Party!

Samuel had a great birthday party. My mom outdid herself on the cake this year. Samuel drew her "blueprints" and she went from there. Not all of us were privileged to know what the design was before the party. Some of us had to wait and see. Good thing I'm not much of a party theme person. All of our immediate family was able to come plus a few friends. It was lots of fun!

He got lots of nice presents. His favorite is the Lego garage set (it is possibly a present for Jeremy too.) I'm sure he'll love all his other gifts. . . as soon as the wonderfulness of the Legos wears off a little. Construction on the garage began before the party was over and continued for most of the evening. It then resumed this morning at 6 am. It would have started earlier but we told him he had to stay in bed until 6.

Aunt Beth helped with some of the construction.

I'll post a picture of the completed project when he gets it done. (I'm sure that will be this afternoon!)

She's Only Got Brothers!

Maybe I should dig out the toy baby bottle for her!

(No, I'm not telling you the baby is a boy, it's too early to know)

Happy Birthday Samuel!

He's Six!

We just celebrated a little for his real birthday today, the party will be Sunday. The boys got Chippers from DQ and Samuel opened his present from us, a collapsible bridge for the Thomas the Train set, and we had movie night, we watched Elmo in Grouchland. He had a good day at school too, he passed out his butterscotch chip cookies and got to wear the stylish crown all day. :) He chose cookies because I told him if he wanted cupcakes I'd drive him to school so they didn't get destroyed. "I'll take cookies Mommy, I can bring them on the bus." Glad he likes riding!

He's not 9 yet is he?!

(He thought that was pretty funny.)

Thomas-isms

Thomas (with finger up nose): Mommy, what's this (thinks a second) snorkel for?

Thomas (about 9:30am): Is it lunch time yet? I'm as hungry as a bear who didn't eat dinner!


Mommy: Thomas are you going to sleep during rest time today?
Thomas: Yes, I'm as tired as a bear who didn't sleep.

School is Fun

The boys are doing well in school. Samuel is especially enjoying taking school lunch and I think Thomas is experiencing a little lunch envy . But then again Thomas and I are eating leftovers (that weren't that great in the first place, I'm still not cooking much) and Samuel comes home and talks about mini corn dogs, sloppy joes and turkey with mashed potatoes. I'd eat school lunch if I could too! Thomas is happy back at school playing with friends (the best part of school according to him) and Samuel is enjoying all the new things he gets to do. Samuel came home and literally bounced for an hour the first day and was REALLY grumpy the next two days but after some extra rest this weekend he's been doing better after school this week. Thomas had not been taking a nap at resting time after lunch but falling asleep about 5pm and waking up grumpy for dinner, so yesterday I moved rest time back to 1:30, he slept about 45min and we didn't have the late nap problem. Yay! Julia and I are getting used to having about 3 hours to ourselves and hopefully I'll be able to take advantage of the time to get some extra things done around the house as well as play with her. So all is well in our new world of having Samuel at school all day and Thomas at school three times a week. :)

Filling in Some Blanks

Since my computer time has rapidly become my nap time now that we're expecting I've filled in a couple "blog-worthy" stories from earlier this month.
Quick Quote
Yummy!
Stuck

So Quiet

It's the first day of school! Both boys got happily settled in their classrooms but now Julia and I hardly know what to do with ourselves! It wasn't so quiet this morning. . .

It was pouring so Thomas decided he needed his jacket

Yesterday we talked about when the boys get up they need to get dressed and make their beds before coming down for breakfast. So Samuel did just that. . . at 5:45. Guess we forgot to mention you don't have to get up until 6:45 or so! (In fact part of the reason it's so quiet is that I just put Julia down for a nap, poor teething girl can't handle a 5:45 wake up stomp without an early morning nap.) So they got to watch whatever it is that's on PBS at 6am.

God bless Jeremy, he got the kids and I breakfast and supervised while I got over the early morning nausea. Then both boys brushed their teeth and were ready to go. . . at 7am. So they got to watch Arthur too. As Arthur ended I had Samuel watch out the window for the bus. We drove them in today but the bus driver had given me a 10 minute window for when he'd be at our house so I wanted a little more specific time. It passed by just before 7:30 and we headed out the door too.

It was happy chaos at school as all the parents brought in their kids. Jeremy got Thomas settled in PreK and I walked Samuel up to kindergarten. Lots of parents were hanging around the room but I got him settled, told his teacher he was riding the bus home and got out of there. Really, I'm eight weeks pregnant, I can't watch the 5 o'clock news without dissolving into tears, how was I supposed to stick around and watch my oldest sit in his kindergarten seat looking all grown up?

