Out With A Bang

We are packing a lot into the last few weeks of summer. The boys had a tremendously wonderful time at Idlewild on Saturday. They went on the big rides, "all the ones we never go on" ([when you are with us] was clearly implied, LOL). Even Jonathan rode a lot of these rides, although Bob said there was an interesting phenomenom going on there. Jonathan rode most of the rides and regretted it many times (culminating in wild panic in the middle of the roller coaster ride). Caleb sat out several of the rides, although afterwards he wished he had gone. LOL! Idlewild is actually a great amusement park for kids because the rides (even the "big" rides) are normal, not the terrorizing "people just died on this last week" type rides that you seem to find most of the time in your big amusement parks. So really I was not alarmed to hear that my precious babies were riding them or anything, LOL. They didn't get to the hotel until close to 10:00. At that time, I was happily down in my cool basement, scrapbooking and watching HGTV in blissful peace and quiet. Well, you know, we can't all have those thrilling excitement-filled weekends!

Sunday they went to church, and then over to Bob's brother's house. The kids swam in the pool and played on the trampoline with their cousins. They got back here about 9:00, tanned (only Jonathan got a bit burned) and tired, but bursting full of stories about what fun they had. I've still listening to them!

Yesterday we went over to Johanna's house. Nathan calls it "the coolest house in the world". For one thing, her boys have a huge Lego collection, so that built up massive cool points right off the bat. They also have 4.6 acres, both wooded and cleared areas, a boy's dream. Nathan and Luke played football with Russ and Zeke, and then they all played in the 2-story treehouse. They topped that off by swimming awhile in their lovely in-ground pool with a diving board. So now maybe you can see why Nathan was so impressed, LOL!

The only problem was that they have 5 dogs, including an adorable little puppy and an ancient husky. Anna was terrified of each and every one, no matter how unthreatening they were, or even how near they were. One dog was outside, looking in the windows, and you would have thought he was on top of Anna, for how loudly she cried and how she tried to shimmy up my leg like it was a tree trunk. Good grief. Hopefully this stage will pass soon for Anna, since animals are not the only thing she acts this way for. She also is terrified of women who cover (like Muslims), and since we live in a very multi-cultural city, this can make a simple trip to Walmart quite embarrassing and humiliating.

Anyhow, it was such a fun day, and we're hoping we can do it again before the weather turns cold. Of course, with how hot it's been recently, it's hard to even fathom when that might happen!

Sunday we leave to drive back to Ohio for 2 weeks. Bob is going to drive out with us, and then he may or may not catch a hop back to Andrews, depending on what the planes are doing. At any rate, we'll drive to White Sulphur Spring for the Wright-Pat OCF retreat Labor Day weekend, and then home that Monday. THEN school will officially start, along with soccer, co-op, and all the other things we have going on! Summer will truly be over. But first . . . a visit with family and friends.

Just Us Girls

This morning at 8:20, all the testosterone in the house left.

Bob took the boys to a small amusement park not too far from his parents' house in PA. The company Bob's dad retired from has an annual picnic at Idlewild, and today was the big day. We didn't go last year because of the new baby, and I certainly wasn't going to go this year with essentially 2 babies, so Bob took the boys by himself. Pretty much all of Bob's siblings and their families are there as well, so the boys should have a lot of fun.

As for me . . . well, I'm trying to have fun here, sigh . . . LOL!!! Woo-hoo! Just me and the girls!! First off, I had my friend Christine and her 1 month old baby over for lunch. Her husband is out of town for the first time since the baby came, and she wanted to do something other than just sit at home and stare at her 4 aparment walls. We all just hung out the whole afternoon, talking, looking at pictures, nursing. It was fun! It was so nice to be able to visit without almost constant interruptions from needy little boys, LOL.

For lunch we had chicken salad with crescent rolls, cantaloupe, and I made gingerbread wtih lemon sauce for dessert. Yum! And the best part was . . . I made one tube of crescent rolls. I made a small bowl of chicken salad. I cut up half a cantaloupe. I did not double my ginger bread recipe. AND I HAD LEFT-OVERS! Wow! It's hard to remember what it's like to cook for something other than the swarm of locusts I usually feed.

I'm trying not to have high expectations about getting a lot done this weekend. Last time I did, when Bob took the little boys away for the weekend back in June, I ended up with mastitis and spent the whole weekend on the couch. So that was disappointing. I guess by virtue of the fact that I am not sick, this weekend is already a great success!

In June, I had a list of things I wanted to accomplish--backing up my pictures onto a CD, cleaning out the storage room, going through pictures and updating the boys' scrapbooks, etc. But since Grace has been pretty cooperative lately, I've been able to do those things anyway, so I don't feel like I have a list hanging over my head. The one thing I would like to get done is Nathan's scrapbook. Then I would be all caught up, except for starting Anna's.

You know, it really isn't a hardship for me to be left home. I'm not a big fan of hot, crowded amusement parks even when I'm not nursing. It's been so nice just to hang out today. And tomorrow--I'll only have to get 2 other people ready for church! Or maybe we'll just take the day off! I haven't decided! (Our pastor is out of town on his vacation, so I know I won't be missing one of his sermons.) Ahh, it's like a mini-vacation, except I get to sleep in my own bed instead of in a hotel room with 7 other people.

Odds and Ends

1. Bob is furiously working on the take-home final for the class he's been taking. It's due Wednesday. Only one class left for the certification after he's done with this one!

2. I think I solved the mystery of Anna's fever last week--Fifth disease. She had the classic rash starting on Friday. She is clearly feeling better this week. Apparently you are contagious for 4-14 days before the rash, and once the rash comes, you aren't contagious anymore. Sorry, Emily! You were exposed. It's a pretty common virus, and I think all my other kids have had it. The fever is the worst of it, so it's not a bad one, as viruses go.

3. "Hershey's All Natural Extra Dark Pure Dark Chocolate--60% Cacao" is really, really terrible. Don't get it. Ghiradelli dark chocolate is good. Trader Joe's is great. Hershey's--not so much. It is in a shiny, fancy bag, but it has a terrible aftertaste, and it's not very creamy at all. Blech. I do like their Special Dark, but that's pretty sweet as far as dark chocolate goes. Not the healthy kind, LOL.

4. I finished up Luke's scrapbook for last year. Now I'm on to Nathan's, and then (if I'm really on a roll), I'll start on Anna's. The nice thing is that Grace has been having her last feeding around 8:30 or 9:00, so she's going down when the other kids go down, and then I have some uninterrupted time before I go to bed to work on things.

5. Funny comment of the week: at Walmart, the cashier first asked if Caleb and Jonathan were brothers. They did have matching shirts on. I said yes. Then she asked, "Do you make a lot of money doing this?" and she sort of nodded over to the kids. I was confused ("Shopping at Walmart? No, I spend money here, LOL"), and so then she said, "Daycare--do you make a lot of money doing daycare?" Wow, lots of people ask if they are all mine, or if I do daycare, but no one has just assumed before! Too funny! She was a bit taken aback when I said they were all mine. LOL, she must be friends with my OB and think that any family with more than 2 kids is simply unnatural!

A Eulogy

Today we donated our faithful Pathfinder, so a tow truck came and took it away. As you can see, it had gotten a little smooshed up, through no fault of our own. It really wasn't worth much even without the smooshed hood, so donating it seemed to be the best option. It was a good car for us, and we have a lot of great memories in it!

It was a 92 Nissan Pathfinder, but we bought it the summer of 95, a few months after we moved out to Colorado. We just drove our Mazda 626 out there, which Bob took to work every day, so I was pretty much stuck in our 1 room temporary apartment for that summer while we waited for our house to be finished. Most apartments didn't have air conditioning in C. Springs at that time (maybe they still don't!), and our apartment faced south. On the third floor. With only one window. It was so. very. hot. every afternoon, close to 100 degrees in there. Bob started dropping me off at my grandma and grandpa's house before he left for work. I would take my snack, book, etc., and he would pick me up on his way home. It was fun to spend time with my grandparents (who did have A/C, incidentally), but I did feel a bit like I was at day care, LOL!

We started looking around for a second car, and we decided that we should get an SUV (why not, everyone else in Colorado had one). We looked at Toyota 4-Runners, but we decided they were too expensive. We bought our Pathfinder from a guy who was coming off a lease, and I think we got a fairly good deal on it. Many times through the years have we wished we spent the extra money and gotten the 4-Runner though--it was just a little bit bigger, and the rear widow rolled down instead of just popping open, like ours did. That would have been very convenient for the dogs! Hind sight and all that . . .

