More Accidents

Claire had a rough week last week. Last Wednesday, we went to the girls' school. We had just gotten home, and I had set her down on our door mat while I unlocked the door, when she started heading for the stairs. I quickly grabbed her hand, and then just lifted her into the house. I heard her shoulder pop, but thought nothing of it until a bit later when she hadn't stopped crying and she would barely use her left arm. I called the doctor. I felt it with my fingers, and it didn't feel out, so the nurse said it might have popped out and popped back in. She suggested I take her to the ER because they needed to xray it to make sure the arm was back in place. Just as we were getting ready to go, I noticed she had stopped crying and had crawled on it. Then she tried putting her hat on--raising her arm up all the way without any whimpering or anything. So I knew she was okay, and we decided on not adding another ER visit to our stay in Spokane.

The next day, I was in the other room, when Claire just started bawling. I asked Summer what had happened, and she said she was shutting the bathroom door and Claire stuck her fingers where the hinges are. Claire's thumb was indented for almost an hour. It was purple and red. I was worried she broke it. We tried putting ice on it, but that didn't last long, so I got a pile of snow and put it in a bowl. She ate it with her right hand, and periodically, I would dig a hole and stick her thumb in it for as long as she would let me. She would sit there for a few minutes, and then suddenly say, "Owwwww!" So I'd let her take her hand out. Poor thing.

Both girls have been feeling a little under the weather too. They both have a yucky cough at night and a runny nose. Because Summer's mouth gets really dry while she sleeps, we let her take her sippy cup of water to bed with her. Last night, she was soooooo tired that she didn't wake up when she had to go to the bathroom. This morning, she came into our room and she had wet the bed. She felt bad about it, so we didn't make it into a big deal.

Claire woke up once in the night and wouldn't go back to sleep so I went in and checked on her. She had thrown up on her bed. I did a little clean-up, then helped calm her until she fell back asleep.

When I do laundry, there's usually a batch in the washing machine ready to be dried by the time the clothes in the dryer are done. So I unload the dryer, putting the clean clothes on the floor in the hallway, then I put the wet ones in the dryer to dry. Well, today, I was switching the laundry over, thinking to myself how much I do not like doing laundry, when Summer walked up to me and threw up all over the pile of clean laundry on the floor.

I laughed at the irony of it.

Then threw them back into the washing machine.

Our Holidays

We had a great Christmas and were able to spend some wonderful time with our families in Southern Idaho. What made it even better was that the girls were almost angels all the way there and all the way home. Summer and Claire did a great job for the 8+ hours it took (one way).

We first had our Christmas with Grandpa Barney and Lori.

I was definitely here supervising this.


Then we had our Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa Searle's.
Lance tried reading Luke 2 overtop the crying kids, the hee-hawing donkey, and the adults giving commands to the children. The picture in no way portrays the chaos. Luke 2 lasted about one minute--it was the condensed version.
The grandkids on Grandma's piano: Claire, Summer, Mabree Searle, and Noah Nelson (not pictured: Brecken Searle, Anniston Searle, and Graham Blatter). We sure missed Graham!
And then we celebrated the holiday at Grandma and Grandpa Kartchner's.Claire sporting her new slippers (and pigtails!).We sure missed Andrew and Maria, but it was fun spending time with Blake and Sable. One of Summer's funniest moments was right in the middle of singing, "Two Little Blackbirds" for everyone, when, from a small glimpse in the corner of her eye, she spotted a picture of Sable, and excitedly ran over to the picture yelling, "Sable! It's you Sable! Sable! Look! It's you!" Everyone laughed pretty hard.

Sable opening Rhett's awesome home-made gift to her:


We ended our trip by heading up to my parent's cabin for a day--which actually ended up being a few more days because we got snowed in.

For Christmas, Noah got a Mickey Mouse club video with four episodes. At the end of each episode, Mickey Mouse and his gang sing the "Hot Dog" song. This song was the cue to bust the moves. As you can see, it wasn't just the grandkids that loved this song.
Summer got to play in the snow for her first real time ever. She got some snow pants from Grandma Kartchner, and where better to put it to use than Island Park? She got to go sledding on the the snow machine, and then got pulled behind in the sled. She loved it.

Summer catching snowflakes on her tongue.
Claire's pretty eyes:
Thanks everyone for making our visit so comfortable and enjoyable. We made great memories this year, and look forward to the coming years with just as many presents memories!