1st broken bone

Last night Jon was out pushing the kids on the swing. I'm not sure what happened, but somehow the swing broke and Dominic dropped about 5 feet to the ground. He caught himself with his right wrist. Jon said he didn't cry, but told Jon that he thought he'd broken his arm.

His wrist wasn't swollen and he could move it, but he favored it quite a bit and we ended up giving him some Tylenol at bedtime.

This morning he was still complaining of pain and wouldn't use it to eat or color. I was so unsure of what to do. He can be a bit dramatic sometimes, but if it was truly broken I didn't want to ignore that.

I finally took him over to his doctor who promptly sent me to an urgent care clinic to get an x-ray.

After a morning and most of the afternoon spent going to different doctors - Dominic has a broken wrist and a nice black cast. Thankfully the doctor put him in a removable cast. I wasn't sure what we were going to do with a active boy in the summer and a cast.

He's been a trooper and is back to playing now.

Hail Damage

Remember the hail story? I made the erroneous comment about being thankful for only one hail damage spot. The next day when the sun came out and we cleared the leaves off of the Acura we found out we had quite a bit more damage. Today we took the cars to get estimates and both cars have a total of over $7300 worth of damage. I could have lived with the damage to the Accord, but Jon's baby (Acura) had very obvious dints so I guess we'll be getting at least one, maybe two cars into the shop as soon as possible.

I was very thankful for insurance today.

Helping and disobedience

The kids have apparently caught the demo bug. I heard Dominic in the bathroom making these horrible grunting noises. I'm sure you can guess what I was imagining. Then I noticed Caitlin run by with a piece of vinyl. I went into the bathroom to find Dominic pulling up pieces. It wasn't glued down, but since the shoe molding was still nailed down he was having difficulty getting the vinyl ripped into tiny pieces.

 

He was then handing Caitlin the pieces for her to put by the door so I could take it out to the trash. Since I had no clue they were going to do this, I was impressed with their neatness in getting everything done.

We had lunch and Caitlin went down for her nap. A few minutes later I was on the phone with Jon telling him about the kids and I hear screaming. It's the kind that makes you drop everything (including the phone) and run. I came into Dominic's bedroom to find his toe caught in a folding stool that he'd been told earlier not to stand on. He'd slipped and caught his toe. His weight as he fell closed the stool onto his foot. Since he was on top of the stool he couldn't get his toe out. If he'd been any heavier it would have broken his toe. It took several seconds (that seemed like minutes) to get the toe out. He screamed the entire time. When I got a look at the toe I was a little concerned. The picture below doesn't show (because it was taken a bit later and he wouldn't be still), but he had a sizable dent and it almost immediately turned purple and started bleeding.

He screamed for over 30 minutes. I finally calmed him down and put him on the couch with angry birds. He spent the afternoon on the couch and then limped around all evening. He will definitely lose his toenail, but nothing appears broken. He was fortunate. It could have gone much worse. I couldn't help myself. I gave him a rather long lecture about obedience. I think this is one lesson he won't forget.

A Little Confused

The kids were playing in the rain and came in completely soaked.

Dominic was trying to express how completely and utterly wet he was.

"I'm wet all the way down to my p____.* And Caitlin is wet all the way down to her digestiff."

"Uhm, Dominic. Don't you mean v____?"*

"Oh right. I forgot. Everyone has a digestiff system. Silly me."

_______________

We are eating supper and Dominic starts talking about letters.

He says the letter W. After repeating it several times, Caitlin started copying him.

"Double U, double U, double me."

_________________

The kids had been bickering all morning. After one incident I told them to hug for a full minute. About half way through Dominic announces -
"This isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. She's actually softer than my seal."
(A super soft stuffed animal)

Two funny things about this -

1. They actually hug quite often.

2. Neither one could remember why they had to hug in the first place. Sigh!

* I have no problems with these words. But according to my blog stats people search the internet looking for key words combined with children. I don't want to block my blog, but I can be more careful so that search engines don't find me when the perverts are out looking.