My scrapbook from that time shows lots of trips in the old Pathfinder. We had no kids, and Bob was working this weird shift schedule in Cheyenne Mountain (NORAD), where he was basically on an 8 day week, so his days off didn't usually correlate to the weekends. I wasn't working, so we were free to cruise around the state, and so we did! Right after we moved into our house, my brother Dan and a friend from his college, Dave, came out to visit. I drove them up Pikes Peak in the Pathfinder, which was a bit scary for me. The first of many trips, though! One of my favorite trips was in September, 1996, when we took a camping trip down to Mesa Verde and over to the Black Canyon of the Gunnson on the way back. We had our big dog, Pascal, who was half black lab, and half Alaskan malamute, along on all these trips. What fun!

We got a second dog (Aspen, a Great Pyrenees), and had 2 kids (Nathan and Luke). Bob got a job with more regular hours as the aide to a Navy admiral. We still did a lot of camping though, now with our friends the Ls who had finally followed us out to Colorado! Those were some fun trips, and we loaded the Pathfinder to the gills! Once we rented pop-up trailers from MWR and went trailer camping in October at Rocky Mountain National Park. The Pathfinder did a great job hauling the trailer around!

One of my all-time favorite trips we took in it was up to Telluride in October, 2000. We drove up to the Tomboy mine, which was 11,200 feet above sea level. That was a hair-raising drive, if I have ever had one. The "road" was only one lane, and on one side there is a steep cliff, and on the other side, there is a sheer drop-off of several thousand feet. There were lots of washboard ruts, where the Pathfinder really leaned and bounced. When we got up to the old mine site, we literally had to peel Bob's fingers from the stearing wheel. And then we still had to get back down! I had wanted to visit there ever since reading Tomboy Bride, a book about Harriet Fish Backus, who was a newly-wed there (her husband was an assayist) in the early 1900s. The book was fascinating, and I wanted to have a better understanding of what all she talked about. The drive made it all come to life for me, that's for sure! My only regret, since we went to so much trouble to get there, is that I didn't take many pictures. I think it was just such a nerve-wracking drive, and then I was very anxious about Nathan and Luke, who were scrambling around on the ruins of the town. I didn't want them to fall in some big shaft or down the side of the mountain! The Pathfinder really proved himself on that trip though!

We also traveled across the country several times in the Pathfinder. I think we drove from Colorado to Ohio and back in it 5 times! We were a bit crowded, but it seemed fine at the time. Now that we have driven our Odyssey and Sienna, we look back and wonder how on earth we stood it--that thing was so loud and bumpy! We could hardly hear each other talk, and we bounced around like popcorn!

The Pathfinder was great in the snow and ice. It always gave me a lot of confidence knowing that Bob was driving it when he had to be out in the snow. In fact, he drove it to and from work for awhile last February when we had all that snow and ice here! Guess we'll have to make do next winter, LOL.

After we bought the Odyssey in March 2000, the Pathfinder became the "second car". Then right before we left Ohio, Bob tore a muscle in his calf. Driving the Pathfinder (which was a stick-shift) really hurt his leg, so we bought a used Camry for him to commute in. Then the Pathfinder became the third car, barely used, just taking up space on the street. I would drive it to the library if I went in the evenings without kids, just to keep it driven! We let various people borrow it, so it did serve a useful purpose, but it really won't be any big loss to us. Except in sentimental value! Also, it was weird sitting in it last night and thinking this will probably be the last stick-shift vehicle we own. I don't see anything but minivans in our future for quite a long time, and they just aren't manual! I think driving a stick is a lot of fun . . . ah, those carefree days without kids!

Our Week Without Nathan

We pick up Nathan tomorrow at WSS. We've missed having him around--the family dynamic is different when he's not here. I will say that we've gotten a lot accomplished without him here, although that is mainly because we didn't do school this week.

Monday I worked in our playroom (also known as our formal living room, LOL, but since we have no furniture in there, only toys, it is truly just a playroom). I was able to weed out a lot of junky old stuff. Then I moved a bunch of Little People and one town thing into the family room, switching that stuff for the baby toys that were in a basket in there. Anna never plays with them anymore, but she doesn't like to play in the playroom unless someone is in there with her. So she has been enjoying the Little People in the family room, and it's fun to watch her discover how to push the little cars through the garage door and down the ramp of the car wash.

Tuesday I spent a great deal of time backing up a year's worth of digital pictures on the computer onto a CD. Now I can rest assured that all my precious pictures, including ones of the births of 2 children, won't be lost forever should something happen to our computer! Then Wednesday I made a CD with pictures I wanted to have printed off, and we took that to Sams.

While we waited for those to be ready, we ran over to Walmart and had pictures taken of Caleb and Jonathan. The last time we have individual pictures taken of the boys, Jonathan was 16 months, the same age Anna is now! I thought it was time, at least for Caleb and Jonathan, since they have changed a lot in 3 years. The photographer had a heavy accent, and he really just wasn't all that into getting big smiles from the boys. You know how the good kiddie photographers have a big bag of tricks involving trills, feathers, stuffed animals, etc.? Well, this guy had no tricks. He just stood by the camera and said "Say 'stinky feet'", which since he had an accent, was pretty undecipherable, especially to Caleb and Jonathan. They just looked blankly at him while I hopped around behind him trying to get them to smile. Finally he miraculously hit upon "Say 'Chuck E. Cheese'", which made Caleb's face light up with a huge smile and Jonathan look pleasant because, unbeknowst to him, Bob actually was taking the boys to Chuck E. Cheese that night, as a special treat while Nathan was gone, and Caleb and Jonathan had been EAGERLY anticipating the outing. Caleb did great for his individual pictures too, while Jonathan put back on the solemn formal face he usually has for pictures. You could tell he was trying really hard to smile in a serious way, but he has such a beautiful spontaneous smile, and that just wasn't there on Wednesday. Oh well.

After all that, we went back to Sams to pick up our 147 pictures. After lunch I got busy sorting them into piles for the boys' scrapbooks. I keep an individual scrapbook for each boy, and I add 4 pages each year after their birthday for the previous year. This year I never did Luke's, Jonathan's, or Nathan's, and I need to start one for Anna. Since I am totally behind on our family scrapbooks, this is the one thing I feel like I need to keep up on, so I am a little anal about it, LOL. The thing about digital pictures is that I never get around to having them printed off, so I don't have the pictures I need to do the scrapbooks. Well, not anymore. I sorted everything out and then cropped all of Jonathan's pictures. I was able to finish his pages last night after the kids went to bed, so I really felt satisfactorily accomplished. Now on to Luke's.

Today the big project was starting on the storage room in the basement. For the past 2 years or so, I've just sort of thrown boxes in there, and if I've needed anything out of a box already int here, I would just take it into the middle of the floor, root around in it, and then leave it. How nice! So the room was pretty much a dump of clutter with Lincoln Logs and plastic army men scattered strategically all around the boxes. After lunch the boys went down and cleaned up the army men and Lincoln logs, and then we got started sorting shoes into different boxes by size (we now have 3 large boxes filled with boys' shoes. I should start a store, LOL), and going through boxes. Unfortunately because of time constraints, I couldn't really go through all the boxes very thoroughly, but I was able to combine some boxes. We also turned around our old entertainment center, which was facing the wall, I think to protect the glass doors on it. I decided we might as well put all our old video tapes, including old home videos, on the shelves of this entertainment center. Luke and Caleb were very helpful in putting 3 boxes of old tapes onto the shelves, which cleared out a lot of room. Someday I will really go through these and donate or toss lots of them (NOT the home ones, obviously, LOL), but for right now, it was good to get them out of the middle of the floor. We also threw away several empty boxes for things we no longer own, like the light Anna broke, and an old DVD player. It feels so great to get rid of junk! Grace cooperated very nicely by taking a 3 hour nap, but eventually she did have to be fed, so the rest will have to be left for another day.

We were supposed to go swimming with friends this morning, and so probably none of the storage room cleaning would have been accomplished. Unfortunately, Anna had a fever last night, and she woke up several times in the middle of the night burning up. I had to call our friends this morning and cancel. Today her fever has stayed down so far, but she has been a major El Crabbo all day long, so she is definitely not feeling well. Hopefully she will feel better tomorrow, since that is when we have to drive up to WSS. Please be praying!

One Last Picture . . .

This is the end of our pre-church photo session. Emily has had enough and is starting to cry. Anna is wearing the same "what am I doing here" expression she has been wearing all weekend long, and as you can see her leaning away, she had decided to take matters into her own hands by starting to edge away, LOL.

Grandma and her girls

Anna, Emily, and Grace are all wearing their dresses from "Momma Claire", also known as my Aunt Claire or Pilotmom. She was the only Claire who was missing from this party, and she and Uncle Jim were sorely missed indeed!

We were able to take pictures before church. After church, Mom and Dad went out to eat with Dan and Melinda, while we came back home to prepare to take Nathan up to White Sulphur Springs for his week at Camp Caleb. Then Mom and Dad took off this morning, so we are back to just our boring selves, LOL, without even Nathan! I'm hoping to get some projects done this week, since we're not doing school. We'll see how that works out. I'm not holding my breath and expecting big things, though, LOL.

