Happy Birthday, Jonathan!

Jonathan is 6 years old today! He is having a big week. As you can obviously tell, he is riding his bike without training wheels now. Bob took them off actually a week or two ago, so he is like a pro now! He also has a very, very loose tooth--his first! I am hoping that comes out sooner rather than later because he is not known as my stoic one, and the discomfort of eating with a wiggly tooth, plus random bits of blood in his mouth, are not his favorite things. It is very close to coming out, and in fact, he has had several offers of assistance from various older siblings, but he has not taken them up, LOL.

This has been, and will continue to be, a week of special things. Sunday afternoon the McCs took their canoe out for the first time this year, and they asked Bob and the boys to go with them. They all had such a blast out there on the river! They reported getting lots of questioning looks at their big group of boys (8 boys, 2 dads). I'm sure everyone assumed they were a boy scout tropp or something! The girls and I went over to their house at dinnertime to help Christine, who made dinner for all of us when the menfolk returned. Then the boys played street hockey for awhile while we visited. So fun!

Today we didn't do school, but instead went over to the church for a playgroup in the morning. It's every first Tuesday, and it's for all women, not just moms with young children, which I really like. So today a newly married woman came as well and visited. She's a nurse, so she was off today, and we all enjoyed getting to know her better. The kids ran around outside and played on the swingset, and then we had a picnic lunch, so that was fun.

Tomorrow night we're going to drive down to Richmond after Bob gets home from work, and we all get home from Bethesda where Caleb has a doctor appointment at the horrible time of 3:20. I'm hoping we get home by 6:00! After we grab a quick bite to eat, we'll leave for the house of Bob's sister Ann and her husband Wally. We are going to go to Busch Garden Williamsburg with them on Thursday (although the weather is looking like it will be cooler and possibly rainy! No!). Busch Gardens has that specail deal where active duty military members can get in free for one day, along with 3 dependents, so we are going to take them up on that! Who knows how much longer Bob will be active duty?! Ann is getting 3 kids tickets at her parks and rec department, so for all 9 of us to get in, it will cost us $105! That's a lot of money, but not anywhere as much as it could be, considering the regular admission price is $59.99 for an adult, and we have 3 adults--wait, I think Luke is one now too--Ack!--and 3 paying kids, who normally cost $49.99 a person! Ann and Wally have season's tickets, so they really know their way around. Hopefully it will be a really fun day for everyone, and not too crowded. We're going before all the schools let out.

So you can see that Jonathan is not lacking special things with which to celebrate his birthday! We're having his birthday dinner tonight (he requested tacos), but I'm not making his cake until next Friday's Bible study. I'm making another joint cake for Jonathan and Nathan (yes!), which is going to be a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, with airplanes out of fondant, if I can make it work. Amy P. sent me a recipe for fondant using marshmallows that she said tasted a lot better than store-bought fondant, so I'm going to give that a go. I can't stand fondant, so I'm thinking anything has to be better, and Amy is an excellent cook!

Deja Vu All OVer Again . . .

We moved here when Jonathan was 1. The next summer, when he was 2, he developed a terrible fear of trash trucks. I don't really remember when this phobia passed, but I can safely say that he is no longer scared when they roar up and down our street. (And I never did move him into the back bedroom, like I had mentioned in the old blog post, so the phase must not have lasted too much longer.)

Now Anna was of course the queen of all phobias. She was hysterically terrified of dogs, cats (even fat, old, slow ones), Muslim women who cover, the vacuum cleaner, etc., culminating with the absolutely humiliating episode with the clown at Golden Corral last summer. Ironically, the one thing that didn't really bother her much was the trash truck. Amazingly, Anna seems to have gotten over all these fears, and I think the clown episode was the last big thing like that (praise the Lord). But I can see a pattern that our kids get scared around 2.

So on Tuesday I was sitting upstairs in the hallway folding laundry when I heard the trash truck rumble down our street (and right by our house because I forgot to put the trash out because of the holiday, LOL). All of a sudden, Grace, who was in her room, starts sobbing loudly. I thought maybe she had gotten stuck somewhere, but when I got in there to see what the problem was, she started crying, "Trash truck! Trash truck!" Sigh.

New Commissary Strategy

Today we made another big trip to the commissary. It has only taken me almost 5 years of living here, and 3 new babies, to figure out the ideal way to work this. I have always done school in the morning of a big trip, fed everyone lunch, nursed, and left right after that. Then the baby would fall asleep in the car, wake up when we got there (about 35 minutes later), and be really crabby by the time we were done (almost 2 hours later). I would nurse in the parking lot before we drove home, and the baby would again fall asleep on the drive, getting another nap that wasn't long enough. We would get on the road around 3:30, which is the busiest time on the main highway we take because at 4:00, the whole road going west becomes an HOV (high occupancy vehicle) road. So at 3:30, all the single commuters are scrambling to get on the road before the witching hour, and the road is quite clogged.

This time, we still did school, and I nursed around 11:00. Then I got everyone lunch while Faith played. We left around 1:00, and Faith napped in the car. I nursed again as soon as we got there, so she was tanked up and ready to go. She was happy the whole time, and she fell asleep as we got to the frozen food section. We left around 4:00, and she slept the way home too, which was a pleasant drive because we zipped right along, with very little traffic. Then at home, I waltzed inside to nurse while the boys unloaded over $600 of groceries! Luke said, "Lucky!" in a very envious voice when I announced my intentions. Time to get out the birthing videos again to remind him he's glad to be a boy, LOL.

So now that I have it figured out, that must mean it's time to move, right?

Memorial Day Pool Party

We such a fun time today! We had a Memorial Day pool party at the house of a couple who is in our OCF (Officers' Christian Fellowship) Bible study. There were 6 families there, and we had a serious OCF mind meld going on. We planned this thing Friday night, at Bible study. We agreed that I would bring a fruit salad, Christine would bring veggies/chips, Elizabeth would bring a green salad, Amy would bring a pasta salad, and Chrys (whose house has the pool) would provide the plates, utensils and drinks. We all brought our own meat to grill. I'm sure you can tell right away what is missing from this menu . . . . . . baked beans! You can't have a cookout without baked beans, especially since we were only bringing hot dogs to grill! I decided I would bring baked beans as well. Tim and Amy also noticed this sad lack, so they also showed up with a pot of baked beans. There was one other family, who weren't at Bible study Friday but called Chrys to see what they could bring. She said . . . baked beans! Because no one had said that at Bible study, LOL. So we ended up with 3 pots of baked beans. There were, however, surprisingly few baked beans left over, so they were a popular choice. I guess if there is a toxic cloud hovering over northern VA, you'll know what happened, LOL. Some serious bean consumption.


We also had the mind meld thing going on for dessert. Sara and I both made chocolate chip cookie bars (although she drizzled melted chocolate over hers--a very nice touch!), and Chrys bought a delicious chocolate chip cookie pie thing from Costco. Very yummy! Chrys also had angel food cake with strawberries and blueberries, as well as chocolate sauce and whipped cream for toppings. Caleb LOVED this. He had 3 slices with strawberries and chocolate sauce! I am going to have to remember this as an easy dairy-free dessert that he loves!

Here is the pool area. They even had a diving board, which the kids thought was great fun. Bob demonstrated his diving talents, and everyone agreed he had been hiding his light under a bushel. His family, especially Paul and Rose, were big divers, so although Bob was never on the diving team, he observed. Ed couldn't believe that he has known Bob all these many years, but didn't know he had diving skills, LOL.

Here is Bob, holding court in the hot tub. We had 18 kids of swimmable age there, not counting Bob (or the 2 babies). Vernon and Chrys have kids, but they are grown and have children of their own, so this pool hasn't had such a workout for quite a long time now!

Here is Grace enjoying the food. She did swim with Daddy some, but she definitely put away some food--2 hot dogs, 2 helpings of baked beans, fruit, chips, carrot sticks, and tons of dessert. Where does she put it all?! We enjoyed eating on the screened in porch, and on the built-in bench on the deck right past the porch. It was such a nice set-up for a party. I brought the pack-n-play so Faith could nap there, and also the bouncy seat so I didn't have to hold her the whole time. It was too humid for that!

