We were super busy this month. Here are some pictures from some of the things we did but haven't blogged about. On the 4th of July we went to Papa Larry's for a birthday BBQ. Here is a picture of all the Wilder cousins together.



After the BBQ we headed home for fireworks. We had my brother's family and the Maio's over to watch fireworks from our deck. We were able to see South Jordan, Riverton, Sandy, Thanksgiving Point and a couple other shows. It was fun watching all the different fireworks-we may not have been right under the fireworks but we didn't have to battle traffic and had a place to cool down while we waited. We also set some fireworks off in our front yard while waiting for the big shows to start.



We had a big family get together with my family the next day. We were so busy the next day I didn't take many pictures. It was lots of fun hanging out with the whole Brent Romig family and watching all the kids together. It was non-stop fun chaotic time. Cole was especially excited to get to spend some time with his cousins Ben, Brady and Toby who were here visiting before their big move to Hawaii. I was especially excited to spend time with my sister, Angie, and to meet my new niece, Molly.



The next week I headed down to St. George with my volleyball team for a team camp. We had 5-6 matches a day and were so busy I barely had time to think. Teresa took Ellee to Cedar City with her to make my first day in St. George lots easier. Ellee and Ashlyn had so much fun they were just like sisters the whole time. Damon kept the boys home with him until Wednesday when they came down to St. George to join us. When the volleyball camp was over we headed to Teresa and Chase's house for a couple days. While there I got to see what a great dentist Chase is. This is a picture of Ellee, Ashlyn, and Alyssa wearing their new matching nightgowns.



When we got back Cole had his surgery. We took Cole in for his follow up and have some good news. He will probably only have to keep the cast on for four weeks instead of six. We'll keep crossing our fingers. He's been pretty sad because he wants to go swimming and really misses riding his bike.

This week we went to the Maio's house to celebrate the 24th. We had a BBQ, played croquet, and set off fireworks. The kids were so fun. They watched the fireworks really well for awhile but then discovered that the fireworks made their shadows huge and started dancing around in the firework lights. They were giggling and having a ball.



Damon and I love going on drives in the canyons and hiking. We went up Butterfield Canyon to the summit where you can see Salt Lake, Tooele, Utah, and Davis counties. It was such a pretty drive. We could also see down into the copper mines. It was awesome! We have both been up in Big Cottonwood and Little Cottonwood canyons quite a bit but had never gone up Butterfield Canyon. On the way up there we passed the wild horses and burros. The kids loved seeing all the horses scattered across the mountain. We also got to wait in the road for five deer to cross. Cole was so excited!

Cole's Summer is Done

Well, it looks like Cole's summer fun is over. A couple weeks ago Damon took Cole swimming at our community pool. Cole saw another boy playing with a cap that is at the bottom of the handrail going from the kiddie area to the deeper water-he thought it would be fun to play with it after the other boy was done. He didn't know that it had sharp edges all the way around and ended up cutting all four fingers on his right hand.

We cleaned and bandaged the cuts up. After they healed we noticed that he couldn't bend the tip of his ring finger. That's when we felt like horrible for not taking him to the doctor right when it happened.

On Monday, we took him to our pediatrician and he told us that Cole would need to go see a hand surgeon because it looked like he cut the tendon. He also said it would have been hard to detect the cut tendon until the wounds healed. That made us feel a little better. We found out that there are only a handful of doctors who specialize in hand surgery and even less who would work on a 5 year old's hand. Throw in who is covered under our insurance we really began to panic. We ended up calling Damon's friend, Oscar-who is an orthopedic surgeon and with his help we were able to find someone.

The doctor wanted to get him in for surgery the very next day. He said you don't want to delay anything-especially with young kids. We were there early for prep time and they gave Cole some "silly juice" to help him relax. It was both funny and sad to watch how he started acting once it kicked in.

We were told the surgery would last about an hour. 3 1/2 hours later the doctor came out and told us that it was a difficult surgery but went well. Cole's cast is huge! He didn't like it at first because it covered his fingers and went above his elbow.

POTTY TRAINING!!!

I don't want to jinx myself, but I think we've got this potty thing under control. I really wanted to try to get the twins potty trained before I had to go back to teaching in August. I didn't know how realistic it would be to try potty training with me at work and Damon barely able to stay awake after a long graveyard shift. Luke has been great right from the start with his potty training. He wanted to go potty in the toilet and never looked back. He did start out going potty 40 times a day and now we're probably down to about 20 times a day-and he goes every time. He has been the easiest to potty train out of all three kids. It has been so nice. We even go to the store in big boys now and I don't get worried because he asks every time he feels the urge (which is usually in every store). Every one I have talked to has told me that girls are so much easier to potty train than boys-not in our case! Cole and Luke were so much easier than Ellee. I think it just depends on when they are ready and how stubborn they are.
Ellee is definitely our stubborn child-I didn't think we would ever master the task. If there is one thing I've learned about Ellee it is that she does things when she wants to. We've had a few conflicts because of how independent she is-little stinker. For the first two weeks of potty training Ellee had no problem going pee in the potty but wanted nothing to do with that other business. She would cry and say "I scared, Mommy!" We tried rewards like toys and sticker, tried buying her new panties at the store, tried letting her watch her brothers, tried guessing what color it might be (sounds gross, but she has an obsession with the color pink-she was determined for awhile that she would have pink poop)-nothing was working. We decided to just back off, and then Damon had the brilliant idea of painting one fingernail or toenail each time she pooped in the potty. She now has 17 purple and pink fingernails and toenails. It worked like a charm. Some days she even made herself go three or four times so that she would get her fingernails painted. Now that we are so close to having all of them done she points to the fingers that need touch up every time she does her deed and we get the nail polish out.
Ellee and Luke also loved Aunt Teresa's blue water in her toilet and keep asking for blue water now that we are back home-thanks T-I will have to make a trip to the store to buy some stuff to turn our water blue so they can have fun changing the color. I had to put the video of Luke and Ellee's potty dance on here-makes me laugh every time they do it. Especially when I see Cole dancing and singing with them. He loves to tell them that when he was learning to go potty in the toilet he used to sing that song too. I know I am a dork, but you do what you have to do-and we are almost there!