Pictures of Summer

Father's Day in Taylor's Falls, MN. Trying out my new camera while the boys climbed on rocks and drove their rock crawlers.

What a beautiful day for appreciating Paul and all he does for our family.

Spending lots of time in the car traveling to MI to visit family.



Having my grandparents in MI meet Caleb for the first time
and celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary with them.

Spending a short afternoon with Paul's dad in MI (He's 89 and runs a greenhouse still.) We're looking forward to having him visit in August.

Celebrating Ethan's 9th birthday and attempting to get a nice picture of our boys together. And this was before all the sugar consumption.



A quote on the wall of the MN Children's Museum that sums up perfectly how I feel about my life.

Self-face painting with some help from Mom.

More fun at the Children's Museum.

It's hard to believe that summer is already winding down (for those of us who start school in August anyway.)

What We've Been Up To

Admiring the new bee "barn" Paul and my Dad built for our bees (which have not arrived yet....hopefully today!)

Swinging in a new swing from Gramma and Papa

Tending to the new chickens and hoping they start laying soon

Playing outside and catching minnows in the ditch

Getting dirty in the sandbox

Napping on the couch

Dressing up as a doctor

Taking swimming lessons

Hanging out at swimming lessons

Learning to trust his swim teacher

Things That Make Me Smile

Copying from my friend's Julie's blog, I thought I'd share a list of things that have made me smile lately.

~Watching "Mary Poppins" with the boys this afternoon and watching Elijah's reactions since this was his first time.


~Caleb's toothy grin and wobbly walk and especially the happy noises he makes when I sit down in our "nursing spot."
~The transformation of our bedroom - this has been an ongoing process. It's one of only two rooms I didn't paint last fall because I wanted to get a new duvet cover first. Well the new duvet cover's been on for awhile, I think I have a paint color picked out (2 actually, as one wall will be an accent color), and we have NEW bedroom furniture arriving in a couple of weeks. This was a long process. What originally was going to be a head board and maybe a dresser is going to be a complete bed, dresser, mirror and nightstand! Can't wait for it to be delivered and set up. Then once the weather is warm enough to have windows open, painting can begin. When the project is done, I will share more before and after photos.

~Fresh haircuts for all the boys - which means I don't have to cut them for another 6 weeks or so.

~Caleb's repetitive "uh-oh" whenever he drops something

~Ethan's sign in the downstairs bathroom - he set up a pet store in our downstairs bar area. He's had Elijah assisting him. Last night I went into the bathroom and when I turned on the light I saw the sign Ethan made. It reads, "All employees must wash their hands before returning to work. Thank you. Manager." It made me laugh out loud. Especially since reminding Elijah to wash his hands IS a good idea, except Elijah can't read.

~Caleb holding his hand up to his ear and saying "hi" every time he hears the phone ring. Also he says "ow" whenever he sees an animal - real, stuffed, or a photo.

~Elijah's burgeoning sense of humor.

~Paul's acceptance of my desire to redecorate our bedroom as long as there are no decorative pillows added to the bed (oh, the horror!). He switched the office's overhead light fixture with our bedroom one - a job that looked a lot easier (from my vantage point) than it actually was. My contribution to the task: getting the ladder out and setting it up in the office.

~Spring is in the air - it's still below freezing outside with lots of snow yet to melt, but our dirt road and driveway are mud pits which gives me hope....and annoys me all to no end.

~new washcloth colors!

~new blog discoveries: Reagan's Blob, Young House Love, Tales of Me and the Husband, City Wife, Country Life

~The thought of being able to hang cloth diapers on the clothes line again.

~The thought of Sara holding new baby Levi in just a few short days!

~Ethan winning 1st place for speed at the AWANA grand prix a couple weeks ago. He won every heat and got the track record as well.

~Finally owning Caleb free and clear!

~Working out and the result: my arms are starting to look like Jillian's - wish the rest of my body was showing more change. But I do feel different, have more energy, and am definitely noticing my muscles growing.

~Sunshine!

A Whole Lotta Stuff

Elijah is four! Here's to another year of enjoying him! Ethan turned 8 a couple of months ago, but I can't post any pictures because they're on our other computer that died.

Our church nursery remodel is almost complete due to many hands and lots of sweat. Thankfully no tears! What began as a new look through painting has become a major project with a wall removal, new carpeting (hopefully being installed tomorrow) that was donated, new paint, and all-around a whole new look. I can't wait for it to be done as it's been a lot of physical and mental work!

I am more than halfway to my goal of 24 quarts of spaghetti sauce and still the tomatoes are coming. At this rate, I may even get a bunch of pizza sauce made too. I recently discoved the Norpro Sauce Master and it is my new best friend.

Caleb has been crawling for about a week! He is now over 7 months old and I've never had a baby so mobile at this age, so it's been fun and crazy. We love him to pieces!