Cute Cousin

Isn't Emily a cutie?! She rode in the swing for awhile and enjoyed it very much. I thought the blue swing really brought out her beautiful blue eyes!

Special Visit

My brother Dan, his wife Melinda, and their baby girl Emily visited us this past weekend all the way from Texas! Emily was just born in January, so this was our first chance to meet her in person! We all thought she was an absolute doll--well, all of us except Anna, perhaps. She was definitely not sure what to do with this new interloper, LOL. She was in a pretty grumpy mood all weekend long, and she gave Uncle Dan the ol' evil eye every time she looked at him. With Emily she was aloof and suspicious, although she did like to pick up toys that Emily dropped and give them back to her. After they all left, she was so happy, so Bob and I said she must be thinking, "Yay, that other little girl is gone--I guess they're keeping me after all!" LOL

Emily is so cute, and there is definitely a family resemblance between her and Anna. She also sports the same bald haircut that Anna has (although Anna has grown some hair in the last 2 months or so), which helps the resemblance. The boys had such a great time with her, entertaining her and making her laugh. Emily gave out lots of big smiles all weekend long (except during some photo opportunities, of course, LOL) and was such a happy little girl! We really enjoyed meeting her!

*Update* Well, Anna was still pretty crabby today. She's also doing other weird things, like taking over 3 hour naps, rubbing her eyes all the time, etc. So there is obviously something else going on, like a growth spurt or allergies or something, and this just wasn't a good weekend for her to have company, even very, very special company!

Roll out the barrel . . .

This past weekend was the annual family reunion for Bob's dad's side of the family. We left Saturday morning and didn't get there until 3:00, but the party was still in full swing! I was still able to get my yearly fill of polka music and kielbasa, although I passed on the cabbage. This was the 10th annual reunion. We've gone to the last 4 I think, and I am still confused about who is who (or would that be "whom"). Bob's dad had 5 siblings, and they all had big families as well. I desparately want someone to sit down and draw out a big family tree for me. Instead, whenever I ask questions, they assume a previous level of knowledge that I simply don't have. ("Oh, that's (whoever). His mom was a (ethnic Eastern European last name) from up near (town I've never heard of). His sister married (someone else I should know but don't), and they had 3 kids. One of them, (another name), moved out to California, got married and divorced, and one of THEIR kids moved back here and married (some other ethnic last name) . . . ." and on and on with no clear resolution or even answer to my original question.) I am hanging in there, however, and I do feel like I am getting to know the people we see every year at this thing a little bit better. Most of them had no idea we had another baby this year, so that was a little surprise, LOL. Hey, we're just carrying on the big family tradition.

We stayed in our usual room at Comfort Inn. This room is the only room in the hotel that has 2 double beds and a fold-out sofa. Of course, that still leaves us 2 beds shy, but this is a big room too, so there is enough room for 2 pack-n-plays. We started staying in this room awhile back, and now we just make reservations for our next trip before we actually leave the hotel. That way no one asks about the number of kids, because it seems like the clerks don't care. I'm not sure what we'll do when Anna grows out of the pack-n-play. Oh well--that's a few years away.

I will say that it was not a restful night. There may be plenty of room for 8 people, but there still are a lot of little sleeping noises from that many people. I had to fiddle all night with the air conditioning/fan thing so that it would stay on, but not freeze us out, so that it provided some white noise. Anna woke up at 3:00, and fussed around until 4:00, but fortunately everyone else slumbered on peacefully. Grace woke up at 6:30, but she went right back down after nursing. Anna and I were both crabby the next day, LOL.

Sunday we went out to eat with Bob's parents at Ponderosa. They really like going there, but since Bob's dad can't drive anymore after his latest seizure, they don't get to go out to eat much. Then we all went over to Bob's brother Paul and Sherry's house. They have a nice above-ground pool and a trampoline, so the boys were in heaven. Anna had a good time on the trampoline too. All too soon it was time to head back home. I had been pushing for a picture of the kids with Bob's parents the whole time, but finally we were able to get one right before we left. Even though Grace is sleeping, it still turned out well, so I was glad I insisted. With Bob's dad's health issues of the past year, I don't want to take anything for granted, and I really wanted to get a picture of them with Grace.

We left about 5:30 and made it home by 10:00. That makes the trip sound pretty easy, but in fact, it was another loud trip. The plain truth is that Grace is just not a very good traveler. I've never had a bad traveler before! She hates her car seat, and she can fuss about that for a LONG time without giving up. This makes Anna antsy, and they sort of feed off each other. When one will be winding down, the other will choose that moment to let out a long shrill cry, and that will set the first one off again. Sigh. I am not looking forward to our trip to Ohio the middle of August!

Roosevelt Island

Bob took a day off on Wednesday, and we went to Roosevelt Island, which is in the middle of the Potomac between Arlington and D.C. It is connected to a Virginia by a little walking bridge, and the island is a preserve with quiet walking trails and big trees. Except for the constant noise of traffic from the George Washington Parkway, you'd think you were all alone in the woods, LOL! No, it really is a nice retreat in the middle of the city--and since it is so shady, it was a great place to go on a hot summer day!

In the middle of the island is a memorial for Teddy Roosevelt. It has this big statue of him as well as big slabs of concrete with quotes of his. One is on "youth", another on "manhood", one is "the state", and the last is "nature". There are also 2 big fountains, and the whole thing is surrounded by reflecting pools and bridges. Very lovely and serene.

Although I would have to say that in general he doesn't seem like he was as deep a thinker as say Lincoln, some of his quotes were good. I liked this one on "youth"--I want to see you game, boys, I want to see you brave and manly, and I also want to see you gentle and tender. (Address at Friends School, Washington, DC, May 24, 1907) Yep, that's what I want, too! Also, I liked this one on "the state"--If I must choose between righteousness and peace I choose righteousness. (America and the World War, 1915) Amen!

We didn't pack a lunch, but after we got back to the van, I nursed Grace while everyone else had juice boxes and granola bars for a snack. It was a nice morning outing!

It is at times like these that I wish I could post more than one picture without locking up our slow dial-up connection. But wait . . . change is in the air! Verizon is in the process of installing FIOS cables in our neighborhood, and when they are all hooked up, we are going to go with their all-in-one package, which includes TV, internet, and phone for I think $99.99 a month. Somehow our neighborhood got skipped for DSL and broadband, so this is really our first quick option, other than cable (and we don't like Adelphia). We're pretty excited! We'll be able to wach the funny videos online that everyone talks about! Open up web sites with lots of pictures! Download songs (hey, maybe we'll finally get an iPod!)! The possibilities are endless!

Grace's well-baby appointment

Grace is looking a little on the serious side because she had her first shots today, poor baby! She's done a lot of sleeping this afternoon, which I hope does not bode for a sleepless night!

Grace was 12 pounds, 2 ounces, which is pretty average for us. She measured 22 inches long, but I think she is actually longer than that. The tech did a terrible job at straightening her leg to measure. Everything else checked out just fine! She's a happy, healthy girl.

Happy Anniversary To Us . . .

Wow, 14 years already?! It seems like just yesterday I was posting about anniversary #13! This past year definitely passed by in a blur. In last year's post, I was musing about how this year we would be facing retirement. Well, we still haven't made any big decisions as far as that goes, but I'm sure that will be a topic of discussion tonight when we're out to dinner. It's just as well that nothing has happened on the retirement front, as this year was already filled with lots of changes and adjustments. We had a new baby, and then another new baby, and we also changed churches. Now it's time for things to settle down!

Speaking of dinner, Elizabeth has kindly consented to come over and watch our brood, so Bob and I are going to eat at Cheesecake Factory. Mmmm. It'll be a nice, low-key celebration. It's hard to get too fancy with a nursing baby! Someday we'll be able to go away for a weekend or something . . . At least, that's what people tell me--it's too hard for me to envision right now, LOL.

So we're praising the Lord today for 14 happy years of marriage, and a wonderful family that has come out of our marriage. I never imagined 6 kids when I stood at the altar of Chapel 2 back then!

Cool Lego Mom

*Although for some reason this didn't get published until Tuesday, I actually wrote it and thought I published it last night, Monday night!*

Well, I don't like to brag or anything, but today was the second time in 3 days that I was a "cool mom" in the eyes of the boys. The first time, of course, was when I brought home those 4 Star Wars books for $1.00 at the used book sale. Then this evening at dinner, we were discussing Leogs (as is so often the case). Nathan was lamenting their perceived lack of Legos, and I happened to mention that I had a gallon Ziploc bag of them somewhere down in the basement. At some point when I was home visiting my parents, I equally divided up all the Legos in my brother's and my Lego collection from when we were kids. I put them in Ziploc bags, and mine were packed in a box where they have lived while traveling about the country.



