One Sunday Afternoon…

We actually had sunshine!  We’ve had so much rain this June that I’ve been wondering if it’s really summer!

We got home from church, had lunch, and decided to have the big boys turn off the video games (after all, they can do that if it rains), and play outside.

First, we got out the bubbles.  We got Jonny a Zome Tool Crazy Bubbles set for his birthday (because I am a chemistry geek at heart), and it really is very cool!  It’s neat to see how the bubbles form within the structures you build, but then the wind takes over and it acts just like a large traditional bubble blower.

Both big boys loved it.  Nate giggled every time  there was a long stream of bubbles.

We got out the Slip ‘n Slide for a bit.  The big boys enjoyed it but the water was frigid!

The babies watched intently.  I know from past experience that Ben doesn’t much care for the cold water.  I tried Nate and got an almost identical reaction.  Can’t say that I blame them.

The big boys practiced their gymnastics.  Mark and Isaac tried to teach Jonny how to do a cartwheel.  I think he almost got it.

Mark and the big boys even washed both vans!  By the end of it all, Ben fell fast asleep in the grass.  He really does like being outside.

I am really hoping that this summer we can spend more time outdoors.  We are actually going house-hunting over the next few days.  We are hoping to find a home with a bigger, safer yard for all our boys to play outside more.  Wish us luck!

Spring Soccer

I love watching the big boys play soccer!

Isaac is on one of our local AYSO Under-10 teams, and Mark is coaching.  They’ve had two games so far.   Jonny still plays on the Under-6 team but hasn’t had a game yet.  So far, the cold, rainy April weather hasn’t been cooperating too well with practice days or Jonny’ s soccer games.

However, the weather was gorgeous on Saturday, and it was nice to get everyone out for a little fresh air and sunshine.  I loaded Ben and Nate and all their paraphernalia into their double stroller.  Both little boys were fighting colds and Nate wasn’t in the happiest mood.  Ben, however, loves being outside.

Jonathan was all set with his Gameboy and a snack.

It was a little difficult watching three kids under 6 without help (since Mark was coaching), but it was still fun.  Nate got fed up sitting in the stroller and wanted to be held.   Jonny also wanted to sit on my lap along with the baby, and predictably had to go to the bathroom during the game, but he eventually found a friend to play with on the sidelines.  Ben, good little guy that he is,  fell asleep shortly after the game started and slept for hours.

To my surprise, all the kids (except for Ben who was sleeping with the stroller canopy up) got mild sunburns.  I never thought the sun would be strong enough for that!  I’ll be sure to take sunscreen to future soccer games.

I’m really ready for a whole week of warm sunny weather!

When it rains…

What an eventful week!    My husband Mark also blogged most of this, so my apologies for being repetitive.

Nate has been sick for the entire week.  Initially he had just a fever and a nasty cough, but by Monday night he started wheezing.  We took him to see the pediatrician on Tuesday.  The pediatrician diagnosed a viral syndrome, and started Nate on albuterol nebulizer treatments.  We did those faithfully, but on Thursday Nate was definitely worse.   The pediatrician started him on some oral steroids, and thankfully they seem to be helping.  But Nate hasn’t been sleeping well, poor thing, and neither have we.  During the day, he wants to be held and carried everywhere, so we also haven’t been getting much done around the house.

Tuesday was Ben’s preschool evaluation, but that will merit its own separate post.  Hopefully I’ll get to it later this week!

Meanwhile, for the last week and a half, my car (my previously trusty 1995 Oldsmobile) has been overheating.  On Wednesday we took it in to our mechanic to have it looked at.  Unfortunately, the problem was more expensive to fix than we anticipated.  We decided that night not to repair it, but to replace it.  After all, the car is 14 years old, and has been becoming less and less reliable with each passing year.  I just hated the thought that it might leave me  stranded somewhere on the Interstate.

The very next day, 0n Thursday I drove our van (1999 Pontiac Montana) to work.  About a block from my office it made a noise and it seemed to me that the accelerator wasn’t as responsive as it had been a just few minutes before.  I convinced myself it was just my imagination.  However that afternoon when I went to leave, I discovered I had a major problem.  It wouldn’t go into reverse AT ALL.  The transmission was fried.  So I was stranded at work, and Mark was stranded at home.

A kind co-worker dropped me off at the mechanic so that I could pick up my overheating (but at that time still driveable) Oldsmobile from the mechanic, and I made it home OK.  Unfortunately, I made the mistake of driving it to work on Friday.  It became dangerously hot on the way home that night, and I ended up returning to my office and getting a ride home from a dear friend of ours, who left her Lenten fish dinner to rescue me.   How embarassing!

So in a few days we had gone from two vehicles to zero.