While it was very humid, it was also warm and sunny for most of the afternoon. Around 3:00, it started getting cloudy, and there was a rumble of thunder. We were all ready to eat dessert by that time, so everyone got out of the pool and did that. By 4:00 it had started raining, as we were all cleaning up, and by the time we got home it was a downpour! We were thankful the Lord kept the rain away so we could swim (well, not "we" as in all of us including me, LOL. I did not even bring my suit, and I sat on the lovely screened-in porch and enjoyed visiting with the other ladies). It's wonderful to remember our brave soldiers and their sacrifice together with other military friends!

Hmmmm . . .

Trying to think of something to say here . . . I feel like I should post because I haven't posted since Tuesday, but I'm not being inspired by anything! No one has done anything particularly funny, nothing is new, and while we've been busy, it's been with a mishmash of things not particularly newsworthy in and of themselves.

One thing we have been busy with is cleaning. Our neighbors called Thursday morning to say they were going to hold a garage sale this morning, if we wanted to be in on that. I knew there were things we could stand to get rid of, so I called off school for the day, and we thoroughly cleaned the garage, making a pile in the middle of stuff to go. The boys and I brought down our old double stroller from the shelves over our garage door, and Anna and Grace thought it was perfect for their dolls. But double stroller technology has actually come a long way since we received that one as a gift when Luke was born, and when Grace was born, we bought a much newer one off craigslist, which is much improved. So we definitely didn't need two double strollers, even if one could be used as a doll stroller, LOL.

One good reason to weed through junk is that we found out we are on the fall move list a few weeks ago. Of course, the email was vague,and ended with something like "don't do anything like sell your house because you may NOT actually receive an assignment", so we'll see what happens. So far, nothing. And even if we did get another assignment, we might turn it down and stay here. Things are going really well, as far as homeschooling, our church, and our friends, and it is hard to think about starting all over with finding co-ops and other opportunities as Nathan gets older and goes into junior high and high school. But it is always motivating to go through junk with an eye of "would I really want to move with this, and if not, why not get rid of it now?!"

The garage sale was this morning, and we sold pretty much everything we put out. Yay! Plenty more room in the old garage now! I was so reminded of the fun Amy and I used to have when we would hold garage sales together back in Ohio! One of us would be a "pretend shopper", and look at things and ask questions about them. If you brought attention to something and acted like you were thinking about buying it, then the second you put it down, someone else would snatch it up! Human nature. Anyhow, we would have a great time people-watching and seeing what things people will buy when they think they are geting a bargain.

We actually moved all our stuff down to our neighbor's driveway this morning so she could watch it for us, and we left mid-morning to go to Zachary L.'s homeschool graduation. He is going to go to Cedarville, my old alma mater, for college. I'm sure he'll have a great time there, but we will miss him here, especially the boys! Bible study night just won't be the same for them.

This afternoon another neighbor had a big party. "Dr. Joe" is the one who also throws the great neighborhood Christmas party each year. This party was to celebrate his birthday. He is Italian, and an excellent cook, so the food was delicious. All the kids are still over there playing dodgeball in his front yard. I had to put Faith down for a nap, so I escaped back home to the peace, quiet, and air conditioning. I forsee showers for everyone, and then a good night's sleep because everyone is going to be exhausted! Tomorrow night we are planning on going to a free Marine Corps band concert at Wolf Trap with our Bible study group, so the social activities just keep on happening!

New Term

The kids had their standardized testing last week. They take the Standford Achievement Test through our homeschool co-op. I'm not too worried about Nathan and Luke, other than just careless mistakes, but this was Caleb's first year of testing. I didn't want him to get some wild hair and fill in the bubbles willy-nilly, or in a pretty pattern or something! We'll see when the results get back in a few weeks . . .

But now that we're done with testing, I feel like it's the start of our "summer term". We're doing a few things differently right now. For one thing, we're going easy on math. I never thought I'd say that, but we're not actually doing math every single day. The reason for this is that Nathan and especially Luke are really far ahead, and I'm not sure that's the best thing for high school. We pretty much school year-around, with short breaks every 6 weeks or so, and that means that when we finish a book, we just roll right into the next one--skipping the first 30 lessons or so that are just review of the previous one. Now that's all catching up to us. Nathan, who is finishing 6th grade, is on lesson 57 of Algebra 1/2. Luke, who is finishing up 4th grade, is on lesson 32 of Saxon 7/6. So if Nathan were to finish Algebra 1/2 in the Fall, and go right into Algebra 1, then do Algebra 2 in 8th, geometry in 9th, trig on 10th, calculus in 11th, then I could probably pull together a linear algebra course or something like that for the last year. But do I want that? He would need to keep his calculus fresh for college, especially if he goes into engineering, which is what he is leaning towards now.

Luke would be finishing Algebra 2 by 7th grade, and that just seems ridiculous. So we're just stepping back and slowing down. The boys think they have died and gone to heaven, LOL.

We are also slowing down in Latin. We're done with Latina Christiana II, so we're ready to move into Henle Latin. That's a high school course, and I don;t know that we need to rush right into that, so we're just reviewing vocabulary and grammar chants daily, and I give Latin review sheets that I've made up every week or so. Also, we'll be working through Ligua Angelica this summer, which Memoria Press calls a "Christian Latin reading course". I had kind of forgotten I even had this, but something made me think of it, so I pulled it out. It is a bunch of Latin hymns, and the kids translate them and see the various cases in action, so to speak. I think that Nathan and Luke have the depth of understanding to be able to do it pretty independently now, as opposed to a few years ago when I actually bought the program! It will be a good review for them.

In place of Latin, we've started Greek! The 4 boys and I have all learned the alphabet, and I'm debating how much farther Caleb and Jonathan will go. They will be starting Prima Latina in the Fall, but they are really enjoying doing Greek now. I know Caleb especially really feels like one of the big boys. Each day I've been transliterating English words and writing them with Greek letters for them to translate, and Caleb has been doing great at that! I think that's pretty much the level I'm going to keep him at though. We're using Elementary Greek, which looks like a wonderful program for Koine Greek, but I think it would be too much for him as we get deeper into the grammar of Greek.

As an interesting Greek aside, did you know that we Americans mispronounce most of the letters of the Greek alphabet as opposed to how a real Greek person would pronounce them? My parents have a Greek officer living with them right now, and when we were back home on spring break, he led us through the alphabet. For example, the letter that looks like our letter u is called "mu", which we would all say as "moo". But they pronounce it as "me". Or tau, which looks like a letter t, is not pronounced "taw", but rather "tuf". So we say the alphabet the Greek way, but I make sure they know how Americans say it all too, just in case they join a fraternity in college or something, LOL.

Those are the main differences. We're plugging on with grammar (Rod and Staff), spelling, and writing, and we're going through a Bob Jones science book with everyone. We're not doing any history except library books now, and we'll start back with Story of the World Ancients in the Fall, this time with Caleb and Jonathan as well.

Speaking of Caleb and Jonathan, I am really making them a priority, since I felt they got the short end of the stick with this last pregnancy, especially as I had to do so much exercising there at the end. They are definitely not as far ahead as Nathan and Luke were at those ages, LOL. Jonathan is not sure he likes this added emphasis on his schoolwork . . . Good for his character, I always say. He is definitely the naturally laziest one so far!

So that's where we are. Summer is a more relaxed time just because we have other things going on. Nathan and Luke will be doing a camp at the Air Force Museum the first week of July. The kids and I will be out there a week or so early to drop them off, and then they'll stay out there and spend some special time with Grandma and Grandpa. They will also go to Camp Caleb the end of July, and while they are away, the other kids and I will most likely be doing the tutor training for Classical Conversations at one of their parent practicums. That will be fun for Caleb, Jonathan, and the girls too, as they will have special classes as well (just the nursery for Faith, of course! They don't start classical education quite that early!). In the middle of July, we are very much looking forward to my sister-in-law Melinda and adorable niece Emily coming out to visit for a week. We will definitely not be doing formal school while they are here!