This casual announcement was met with much excitement and surprise. You would have thought I had been withholding information about a fortune in gold or something. Nathan volunteered to get up and look for the bag immediately--he "wouldn't mind at all". I told him that what I really needed him to do was clean up the play room in the basement (which is the unfinished area where we also keep all our boxes that never get unpacked) so that I would have room to move boxes around in my search. He was also ready and eager to do this, and after dinner clean-up, he and Luke took off for the basement.



The room was cleaned up, although I realized immediately what box the Legos had to be in--the one clearly marked "Claire's old stuff". After some digging, there it was! The jackpot! The boys carried away the prize and spent the rest of the evening going through it. Ahhhh . . . silence on the main floor for me.



Nathan couldn't believe that I had this treasure for so long and had never told them about it. How could I forget about something as important and valuable as this?! LOL I will say that Lego made some cool pieces back then that they don't seem to make anymore--pieces with hinges, pieces with little wheels, funny heads, etc. The boys were quite entertained for quite a while. I am just basking in the glory of being cool, since I know how quickly that will change

This Week

I see that I haven't posted for almost a week. Hmm . . . what did happen this last week? Obviously nothing too exciting, and frankly, that's a good thing. That means Anna did not break anything or cause too big of a mess. Also, she did not injure herself, another good thing.

And yet I did not have time to post, so that must mean we were just busy. Oh yes, Bob was busy working on a paper for his class the first few evenings, so my computer time was limited.

We did do an entire week of school, something that hasn't happened for a little while. I think we're getting into a good routine there.

We are also on a major campaign to eat down the freezer so that I can defrost it. Then I will be able to go to the commissary just with Nathan while my parents are here next week to restock. (My parents should get here next Monday, and they are coming because my brother Dan and his wife Melinda and their daughter Emily are supposed to come next Thursday!!!!) This means that we have been eating lots of good, healthful things that were lurking in the back of the freezer--things like meatballs, chicken fingers, fish sticks, and pierogies. Also there have been freezer pops every day, so you know this campaign has been well-supported by the troops.

On Thursday, we got the boys' Stanford Achievement Test scores in the mail. The boys did great--whew! That's always such a relief! Then of course my perfectionistic tendencies take over, and I obsess about the categories where they missed any questions at all, LOL. Shockingly, they both did fine in spelling! (I think Nathan is a good guesser, LOL.) Actually, the section they both did worst in was "Word Study Skills", and they got almost identical scores. I'm not totally sure what the questions were like, exactly, but it was phonetic analysis of vowels that seemed to be the issue. It was just funny that they both had problems with that, since they have such different styles of learning, reading, etc. I would have expected one to do good, and not the other, or something. Interesting.

Bob took Friday off, and I was able to go to the Northern Virginia Home Education Convention for a few hours in the afternoon. I only went to shop, and I did buy a few things that I knew I needed and knew I wouldn't be able to find at the used book sale that was Saturday. I bought a copybook for Nathan from Memoria Press, since he still has terrible handwriting, and I bought Story of the World 4 from Peace Hill Press. In fact, Susan Wise Bauer herself was at the PHP booth, and I got to talk to her!! She answered my questions personally! A red-letter day for me, LOL--a brush with celebrity in the homeschool world!

I went back to the convention on Saturday to go to the used book sale, and I was very happy with what I came home with. I got a Daily Grams book for Grammar review, as well as some little workbooks that work on paragraph writing and outlining, which I want Nathan to start working on. I got a Kingfisher History of the World, as well as a neat book called Words That Built a Nation--A Young Person's Collection of Historic American Documents. I got A Case of Red Herrings, which is a critical thinking book, and a Mindbenders book, which has those great puzzles that you have to use a grid to solve. Nathan is going into the Logic stage, and these sorts of books are what SWB recommends to develop critical thinking skills before starting formal logic in 7th grade. The Mindbenders book has already been a big hit. Actually, before the convention I had gotten out my Critical Thinking press catalog to peruse so I would be familiar with what to look for, and Nathan and Luke started solving the puzzles in the catalog! That was helpful because it gave me an idea of what level book I should buy (and I was thrilled to find one used!). Bob is a great problem solver, and I've always enjoyed those logic problems as well, so it seems reasonable that the boys should also be good at them!

I also got a bunch of fiction books--books I've wanted the boys to read, but that our library doesn't carry, like Rolf and the Viking Bow, The Children's Homer, and By the Great Horn Spoon. I just LOVE buying books at used book sales! They can be so cheap! I also won the hearts of the boys because I found 4 Star Wars books for $ .25 each. Oh well, the dessert along with the meaty stuff, LOL. I came home with my pull-along bag stuffed to the gills. A successful shopping day!

So there you have it--highlights of the week. And now it's time to head off to evening church.

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever"

This lovely object d'art is what art scholars call a "Chia Shrek". Who was the person of classic taste that bestowed such a work of art upon us? Why, my brother Dan! He received it himself as a gift at an office white elephant exchange (if you can imagine giving away such a treasure), and then he regifted it to the boys for Christmas 2 years ago. We brought it home from Texas, and it languished in its box until the Spirit moved or something, and we decided to "grow" it a few weeks ago. I must say 1. this picture does not do it justice, and 2. it looks nothing like the box picture, where Shrek was covered with little plants with short stems and big leaves, such that the picture did indeed resemble Shrek.

To be fair, Dan and Melinda also gave the boys a Bionicle set that year, vaulting them into "most favored aunt and uncle" status, a position they kept after giving the boys Walmart gift cards this past year. We are also enjoying another one of their gifts currently, the Star Wars Cookbook, which they gave Nathan for his birthday. We made Skywalker Smoothies yesterday--the book says, "Luke definitely has the Force on his side, but sometimes he gets an extra boost from these scrumptious smoothies." I think "Wookie Cookies" are next on the agenda, followed by "Princess Leia Danish Dos". Luke is interested in making "Darth Vader Dark Chocolate Sundaes--"Some speculate that Darth Vader was lured to the Dark Side by these Dark Chocolate Sundaes." Other recipes in the book include Hoth Chocolate, Han-burgers, Obi-Wan Kebabs, Boba Fett-ucine, and Wampa Snow Cones. The book is filled with pictures of the food, with toy Star Wars figues posed beside them. Pretty funny! At the front of the book are cooking rules. They start: "The calm, perceptive mind of a Jedi warrior will enable you to prevent most mishaps in the kitchen. Use it well and follow these general guidlines." I wish I had some Jedi warrioers in the kitchen! Apparently Jedi cooks "clean up as they go along".

At the end of the book are some stickers with sayings like "Use the fork, Luke." and "Eat this you must. Help you it can." We've gotten a lot of laughs from this book. Now Nathan has the second Star Wars cookbook on our wish list at Amazon.

Chocolate and Friends

Yesterday was another big day! after our late night, we got up and left at 9:30 to drive up to Hershey, PA to meet up with friends. My best friend Amy (in the blue shirt) and her family were camping there with Julie and her family. Julie is another old friend who went to Dayton Christian and also to Cedarville with us. It was so fun to see Amy and Julie and spend the day with them!

We went to Hershey's Chocolate World, which was very, very crowded and loud. We ate lunch first, and then we went on this cute ride through a simulated chocolate factory to learn about how chocolate is made. It was very interesting, and just as I was saying to Amy and Julie, "They ought to pump the smell in here to make it realistic", then sure enough! It started smelling like chocolate! YUM! I could have ridden around smelling that for quite a while longer! At the end of the ride, everyone got free samples of Kissables, those little candy-coated kisses. Bob mentioned to the lady that Caleb and Zachary couldn't have chocolate, and so she gave them Twizzlers instead! That was nice. The best part was that this all was free! Nothing else was, that's for sure, LOL. It was a very commercialized place.

After the tour, the kids went though the "Factory Works" line, which we thought would be something sort of hands-on and educational, but in actuality was a commercialized gimic to get you to buy expensive small boxes of Kisses that your children had packaged and otherwise bonded with ($5.00 a box!). We had to pass on that. Then the others went in to see a 3-D animated show that was $5.95 for adults and $3.95 for kids 3-12. We decided that was just to steep for a 30 minute show for our big family, so we went outside and found the Hershey Museum, a little walk away, over by the entrance to HersheyPark.

The musuem also was not free ($7.00 for adults and $3.50 for kids 3-12) but Bob got in free, being active-duty military, and we could stay as long as we wanted! Plus, it was very quiet in there, and after the noise and crowds of the Chocolate World, I was really ready for something quiet. The museum was very interesting, and ironically, it was much more hands-on than the Chocolate World. We got to see and handle equipment from the old factory, read what workers from long ago said about the factory (for example, it was really hot because they could never open any windows--they had to keep bugs out of the chocolate), and learn about how Kisses got their names (it could be from smooching sound that the depositor machine made when a glob of chocolate was dropped out into the Kiss shape). There was an old-fashioned candy shop set up, with display cases that Mr. Hershey used in his shop. There was an exhibit about HersheyPark and its history, with a nice video to watch while sitting in a roller coaster car. There were items from Mr. Hershey's house, and an exhibit on the school he and his wife set up for orphan boys once they realized they would never be able to have children of their own. Mr. Hershey seemed like a wonderful man. There was also a discovery hands-on room for kids where they could try on clothes from the Victorian era, play in a pretend general store, cook in a Victorian kitchen, etc.