So we've been busy, especially considering we also started school. I'm still reading your blog posts, but haven't been doing much commenting because of time.

Tidbits

• We have been busy at VBS this week! The big boys are having a blast, though Elijah won't talk to his teachers or classmates. I find it humorous and very much his m.o. I've been hanging out in the un-air conditioned nursery cleaning and preparing it for a remodel. Today we are home because Ethan woke up with a fever.
• The humidity levels here have been hovering around 100% which makes it feel like Charleston, S.C. I visited there about 10 years ago and it was unbelievable. The ocean water was like bath water and the minute you walked outside you were dripping. I could never imagine living in a place like that.
• Caleb is sitting like a pro. He can pivot on his tummy and move pretty much anywhere. We have re-installed the gate at the top of the stairs and are bracing ourselves for the stage to come. You know, the one where you have to watch the baby like a hawk and train them well. We're of the camp that believes in "houseproofing the baby" rather than babyproofing the house.
• The plan is to start school next week. Should be interesting....
• My laptop screen died so I'm using Paul's which is uber-small, has certain keys in the wrong location, but is much faster than mine. Mine is now tethered to our office (read: room where Paul keeps all of his toys and stuff) where we have a spare monitor. Thus I have not completed all the record keeping things I had hoped to do before school starts.
• I'm feeling very disorganized these days. It always seems like I'm working on multiple projects at once and thus I feel like I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off minus the blood.
• Elijah can't seem to stop falling and hurting himself. I've never used our emergency first aid kit until the past couple weeks. Here's to hoping some of his current scabs heal before he falls and breaks them open again.
• Still thinking a lot about Felicity and in disbelief that it's almost been two years. Wonder when it won't feel so surreal.
• So happy about all my blogging friends and the new babies that have entered their lives healthy! Praise God!
• And lastly, I have 50+ tomatoes sitting on my counter all at various stages of ripening. The ground squirrels are eating them off the plants as soon as they are the slightest bit red, so I'm having to pick them daily. I'm thrilled about making pasta and pizza sauce soon and lots of it!

Dear Elijah,

Just today we counted it out on the calendar and in only 41 days, you will be four! Four! Where has the time gone? You are such a fun little guy. And whiny. Did I mention that yet?

Each day with you is interesting. Some days the big boy in you comes out and some days you revert to baby mode, complete with baby talk lately. Where did that come from? I admit, I love it when you want to cuddle, but I long too, for you to mature.

You've recently decided you don't want to eat toast (with peanut butter and honey) for every meal (not that we let you) and have decided you like more interesting things. Namely chips and other snack foods. Or anything with sugar in it. You will drop just about anything for food that tastes good. I hear "I'm Huuunnngggrry!" many times throughout the day and yet, it takes you SOOOO long to finish a meal.

I think it's cute that instead of saying "Am I....," you say, "Are me....?" In many ways, you walk to the beat of your own drum. I hope that grows into some good leadership skills. Right now, it's hard to imagine. Your first reaction to things that don't go your way is anger. And with the anger comes hitting and scratching. This is usually directed towards your older brother and I know sometimes he deserves it. We working on making sure he's not purposely teasing you and also working on teaching you how to ignore it. It's not been easy. For anyone.

You are a good big brother. You love Caleb. A little too much at times, but you're getting better about being gentle. Sometimes you are the first to notice when I'm sad. Your usual response to this is to say, "I'm sad about 'Licity too." And then you go back to playing. But I love that you say her name and talk about her, even if you don't remember her very well.

You are a creative kid, Elijah. You love play-dough and painting and other artistic endeavors. You are also becoming a big helper. You love to help me in the kitchen, especially with washing potatoes and fruit. You also love to help Daddy with whatever he's working on. You have made it very clear that you want to be a daddy and a policeman when you grow up. You are going to have kids so that you can do devotions with them. You also already know who you're going to marry, since you can't marry me. You've told me you love her even though she's a couple years older.

We're working on your listening skills too at this point and you're doing better. You're definitely our wild child and I already envision having you run laps or something like that before expecting you to sit still for very long to do school work. And speaking of that, you're so anxious to do school and especially to read. I'm think we'll work on it this year, though very informally.

All in all Elijah, I just want you to know how much we love you. No matter what!

Love,
Mama

Today

Today I will.....

• continue to try to explain to Elijah why we can't do something "weawy, weawy, weawy, weawy, weawy, weawy (x5) fun" every day.
• welcome Ethan home after being gone at his dad's for 9 days! We missed you, blonde boy!
• Show Ethan how to clean out the caterpillar container and rejoice that I won't have to do it myself anymore!
• wash a load of cloth diapers and hang them out to dry, since it's appearing today will be the perfect summer day (Perfect in my mind = 70s and sunny).
• attempt to fold and put away 2-6 loads of laundry
• attempt to finish up Caleb's scrapbook through 4 months
• add a couple of pages to Ethan and Elijah's scrapbooks
• tell Elijah to stop whining approximately 5,237 times
• nurse Caleb too many times to count (therefore forgetting each time, which side he nursed on last)
• Enjoy every nursing and snuggle session with Caleb.
• Go outside with the boys
• Make sandwiches and such for our field trip/park day tomorrow - we're going to be touring Rainbow Foods and learn about "healthy" eating.
• Pull Caleb's thumb out of his mouth every 10 minutes.
• And finish vacuuming

What are you doing today?