Lake Fun

Rose lives in this beautiful old house on a lake. Well, actually the lake is across the street, so the kids do have to be careful crossing the road. The drivers are crazy! The best thing about the house is the huge porch over there on the side. She has a 3-person swing out there, and it is just so lovely to sit there.

This is Rose's lakefront. I'm standing on the road right in front of her house. There is quite a bit of grass over here, and past the trampoline she has her own private dock. The speck out in the water is her boat. She gave boat rides all afternoon.

Caleb, Jonathan, Anna, and Grace are all on here, along with Bob, Matt (Rose's ex-brother-in-law), and Wally, Bob's brother in law. I thought maybe Grace wouldn't like the boat, but she did! Caleb and Jonathan both got to drive the boat some, which was quite thrilling for them!

Nathan and Luke couldn't be bothered to go on a boat ride--they were too busy fishing. Here Luke has just caught a fish, and Bob's brother Dennis is demonstrating how you hold them by the bottom of the mouth, which paralyzes the fish so it doesn't wiggle around. I don't think any of the boys actually touched a fish however, LOL. All the boys caught fish. The lake is private and definitely not over-fished, so the kids caught a total of maybe 20 fish, including some bass which we had to throw back because it's not bass season (who knew? and who could tell?!).

Here Dennis is demonstrating to an eager audience how to clean and fillet a fish. Dennis is an avid hunter and fisherman--the type of person you would want to be around if there was ever some sort of catastrophic event, and we all had to scrounge around for food. He'd be eating well, LOL. Nathan was very impressed with his expertise. Dennis was so patient with all the kids the whole afternoon, running between all the kids, casting lines, helping reel fish in, getting out hooks, and finally cleaning all the fish. The boys were very sad that we had to leave before we could cook them all up and eat them. The boys had the best time Saturday, and now they think Rose's place is paradise, LOL. We need to go back sometime when we can spend more time up there. We had to be back Sunday so Bob could teach children's church.

First Communion

The main reason we went up to PA last weekend was for to celebrate the First Holy Communion for Bob's niece, Amanda. It was also a good reason to see Bob's family, who we hadn't seen for awhile, and have them all meet Faith.

The service was at the local Catholic church, and let me tell you, they were not really a church interested in having visitors return! There were 40 kids taking their first communion, and the church was absolutely packed with relatives. Here is a picture of 3 rows of Bob's family, for example, all squashed together like sardines!
As we got there, we were a little early because Rose had warned us that it would be really crowded. The lady in charge of their CCD program was talking to the parents, and she didn't like it that there was not complete silence while everone else was finding seats. "What part of 'be quiet' do you all not understand?!!" she hollered. Okay. Then she came up to the front later to tell us all that there needed to be "reverant silence" until the service started. That is certainly a reasonable goal, but there were so many people there, including a lot of little children, and there wasn't even any music or anything to mask little sounds! So there was not silence. Then the priest came up, without his robes on. He said, "WHERE do you people think you are." Just like that! It wasn't even a question, just a condemnation! Then he went on about how he knew Catholics knew how to be reverent, but definitely implying that no one else did! So like I said, not a real welcoming church!
Our kids were so tired from our long drive the night before. Faith slept through most of the service, and Jonathan and Grace also dozed off. Here Jane is holding Grace.

Afterward, we took a bunch of pictures outside. The church had a professional photographer who went around and took pictures of each family. I hope the one of all of us turned out, because it was quite a good showing.

Amanda looked really beautiful. Anna definitely thought she looked like a princess in her dress! The brother of Chuck (Rose's ex-husband) has his "special friend", Steve, who does hair, so they came over early Saturday morning to do Amanda's hair. He did a lovely job. I should have been paying closer attention! As a side note, Matt and Steve were definitely the nicest of all Chuck's family, including his girlfriend Suzanne, the one he had the affair with that ended the marriage. She happens to look almost exactly like Rose. Interesting family.

Here are all 6 of Bob's living siblings together. This is a rare occurance, so I made sure pictures were taken to mark the event! Bob's oldest brother Dennis is on active-duty right now with the Army Reserve, and he was able to make it from New Jersey. The back row is Bob, Dennis, and Paul, and the front row is Ann, Rose, and Jane (left to right).

Welcome Theodore!

Our really good friends, Ed and Elizabeth had their baby Theodore Joshua last Thursday at 8:57 PM, and I thought you might like to see him! I got to go over there Sunday night and hold him for awhile. What a doll-baby! He was 6 pounds, 11 ounces and 19.5 inches long, so smaller than any of mine have even been. I just love holding newborn babies! Their soft, fuzzy heads, the newborn baby smell, the way they scrunch up their faces, like they are trying the muscles out--so cute! Our kids haven't gotten to meet Theodore yet, and they are all anxiously awaiting that opportunity. The boys especially are glad that SOMEONE around here is having boy babies! We are all looking forward to seeing Theodore grow up. I know he will be a blessing, just like the other 4 L. kids are to us!

Drive to PA

( . . . cue ominous music . . .)

I mentioned we had a wonderful time up in PA this weekend, and we did. We also had about the worst drive ever to get up there! But let me back up even further, to last Thursday. We had lots of errands to run, including the Christian bookstore, Walmart, Target, and the library. The ONLY thing we had to get at Target was a pair of blue dress pants for Nathan, who had outgrown his last pair. At the checkout, the cashier was talking about the kids. I can't emphasize enough how often this happens, but somehow I was distracted over it. Maybe because she was trying to figure out the girl/boy breakdown, and she only mentioned 3 boys. I told her 4 boys, but as I was looking around, I only saw 3 . . . oh yes, Nathan was getting a drink, which led to everyone wanting water. When we finally made it out to the van, I realized that no one had the bag containing the one thing we bought--Nathan's pants. So I ran back in, the cashier looked at me like she had never seen me before--and the pants weren't there. I guess the man behind me picked up that bag too. Sigh. We went off to the library, with me feeling totally frustrated with myself for not noticing. On our way back from the library, I called Target to see if anyone had, by some miracle, turned the pants back in. The lady said no, but then she told me that if I brought in my receipt, I could get the money refunded or get another pair of pants! What?! I couldn't believe that, since Target has such an unforgiving return policy! And maybe she's wrong, but we high-tailed it right back there. I wasn't going to let that get away! So all's well that end's well--we got the last pair of blue size 12 pants. But it was certainly an omen indicative of how the next day was going to go!

Thursday evening at 11:00 I was finishing getting a little bit of school work out before filling snack bags for the trip Friday, when I became aware of a noise from the kitchen. "Hmmmm," I thought, "I didn't start the dishwasher, and I'm not running a load of laundry . . ." I went over to investigate, and when I opened the door of the cabinet under the sink, water sprayed out everywhere. Ack! We have a separate faucet for filtered water, and the thing that attaches it to the cold water line just . . . unattached somehow. What a huge mess! I was sooooo incredibly thankful that this did not happen Friday night, however. I can not even imagine the flood in the kitchen and basement that would have resulted from that! So we got the water stopped, but it was a huge clean up. Finally we went to bed around 1:00 . . . but as I went into our room, another door opened, and Jonathan stumbled out crying. Yes! He had an accident! So we had to get new sheets, start laundry, move Caleb to the top bunk, etc. It was a late night.

We got off Friday afternoon at 2:00 to drive to the Poconos in NE Pennsylvania. We have made this drive before, although the last time was almost 3 years ago. It usually takes us about 4 1/2 hours to get there, so we estimated we'd get there by 7:30, with nursing stops. We started out in a lot of traffic as we left town because of construction, but we were able to go around that, so everything was great. I entered in Rose's address on our GPS, and we set off. It took up over to I-81, which is quite a bit farther west of where we live, but we didn't really think about that. It was until we'd been driving awhile that I happened to look at a map and realized that we really added on quite a bit of mileage. How did that happen? I honestly don't know. We stopped aroun 4:15 because Faith needed to eat. That was poor coordination on my part--we should have been able to drive more than 2 hours before she needed to eat, and I knew we would have to stop a second time. We picked an exit with a Wendy's, Subway, and McDonalds, so we could eat an early dinner, but we never saw the Wendy's or Subway. We just kept driving--over 5 minutes off the road (we were actually in the town of Shippensburg, Carri!). Finally we found the McDonalds, but we could not figure out where the other restaurants had been. As we drove back, we saw a big shopping center that was TOTALLY hidden by trees if you were coming from the freeway, and that's where the other restaurants were--less than 1/2 mile away from the freeway exit! Oh well.