Mr. Hershey also had an extensive collection of Indian artifacts, including some relaly nice headresses and outfits. There were items from tribes in all different parts of the U.S., and there was a hand-son station there too, where kids could feel wolf pelts, use a pump drill to make holes in wood, try on snowshoes, and also try on Indian leather clothes.

So we really enjoyed the museum. The kids did a scavenger hunt that they were handed when we went in, and so they got little dollar store rings and coins. They were thrilled with them, of course. We did stay about half an hour longer than we needed to because while we were in there, a torrential downpour began. I wondered if we would ever be able to get back to our car! Fortunately it did eventually stop, so we were able to meet up again with the others, who had been souvenier shopping after their show.

We were very happy to find out that we didn't have to pay for parking (free for 2 hours, then $8.00 for 2-4 hours, and then $11.00 for a day--yow)! We think it was because of all the rain, since the parking is also for HersheyPark, which had to close the rides because of the thunder and lightning. We drove just down the road to the campground where Amy and Julie were camping. Although it was sprinkling, we decided to make it work there for dinner. Julie's camper has a little stove, so she boiled hotdogs for the kids and cooked steaks for the grownups. By the time everything was ready, it had stopped raining, so we had a lovely dinner. The kids ate first, then they ran around and played while the adults ate. Grace took a nice nap on the bed in Julie and Tim's camper. Anna wandered around getting watermelon juice all over her outift, which was already soaked from her falling down on the wet ground. It was so much fun to be able to catch up with Amy and Julie.

Unfortunately, it was 8:00 all too quickly, and I nursed Grace before we headed home. Grace and Anna were pretty much shot from 2 days out of their normal routine, and so they cried . . . well, just about the entire way home. Did I say "cried"? I actually meant to say "screamed", because that's a more accurate description, LOL. We had been listening to Johnny Tremain, a very fitting book on tape for around the Fourth of July, wouldn't you say, but we had to turn it off because we could not hear it at all. We made it home a little before 11:00 and got everyone down before collapsing into bed ourselves.

We've been taking it easy today. Nathan and Luke rediscovered a book on making paper airplanes that my mom and dad gave them awhile back, so that was what they spent the morning doing. I slept in until 10:00. Ahhhh. Anna took an early nap. Now the boys are outside. Unfortunately I have just discovered that the garage door where the van is parked is mysteriously not working, so tomorrow might not be so relaxing, LOL. I guess we are not supposed to go anywhere else for a few days!

Fireworks From the Iwo Jima Memorial

We went downtown to the Iwo Jima Memorial to watch the national fireworks on the Fourth of July. We went with our friends the Ls as we did 2 years ago. The weather played a bit of havoc withour plans, but it all worked out.

We were supposed to leave at 5:00, so we went to Ed's parents' house, where the Ls were, right at 5:00, but there was all this serious weather west of us, and we weren't sure where it was headed. We didn't want to be driving in it, so we hung out there for awhile talking with Ed's folks. Ed's brother, an airline pilot, made paper airplanes for the boys and Amanda to fly around, which amused them greatly. Finally we left about 6:45, and I was very afraid that we wouldn't be able to find a good place to watch, especially once we heard that the Iwo Jima area had never been closed, as the Mall was. I was afraid a lot of people would have left the Mall and come over to the Iwo Jima.

It was very crowded once we got there, but fortunately we were meeting some other friends, Brian and Angela, and they rode the Metro in. They were able to save a really nice big area for all of us. Whew! We brought our usual large amount of food, but since we didn't really get settled until 7:30, it seemed like we hardly had time to make and eat our sandwiches, much less fruit, cookies, etc. So we ended up with a lot of extra food.

We really enjoyed the fireworks. There were some new things we hadn't seen before, like fireworks in the shape of a huge star, and some in the shape of Saturn--a big ball with a ring around it. Cool! We were worried that Anna would totally freak out because she's in a weird phase right now, where she has decided to be frightened of all sorts of things, like the vacuum, swimming pools, women who cover (like Muslims), etc. But just to keep us on our toes, she was completely blase about the loud booms and the bright lights of fireworks. Go figure. But it made for an easier viewing experience, LOL.

Unfortunately we were sitting in front of a long-haired twenty-something year old man who thought he was the cleverest and wittiest cool dude of them all, and so he blathered on and on and on the entire show. He wasn't not exceptionally profane--just a few of the more mild cuss words sprinkled throughout--but he sure was inane and annoying. It was especially annoying because you could tell he thought he was just. so. cool. and that we should all be grateful to be getting this free comedy show. His girlfriend was beside him, and she laughed loudly at all his jokes, so I guess someone thought he was funny. True love.

We made it home a little before 11:00, proud to be Americans, and proud that we didn't lose anyone yet again in the huge crush of people walking along the streets in the dark.

A Patriotic Family

Two months already?!

Grace turned 2 months old yesterday. Wow, that is hard to believe! She's getting so big. She smiles a lot, but we have a hard time capturing that on camera. By the time it finishes all its flashes and whatnot, she is no longer smiling and is back to looking perplexed and serious. I think you can see that she is of the "big eye" baby model--like Luke and Jonathan. She's doing really well with her sleeping, going until about 6:30 or 7:00 in the morning.

In this picture, she is sitting in the Bumbo baby seat that her Uncle Dan and Aunt Melinda got her. She's technically a little young, but she has a really strong neck, and she enjoys sitting in it a lot for a few minutes. I can't wait until she can go longer in it because frankly I have never had a baby who hates being on her back as much as Grace. This even includes her car seat and bouncer seat. She definitely wants to be sitting upright.

Actually all the kids are enjoying the Bumbo seat. Anna sits in it quite frequently, and even Caleb and Jonathan can still fit their scrawny little bums in there. Nathan and Luke like to wear it upside down on their heads, like a cartoon Spartan war helmet. I wish we had gotten one earlier!

Unfortunately, I won't be able to tell you Grace's 2 month stats for quite a while. Non-military types won't understand this crazy system, but when I called back in June to schedule her 2 month well-baby appointment, they told me July's appointments hadn't been released yet, and to call back in a week. So I did that, and then the only appointments that were left were on July 17 at 8:00, 8:30, and 9:40. I snagged the 9:40 one, since there is no way on God's green earth we could get there any earlier with traffic. Even 9:40 will be a challenge--we'll probably have to leave about 8:30. Grr. Anyhoo, it will be more like a 2 1/2 month well-baby appointment. But I can tell she's healthy and growing!

"Oh, Anna . . . noooooooooooooo"

Anna had a busy week this past week as well. She started off the week with a bit of a bug. Mainly she just ran a little fever (which isn't so bad--kind of takes the edge off, you know?), but she did throw up a few times Monday morning. Fortunately my reflexes were in fine form, and I managed to whip her off the couch and over a trash can each time, thus saving our nice couch from yuckiness.

Tuesday evening she was up on her stool in the kitchen, and she managed to turn the microwave on for some uncertain but very long period of time. I was on the computer, and when I got off and wandered into the kitchen, I smelled something and noticed that the microwave was on. At about that moment, it turned off, so I opened it, letting out a ton of stinky smoke. Some tiny piece of ham or something that had fallen off a plate had become a smoking lump of carbon, and the microwave was blank. I was so worried that she had totally fried the thing, but after about 20 minutes, it did come back, so I guess it was just overheated. Thank the Lord for safety switches like that! When I asked how come no one had told me the microwave was even on (since 3 of her brothers were in the kitchen), Jonathan piped up that he had in fact told me that Anna was pushing buttons on the microwave. Unfortunately, Jonathan pretty much chatters all day long, usually about Star Wars, so I guess I just tuned him out. whoops! I told him that for IMPORTANT stuff like Anna pushing microwave buttons, he needed to come touch my arm to make sure I was REALLY listening, LOL.

On Thursday night, Anna walked on the base of our torch lamp in the family room, sending it crashing over and shattering the shade into a bazillion tiny shards of glass while I looked on impotently as I nursed Grace. Sigh.

Friday, we went to Target to buy a new lamp as well as some new shoes for Caleb. While we were looking at shoes, I was distracted, and Anna (who was in the back of the cart) stood up and reached for a shoebox and fell out of the cart. This is what led to the attractive shiner she is sporting in the picture on top. Usually I buckle her in the front and put Grace's carseat in the back, but who knows what I was thinking then?!

