It's Wild Here

updates

Ja: Soaking up the final weeks of summer, still gardening (watering often due to heat), attending Jacob's birthday sleepover, striving to be more playful with difficult siblings, striving to use less pottymouth everywhere, considering a minor haircut, doing a lot of ink drawings on file folders.

Je: Four soccer games in a weekend, making the finals, appreciating a good coach, very unhappy to miss birthday sleepover due to sleep requirements for soccer, working through the first fat HP book - #4 - and enjoying the Quidditch content.

Ryan: working hard to learn self-control with baby and cat (making lots of good progress, too), taking a break from any toileting at all, playing games involving pirates, lions, birds, babies and boats. Enjoys being told stories aloud -particular the three bears and three little pigs - huffing and puffing are a highlight. Enjoys making "quicksand" by dragging the hose out to the sandbox, having a little separation anxiety when going to Sh's house, but so far not enough to outweigh the fun and stay home, except once. Also, we're trying out a little more structured routine, to see if that gives him some grounding.  To start with, a more regular bedtime routine with bath.  Next, morning routine and regular quiet time.

K: popping 2 molars and 2 more top teeth in front, trying to run, transitioning to one nap (about half the time), still not eating much solid food, but a few bites at each meal time. Very attached to his "towel" (prefold cloth diaper - fortunately we have many of these), out of cloth diapers himself until we get out of this busy period wrt selling the house. K is also enjoying climbing on things. Yesterday I turned around to see him standing all the way up on the seat of R's trike, out on the driveway. Two feet. On the seat. On three wheels. Very satisfied and quite safe-feeling.

Evan and Amy:  thinking more seriously about moving (within town, but somewhere with 1-2 more rooms and/or basement), clearing out the garage, surviving a weekend soccer tournament through heat in the 90s, up with belly aches and wide-awake littles from 3-5am. In other words, cranky and anxious.

God's home movies

This morning, I asked Ryan to clean up the scrambled eggs that fell on his chair.  Evan suggested that he do so by licking it like a dog.  ("It's more fun that way!") This led to a discussion of whether fart molecules can penetrate wood.

Sometimes, I think God must pop in an old tape of 13-year-old Amy, daydreaming about her future adult life which probably varied, but never ever (ever) involved 4 boys and a toilet-humor-loving spouse.  And then God laughs and laughs, like he's watching Frasier.

score!

The local nursing home/assisted living facility had their annual yard sale. Many handmade, natural fiber, old-fashioned and beautiful things were found.  For the most part, these are linens I'll use or linens with enough damage that I'll cut them for sewing. Either way, happy happy!

Oh, I also found an adorable plate, DVD the boys like (KPax), and a single weight for my new twice-a-week strength training plan. Three Pampered Chef wooden spoons, bag of yarn, and a very sweet Christmas kitchen towel.  Grand total for the pile of linens and all others, $10.

Now, I'm off to fill that same box with something for good will.  A box comes in, a box goes out.

If you're interested, pics of the treasures are here.

birds, deer, messes, children, looking back

Our birdhouse is broken. It was awesome - totally stumped the squirrels. If the feeder had the weight of a squirrel, the whole outer frame would slide down and cover the openings. A bird is too light so they could get the seed. Something is busted, and it won't stay up now... poor birdies. The feeder was expensive, ugh! But I guess we had it over a year and that's as much as I can expect.

Speaking of birds and their feeding, Ryan has discovered my secret birdseed stash and finds it to be an improvement over his huge sandbox. sigh.

Ever since I snuck a single moth ball into the dirt under our tomato plant containers, the rabbits haven't been back to chomp down the plants. Yay!  I did spot this hungry creature in our back yard last night.

Jamie got his first paycheck today in the mail. He plans to save all his garden job money, and that's no small feat considering how badly he wants/needs a new cell phone. His second laundered cell phone is now in the toddler toy basket, and he's saving up.

J and J are going to try out for the select soccer team in the neighboring town. I think the time commitment is going to be huge and the workouts unlike anything they've experienced, but they are excited to try. I'm assuming they'd have to practice through the summer, but they also want to play the casual pickup games on weeknights in town.  I'm told Je was out ball-handling the high school kids at the park last night. wow.

