Broken Arm

There were a few pictures of Amelie in her cast from when we went to MUUSA, but I never made a blog post about it.

The school nurse called me back at the beginning of summer school and asked if I could come pick up Amelie. She'd had an accident on the playground (jumping for the zip line and landing on her wrist) and was really upset about it.

I got to school, and she was acting fine. The nurse insisted that I take her to get her wrist x-rayed, though, and so I took her in - I don't think I would have if the nurse hadn't made me. It was going to be about an hour before the doctor could see us, so we went to Sonic and got ice cream.

Dr. Swofford let us know that it was a buckle fracture (Amelie wins the prize for our first -- hopefully only -- broken bone). She wore a brace for a bit until they put the cast on:

This is right after they put it on, she was not happy about the whole thing.

So we went for Panera and had more treats - are you noticing a theme?

The big reason we went with the cast (versus just the brace) was that she could go swimming - plus we had camp and vacation and I was a lot more comfortable sending her off to those with the extra protection.

Out to eat Fuzzy Tacos (this was before she'd collected all of the signatures):

I made a video when I asked Amelie what she thought of the cast:

When she says she can't go swimming in it, she means that she wasn't supposed to get in the lake water (because of bacteria). She was able to go swimming in the pool and splash pad and bathtub (though I think she did get a fair amount of lake water on and around the cast anyway).

And this is her getting the cast removed -  her friends at school had signed the cast by this point. It was looking a lot dingier after camp was over.

Sam remembered this special machine from when he had broken bones as a kid - the saw will only cut the cast material - not the skin.

4 weeks later, and it's off!

Westwinds Park

I took a bunch of photos and a couple of videos at our neighborhood park and my handy phone compiled them into this montage:

This is mostly just for future reference (and because the blog is the only consistent way I organize any photos) but here are some of the photos in the slide show:

Leah and James clowning around: 

Amelie loves to play outside: 

Such a cool milestone: 

Stephen’s Lake

This was our year-end trip to Stephen's Lake to swim. We only went a couple of times this year, and this one was the weekend before it closed for the winter. (Not many pictures of Amelie in this one, either! I think she was off doing her own thing.)

They were digging clay out of the bottom:

It's shallow, so nice for beginning swimmers. Pretty muddy water, though!

Sam and James and Leah: 

Leah still loves the water: 

There's a splash pad there, too, but the lure of the lake (pond) is usually too great if we let them get in. Here's James jumping off a big rock: 

Garden

We (Sam & the kids) put in tomatoes again this year. We planted some peppers, but none of them made it. (Last year we planted cucumbers before I learned that cucumbers and tomatoes don't grow well next to each other but the tomatoes went bonkers and crowded everything else out anyway. The crop wasn't as off-the-charts bountiful this year.)

Here's our littlest gardener wearing a discarded swim hat from Nana Jana and picking cherry tomatoes from our garden:

I like that she offered it to me, though she looks pretty concerned/suspicious at first.

Don't eat the green ones!

Splash pad

It's really obvious that I'm playing catch-up from this summer :)

Here's a visit to the splash pad at Flat Branch park. And apparently the only photo I got of Amelie is in the background of this one:

I think all kids like to turn on the sprinklers. This one has a button: 

 

Toga

Dress-up has always been a favorite activity at our house. Turns out, even the sheets off the bed will do in a pinch:

St Louis Trip

Sam took the big kids to St. Louis for a mini-trip. They went to the science center, where they did some archaeology.

And experienced hurricane-level winds:

They went to the City Museum, where Sam took a selfie in front of the ferris wheel (his arms weren't long enough to include Amelie and James in the picture.

James had a lot of fun using his skills to spin on the person-sized tops.

The kids couldn't get enough of the tunnels inside and outside of the City Museum. Sam could barely keep up, but luckily, Amelie and James were good about waiting for him.

They went to the Cardinals game. 

And did the wave:

When they got back, James told me the best part was swimming in the hotel pool (which was admittedly on the roof of the hotel on the 29th floor).

BBQ

I wanted to take a picture of Leah chowing down on this enormous rib.

She looks like she's saying, "Did you just take a picture when my face was stuffed full of food? How rude."

We like to go do Dicky's on Sundays because kids eat free and the kids like to go because there's ice cream.

Not sure if Amelie made her own cone or if Sam's somewhat baffled by the soft serve machine.