Maybe next week will be a little less eventful for her (and me).

A Prayer Request

Back in May, I mentioned in a post my friend from church, Christine, who is expecting her first baby. She has scoliosis and so can't have an epidural, but she is fine with that, since she was raised in Germany where something like 90% of the women give birth naturally. Well, her due date is Tuesday. Things are going just fine. The head is nice and low, and she's about 1 1/2 cm dilated, and 50% effaced. She had an ultrasound last Monday because her doctor thought she was big, but the baby looked fine and normal sized. You would think that the doctor would then just let things go as they happen, but no, not here in Virginia! The doctor wants to induce her on Friday. Not for any good reason--just because. When Christine reminded her of that fact that she could not have an epidural if things took a long time, or if she didn't handle pitocin-induced contractions very well, her doctor said, "Well, labor hurts with or without pitocin, so that shouldn't make a difference." Umm . . . wow. That's a pretty darn uncaring statement to make, and frankly I wonder if this doctor has ever even SEEN a woman deliver naturally, much less one delivering her first baby after an induced labor.

I think the doctor is setting Christine up for a c-section, to be honest. We talked a long time about possible scenarios, but Christine is like me, pretty nonconfrontational, and it's really hard for her to tell her doctor that she doesn't want to be induced. I'm afraid that the labor will take a long time, and that she'll be too tired to push effectively. It takes a great deal of mental concentration and focus to deal with contractions naturally, and it can really get tiring and painful, especially if the doctor keeps ramping up the pitocin if you don't dilate according to their neat little schedule. A first baby usually means oh, 1-2 hours of pushing, which is exhausting even when you haven't labored all day naturally! What is up with these Virginia doctors that think that inductions are the best way to go?! I have never been anywhere where they are pushed as much as I have heard and experienced here. Ridiculous.

Christine has another appointment on Tuesday. Please pray that she will be able to clearly voice her concerns to the doctor, and that the doctor will be receptive to hearing them. But most of all pray that she will go into labor on her own before Friday!

Not to worry . . .

I wanted all of you to know that we are all alive--the clone trooper cake did not get us. We've just been busy cleaning, and so I haven't had time to blog. The reason we've been cleaning, of course, is that we have people staying with us. That is what it takes to move us to real action these days, action beyond just picking up and vacuuming the parts easily observed. So now I can relax in the fact that the house is clean. Well, mostly. We did amazing things in the kitchen--the desk has never looked so empty! Our bedroom is a disaster area, however. Funny how that works! The study looks clean, but I know that is an illusion. Beneath the quiet surface of books lies a dormant volcano of papers, ready to erupt, strewing chaos all over the main floor as soon as we do anything in there like school. Obviously there is more work to be done, LOL. But we have more company scheduled for the end of July, so we have big plans.

We are having 2 girls stay this week with us. They are part of a volunteer crew of people from Southern Baptist Seminary in Loisuville, KY, who are coming to work on our church this week. Our church was built in the 1850s, and so it is a quaint little building whose maximum capacity is about 90, comfortably, with a lot of wasted space at the front (a second platform behind the preaching platform, for example). We are tearing up some of the wasted space and doing some rearranging inside to make it fit more people with doing anything structural. Should be nice when it's all done!

Happy Birthday, Nathan!!!

Wow, Nathan is 10 today! I can hardly believe that! Ten years ago, I was lying in my Air Force Academy hospital bed in my shared room, staring at this new little person for whom I was responsible. What a daunting feeling!

Now I'm looking at this young man who is spreading some wings and growing up and thinking that this stage is just as daunting!

Classical education talks about the 3 stages of education. The grammar stage is the earliest, where the kids just soak up information. The logic stage is the second one, where the kids starting making connections and thinking critically. Then the third stage is the rhetoric stage, where they learn how to express themselves and what they know.

Over the past year, I have clearly seen Nathan move into the logic stage. He is questioning things, especially on car rides and at the table, where he leads us off into long and involved conversations about things like small businesses, world politics and government systems, birth control, and other varied topics. "Why" is something he is saying a lot. Sort of like when he was 2, but now he actually has deep questions and expects answers! It's been neat discussing our worldview and how that influences what we think about different issues. I am very glad to be homeschooling during this logic stage, so that he can ask me those questions and we can discuss them.

His favorite subject in school is history, which certainly lends itself to discussing these sorts of thorny issues! This next year we will start into the Modern time period, from the Civil War to the present, so I'm sure plenty of things will crop up as we deal with slavery, the Holocaust, communism, and so on. I am really enjoying this new stage! It's been intellectually stimulating for me too, and I never know what topic will come up on a boring and routine drive to the commissary!

New Bunk Bed

Here is the new bunk bed that we bought back in May. We got it assembled in Caleb and Jonathan's room, much to their delight, and Caleb has been sleeping on the top bed for a few nights. That end part that you can barely see is actually a little desk. One of the dressers we got with the bed is also in the room. Right now it is directly across from the double bed, sort of between the 2 windows. Whenever we give the L's back the big dresser/armoire thing we've been using for Caleb and Jonathan, then we'll move this dresser along the wall by the bathroom, where the other thing is now.

Clone Trooper Cake

Here is Nathan's clone trooper cake that we took to Bible study last night. I was actually not that happy with it--I needed to build up the bottom of the mask a bit more. It looked fine when it was just cake, but when I put the icing on, there wasn't as much contrast, and it looked too flat. Oh well. Also, this is a LEGO clone trooper cake--that's why the legs are so short, LOL. I told them I could not do the proportions for a real human type clone.

Nathan was happy with it, but of course, he's my big encourager anyways ("Wow, Mom! I bet not even people who get PAID could make a clone trooper cake like that!" LOL) It took a 10x15 sheet cake plus 2 8-inch rounds, but we had a cast of thousands for Bible study, and we are left with only part of the gun, and a small part of the chest to eat tonight after dinner. Nathan's actual birthday isn't even until tomorrow--I'm not sure there will be any left by then!

As a special birthday treat, we allowed Nathan to borrow Star Wars II--Attack of the Clones from Zachary L. The boys are all downstairs watching it, and I haven't heard a peep from them for 2 hours. How lovely! They say the best gifts are free . . .

Yesterday

Well, yesterday the bloom was off the rose, so to speak, and it was not the day of sweetness, light, and sibling cooperation that Saturday was. Nathan and Luke bickered off and on most of the day. Was there a reason for this, you may be asking? Why yes! Fatigue! After we watched a Star Wars technology program Saturday night, the boys trundled off to bed. About 10:00, Nathan was back downstairs, clutching a trashcan and moaning. Evidently lots of cheese and processed food did not agree with his super-sensitive stomach! He never did throw up (which is a miracle in and of itself), but he did end up on the toilet for quite a while, poor guy. Luke ended up moving into Caleb and Jonathan's room, saying, "I don't want to hear Nathan throw up!" Wise boy. So I'd say they finally got off to sleep around 11:00, which made for crabby boys the next day.

Anna was a one-woman wrecking crew, wreaking havoc in her wake all around the house. What really put her in our black books was her wantom destruction of the Eiffel Tower. The boys had done a 3-D puzzle on the dining room table while I was still in the hospital, but she made short work of that, even eating the paper off on one puzzle piece so you can't see what it actually is. She also committed 2 acts of banana thievery/murder. I came downstairs at lunchtime to find the bunch of bananas sort of hanging off the center island, and one empty (and abused) peel dangling there as well. On the floor were several strips of peel and other banana-related debris. A sight not for the faint-of-heart! Later the perpetrater returned to the scene of the crime and mangled/ate a second banana. Oh well, she's into the diarrhea phase of teething, so maybe 2 bananas isn't such a bad thing? Needless to say, the bananas now live in the very center of the island, where even a little girl who can move the kitchen stool around can't reach them.

I really did not feel well yesterday. I had a terrible night where my fever kept coming back up, along with the aches and chills. My left side hurt so badly that I was contemplating amputation for relief. I finally decided that when Bob came home, I would go to the ER at Bethesda. I took more motrin at 4:00, Bob got home around 8:00 . . .but to my great surprise, my fever wasn't coming back up! I decided to wait longer before going anywhere. My fever never did come back, and this morning I feel better! I'm still sore, but it is not so excruciatingly painful. I now have hope that I may eventually recover, however, LOL. I am still taking it easy today, sleeping in and not doing school. And I'll probably do that tomorrow as well, or even as long as it takes for the pain in my breast to go away. Because, you know, getting back into a good routine is good, but that routine sort of falls apart when I am flat-out sick and lying on the couch all day! I'll get all better and then we'll try again . . .