We got back on the freeway, and promptly came to a complete stop. No one moved for a long time. Of course, we were 10 miles away from the closest exit, and there was a big gully in the median, so we couldn't turn around. Occasionally we would move up a few car lengths, then everything would stop again. We were expecting a major car accident or construction or something, but eventually things started moving, and we could never see any problem at all! Totally weird, and a huge time sink.

We made good time the rest of the way, and we thought things were looking up. At least we'd get there before dark. We got off the highway onto a smaller PA road. The road that runs through Rose's town was off this main road, so we were expecting a bigger intersection. I even thought I might recognize it. We drove for a long time, blindly obeying our GPS thing. We were a little suspicious because it told us we were to turn onto "Unnamed Road". As I said, it was the main road through Rose's town, so I was pretty darn sure it had a name. But maybe this was a shortcut? When we got to the Unnamed Road, it was little more than a paved cowpath. I told Bob there was NO WAY we were turning on that, so we kept going. The GPS recalculated, and told us to turn on another road. At least that one had a name, but it still did not look at all familiar. But we turned, and we turned again, and we wound around and around on small, dark PA back country roads, with me getting more and more alarmed becuase nothing looked right, and I knew the lake wasn't that far away from the main road. Finally we reached the lake . . . and IT WAS THE WRONG LAKE!! I about had a heart attack. It was getting dark, and it seriously looked like the kind of place where the axe murderer would step out of the woods in front of us (of course, we were in the big van, so we could have mowed him down . . . but what if we ran out of gas?!) . . . Bob was in favor of driving a little farther, but I told him we had to turn around NOW so we could at least make it back to the main road before darkness completely fell, and we missed one of the crazy turns! I looked at the atlas and found the lake we were at, which was a good 10 miles away from Rose's lake. We made it back to the main road, praise the Lord, and then it was easy to get to Rose's by looking at the actual atlas, which apparently has her lake down at the right place, unlike our GPS system! We rolled in around 9:00, over 7 hours after we left! VERY stressful drive. VERY crabby Claire, who could not believe that she had trusted a mechanical device 2 times instead of her trusty atlas. Never again!

So you can see what a surprise it was to actually have a very enjoyable weekend with Bob's family! I was expecting some kind of major fireworks! I'll post more about being there later. I've got to get kids down, since we're in the middle of standardized testing!

Happy Mother's Day!

I have a lot to blog about, as we had a wonderful time up in PA with Bob's family. But first, I am enjoying a lovely Mother's Day with Bob and all my beautiful children! Since I really, really don't like going out to eat on Mother's Day, and I like cooking myself even less, Bob usually grills out. Today he grilled some filet mignons for us all. The commissary at Ft. Belvior sells beef tenderloin, and he got it sliced up into steaks. DELICIOUS!! Much better than at a restaurant! Now I'm just relaxing, and I'm hoping later on tonight to be able to visit Elizabeth and Ed and meet their new little baby Theodore, who was born Thursday night!

Faith celebrated Mother's Day in her own special way. As I nursed her during church, she blew her diaper out the top, covering her dress, diaper cover, the blanket, burpcloth, and my dress. Poop was literally dripping off of her, and I was so thankful there was another mom back in the nursing area with me to help! She ran and got some bags for the diaper and wipes, as well as for all the poopy clothes! I finally got everything fairly cleaned up, and I was so thankful that I had a spare outfit for her in the diaper bag! That's the good thing about having just been traveling, LOL. She had obviously been saving up for this special mother/daughter bonding moment.

School versus Life

Last night I remarked to Bob how well things were going! Faith is sleeping really well, I'm feeling so much more rested and energetic, I'm getting everything done for school that I want to get done each day, and even the house is staying cleaner! So I was all prepared to post today about what we're doing school-wise, but of course, as soon as you breathe the words "everything's going well", you know what happens! Something to derail the whole thing! Last night that something was Nathan. He stumbled out of his room at 1:00 AM and promptly threw up his entire dinner into a trash can. (Yay for him making it! He hasn't always been so quick on the uptake, LOL.) Then he proceeded to throw up about every half hour at first, then it slowed to every hour or 2, for the rest of the night. Poor Luke came and got me each time while Nathan suffered not very stoicly, poor guy. I think it was a total of 8 times, mainly dry heaves. He threw up the last time at 7:30 this morning, and since then he has been better, even eating a piece of toast and some applesauce, but still . . . not much school was done today because we are all so tired.

I do think there has been some little virus going around. One night last week (Thursday maybe?) Jonathan announced he wasn't feeling so well. A little while later, he went over to the kitchen trash can and lost his dinner, and that was that. Then Sunday morning Luke woke up not feeling well. He stayed home from church with Bob and threw up twice (VERY unusual for him--he never throws up), and then he felt fine by the afternoon. No one ran a fever or had any other symptoms of anything at all, so I just vaguely put it down to something not agreeing with them or whatever. But now that I think back, that is an unusually high occurance of vomiting for our household, so I think it's a bug! And now Nathan, "The Boy with the Pillow-Soft Stomach" has it, and his poor tummy can't get over it. Actually, as I type this, he is back in the bathroom, moaning and groaning, so I guess he is not all better. Poor boy.

I am praying that Caleb especially doesn't get this because we test next week, and I want everyone to be healthy! And we certainly don't need Grace to have another spell of no eating, where she drops back below 20 pounds. And Faith is so little . . . Hopefully this bug will just leave our house without bothering anyone else!

Birthday Weekend

Well, the birthday weekend is over. We celebrated Grace's birthday Friday night, but Bob's birthday was the next day, Saturday (it's on your calendar, Aunt Claire!). He celebrated by getting up early to go to men's group at church, then coming home and making the kids lunch while I went to a baby shower for Elizabeth, and then taking all the kids but Faith swimming! It was so nice of him to stay with the kids while I went to the shower, because I had such a lovely time there, even though it wasn't very "celebratory" for him!

People on Facebook were asking what his cake was. I particularly liked Amy's suggestion of a 12-passenger van cake, LOL. Very appropriate, since that was definitely the big "gift" for this year! But the truth is, Bob didn't get his own cake, I am sad to say. One cake is about all I can handle for a weekend. We had our church small group meet here tonight, so I made one of Bob's favorite desserts for that--chocolate-filled oatmeal walnut bars. MUCH, much better than cake.

Right before small group started, we finally got around to opening Grace's presents. Friday night Bible study was at our house, and we were rushing around trying to get dinner cleaned up when people started arriving, so there was no time. Then there really wasn't a good opportunity yesterday either. Fortunately, at 2 she has no concept of what should happen for a birthday, so she didn't know what she was missing, LOL. She was happy to open them this afternoon, and she got some fun things, like a little princess puzzle, a talking "piggy bank" with big plastic coins, and a set of fake food that you "cut" apart with the wooden knife. All the kids at small group enjoyed her new presents too!

Now we have one more month until the next birthday, which is Jonathan's, on June 2. He has ben counting down the days since March! Nathan and I are trying to talk him into a "joint cake", like they had last year. Nathan is pushing for an aircraft carrier, but Jonathan is not sure. I think he is just being difficult, since he knows Nathan wants it, LOL.

Happy Birthday, Grace!!

Grace is 2 today! I can't believe it was 2 years ago today that I was induced with her. Her labor and delivery were definitely not my favorite, but I learned a lot of lessons there!