I stopped by PreK to say bye to Thomas. He was very happy because he was sitting next to his favorite friend Gratzia who he hasn't seen all summer. Bet that'll be changed by Friday! :)I didn't even cry on the way home. Well, not that much anyway.

Quick Quote

"Mommy, the Confession stand at the pool is all out of cookies."

Yummy!

All NE girls love corn!

Did You Notice?

There's a new ticker underneath Julia's picture! I've been able to tell most of you in person, I apologize if I missed you. We found out we were expecting at the end of July, I'm about seven weeks along, the due date is April 1st (no fooling!). The nurse says "don't worry, they never come on their due date." Well, Dr. H induced me on my due date for Julia and Thomas, but no big deal, at least it's not Leap Day! Julia has learned to say Baby, but of course she has no idea what's in store. Thomas immediately asked "How'd the baby get in you?" (God put it there.) and Samuel thought we were joking. We didn't realize it for an hour or so, until he told Lynn it was just a joke. When we told him, no, we're really going to have a new baby he just said a heartfelt, "Whoa!" I've been battling some morning (okay, all day) sickness but I feel like we're past the worst. Plus yesterday my nurse said I could take half a Unisom and some B6 before bed and this morning I felt the best I have in a while, yay! Please keep us in your prayers!

Stuck

Today I came downstairs as Thomas rushed in from outside. "Mommy!! Samuel is stuck in a bush!" he exclaimed breathlessly. I didn't hear any yelling or crying so I calmly put on Julia and my shoes and yelled out the door, "Samuel, are you really stuck in a bush?" "YES!" came the slightly frantic answer. So I went outside and sure enough, Samuel was lying in our big bush, his toes still desperately trying to stay on the edge of our porch, unable to get out. So first I laughed, then I rescued him. How does a small boy get stuck in a large bush? Well, first you throw a small bucket onto the bush, then you try to fish it out with a long stick. If you can't reach it you climb over the porch railing and stand on that side, leaning to reach until you get top heavy and fall in. "You can't put this on the blog, Mommy," he told me. "Really?" I asked, already wording the post in my head, "Because that's the best thing that's happened around here in awhile. I needed a good laugh." "Well, I guess maybe you can." Hey, at least I didn't make him wait for me to get the camera!

County Fair and Parade

My 11 year old cousin Greta came home with us after the family reunion to join in on the fun! The weather was wonderfully pleasant so we had an extra good time. The boys enjoyed seeing their entries and Thomas wasn't scared of the animal barns this year (definitely still very cautious but willing to go in and look). Julia seemed to really want to ride the little tractor ride but we decided the carousel was a better option for her. We enjoyed (or devoured, however you want to look at it) our yearly funnel cake and went home happy!

Family Reunion

We've Been Busy!

Last week we went to a family reunion at a nearby state park. All of my dad's cousins on his dad's side were there plus lots of their kids. My Grandpa Roy had 3 sisters, Irene (the only sibling still living), her 3 daughters and one of her granddaughters came, Florence's two children, two of her grandchildren and two of her great grandchildren came, all of my grandpa's four children came (my dad, his two brothers and his sister), all five of his grandchildren came, and three great grandchildren. My grandma was there plus seven spouses (that sounds like my grandma has seven spouses but you know what I mean). There were 31 of us in all. We had a great time and did lots of stuff. Here are Samuel, Thomas and my cousin Greta's favorite parts as told by them:

Samuel: Nels (my 13 year old cousin) and I made a game. It was a scavenger hunt. You had to find as many gold pine cones as possible. I liked it because you got to find stuff, but I didn't like it when Nels popped out and stole my gold.

Translation: Nels and Samuel hid rocks, sticks, and pine cones that they had spray painted gold along a trail and we walked the trail in teams and tried to find the things they'd hidden. Samuel drew his team Greta, himself, Thomas, and Tera. (sorry, I didn't flip the pictures today)

Thomas: On my family reunion I went paddle boating with Daddy. It was fun. While we were paddling we talked, tried to run over the gooses, I told Daddy not to get stuck, we got our picture taken and waved at everyone on the dock. It was raining a little, which was a little fun. I had to wear a life jacket so if we fell in the water we would float. The best thing about paddle boating was going there and trying to run into Lynn and Logan's boat. The End. Thomas drew the lake, the paddle boat, the bridge, some stairs and the rain.

Greta: Mini golfing was my favorite thing to do because I haven't done it in a long time and it was exciting to do it again.

Real pictures will come soon (sometime when Julia isn't up!)