Crazy Milk-Filled Weekend

Bob did go up to PA to visit his family today, taking Caleb and Jonathan with him. They were thrilled beyond words at the prospect of a special trip with Daddy *in his car* no less. I will say that while it's been a much quieter day without them around, there is definitely a big hole! It is always so interesting how the dynamics of the family change without different people, especially children. Nathan and Luke didn't fight at all today, they took turns playing with Anna without asking, Anna was thrilled with all the one-on-one attention from her older brothers who weren't distracted playing Star Wars with their younger brothers (who do frustrate them at times)--it was different.

Bob's dad is still in the hospital, and the doctors are saying that he is having seizures for some unknown reason. He's on anti-seizure medicine now, but it sounded like they were going to keep him in the hospital until Monday for observation. Apparently he is also starting some with senility, which has really been stressful for Bob's mom these past few months. She told Bob's sister Rose that he was like a child, and she had to watch him all the time and not leave him or he would do something crazy, like get out of the car and lock it with it still running. He is 82 and has been in remarkably good health (they both have, actually), but it looks like he finally is showing signs of his age. Since Bob's mom doesn't drive (never has), this is going to hard for her, especially since he can't drive now for 6 months.

We've had a fun, relaxing day today. Nathan made waffles for everyone before they left, and then we launched into our special weekend menu--try to guess the theme.

Lunch: Grilled cheese sandwiches, sour cream and onion potato chips, carrots, grapes

Dinner: chicken fingers and fish sticks, canned green beans, au gratin potatoes from a box

Dessert: chocolate/peanut butter ice cream

Lunch tomorrow: macaroni and cheese casserole that Elizabeth brought over.

Did you guess? It's dairy weekend!! With nary a thought spared for separate-but-equal non-dairy substitutes! And I guess you could also say it's "easy processed food weekend", LOL. No question that we eat healthier because of Caleb's allergies! Sometimes it's fun to not have to worry about it though. I've had that box of potatoes on the shelf for forever, and Nathan has been bugging me about eating them. I asked him if they lived up to his expectations, and he gave a happy sigh and said, "Yes, it was a day of perfect meals . . . " LOL! I thought they were a little salty. "Processed", maybe. I guess my taste buds have finally matured.

Well, speaking of milk, I am still having problems with this crazy clogged duct. So I'm still hurting on my left side, and today I haven't felt as well as yesterday, especially if I don't take a big horse pill of Motrin. Good thing military doctors prescribe those things like water, as we have bottle upon bottle of them sitting around. How convenient! I am getting frustrated though. I'm nursing like a contortionist here, with cold and warm cabbage in my bra at different times, and I really don't know anything else to try. Grrr. I really would have loved to accomplish something (anything!) during the girls' nap time, but . . . all I accomplished was a nap myself. Sigh. I think that if I'm still this sore tomorrow, we won't be able to go to church. Grace doesn't like her car seat and is usually pretty restless in church, squirming around all over me. That's mildly annoying on a good day, but when one side of me is quite painful . . . well, I have desire to torture myself, and I doubt I would get anything from the sermon anyhow!

Moving On

After I posted Wednesday, I did take lots of Motrin, but it just wasn't doing the job. I was running a fever even with it, and I had such a headache, my skin was so achy, etc. I was so thankful that my post-partum appointment was Thursday morning at 8:00! I felt like a run-over squirrel, but I made it there. Bob was able to stay with the kids, and when I got home, he took the prescription the doctor gave me to Walmart. Wow, the first time for me to get a prescription filled by an off-base pharmacy! How convenient, and I didn't even have to be there! Bob didn't even need my ID card! So the antibiotics are doing their magic, and I am feeling much better today. Yesterday I just laid around all day, but today we actually got school done. I was so glad I could catch it early. If I had waited to see someone, then I'm sure I would have ended up at Bethesda in the ER this weekend, really feeling terrible.

I'm not the only one having troubles. Bob's dad had 2 seizures of some sort yesterday, and he spent the night in the hospital for observation. He had one a few weeks ago, and the doctors decided he was reacting to some new gout medicine, so he stopped that. Well, obviously the medicine wasn't the cause. The doctors said it wasn't a stroke, but we can't think of what it could be. When he wakes up, there is a period of time where he is totally confused and disoriented, and he doesn't know who anyone is, even Bob's mom. That is really scary for her. Anyhow, Bob is thinking that he will go up there tomorrow to visit, possibly taking Caleb and Jonathan. I didn't want him to take Nathan and Luke, since they are so much help with Anna. Anna is getting into everything--I wish he could take her, LOL! Actually, we thought about all going, but all the hotels are booked up, since there is that big gold tournment near Pittsburgh this weekend.

Speaking of Caleb, here is a funny thing he said this morning, especially for Aunt Claire, Uncle Jim, and Pilot (Caleb's cousin). I was nursing on the couch, and he was sitting near me, doing his math worksheet.

Caleb: "Pilot and I are opposites."

Me: "Oh? How so?" (Thinking he might say something like "he is tall, and I'm short" or "he's grown-up and I'm a kid" or something)

Caleb: "Well, he knows how to fly, but not how to turn on our shower, and I know how to turn on our shower, but NOT how to fly."

So there you have it. Opposites! And for the record, the shower in Caleb's bathroom IS a bit tricky to figure out--definitely not intuitive, LOL.

Oh No!

Things have been going so well this post-partum time . . . but now I definitely have a clogged duct on my left side. It's so painful! I am praying desperately that it doesn't turn into mastitis. When I had mastitis with Anna, Mom and Dad were still here, so I could just lie around. That was good, since that was all I COULD do. And when I had it with Caleb, we were still in Ohio, and Mom came over to help with the others. What will I do now, with 6 kids and no one here, if it turns into mastitis?! Ack! Bob went to the store for cabbage, which I now have in my bra. Ummm . . . phew. And that is just the cold leaves! I haven't tried blanching them and then putting them in!

I have my 6 week post-partum appointment tomorrow (yes, it's been 6 weeks--isn't that amazing?), so I'll see what the doctor has to say. I'm not sure why the duct clogged this late in the game--my milk supply is well-regulated now, and I'm not leaking and feeling full all the time. I definitely nurse in a variety of positions, and Grace is a good, strong nurser, who I thought was emptying everything well. It's a mystery. We shall wait and see what develops. in the meantime, I'm taking lots of Motrin.

Although this seems to change the subject, it really isn't. You may remember me asking for prayer for my Uncle Jim, who is undergoing radiation therapy for cancer of the tonsil. He is in his second week, and these last 2 weeks, I have had something painful to remind me to pray for him. The first week, I had a very painful canker sore on the edge of my mouth, and everytime I opened my mouth, it hurt. I thought of his sores, and it was easy to remember to pray. Now this week, it's this blocked duct. I think the Lord knows that I can get distracted even when I really want to be faithfully praying, so He has made a way to remind me. I'm praying, Uncle Jim! I'm praying!

New Haircut

I finally got my haircut last Saturday afternoon. The last time it was cut was . . . hmmm . . . December I think, between Christmas and New Years. Yeah, I'm big into my hair, as you can tell. I've wanted to get it cut for awhile now, but I'm always hesitant to cut it short during the last trimester. There's something about a new short haircut on my hugely pregnant self that makes me look like a real pinhead--small head, huge tummy--way out of proportion. I think I'll be keeping it short now. After I got it cut, Bob and I were talking, and I mentioned how people always say men like long hair, but he seemed to like it better short. He said that "Weird Al Yankovich ruined long curly hair for me". So. No more long hair for me, I guess, as I have no deisre to remind anyone of Weird Al.

A funny thing happened after the haircut. Since I don't get anything fancy done with my cuts, I always go to the cheapest place, which around here is SuperCuts. Haircuts there are $14, and I gave a tip of $2.80 on my credit card. The next day, when we got home from church there was a vaguely cryptic message on the answering machine about a "problem I had received with my service" at SuperCuts. I couldn't think of anything so I called to find out. It turns out that when she entered the tip into the computer, she entered $280 instead of $2.80. Yeah, that's a bit of a difference! So the manager discovered the problem Sunday morning and was calling to let us know that she had taken care of it, but we might notice it showing up on our statement. LOL! That's like 12 extra haircuts, which for me is, oh, about 6 years' worth.

Grace

Finally, a picture of Grace! You know, 5 week olds just aren't that photogenic! She never looks at the camera, she flops her head at weird angles and slumps down, she waves her hands randomly around in front of her face . . . but here is finally a decent picture.

After she was born, her skin cleared up so quickly, much more quickly than any of the others. Well, a few weeks ago, all that perfect skin disappeared, and tons of zits appeared. And disappeared, and then reappeared in other places, sometimes in the course of a few hours! Now we know what Grace will look like as a hormonal teenager, LOL.

She has the "Luke/Jonathan" look about her, with bigger forehead, longer face, and the serious expressions. She has started giving big smiles to me, but I'm sure I'll never be able to catch those on camera! It's always so rewarding to see those first tentative smiles and expressions and know there really is a personality in there that is gradually coming out and responding to people!