Grace is such a fun little girl! She is not as girly as Anna--definitely not as into pink and shoes as her sister--but she loves her big sister and all her big brothers. Luke is her favorite though, I must say. I think that she will have more of Luke's personality as well. She loves to look at books, especially this Little People farm book that Bob's brother and sister-in-law got for Anna a few years ago. It has foam animal figures that fit into the pages, like a little puzzle, and she will sit for a very long time, taking them out and putting them back in. She is starting to like dolls more, carrying one around the house a lot. And of course she loves little Faith. As it turns out, "Faith" is an easy name for little kids to say. I guess "f" is an easy sound! Anyhow, you can tell that is what she is saying very clearly!

For her cake, I made a pink and white doggie, like the beanie baby one that she sleeps with. She was quite happy with it, and it turned out pretty cute! Here are some better pictures, including one with her actual doggie. I wanted the pink to be lighter, but I added too much color paste. I didn't expect it to darken up so quickly! I used a big pyrex bowl for the head, and a small one for the snout (that was all one cake mix). Then with the second cake mix, I used a pyrex casserole dish for the body, and a really small bowl for the 4 paws. I really needed a little more cake, because the paws were tricky, but it was fine in the end.

The New Van

Here he is! Our new family member! We're trying to come up with a good name for him. He was last owned by Enterprise, and he is as big as a spaceship, so "USS Enterprise" has been discussed. Of course, that's not very catchy. I think of him as "Maximus", which seems like an appropriate Latin name for us. We'll have to see what other suggestions come out as we get used to him.

We drove back to the dealership this morning to pick up Bob's minivan, which was sitting there waiting for us. Then I drove the big guy back home with all the kids, and Bob went on to work. It's not hard at all to drive on the freeway, LOL. We stopped by the party store to pick up some pick plates for Grace's birthday tomorrow, and I about hyperventilated at the thought of parking. I told the kids we were going to park a mile away, but luckily we could pull through into a space much less than a mile away. Whew! The kids loved having more room, and being up higher than all the other vehicles, which now look like little bugs.

To revisit the issue of why we picked the 12 passenger van over the 15 passenger, we figured we would mainly be using it for long trips, as I am not planning on driving it regularly around town. The parking lots are just too small and cramped, and the kids and I all fit in the Sienna, which gets tons better gas milage. So for long trips, we will have several suitcases and pack-n-plays, and there is no room at all behind the last seat of the 15 passenger van. We would always have to have that last seat out, which means we would be storing it, and then we would only have 11 seats. We can fit suitcases in the back of the 12 passenger one, and we'll have 3 extra seats. I tell you what was frustrating is to realize that there have been NO improvements in big van technology over the past 10 years or so. A 1999 van looks the same inside as our 2008, except it might have a cassette player instead of a CD player. The seats don't fold over, and there is no split seat technology, which would be wonderfully useful when dealing with these enormous seats. They are definitely not wasting any money on this market! It is hard to go from our super-nice Sienna to this bare-bones van. But we all fit, and there is certainly something to be said for that!

Van News

We have been looking more seriously into buying a big passenger van. Originally we had thought we would wait until maybe Fall to buy one, but it has increasingly become more and more of a hassle to have to take 2 vehicles anytime we all want to go anywhere. So Bob has been spending a lot of time on the computer, trying to find one for us. He found some he liked Monday, and they were several thousand dollars cheaper than similar vans elsewhere. The catch was that these vans were near Lancaster, PA. He later found out the price differential was due to hail damage. That in and of itself didn't bother us--any van we buy will never see the inside of a garage here in D.C. (don't get me started on the tiny garages here in the land of huge houses), so it very well could suffer hail damage from us. But that's definitely the kind of thing you want to see before buying, so we decided we would make a quick trip up there Tuesday afternoon.

As it turned out, nothing about the trip was quick, LOL. Since we couldn't all fit in our van to drive up there, we left the boys with the McCs, and the girls (Anna and Grace only) with a family from church. This family actually lives quite a bit further in than we do, and there was utility work on the main road between us, so it took a lot longer to get the girls dropped off, which meant we left our house a lot later than I had wanted. The whole drive up there took longer than we had expected, and we programmed the wrong street name into our GPS. Well, it was the right street name, but the wrong small town, so we ended up in a subdivision, not a car dealership. Whoops!

It was still a lovely drive. Too bad PA homeschooling rules are so draconian--the area around York and Lancaster is so beautiful. We saw several Amish buggies, and Amish farmers working their farms with horse-drawn teams. Bob and I had a great time just being by ourselves (well, okay, Faith was there too, but that's almost like being by ourselves--she slept most of the ride!). A cheap date!

When we got to the dealership, at long last, we discovered that the van Bob had been talking to the guy about, even as late as yesterday morning, had, in fact, sold a few days ago. Hmmm. That didn't start things off too well. The hail damage wasn't too bad, and we definitely decided we wanted a 12 passenger van instead of a 15 passenger one, which Bob had been leaning toward, but we weren't going to do business with someone who lied to us! So we drove back, picking up our kids very late (9:30-9:45ish). We have such wonderful friends.

Once we got home, Bob hopped back on the computer and found some 12 passenger vans much closer, in Annapolis. A bonus--they were silver, not white, which Bob didn't really want. He went over there after work today and came back home with one! So now we are the proud owners of a silver 2008 Ford 350 van. I'll have to take a picture tomorrow. It certainly looks imposing out there, but my friends tell me I'll get used to driving it quickly. Right, Marie and Tonya?! I'm hoping that's true! I guess I will take my maiden voyage in it tomorrow. We are all driving back to Annapolis in it to pick up Bob's Odyssey, which he just left parked at the dealership. He'll take that off to work, and I'll drive the big behemoth home. Yeee-haw! and now we are free to go places as a family . . . all in one vehicle!

More Than One Reason . . .

This morning the boys were rough-housing with Grace, tossing her onto the couch. She was squealing and laughing with glee. Call me Nostradamus, but I could foresee problems, so I told them to stop.

Caleb: "But she loves it, Mom!"

Me: "Well, she'll love it until she gets hurt. Then she'll be crying, and we'll be off to the hospital."

Anna: "Are you having another baby, Mom?"

Me: "What? No."

Anna persists: "Then who is having a baby, Mom?"

Me: "No one . . . Oh, you go to the hospital for other reasons than just having a baby. Like if you get hurt."

Anna: "Oh."

I love how they connect dots and seeing what their little brains come up with!

The Weekend is Over!

And I for one am glad. Now maybe I can get some rest! Actually, all of last week was really busy too. Tuesday was the last day of our homeschool co-op. The kids have been working hard on a musical for this last unit. They started working on it (casting parts, etc.) back in December, when they had a fine arts unit before Christmas. Then they picked up with everything the end of March, and last week they had practice Wednesday and Thursday afternoons as well. Friday was the big perfermance, and they did great! The musical was called "Promise U", and the idea was that a big group of college students were studying for a test they had to pass about God's promises to famous followers over the past 2000 years. The DJ was new to the school and didn't know about these people, who were Paul, Martin Luther, Pocohantas, the Wesley brothers, Harriet Tubman, Gladys Aylward, and Billy Graham. There were little vignettes about each famous follower, plus songs, a stomp team demo, and various other special and creative things. It was so fun to watch! The kids did a great job, especially for not really having practiced all that much. Actually, the ladies who directed it really did a great job, being able to pull together such an amazing performance with so little time, and so many wiggly kids! Luke, who was really not into the whole thing at all was so funny on the way home Friday night: "You know, it really felt good to stand up there and have all those people clap for me!" Ah, self-discovery, and the joys of going out of your comfort zone, LOL.

Saturday afternoon I went to a wedding shower for a girl at church, and then I rushed home to start cleaning and making food because I hosted a baby shower for 5 women from church this afternoon over here. I stayed up WAYYYY to late Saturday night, in part because one of the honored women called Saturday night to ask if her husband and kids could just be in our basement during the shower because they live 40 minutes away. Of course I said sure, but that meant I had to rush downstairs and clean up, which meant throwing everything on the floor in a kitchen trash bag, LOL. The funny thing is that so far the boys haven't even noticed that all that stuff (mainly legos) has just disappeared. The not-so-funny thing is that when the lady came, I asked her where her family was, and she told me that another family at church had asked them to come over to their house, which is what they did. Oh well, at least the basement is really clean. And less cluttered.

