The Bottom Rule

Nicholas was so proud when he brought me over to see his handiwork (and so oblivious that I might be angry about it) that I couldn't bring myself to scold him (also I was probably the one who absentmindedly put the marker in the drawer instead of out of reach).

Now whenever someone is doing something naughty that isn't on the list I say, "Bottom rule!" and make up a consequence.  :)  

And yes, I did copy the idea from Mama Bernstein Bear.  It worked for her and it's working for me.  In fact I rarely had to enforce the rules at first.  Just knowing they might have to pick up 100 things deterred much of the bad behavior.  The list has lost some of its novelty though, I may get some cleaning done soon if a couple attitudes don't change....

I think this is his handiwork too.  Thankfully this one isn't in permanent marker.

Lessons

Please continue to pray for Samuel's classmate and friend Alex.  It looked like he had gotten his miracle when the last-ditch chemo shrunk his tumors enough for him to have a bone marrow transplant but three weeks after the transplant the cancer was back and there is nothing left to do but pray.  He is home with his family loving him for however long he has left.  My heart is breaking for his parents and for all the children who have been praying for him so faithfully.  Learning that God says no to prayers that everyone thinks should be answered yes is a hard lesson at any age, let alone ten. It feels like our whole community is just waiting.  And yet with his strong child-like faith Samuel said to me today, "Well, Mom, I guess if Alex can't get a cure then he will be happier in Heaven."  Thanks for reminding me, Sam.

Summer

Long time no blog! We've been busy and our phone line suddenly went dead on Wednesday.  Turns out all the rain made the dirt settle and pulled the line out of the jack outside the house.  After waiting two days for the repair man it took him literally five minutes to fix it.  I'm just glad it was outside so they can't charge me!
 After enjoying a lovely month an a half or so of just summer fun our busy part of summer has kicked in.  I'm not sure I like the second half of summer being busy, it makes it fly by too fast!  Thomas and Julia enjoyed Totus Tuus last week.  Samuel did a three day football camp and then a one day wrestling camp that same week. Philip got to go to wrestling camp too.  He was actually below the age cut off but they let him come anyway and the coach said he and the other little four year old, Jake, listened best of the bunch so I was happy.  Initially I was hesitant to send him but he loved it and watching him and Jake wrestle the last 15 minutes of camp was one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time.  They'd been at camp for two hours so they were both exhausted but unwilling to admit it.  They both had on teeny tiny wrestling shoes from the club's stash of shoes.  They would face off in wrestling stance and Jake would take Philip down every time (I guess Philip needs to work on that) then Philip would wriggle free and they'd face off again.  Every once in awhile when they were both down they'd just lay there for a minute.  When the coach said to do referee position one of them would get down on his hands and knees and the other would climb up on his back.  Guess they need to go over that again too.  :)  When we returned the shoes the coach said they'd be there in July for the second one day camp so I guess Philip was good enough to be welcome at that one too.  Samuel enjoyed the day too.  They had a college age wrestler come to guest coach and I was impressed with how well he did with 25 or so rambunctious boys.
This week and next the kids are doing swim lessons.  With so many in lessons our mornings are busy getting to lessons an then waiting around for them to be done.  Samuel is at 9:30, Julia and Philip are at 10:50 and Thomas goes with Jen at noon.  No fun running around but they are all doing really well and getting good at their skills.  Thomas also had two one day classes to work into the running but he enjoyed them both and gave me one less kid to keep happy while we wait!

Everyone is getting tanned and/or freckled up and bleached out!

Hope your summer is going well too!

Happy Father's Day!

I thought these turned out really cute.  We changed Nicholas' picture and did one for the grandpas too.  Found the idea on Pinterest somewhere....

Nicholas' Words

Nicholas is doing some talking!  I love the way little boys learn words.  It's so interesting what's important enough to them to say first.  (Maybe girls are the same- I don't have much comparison material here.)

Anyway here are his words so far:
Mom- works for me or Jeremy (although he does say Da for Jeremy sometimes), also I'm pretty sure he used it for Grandpa Steve last time we saw him
'Ello!- hello, often said while peeking around something
No!- no and yes, you have to listen to how he says it
Dump- used when playing with his dump truck-  this word has been early on in all my boys' vocabulary
Guys!- usually yelled at his siblings as he tries to keep up (see image below)
Yum!- He just said this to me today as he handed me packages of butter to put in the fridge. Sorry dude, not feeding you straight butter now matter how many times you say "yum"
shs- shoes, very important because you have to put on your shoes before you can go outside
Do! (pronounced "dough")- go!  As in ready, set, go!
I think he said fish a few times while we were hiking at the park last week but we haven't seen any fish since so he hasn't said it again.

I think that's all of them for now.

"Guys!"

First Adventure of the Summer = thisclose to Fail

So we decided to go hiking last week.  Samuel was at my parents' so we took Thomas' friend Anthony with us.  We started off rough.  We stopped at a grocery store just before the park we were going to hike at (half an hour from home) and I discovered my wallet was still in my little purse because I went to a 31 bag fundraiser the night before.  So I have $1.  Then I realize I left the park permit at home on the counter.  Called Jeremy, he was in a meeting.  Called Lynn, she checked for me and discovered that there are none of our banks nearby, not that I had any ID with me anyway.  So I search through my bag and presto!  God hands me a twenty dollar bill.  (I must have just thrown it in my bag when I got paid for piano lessons.)  Thank you Jesus!  So now we have enough to pay for a day pass and admittance into the aquarium at the park.  So we skip the apples to supplement lunch and just head to the park.  I don't see a place to get the day pass so we just park and hope for no ticket.  As we're getting out to hike I go to put Nicholas down and he somehow doesn't understand what we're doing and throws his head back at just the wrong moment and lands on the cement with an awful thud.  I rush into the aquarium with a screaming baby to ask for ice which they don't have.  Thankfully, Nicholas calms down and the bump on the back of his head doesn't seem too bad.  After all that settles down the man at the desk tells me admission is free!  From here on out everything went well.  We decided to eat and hike first and had a nice time.  We hiked a long way, enjoyed the aquarium, fed the fish some Better Cheddars (that's all that was left of lunch) played at a fun playground and headed home tired and happy and without a ticket for not having a park pass.   And since I didn't end up using any of the $20 at the park, we got $1 mini shakes for the way home.  Not bad for a first adventure after all.

Thomas requested I post this picture with the title:

Best Friends