Busyness in Photos

Here's some photos of what's been going on lately. First off, this baby just keeps getting cuter and sweeter as the days go by. Can't believe he'll be 4 months old on Saturday!

Ethan (second kid from left) "graduated" from AWANA sparks. It was his third year and he completed all three books. AWANA stands for 'Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed' and is our Wednesday night children's program. It's great and the kids learn lots of scripture while having fun. It's most common at Evangelical Free Churches. Check it out near you!

Elijah (second from right and looking very stoic) finished his first year of AWANA Cubbies. Despite his stoicism in the photo, he loves it!

This is my "nursery moms group" decked out for the annual AWANA carnival. Each year we choose a theme and base our games around it. This year's western theme included "pin the badge on the sheriff" and lassoing the rocking horse.

And finally, our baby/child dedication at church. As I stood on stage, I looked down upon the stand below me where Felicity's casket was during her memorial just 18 months prior. I held back the tears because of missing her and at the same time thanked God for her and for Caleb.

Illustory

Some of you may remember this funny post.

Well, Ethan took that event and wrote a mostly true story for school. Then using a product called Illustory he had it published.

All 6 copies arrived in the mail today and we are thrilled with the results.

I will treasure our copy; it's even signed by the author.

And as a bonus, feast your eyes on the cute baby:

My Three Sons

Ethan (7.5): Inventive, creative, imaginative, lover of books and building things. Generous, helper, loves holding and snuggling Caleb, good at memorizing, stubborn, good student, has the skinniest legs, affectionately called "Blonde Boy," loves macaroni and cheese, and enjoys playing with friends and spending time with family.

Elijah (3.5): feisty, distracted, whiny, quite the snuggler, entertaining, bouncy, wild, quiet until he feels comfortable with you and then will talk your ear off, covers his nose whenever he's sitting on the toilet, lover of toast with peanut butter and honey, and very blunt.

(This face is not a naughty face but a face that we have coined Elijah's "Klingon Face" despite him having no idea what a klingon is!)

Caleb (10.5 weeks): easygoing, mellow, falls asleep anywhere, loves to nurse and sleep with Mommy and Daddy, smiley and happy as long as his tummy is full and his diaper is clean, and loved by all.

These are my three (earthly) sons and I am very blessed!

Waiting

Yep, that's our baby boy! Taken at our appointment last Wednesday (34 wks., 5 days). He's doing great and when we go for our appointment in two days, we get to schedule my induction!!!!

I'm thrilled to soon know when he will be in my arms. We're hoping that will happen in less than two weeks.

We had a really good Christmas - busy as always, but so much fun (and very tiring for me!) Since Paul's been off all last week, we had plenty of preparation time and my parents joined us on Christmas eve and stayed for a few days. They only live about 40 minutes away, but it's nice to have them here for days versus hours. It started snowing heavily on Christmas eve and in about two days we had approximately 12-15 inches on the ground. The boys had fun sledding with Papa and Daddy and building a partial snowman which quickly became something to jump off of rather than a snowman. Here they are in their matching vests from my dad (Papa) on Christmas morning.

My brother Richard joined us for Christmas Day and Elijah had fun dominating "Rish-urd's" attention. Paul got me a few special gifts, even though the landscaping was supposed to cover all gifts for the year. His theme for my gifts was "ministering to my heart." I received a new PINK vacuum (something I've been wanting for a long time and the pink part made it all the more special!) and a gift certificate to a local "spa." It's enough for three-1 hour massages or whatever I want to use it for. I was floored and excited! I've never had a professional massage before and this place even does a prenatal massage! I'm hoping to have one done before Caleb arrives.

We were going to light an ice candle on Felicity's grave on Christmas eve, but due to the already fallen and falling snow, it was too hard for all of us to get into the cemetery and I knew the candle wouldn't stay lit for long. But being the great daddy that he is, Paul got through the snow and placed it on her grave and cleaned her headstone off. Hopefully we'll get a chance to light it soon. I'm stunned to think that this is our second Christmas without her. I look forward to kissing Caleb's chubby cheeks as they look so much like hers. While I haven't been so worried this past week, I'm feeling a lot more emotional than I have for quite awhile because of missing Felicity.

I'm exhausted already, from just typing this out and I want to try out my new vacuum a little more, so this is it. I'll be sure to let you all know when the induction is scheduled for.

Blessings,