I wasn't sure how many people we would have, but I figured it would be a good amount, since the shower was happening right after church. We ended up having over 20 women, plus a few daughters. Good thing we had lots of food! I made these make-ahead sandwiches out of 3 loaves of Italian bread, as well as a bean salad, and a broccoli salad. We also had fruit, and the lady who hosted the wedding shower brought her leftover food as well, which was several dips and spreads for crackers. Karen, our pastor's wife, made a beautiful cake. We hardly had anything left over! I guess the women were hungry after church! I had stayed up late last night also trying to figure out games. Normally I come up with some creative ones, but I was just so tired, plus we were out of computer paper, I discovered. Anyway, there were so many people that it would have been hard to play games, plus everyone was having a grand time just talking, so we ended up not playing anything. Another thing I could have not done last night! We did go around and ask each of the 5 women about what we could specifically pray for them, and then we had a time of prayer. It was really a nice time.

Bob took all the kids but Faith out to eat at Ci-Ci's Pizza, and then swimming at the rec center. They had a wonderful time, and it was so nice to have the kids out of the way for the whole afternoon! I'm sure Bob was also happy to not be there, listening to all the talk of childbirth and nursing, LOL.

After everyone left and Bob and the kids came home, I crashed for a 2 1/2 hour nap. I was so tired! I only woke up because I had to nurse. Hopefully this next week won't be quite so busy!

7th Grade Plans

Nathan is graduating from our co-op tonight, and we've been thinking about what is going to happen next year. For language arts, we are doing a small co-op with Christine, her oldest, and 2 other boys. They are going to focus on writing, a weakness of ours, and also literary analysis. I'm really excited about this co-op. I think it will really be exactly what Nathan needs.

I had always planned that Nathan would go on to the jr. high/high school co-op that is associated with our elementary co-op. In fact, Bob and I went to the meeting for that group last Tuesday, and we weren't considering anything else. This co-op has 4 classes that 7th graders could take--prealgebra, general science, composition I, and geography. Nathan would only have taken geography and science, since we're doing something else for English, and he is already doing prealgebra. The catch is that I have to do something in this co-op--teach a class or lab, be there the whole day for 6 sessions to monitor a study hall, or something like that. Now the only problem with that is what to do with the other 6 while I am there, especially the 3 little girls. I was really not sure about it at all. I was considering doing the biology lab, since that would be right up my alley, and because it would be a shorter period than all day, but I still would have to find someone to watch everyone.

Then Christine called Wednesday night. She had gone to an open house for Classical Conversations that is starting up really close to us. I knew about it, but I hadn't even considered it because I knew it was expensive. Well, Christine made me really interested. The K-6 program focuses on memory work and projects in math, grammar, Latin, history, science, art, and music. We have not done much with music or art, and the experiments and projects they do for science would be good as well. But here's the big thing--all the kids can go, and they have a nursery. It is expensive, but if I were to be a teacher, then that would pay for 2-3 of the kids to go, depending on how many kids were in my class. They provide what you need to cover each week, so that would be less prep work than running a lab, where I would be coming up with what I wanted to cover and do. Even though Nathan is not technically a 6th grader, it really wouldn't matter--he would still be doing new stuff, and we would still be doing the language co-op, and our regular math program at home (at CC, they just really focus on solidifying math facts, formulas, etc., not actual teaching of math). Then next year, Christine and I would focus on starting the jr. high program of CC, which has a lot of writing, and also the science that Nathan would need. The only drawback I can see is that Nathan would be a year behind on science going into high school, but possibly he could take one class (physics or something) at the community college later on to catch up. So right now, this is what I am thinking we will do. It's a big change of plans, and not anything I was even remotely considering before Wednesday. I'm praying that if this is the right path for us, then I will have a real peace about it, and the Lord will show us clearly.

Beautiful Quilt!

I am very fortunate to be related to someone who is an excellent quilter! My Aunt Rocky (my dad's sister) is a genius at quilting, and in fact all matters of sewing. She has made a beautiful quilt for EACH ONE of my children, which is no small feat! I am always so excited to see what intricate designs she will do, and what beautiful material she will pick. They are all works of art, which is why we do things like hang them on the bedroom walls for decorations, as opposed to leaving them lying around to get dirty! This is definitely an area in which I am not gifted, so I am so thankful for the time she spends making these keepsakes for my kids.

And you can see how Faith likes hers! Just look at that smile!

Twelve Searching Questions

Our pastor had this printed in our bulletin yesterday. These questions were very convicting, and I have found myself thinking about them throughout the day today, especially #10!

Twelve Searching Questions

1. Did I awake spiritual, and was I watchful in keeping my mind from wandering this morning when I was rising?

2. Have I this day gotten nearer to God in times of prayer, or have I given way to a lazy, idle spirit?

3. Has my faith been weakened by unwatchfulness, or quickened by diligence this day?

4. Have I this day walked by faith and eyed God in all things?

5. Have I denied myself in all unkind words and thoughts; have I delighted in seeing others preferred before me?

6. Have I made the most of my precious time, as far as I had light, strength, and opportunity?

7. Have I kept the issues of my heart in the means of grace, so as to profit by them?

8. What have I done this day for the souls and bodies of God's dear saints?

9. Have I laid out anything to please myself when I might have saved the money for the cause of God?

10. Have I governed well my tongue this day, remembering that in a multitude of words there wanteth not sin?

11. In how many instances have I denied myself this day?

12. Do my life and conversation adorn the gospel of Jesus Christ?

--by Richard Alderson

The Good Thing About Having a Big Family . . .

. . . you can have a great game of baseball with 2 neighbor boys.


The even better thing about having a big family . . .


. . . you can have a great game of street hockey even when the neighbors have to go home!

We had a day of beautiful weather, and Bob and the boys were outside almost the whole day. They planted some stuff in our garden (although we aren't expecting much, since we all have very black thumbs, LOL), and Bob cut down some ugly shrubs on the side of the house and painted our mailbox post. The boys played baseball, hockey, and everyone including Anna and Grace ran through the sprinklers. Anna has been DYING to do that for forever. She loves putting on her swimsuit. Even Faith spent some time outside in her bouncy seat. It was so wonderful to have nice weather!

It's a Small World After All . . .

I have really been enjoying Facebook. It's been so fun to reconnect with old friends and see what people are up to at a glance. I have a few different groups of friends--high school/college friends, White Sulphur Springs friends from back when I was on staff, people we've been assigned with other places, and people from around here that are in our church or homeschool group.

One group I have especially enjoyed being back in contact with is people from White Sulphur Springs. I used to work there on the support staff in the summers during high school, and those were some of the funnest times of my life! I also felt like I really grew spiritually those summers, and that was in part due to the great people who surrounded me. I can not wait for my kids to be able to be on staff there!

All that is an introduction, however. I became FB friends with Anne, who was on staff with me there. In fact, she was my girl's staff supervisor one year, and she was tons of fun, with such a gentle spirit. Well, it turns out that she is married to someone from Dayton Christian, who graduated a year ahead of me, and who in fact I had some science classes with!! Isn't that absolutely amazing?! So I knew both Anne and David during high school, years before they met in D.C. and married! I'm still shaking my head over it!

Faith is 2 Months!

Today we had Faith's 2-month well-baby appointment. She is 11 pounds, 4 ounces, and 23 inches long, which puts her in the 50th percentile for weight and the 90th percentile for length! Gasp! The doctor said her genes would kick in soon enough though, and I know she is right. No child of ours is going to end up in the 90th percentile for height, LOL. Faith also got her first shots. She cried loudly in outrage, and Anna was so upset for her! Her little face was all crumpled up and concerned until I got Faith settled down.

I have said before that I thought Faith was going to follow the "odd-numbered baby" mold, and it looks like she is indeed. Here are some pictures for you to compare and contrast: Which picture is who?

