have a beautiful yard and it was very enjoyable to sit on their patio every day for a month and just watch Emily learn. The first day of lessons Emily's goggle strap broke so that night we went and bought some new ones. But for the next week and a half she refused to wear them saying she didn't need them. I really feel like her swimming progress was impeded because she wouldn't put her face in the water. After spending a considerable amount of time trying to convince her to wear her new goggles, I learned that the reason she wouldn't wear them was because they weren't pink. So out came the old pink goggles now with the new blue/orange strap and she wore them just fine for the rest of her lessons... and started progressing rapidly. 

 By the end of her lessons she was swimming out to her teacher by herself, became pretty good at the breaststroke, and was quite a pro at going down the water slide. She is know begging to keep taking lessons during the fall and winter.



Futbol

We ended up doing another session of soccer for Emily. I was planning on taking the summer off, but Jeff talked me into doing the summer session so Emily could play one more time with her team. (She's one of the oldest on the team and has to play up an age level now). As crazy as it was to get to the games, I'm glad we did it. Emily improved a lot over the few weeks and it was fun to see.

Emily became pretty good friends with a couple girls on her team and had a lot of fun with them. It was fun to see them add a bit of estrogen to the games.

The last game of the session Emily scored THREE goals!!! We were so excited for her. She has become quite the little soccer player and we are so proud of her!