Ryan is back to daily napping.  I think he must have some kind of allergy issue - seasonal, or strawberries or both. I've decided to give him some claritin daily for a few weeks and see if things improve. He is so blinky and twitchy, and seems generally drained of emotional reserves. The weekend was hard. One afternoon last week, I thought he'd make it through the day and have an early bedtime, but apparently he really needed to sleep sooner.

K is still weighing 20 lbs, crawls with great speed and occasionally takes a few steps.  He popped his next top tooth this morning (that makes 4), so we now have to have a really good latch, or the top teeth sink in, and yow. Sharp, those new ones.  K likes to play with Jane and Ryan, is not happy to see me walk away but seems easy to distract if I'm gone. I've done a couple 1-2 hour errands in town without him and it's gone smoothly. He eats a lot more solid food in the past two weeks, so that's helpful. He really likes pasta, lentil soup, banana, and in moments of desperation Yummy Organic lollipops in the car seat. Sticky infant, anyone?

E and I are still looking at houses, considering moving versus adding, and trying to figure out what we can really afford. None of the houses for sale have really been right for us, so far.

Fynn spent the night again last Friday. He and Ryan played tee ball and had a blast.

This time last year:

not missing this

ohhh, the baby is seeping out of him week by week

the final weeks as a 3boy family

It was a 3-cake day...

Saturday began with a birthday party for R to attend at the local dairy. He had a good time, and only made it twice to the cake before I could get there and prevent his grabbing a piece off.  He was patient. Cake is the reason God made birthdays, you know.

Next we drove to Cincinnati for big picture time at the park. A friend of K came to do some professional photos for a song, because he's still learning. The kids were all marvelously cooperative, with just a few brief lapses. It was over quickly and we went to my brother's for food (delicious, D!) and another cake. At one point D put on Laurie Berkner and the 5 cousins in their matching white tees were dancing around madly, with the two babies looking on. It was a scene. 

Finally, we drove home to YS and visited with DOS and Grandpa, and the Sheridans. It was a very nice visit with more fabulous food and many children.  Here is E with her 6th (and she's only 30!). It was a pleasure to visit with someone who made no incredulous comments about our 4-kid family; who was, indeed, totally unimpressed.  ;-)

Ryan made a friend with #5 - they walked around like this for most of the evening.

 

And I almost forgot... we ate cake!

trip to dallas

This may be one of those posts you only read if you were in dallas with us, or have an odd interest in other people's  not-that-interesting vacation pictures and stories.

Let's begin.

Leaving at the Dayton airport was difficult. They managed to make the process of checking bags even LESS streamlined than ever. We had to drag our (10) checked pieces of luggage to a desk to get tagged, and then drag them back to another station where they load them on to a conveyer belt. We were dealing with two carseats and a small stroller, plus luggage for 6 people including 2 changes of fairly dressy clothes, so.  Security was intense! The security people were not happy people. They replied to any basic question or request as though they'd been verbally attacked. At one point I was on the floor in front of a long line of people, with a toddler and baby out of slings/strollers, no shoes, carry-on bags accumulating on the conveyer belt, and someone took Evan across the room so they could dig through our toy bag. It was overwhelming, to say the least.

The flight was cramped and long; K did not sleep, only fussed. Ryan was antsy and wouldn't keep his belt on. We were met at the Dallas airport by Grammy, a very happy sight for everyone. She drove us through downtown Dayton to our hotel without missing a single turn.  Props to The Grammy. 

K did a lot of this. He quite fell in love with that adorable baby in the mirror.

On Friday morning, K woke me up at 6am, and we headed downstairs for the very nice supply of coffee  breakfast buffet.  I drank and did some knitting while K watched the downtown traffic from his stroller. After everyone else was up, we hopped on the bus (the DART) and visited Fair Park, which is a collection of museums, a few places to eat and some nice outdoor gardens, lake, etc.

 

And inside, were some very sharp teeth!