So the top picture is Faith, the next picture is Anna, and the bottom picture is Grace. Anna and Faith really look a lot alike, which I have been noticing more and more. It's hard to capture in a picture the same exact look, but it's definitely there! She has the rounder face, smaller eyes look of Anna, Caleb, and Nathan.

Here is one last picture of Faith. She's been smiling so much, but it's hard to capture that on camera as well! So here is a little smile, the best I could do!

Things Designed to Annoy . . .

First of all, when we arrived back home from Ohio, Bob told us that our trash can was missing from the curb when he got home. (Fridays and Tuesdays are our trash pick-up days.) He had called as soon as he got home, but they were already closed. You can bet we both called on monday morning, as a trash can is something we definitely need around here! I don't like to boast, but we happen to produce some large quantities of very stinky garbage, LOL. Well, no one knew anything. They were checking with the driver to see what had happened, and they would call us when they found out.

We never got a call, so I called again this afternoon after we got home from co-op. We had just set a bunch of bags out on the curb this morning, and they were taken, but no new trash can was left in their place. The lady at American (our trash service) said that the driver said he hadn't taken it, so it must have been stolen, and they aren't responsible for lost or stolen containers. We can buy a dumpster from them for $75 though. How convenient. And how silly. I mean really--who drives down a cul-de-sac, spots a huge trash dumpster (one of many lining the streets of the neighborhood, actually), and decides to steal it?! The lady said it's a "common problem, unfortunately". Hmmmm. So now we have to go to Home Depot to buy our own dumpster. You better believe we are spraying our address on that thing, and it better not show up anywhere else, or I will really be ticked! Who knew our stinky trash can, the one with a broken lid, was so desirable?

The second thing is that Grace lost her pacifier Saturday night. She was getting ready for bed, and she brought it downstairs with her doggie. I can verify that. Not too long after that, it was actually time for her to go down, but the pacifier was nowhere to be found. We all spent quite a bit of time searching, even though I was trying to make a ton of stuff for our Easter dinner the next day. Finally we gave us and just put her down. She eventually went off to sleep, although not without a fight, LOL, and Bob and I decided that maybe we'd just go with it, even though we usually wait until around 3 to get rid of the pacifier. But that meant that we couldn't move Grace into Anna's room like I had planned to, because Grace was fussing around so much and so long to go to sleep. We gave it a few nights, but it hasn't gotten any better, and she hasn't napped without it, which is also wearing thin. She also is waking up very early and fussing around then too for an hour or so, until I finally get her up around 7:00, when the boys are up and can help her get breakfast. Plus, I am really ready to have Faith out of our closet and into her own room. The treadmill is in our room, and I can't exercise on it when Faith is in our closet in the mornings!

So early this morning I gave up and gave her this old ratty binky I found in a basket on my dresser. I believe it used to be Jonathan's way back in the day. She took it then, although when I gave it to her for naptime, she really examined it! She really only needs it to get off to sleep and when she wakes up early in the morning. She was going through the rest of the night just fine. If I wasn't already so tired from everything else, and if I wasn't so anxious to get her moved into Anna's room, we might have gone longer without it. But as it is, I think this is one of those areas like potty-training was for us: I could try potty-training (this is for the boys, primarily) early and clean up a lot of accidents and be really frustrated, or I could wait until they were close to 3, when they caught on much quicker and with much less attendant frustration on my part. I think Grace will be much more ready to part with the binky at 3 than now. Everyone else has had no problems at that age. And in the meantime, I get more rest.

I guess we won't have that problem with Faith. She has never been that thrilled with a binky. She will suck on it if you sit there and hold it in her mouth, but she definitely doesn't search it out! Sometimes it seems like she is looking for her thumb, but if I try to guide it into her mouth, well, she's not that into it either. Nathan was a thumb-sucker, and everyone else took pacifiers--I've never had a baby who didn't take anything! Fortunately she's a pretty happy baby, so she hasn't had a big need for something to help her settle down and soothe herself.

*Update* Okay, the whole trashcan thing has now gotten plain weird. Bob did call, and after talking to a bunch of people, finally got a superviser to agree to replace the can, since it had a broken lid. He wasn't sure that was going to happen though, because this lady started off, "Well, 'replace' implies you have something TO replace" LOL. Yay! So he called me about 4:30 to tell me this. I was upstairs getting the girls up from their naps. Not too long before that, I was outside moving bikes inside from in front of our house because Anna and Jonathan forgot to bring theirs in, and Anna was napping, and Jonathan was with the rest of the boys playing in our neighbor's house. When I came downstairs with the girls, I happened to look out our open front door, and there was our trashcan, sitting right in front of our house on the street, right where the bikes had been not an hour previously! It was our same can, with the broken lid and a big paint splotch on it! What in the world?! Obviously someone took it, but how could that be an accident? "Whoops, I accidentally brought 2 trashcans in, after I got mixed up as to which house is mine!" So now we are really confused. I guess we're still going to get it replaced, but now we will have to call the company back and tell them we DO have something to replace! Totally weird.

River Cruise

Here is the boat we were on, the Spirit of Washington. It was big and new, compared to boats from some of the other companies that do river cruises. Of course, we didn't really have a choice, since we went with a group from the base, but I think they picked a nice one!

Here we are at our table, squeezed in with 8 close strangers, LOL. The tables were all full, and the tables were also pretty packed in there, so it was hard to get in and out. That was why we decided to stay outside once we got ourselves out there! I should have taken a picture of the whole dining room, but I forgot. There were also 2 other levels of dining rooms above us.

Standing on the deck at the back of the boat, the wind wasn't quite so vicious. We saw several little sailboats out. Brrr. I could not imagine being out there, bobbing around on a tiny boat in that weather. Why?! Obviously the sea is not in my blood, LOL.

Unrelatedly, I look like a giant Easter egg in my bright purple coat, don't I? Before you get on the boat, photographers take your picture, which they try to sell to you for $20 when you get off. (I don't think so!) It was easy to pick our picture out of the crowd--look for the purple blob! I was glad to have my coat though. Some ladies were frigid as they scuttled around the bloat, trying to look enthusiastic at the view with their dates, LOL.

You can barely see the Washington Monument in the background here. This would have been really pretty if all the cherry blossoms hadn't fallen off because of the rain and wind the night before!

Happy Resurrection Day!

This is a quick post to let you know that we did indeed make it home safely on Friday! There was even hardly any rain at all, praise the Lord, so the drive went really well. We listened to Rascal by Sterling North on CD, and it was excellent. He has such a great way with words. The time flew by listening to that book! We arrived home at 6:30, ate a quick meal of cereal while I nursed, and then we headed over to Bible study. It was great to see these friends again!

The rain that the Lord held off Friday came in full force Friday night and Saturday. Bob had bought tickets through work for a lunch Potomac River cruise, so we dropped the kids off at the L's house at 10:00 and headed downtown to the dock. The cruise was really nice! We were crammed together at long tables for 10, but it was fun, and the food was really good. Bob and I both had salmon that we liked, as well as a lot of other stuff on a buffet. After we ate, there was a DJ playing music and entertaining the crowd, so Bob and I took the opportunity to walk around outside. It was freezing and windy, but we both had our heavy winter coats, so it wasn't unbearable. Even with the clouds and gloom, it was still pretty, and we really enjoyed it! I need to upload pictures so I can post some. We finally arrived back at the L's house after 3:00. We are so thankful for good friends to watch our kids like that!

We went back home where I started making food in preparation for our Easter dinner, which was a potluck back over at the L's house. Nathan made ginger snaps, I made salad dressing and cut up strawberries for a spinach salad, and I made a 7-layer bar dessert as well. I was so tired when I went to bed! I think all this activity, combined with the long drive, really caught up with me!

Today we had a wonderful service at church. It was the first time for me to be in the service since we moved to the middle school, and it really wasn't bad at all! It helps that it is in an auditorium, not in a gym or something. I think it reminded me of chapel at Dayton Christian or something, which is not a bad thing.

Then we headed over to the L's house at 1:45. We ate tons of good food and talked for a long time! We didn't leave until after 6:00! I meant to take pictures, but I forgot to actually get the camera out of the diaper bag. Oh well!