Cruisin'

Isn't this the cutest little car?! I got it a few weeks ago at a garage sale. I can't believe we had never before gotten a car we can push, but so it was--and now we have one! Anna wishes she could be out walking wherever she wants to, but since she can't do that, the car is a close second.

Last night the kids and I went up to our little neighborhood playground. The other boys rode their bikes, but Jonathan pushed Anna. Frankly, this was faster than him riding his bike, LOL. He's still not totally confidant about pedaling, and "fast" is not how I would describe his biking at this stage of the game.

Anna has discovered that she really loves slides, so the playground is a very exciting place for her. The boys are so good with her! I love to see them catching her. I pushed Grace over in the stroller, but I knew she wouldn't be happy in there long, since she has a firm opinion about being on her back--she doesn't like it. So I brought the front pack too (why didn't I just put her in that in the first place, you ask? Good question, but it turned out well . . .), and she was much happier in that. When we were ready to leave, Caleb still wanted to ride his bike more, so I put Anna in the stroller, and Jonathan rode in the car while I pushed both things and carried Grace in the front pack and the other 3 boys rode their bikes. This enabled us to take the very long, meandering way back. It was just such a pleasant night--no sense in rushing back! But I think I looked like I "had my hands full", since that was the comment I got from lots of people who passed us, LOL.

A New (Loud) Routine

Grace is a month old. The company is all gone. So today we started back to school. To be honest, I had been dreading this day because I just didn't feel up to spinning all these plates in the air. Anna still takes a good deal of attention in the morning, I want to be consistent with exercise, since I am dying to get rid of the pouch that makes not even my "big" clothes fit yet, and of course there is Grace's nursing. Well, it was a bit of a mixed bag, as far as how it all went.

I would like to credit Grace with doing a fine job. I fed her last night around 10:30, and she slept until 7:00. Go, Grace! I am not naive to think that she will consistently do this at this point, but it was a good way to start the day, being a bit more well-rested! So I was able to feed her and then exercise with her in her swing, and then put her down and shower (giving Anna her bottle in her crib somewhere in the middle of all that). That really would be my ideal schedule, so it was nice that it worked out for once! LOL!

After I showered, I got Anna up and dressed, and we went down and had breakfast with the boys. After eating, Nathan and Luke did their vacuuming while I worked with Caleb. So far so good.

Then it all kind of fell apart. Anna has been pretty crabby lately (she just got in another new tooth), and she really started being a stinker (both in attitude as well as in diaper). Then Grace got up again to nurse, and Anna was climbing all over me. After nursing, Grace didn't really want to be set down anywhere, and Anna didn't really want anything other than what she couldn't have (the trash, stuff in the basket on the counter, the phone, etc.). Much crying by both parties ensued. Luke commented on how loud it was. I managed to get the couch stuff done with the boys that I had planned, but it was a bit rushed and stressful, LOL. We will definitely have to do some schoolwork in the afternoons this year, but . . . not today. I called it a day at lunchtime, although we are getting ready to play "Pie in the Sky", a math game about fractions, after Anna goes down.

Soooo . . . some tweaking is still needed. Anna is really the sticking point right now. It is tons easier to do school with a newborn than with a 1 year old! I need to be more regimented with the boys taking turns entertaining her during the morning, although with the frame of mind she had this morning, there was nothing that would have pleased her! (Well, except for the trash, LOL). Tomorrow is another day. Actually, we're not doing school tomorrow because there's a mom/kids playtime and lunch at church, and we're going. Nothing like easing gently into this new loud routine!

Happy Birthday, Jonathan!!

Jonathan is 4 years old today, and he has been eagerly anticipating this birthday for quite some time now. He will say, "When I am 4, I will . . . ", so he obviously has high hopes for this year! He is such a sweet little boy, with a wonderful smile (but not so much for pictures, LOL. He should have been born in the 1800's, because when we pull out the camera he either gets very serious and solemn, or he closes his eyes). He loves his big brothers and his little sisters. He especially loves whatever his older brothers love at the moment, which right now happens to be Star Wars and Bionicles. He has great manual dexterity!

We have been dragging out his birthday celebration. We started Thursday night with presents and ice cream while Grandma and Grandpa were still here. Then we brought the R2D2 cake to Bible study last night, and tonight we will have his special birthday dinner. He has selected sausage roll, along with salad (since he loves that with Italian dressing) and some other sides to be named later. Right now the birthday boy is enjoying playing lightsabers with his brothers and the other kids on the cul-de-sac. It's a great day to be 4!

R2D2 Cake

Jonathan requested another Star Wars cake for his birthday. I "led" the discussion towards R2D2 since 1) we had a small toy of him, so I would have a model, and 2) a trashcan-like shape seemed easy enough, and I didn't feel like I had enough extra brain cells at this point to try something really complicated. I was enthusiastic about R2D2, so Jonathan was too, LOL, and the cake turned out just fine. You will notice that I did not choose to put on the third leg, since the boys all assured me that it was in fact retractable. Next in my "Star Wars cake collection" (previous entry was Luke's A-Wing Fighter cake) will be a clone trooper, since that is what Nathan has requested. His birthday is 3 weeks away. This is when I ask myself why I ever let this elaborate cake tradition get started!

Allergy Appointment

Caleb had an allergy appointment yesterday with the allergy doctor at Bethesda. He last saw an allergist in June 2004, right before we moved here. For the last year and a half, I have been asking his pediatricians for a referral to the allergist, but they wouldn't give me one. "He won't do anything", is what they kept saying. Finally the doctor we saw in March gave us one, and praise the Lord, I was even able to make the appointment for while my parents were still here, so I didn't have to bring everyone.

The doctor was very, very nice and helpful. He saw us at 12:45, and we didn't leave until right around 3:00. Since Caleb's records were lost in the move (grr, don't get me started . . . the military doesn't trust us to carry our own records to our next duty station, but they have no problems losing them), he wrote up a detailed history of Caleb's allergy symptoms and issues, starting with his 2 month well-baby appointment, where we first noticed the eczema on his head. This took quite a while, and I was so glad not to have all the other kids bouncing around, not to mention needing to be nursed! That would have been slightly distracting!

After the long history, he decided what he would test Caleb for. There were 22 things, both environmental and food. Caleb didn't like the pricking at all, but he was a real trooper. As soon as the nurse finished, he started scratching his back, so I knew he was already reacting. When she lifted up his shirt after 15 minutes, his poor back was a mass of big red welts. Of the 22 things, I think there were only about 4 things that he didn't react to, and most of the reactions were greater than 4 cm. So he is NOT allergic to mold. And cedar trees and cashews. Other than that, it was pretty much positive, as far as common Virginia trees, grasses, dust, cats, dogs, and the foods that we already knew about--milk, peanuts, pecans, and walnuts--go. The walnut reaction was the biggest, about the size of a silver dollar, but they were all pretty big, to be honest. Hey, he's got allergies! LOL

After the nurse wiped off Caleb's back and put a steroid cream on his back, we went back in and met with the doctor again. He sort of tweaked the medicines we're giving Caleb now, and he told us some things to do for the dust mite allergy, like getting dust mite proof covers for the mattress and pillow, washing his bedding once a week, and having him out of the room when vacuuming. He actually likes to vacuum, so he will probably be disappointed that he can't do that anymore. I know I am!

While we were talking again, Caleb's eyes were getting really red and itchy, and he started sort of crying quietly. Finally he leaned over and whispered, "I don't want to come back here anymore." It was so sad! The doctor realized the steroid cream on the back wasn't cutting it, so he got some benedryl for Caleb, and then he started feeling better, poor guy.

As the doctor and I were talking about all of this, he said, "I can't belive that you have been just floating around all on your own for so long, trying to manage all of this!" I was so glad to hear him say that (especially since he went on to say that I had been doing a great job, LOL), because that was really how I have felt--like I had to be the one to figure out when I needed to ramp up his meds to manage his seasonal allergies and keep him from wheezing, etc., and without even really knowing what it was he was allergic to! I have felt very isolated, and it is so nice to know that I have someone on my team now. The doctor gave me his card and told me I was "family" now, and if I need another appointment for Caleb or have questions or whatever, I call this number directly. Woohoo!

Pictures!

With my slow dial-up connection, I can only post one picture at a time. So I have posted a few pictures in separate entries of our time with company. For more pictures, and a fuller account of our time, please read my aunt's blog, Pilotmom. We had such a wonderful time with everyone. My parents are leaving tomorrow, so it will be an empty house then--well, maybe not, LOL. But it will SEEM empty! And we will get back to our school routine on Monday, so the vacation will truly be over.

The vacation is over for my Uncle Jim as well, as he starts radiation for his cancer of the tonsil on Monday. This will be 5 days a week for 6 weeks, and we would greatly appreciate your prayers for him as he undergoes this trial. At least he is starting out well-rested and well-fed!