Afterward, we had lunch at a really bizarre interesting restaurant. We had a ball enjoying the decor and visiting with our very kind and charming waiter, JD (even though he looked at all the kids and asked Evan "don't you know what causes that?" - har har.)

We waited patiently, soaking up all the extra time with Daddy.

The rehearsal dinner was fun (not counting the small panic we had when Ryan ate a strawberry, and later body-slammed knocked down a 1-year-old little girl with an enthusiastic hug). The food was fabulous and the space in the room was good for the kids to be able to get up and run around (thanks to the Grammy planner for this arrangement).

That night, reality set in for Ryan, who was until then excited about the whole plane, wedding, texas idea. He wanted to go home, and he wanted it all night long.  Sleep was not a really big part of this trip, but like I said, the coffee was just an elevator ride away.

The next day was wedding day, and what a beautiful wedding it was. I don't think I've ever seen another bride beam like Caryn was beaming. The ceremony was lovely, Auntie Beth sang marvelously, R (!!!) sat still and mostly watched, and K slept in the sling. At this point, it was the kids' bedtime, and we were all rather done with travel, but were off to the reception. Personally, I was hoping everyone would rise to the occasion and enjoy the party.   One of mine and one of the cousins were not doing well, ready to get out of the noise and chaotic festivity. They stuck it out for a while and then we said our goodbyes. They were real goodbyes, because we were off to the airport at 6am the next morning.

Grandpa, sweet cousins P and R, both very big fans of the Grandpa Bear.

And for the finale:

click

He could have danced all night, he could have danced all night.

and remember the little girl from the hug at the rehearsal dinner?

click

I only know when he began to dance with me I could have danced, danced, danced..all night

I don't think I talked about Christmas for R this year. (I know a lot of you have heard about this already, but for the record...) He had a wonderful time on the 23rd when everyone came here. He seemed to have a good time on Christmas Eve, visiting my dad (who gave him this very fun and busy truck ) and running around Uncle D's house and touching all the things a toddler shouldn't touch. He had a great time with his cousins and second cousin. Unfortunately, on the drive home he  complained that his tummy hurt, and proceeded to vomit several times before we made it back. Car full of winter clothes and gifts, into the carseat, etc etc. It was pretty awful for everyone, especially him.  His gifts sat under the tree for nearly 3 days - he'd make a half-hearted attempt to open one here and there, and then need to sleep. A pile of untouched gifts for a 2-year old on the 25th is just Very Sad.

Just typing this post is making me queasy, so I'll end it with a very concise summary:  we all caught it, and well, Christmas comes every year so we'll just look forward to the next one.

The highlights in gift-giving:

DS games for the big boys
Lego Creator Mythical Creatures for Evan
Star Wars lego for Jamie
Bionicle for Jeremiah
Climbing dome for Ryan
Giant dinosaur for Ryan
Wrapping paper and ribbon (and lots of socks) for Kellen
((drumroll please))  the #1 gift of the year, resulting in near-weeping from mama and very toasty toes:

handmade slippers for both parents - handmade BY their talented and generous older sons.  I can't wait to get pictures of these slippers up here for you to see. Grammy took J and J on two occasions to visit a special older friend who is a master sewing goddess. She and her daughter and Grammy helped the boys to sew these fleece slippers. It was hard work! They couldn't wait to give them to us, and tell us everything they'd learned. Did you know Mrs. K sewed parachutes in WW2?  Do you know how a serger works? We made all the pieces for these slippers and then we couldn't figure out how to put them together!  Can we have those slippers back now because we have to reinforce the seams for you...

::: love and thanks to all the slipper fairies this year :::

Your daily dose:

Accomplishments

Jamie can put Kellen to sleep. Jeremiah makes delicious muffins. I am able to take all four boys out for errands and lunch without any meltdowns (the absence of a meltdown from myself being the prime accomplishment).

looking back

Past Holiday Seasons

gram's visit

Last week, Gram visited with the dogs. She spent the night and caught us all in our sleepiness on the couch.

catching food is what these dogs were hoping for