Two new posts today

See All about feet and Summer Fun, part 2, below.

All about feet

Katie is always taking pictures of abstract things. She takes pictures of some things like her toys or objects around the room. She is always taking pictures of things really close up like a plastic bottle, or a crumb in a bowl. I’ve even seen her twirl and take a picture while she’s twirling. She likes to take close up shots of people too, like my arm or a nice close up shot of someone’s face. Well, this time she took a picture of her feet and it turned out so cute! Here it is:

Well here’s another story about feet that’s not so cute. In July I ran into a step ladder we keep in our kitchen and bruised up my toe and foot. It was swollen for a few days and it hurt for several weeks. This is what it looked like a day or two after it happened:

Well, I did it again last Sunday, but this time it was my pinky toe on the other foot. And this time it was worse and hurt a lot more. It especially hurt to wear shoes. It was still hurting quite a bit by Wednesday and still quite swollen so I went to the doctor and they took x-rays. He said it wasn’t broken but just badly jammed and sprained. He said I would need to keep off it as much as possible and keep ice on it till the swelling was gone, wear open or loose fitting shoes that give me support, and not do a lot of jumping or bouncing (bummer for me cause I do aerobics). Well today I got a call from the doctor who said that the radiologist had reviewed my x-rays and did find a small fracture in my little toe. He said the treatment is the same but fractures take a bit longer to heal and would probably hurt for about 3 or 4 weeks. Here’s a picture of this injury taken on Wednesday, the day I went to the doctor:

My toe/foot is doing a little better now. The bruising is fading, it’s still swollen, but the swelling is less. It still hurts quite a bit. It doesn’t hurt as bad if I walk barefoot at home, unless I walk around too much, then it really starts to throb. But sometimes it throbs even if I haven't been walking around much too. It kills to wear shoes, unless I wear my sandals – then it’s not as bad.

Here’s a picture of the demon ladder:

I use the ladder all the time to reach things in cupboards and for the kids to wash their hands. I would always set the ladder in the middle of the room out of the way (or so I thought), while I wasn’t using it. So, I decided I needed to replace our kitchen ladder with a nice small stool.

Here’s what we use now:

Ahhh – nice and small. And if I happen to run into this stool – hopefully it will just get scooted across the room a bit. I keep this stool along the edges of the kitchen or in the pantry. Now I only get the step ladder out if I need to reach something up really high in the pantry and I immediately put it away again when I’m done.

Live and learn I guess. (I think I’m accident prone - I fell down the stairs in August. I hit my head pretty hard and threw several things out in my neck and back. Thank goodness my chiropractor got me all fixed up. Maybe I just need to slow down a bit).

Summer Fun, part 2

Chris took Katelynn and Nephi to Parade America. Here they are sitting and watching the parade.
And here's a few shots of the parade:

This was at Grandpa Art's birthday party. The kids thought it was a hoot to all climb up on Grandpa. Here's Katie, Nikki, Garrett, and Nephi all climbing on Grandpa Tony:

Katie, Grandpa Tony, and Nikki:

Summer Fun, part 1

We've had a very busy summer and I'm way behind on my blogging. So the next few posts will be about the different things we did this summer.

First off, 4th of July weekend. We went to the cabin with a lot of the family and some of our friends, Kevin and Charlene and their kids. We had a lot of fun.
Stillman and Michelle hosted our very own "Minute to Win It" game. I didn't get any pictures from the game - but it was a blast. We did things like trying to stack apples five high, stacking cups, trying to get oreo cookies into our mouths from our forehead without using hands, and more. Definitely one to do again. We also had fun playing disc golf, watching movies, and driving ATVs.

The kids always have a blast on the swings. Here's Katie having fun on the swings:

Katie and Alex:
Sunday afternoon we had fun playing games like Catch Phrase, croquet, and horseshoes.

Garrett, Katie and Nikki, Curtis and Jack:

And then the ever popular making of smores. Mmmm!

We all sat on the old docks in front of the cabin and had fun lighting off fireworks.

And of course we had a lot of fun in the water rafting, paddle boating, canoeing, and swimming.