Emma's Cast. Meetin' Mitt, and Halloween pics!

This is kind of a miscellaneous post, that's our life!!!

A week before we left for our family trip to Florida, Emma was at Tap Class and she twirled and fell and broke her left elbow.
This picture is from hospital number 2 of 3 that we visited that night. There was a very good chance Emma might have to have surgery, so we were sent to the closest hospital with a Pediatric Orthopedist, in Iowa City, about an hour from our home. The University of Iowa Medical Center. They were amazing and so kind! We were so blessed that Emma only needed a cast! YEAY!!!

Emma slept through the whole trip to Iowa City and when she woke up she was disappointed that her cast was just white. She had said she wanted a pink one. So, I started coloring it for her!! Halfway through Em asked if I could do the rest of it green, so I did! Pink and Green! Coolest cast EVER!!!
Emma's sweet Primary teacher, Bro. Kowallis, dropped off a treat and a "Get Well Soon" balloon when he heard that Emma broke her elbow. So nice of him to think of her!!!

FAST FORWARD 4 WEEKS (after our amazing trip, with more pictures to come)...

Getting ready to have her cast removed!

I love that Emma is smiling so huge in this picture!!! Yep, that is the nurse with the saw taking the cast off. Emma smiled through the whole thing. hahahahaha!
She stretched and scratched and moved her arm around carefully. Emma didn't love the skin we were scrubbing off for a week or so. But it was so great to get her arm back again!

Living in the Midwest is really interesting because politics is so interesting and HUGE here!

One Monday evening, we went as a family and met Mitt Romney. He was really nice!

Here come the Halloween Pictures!

We went to dad's school for the trick-or-treating and it was so much fun!

Emma the Barbie Fairy!

Rachel the pirate, saying "ARG!!!

Sarah, the super cutie Candy Corn!

Happy Halloween, my precious sweeties! It was such a fun day!

An AMAZING President (and his museum and library)

Richard and I have always felt so grateful to live in the United States of America and we work each day to teach our girls about that blessing!
There were amazing people in our US history. Men and women who stood up and did what they knew what right. Even if it was hard.
One of the greatest examples of this is President Abraham Lincoln. I have always loved learning about him and about the Civil War.

So when we finished up in St. Louis, we headed to the capitol of Illinois, the city of Springfield.
It was interesting to see this city, after visiting Chicago a few times, with it's huge buildings and busy, busy streets. Springfield is a city where a simple, honest man practiced law and went on to become a wonderful and hard-working President of the United States.

So we visited the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (built in 2005 and beyond fabulous) and Lincoln's beautiful tomb. They were AMAZING!!! (how can you tell it was amazing? I kept forgetting to take pictures! wow!)

Our family with the figures of Lincoln and his family.

There was a wonderful children's section! We spent a lot of time there learning and enjoying a more simple time!

The girls dressed up. Emma, Sarah and Rachel (as Abraham Lincoln)


Emma and Daddy playing what else? Lincoln Logs!


Sarah and her twirly dress


Rachel pulled that duck around and kept coming back to write on the chalk boards. Thinking about doing her homework on it was very interesting to her.

~The rest of the museum was amazing! Talking about slavery and the Civil War, interactive maps, photographs. Learning about the great times and the hard and sad time for the Lincoln family. Learning more about John Wilkes Booth and his motivations.
~And finally walking through and seeing one of his tall silk hats, where you can see finger marks on the brim where he kept tipping it to people on the streets he met. The band of the hat was stretched a little because he would often put important papers up in his hat so he didn't forget them. His "office in a hat". Seeing gloves and early copies of the Emancipation Proclamation.
~It was awesome to learn so much more about where Abraham Lincoln came from and what he did in his wonderful, but short life.

Then we drove through the Springfield Cemetary and visited Abraham Lincoln's tomb. It is so beautiful! So humbling to think of how important this man was for the future of our country!!!


Abraham Lincoln~ Thank you for the gift of your life and your sacrifice for our country. We will never forget!!!

Meeting Bob...

You may know that I have been working hard to lose weight for a while now and one of the things that has really inspired me is the show "The Biggest Loser". So when I heard that Bob Harper (one of the show's trainers) was going to speak at Homecoming at Richard's school, Richard and I decided to get tickets and go.
It was great to hear him talk and he took some questions (including one of mine).
After, we went and got out picture taken. Obviously the girl wasn't a pro with cameras, but I will take it either way!
So fun picture with me and Richard and Bob!