Father's Day Update

After taking the kids shopping for presents we returned home and tried not to bother Jon so he could have some alone time working on the Model A.

We ate our typical Taco Bell lunch and for supper headed to Bellacino's and 32 Degrees.

 

On the way home we noticed that the sky was getting dark again. It had rained off and on all day. Jon thought he saw green clouds. He tried to hurry, but the storm was faster. It started hailing about 2 minutes after he mentioned the green clouds. We whipped into a church parking lot and tried to take shelter under their vestibule. But the hail was coming sideways and we could still hearing it hitting the car. The kids were a bit freaked out, but when they noticed that mom and dad were enjoying it and taking pictures they calmed down.

We came home once the hail had stopped and were surprised to find tons of ice still on the ground.

There were some pretty large pieces.

The electricity was out and leaves were everywhere. But amazingly our car only had one hail spot. The electric came on right after we went to bed. I'd made sure that the lights were all turned off so we wouldn't be rudely awakened, but Dominic must have turned it back on because he came running into our bedroom the library to let us know his light was on.

In spite of the storm and unusual things I'm hoping that Jon had a wonderful Father's Day.

Why buy toys?

It's on days like this that I wonder why parents bother buying toys.

Jon brings home scrap paper for the kids to use. They draw, paint and color EVERY day so we were really running through the paper. They don't seem to mind the print on one side and it saves us tons of printer paper.

But on this day they found another use for it.

Dominic said he was going to make a snow village. They played for hours in their "snow village" before putting the paper back. 

 We change the sheets every Friday morning. Each kid helps me with their bed and then they both help with mine. But when we got to Dominic's bed, Caitlin found a pillow case and crawled in.

This created several hours of sack races and camping trips with their "sleeping bags".

 

 

 

Dominic LOVES helping me with my chores. He has a container filled with ping pong balls that have chores written on them. He will pull one out and race me to get it finished. But I think his very favorite is washing dishes. I'm wondering how long this will last. =)

Vacation Bible School

Vacation Bible School was so much fun this year. 

I took Dominic and then stayed to help out. Caitlin's bedtime is 7:30pm and she doesn't do well without her sleep so Jon stayed home with her. It also allowed him some alone time once she was in bed to work on the house uninterrupted. 

Dominic could have gone in the preschool class, but I chose to put him in with the "bigger" kids. I'm so glad that I did. He did well  and enjoyed being around the bigger kids.

The decorations were great. I was very impressed.

 I think the crafts were a favorite part. 

He loved having Katie for his crew leader.

The costumes were pretty cool.

 

 

 Waiting for snacks. Maybe this was a favorite. =)

I let him eat whatever the snack was - even when it had sugar. 

Even with lack of sleep and full of sugar he did okay.

Thankfully it was only one week though.

It took quite a few pictures for him to be still enough for me to get this picture.

A huge thank you to all of the people who made this possible. 

It's so great to hear the kids singing the songs and talking about their awesome God.

Happy Father's Day!

Dominic

"Tell me what you like about your dad."

"That he does lots of things for me. And he loves me. And he also wants me to do what he tells me to do. That's how I love him. And he's nice to me. That's it."

Caitlin

"What do you like about Daddy?"
"We go shopping." (we went shopping this morning to pick out gifts for him)

"Yes, shopping for him was fun, but what do you like about him?"

"He eyes. I wuv him. Happy Fader days."

Jon got an iPod for Father's Day, but I took the kids this morning to pick out something for him. 

We went into the car section of the store because Jon said he could use some car cleaning things.

My kids both picked out bottles of car cleaner based on the color.

Dominic picked a red bottle because it is Jon's favorite color.

Caitlin picked a bottle with purple writing because it was pretty.