You may have noticed that nowhere in this list of weekend activities was there anything about unpacking, getting settled back in, etc. That's because that has never actually happened. So the house still looks like a hurricane came through it, strewing suitcases and dirty clothes. I told the boys we would only do a few things for school, and then they can help me attempt to get organized. Maybe I'll actually start them on their test review books for their standardized testing, which is coming up in a month.

Packing Up

We've had a great visit, but our time is just about up. Tomorrow we head back, and it looks like it is going to be a rainy drive the whole way, so I would appreciate your prayers for safety!

Today, however, is a beautiful day! We were supposed to go visit a friend of mine from way back in college, Marie, who also has 7 kids, but alas, some of hers were vomiting last night. We didn't want to have a vomit-filled ride home or Easter, so we said we'd have to get together the next time we're out here, probably in late June. The kids were all disappointed (me too!), but we made the best of it by heading to the park instead. I put Faith in the front pack, and we even swung on the swings together! Nathan did take a picture of us, but to be honest, it looked like I was still pregnant, not wearing a front pack, so I don't think you'll be seeing that picture, LOL.

Yesterday afternoon, the boys, Anna, and I went to the Air Force Museum. We only went through the WWII hanger, since we got there about 3:30, and it closes at 5:00. That was a good amount of time, especially for Anna, and not too much walking for her. We studied WWII this year in history, so I figured it would be a good time to focus on those particular airplanes. They even had a small display on cryptography, with an Enigma machine on loan from the National Crytologic Museum that we went to back in October!

We watched some interesting videos as well, including one which had Jimmy Doolittle talking about his raid on Tokyo. So fascinating to hear and see him talk about it in person, so to speak. The boys were really impressed by the actual camera footage from a fighter squadron in Germany. Harrowing! We also watched a video on kamikaze planes, and the big finale was the video on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The plane that dropped the "Fat Boy" bomb on Nagasaki, Bockscar, is actually on display there at the museum, and remembering that it was there was what made me want to take the boys there to the museum this time. I figured it would really cement in their minds what they heard on the Story of the World CDs about the end of WWII.

Now I'm busy packing and getting organized. I also need to run to Walmart to resupply the snack bags for the kids (okay, for me too, LOL). In fact, I should probably do that now, while Faith is sleeping . . .

Sleep Problems

Last night, I had a great night sleep! This is a big deal, since I haven't been having too many of them since we got to Ohio!

It started Thursday night, and it only involves the girls. The boys have been sleeping great! Grace had a bad dream once and then was cold another time, Anna fell out of bed once and needed to pee later, Faith decided she needed to increase my milk supply by nursing every 2 hours--it was a long night.

Friday we wore the kids out at Amy's so even the girls slept pretty well, although Anna keeps needing to go potty at about 2:00 AM, and then Faith has been waking up around 4:00, which is earlier than she was waking at home. Still a choppy night.

Saturday we went to Youngs in the late afternoon. Grace gobbled down a hot dog and a scoop of cow patty ice cream, which is a rich chocolate ice cream. Then we came back here and watched basketball and ate popcorn. At 1:00, Grace woke up crying, and as soon as I walked in the room , I could tell she had thrown up. It was all over her and the pack-n-play. Evidently nothing had digested, because there were chunks of hot dog and pieces of popcorn in a lovely dark brown liquid. Blech. I had to stop and think for a minute how I was going to extract Grace from the situation without increasing the mess! I got her into the bathtub, all the while thinking about how I was going to have to go back into the room and deal with the mess in the pack-n-play! Fortuitously, when my parents had this house built, they made all the doorways really wide, so it would be handicap-accessible, so I was able to just pull the entire pack-n-play out into the hallway without further disturbing Anna. It ended up taking me an hour to get both Grace and the pack-n-play cleaned up, and then Grace had to sleep in my bed with me. For the next 2 hours, I slept pretty fitfully, because every time Grace moved around, coughed, whatever, I was instantly alert, ready to grab a trash can if needed! She was fine though, as least until 4:00, when she fell out of bed. Oops! Her tummy was fine, at least. Then Faith got up a little later, then Anna had to pee . . . I was so tired all day Sunday.

Sunday we went over to Amy and Jason's house in the afternoon for an open house celebrating Jason graduating with his MBA. They had rented a bouncy castle thing, which the kids loved, and the boys all played lots of football as well. Everyone was completely exhausted, and no one over-ate, so FINALLY I had an uninterrupted night of sleep. I fed Faith at 10:15 and was asleep by 10:45. She didn't wake up again until 5:30, and NEITHER DID ANYONE ELSE! I'm hoping for another such night tonight, but we'll see. Two in a row might be pushing my luck out here! Good thing I'm on vacation . . . I have a feeling I'm not going to feel too rested when I get back home, LOL.

A New Strategy

I've discovered a new strategy for the post-partum pooch, which seems to take longer and longer to shrink down the more kids I have. The strategy is . . . maternity clothes! Not the big ones I wear when I am actually pregnant, but rather the skinny kind designed for first-time moms with cute little tummies. I always get so frustrated the first several weeks (months?) after delivering, when nothing fits. I buy bigger pants to fit my pooch, but that means that everything else is bigger too, so the pants slide down and are super baggy in the hips. Drives. me. crazy. And when I looked for some new shirts to wear, I found that all the non-maternity ones are really clingy, and they show off every unflattering bulge on me.

A few weeks ago there was one of our big consignment sales back in D.C., and I bought several maternity tops. They are pretty skinny (I can't imagine wearing them when I am actually pregnant!), but they are loose enough that I can lift them up to nurse in them, and they don't cling to my every curve.

Today I went shopping at Once Upon A Child, a consignment store here in Ohio. I found the most comfortable pair of maternity jeans, with just the tiniest bit of elastic under the belly--perfect for post-partum wear! And a pair of khaki pants with just a few panels of elastic in the waistband--you can't even tell they are maternity pants by looking at them! I'm so happy!

This buys me a little more time as I work to get this pooch to shrink. Unfortunately, I just don't see instant results from the pilates I've been doing, sigh. But now I'm comfortable, and my pants aren't falling off. That is a good thing!

We're here!

We had a safe trip to Ohio, praise the Lord. We were able to leave by 9:30, which is not bad for us, LOL, and we made it here by 6:45. I nursed at 9:00, and then we stopped at 12:00 for me to nurse again and for lunch. That stop took a lot longer than our normal lunch stops, but it was fine. I put Faith in the frontpack while I ordered and everyone ate. We got a ton of attention. There must have been 6 or 8 people that made a point of stopping by our tables (we were at McDonalds) to comment on the family, and a lot of other people just pointed and whispered, LOL. This was in western Maryland, close to the WV border. You'd have thought they had never seen a large family of fairly well-behaved children! Three people asked me if they were homeschooled, and when I said yes, nodded and said they could tell. Well, I have certainly seen some very poorly behaved homeschoolers (we have 2 in our co-op!), so that is not a given!

We stopped one more time, at 3:30, to nurse. We just stopped at a rest stop, since the weather was bright and sunny in Ohio, unlike the drizzly rain we left in VA, MD, and WV. I parked by a large hill, and the kids ran up and down this big hill a bunch of times. Good to get the wiggles out!

We listened to The Great Brain on CD, which made the day fly by. Faith fussed around a little, but overall, she was an excellent traveler. Grace did well too, but usually by close to 2, the kids are used to long car trips and can amuse themselves. Of course, she also had all that practice on our 4000 mile jaunt out to Utah last summer! She still fussed around some, but most of the time, she played with her magnadoodle, looked at books, and ate her snacks when allowed. It's so nice when they realize no amount of fussing is going to change the fact that we are in the car, and we aren't stopping for them! Makes for a much quieter and more enjoyable ride!

This afternoon we are heading over to Amy's house to play. She is busy getting ready for an open house this weekend. On Saturday, her husband Jason is graduating with his MBA, and on Sunday, they are hosting an open house to celebrate! Yay, Jason!