Thankfully Jon said he could use them both. =)

My kids are blessed with an amazing Dad. He plays with them, guides and instructs them and unlike some dads he plays an active part in their lives. He gives them their baths every night, takes them to events and spends quality time with each of them.

The kids adore him and I'm so thankful to have such an amazing husband who loves his kids.

Last Weekend 2

After lunch we decided to check out Look Out Mountain. I've lived close to this mountain most of my life. I've seen the signs on barns "See Ruby Falls Atop Look Out Mountain" and 

"See Seven States from Rock City". But I've never made it to any of them.

We get to the top and turn around to find this.

 

I guess we wore them out before lunch. So Jon played on his iPod while I took pictures. 

Then we drove around exploring while we waited.

Once the kids were awake we headed to the Incline Railway. This is the longest and steepest incline railway in the world (if the narrator is to be believed).

 

 

Dominic was cool about everything. He enjoyed the entire experience.

 

Caitlin was a bit more cautious. She never cried, but the looks on her face were priceless.

The views from the top were really nice.

 

The next night we spent with Jason and Kim.

The weather was beautiful, so we ate breakfast outside.

 Kitty joined us.

Then we headed to Ruby Falls. I was very disappointed. It was so commercialized. When we went to the Lost Sea we felt like we were in a real cave. But this place has seen so many people that most of the places that you could touch were glossy from hand prints.

 It was great for photos though. =)

 

 

 The paths were neat walkways, mostly paved. And when we got to the falls we were rushed around the waterfall and hurried back onto the trail. The light show was nice, but it certainly didn't feel like we were viewing nature.

Walking with Daddy up to see the view.

Our kids have no idea how privileged they are to be able to go on trips and see the many things they take for granted. I'm thankful they have these opportunities.

Last weekend

We went to Chattanooga this last weekend to spend some time with family.

It was my brother's birthday and we hadn't seen Jon's brother in a while either.

But I think the main reason Jon wanted to go was because the Great Race was starting in Chattanooga and he wanted to go and look at the cars before they started. =)

We returned and immediately became overwhelmingly busy so this post is a bit late.

We crammed a lot into our weekend. =)

Pictures from the great race.

Waiting for the race to start.

 Zeb got bored and had to see if he could climb the wall.

 It was very hot, even that early in the morning so we went over to a near by building for the kids to sit in the shade. They found the dirtiest place to play.

 Being the typical boy, Dominic licked his hands to get the dirt off. He didn't believe me when I told him what that action had done to his chin. So I took a picture to prove my point. He thought it was "cool".

 Caitlin was tired since she hadn't slept well the night before. Poor Jon ended up being peed on because she was too sleepy to let him know she had to go. Guess it was a good thing there was a breeze to dry them off quickly. =)

 

 This tiny car really fascinated the kids.

 I took a picture of Zeb beside the car to show how tiny it really is. 

It's kid size.

 He's inflated.

 

 Look Mom!

And he's down.

"Oh no! He's bwoken"

Notice all of the people standing in the back ground watching her. They were loving her expressions every time he inflated and deflated. She could have spent the whole day watching the Michelin man.

 Once the cars starting taking off it was hard to see them until they were right up on us because of the crowds of people. So Leila kept getting further and further out into the street. Dominic is a bit of a mother hen and would frantically pull her back in each time she leaned out.

We stayed with my brother the first night. He's a true bachelor. He doesn't have a kitchen table. The kids certainly didn't mind. I think they enjoyed the novelty of sitting on the floor to eat breakfast.

After the race we headed to the Children's Museum to spend some time. The kids love this place. In fact, Dominic never made it around the first corner. We spent the whole time coloring or playing in the water section. I wanted to rush him along and had to really remind myself that this was about him and if he was happy we would stay there all day.

 Drying his shirt after playing in the water.

 "Mom, take my picture."

 

 

The bubble ring outside.

We packed a ton into a very short time. So I'll post more of our weekend later.