The van was towed to our bemused mechanic, where it will undergo extremely costly repairs.   After all, we can’t afford to replace two vehicles in the same year, let alone in the same week!  On Saturday, Mark bummed a ride from our next door neighbor to the local car rental place so that he actually had a vehicle to use to go car shopping.  (We really like the rental car, BTW!  Isaac and Jonathan were extremely impressed; they’d never been inside a brand-new car before!  I’ve certainly never driven a car this nice.)

Anyway, on Saturday Mark bought us a used van to replace my car, while I stayed home with the boys.  We thought it made more sense to buy a van because there are now 6 of us in this family, and I can tell the Montana probably won’t hold up too much longer.  I hear the new van is very nice, and I’ve seen photos, but I won’t see it in person until it is delivered to our house tomorrow.  I hope it knows it has to last us for YEARS AND YEARS!!!

I hope this week is less eventful.

Ben’s New Glasses

We all love how Ben looks in them!  Doesn’t he look cute?  The photo above was taken in our church nursery yesterday morning.  I think he’s finally starting to look more like a little boy than a baby.

As I mentioned on my post about Ben’s last ophthomology appointment; we were told that his eyesight had deteriorated considerably over the previous year.  He had become quite nearsighted and would need glasses.  A little over a week ago, we finally got around to taking him to the optometrist to choose some frames.    This optometrist, a very nice lady, specializes in pediatric and special needs eyewear, and is about 45 minutes from our home.  The big boys were in school, and Nate came along.  Ben wasn’t too happy with having several frames put on and taken off in rapid succession, but he was a trooper.

It was a tough decision, but we found some that we liked.  Nate was unusually fussy that day, and when we came home we found he was running a fever.  Fortunately, he ran a temperature for only 3 days, and he seems fine now.

This Saturday we made the trek to pick up his new glasses.  This time we had all 4 boys with us.  It turns out that the optometrist is very busy on Saturdays, so we had to wait a bit.  The boys occupied themselves with the toys…

…and Nate and I just hung out on the couch.  Ben’s glasses needed some final adjustments (the earpieces had to be molded to ensure a snug fit), we fit his hearing aids over them, and finally we were done.

Afterwards, we went out for lunch, went to the mall for a bit:

Ben was VERY interested in looking around at EVERYTHING.  (Yes, Nate was missing a sock so we bought him some new ones!)  When we were sure we had tired everyone out, we came home.  All four boys fell asleep in the car.

So far, Ben’s response to his glasses has been overwhelmingly positive.  He has left them on, and he has been so much more interested in looking at more distant objects.  He even seems to make better eye contact.  I guess his poor vision was more of an impairment than we realized, and it makes us feel a little guilty for not acting on this before.

I really hope he tolerates his glasses for the long haul.

December

Thanksgiving weekend was REALLY busy, but fun.   Mark’s sister, brother-in-law and their two sons visited all the way from Pittsburgh.  We really enjoyed having them over.  Our boys were very excited to have their cousins here, and all the kids played well together.  It was nice to spend some time with family getting caught up.  We had our turkey with the usual fixings, and there are LOTS of turkey leftovers to enjoy this week.

On Friday, I did a (very) little Black Friday shopping, and went to work for a few hours.  Nate had his four month well baby check that afternoon.  He is growing well (17 lbs 9 oz) and is developmentally on target.  His eczema was TERRIBLE, though, and the pediatrician prescribed him some triamcinolone cream to use along with the moisturizers we’re already slathering all over him.  He only got 2 shots (Prevnar and Pentacel) as well as an oral vaccine (Rotarix).

On Saturday we made our annual trek out to the Christmas tree farm.  This proved to be a little challenging this year because we now have two babes in arms.  Initially we planned to just pick a pre-cut tree from the barn.  However, once we arrived at the farm, the big boys saw the tractor and really wanted to go on the hay ride.  In the end, we all rode on the tractor, and I waited with the babies at the drop-off point while Mark took Isaac and Jonny to get us a tree.

This worked out well since the weather was fairly warm (around 50 degrees).  Ben loves being outside when it’s not too cold and he was in a great mood, and he smiled and giggled, and even stood up nicely for awhile, leaning back on my legs for support.  And surprisingly, Nate was quiet.

The big boys came back with our tree, and we rode the tractor back.  They wrapped up our tree and we went home.  I’m glad we got the tree on Saturday because the weather has been colder and wetter since then.

Can you believe it’s only 23 days until Christmas???

Winter Already?

Yes, we had our first snowfall of the season on Friday.  Thankfully it was short, and most of the snow melted that same day.  But we live in Pennsylvania, after all, and I know more snow is sure to come.

We had an interesting weekend.  Yesterday we had family photos taken.  Everyone behaved well for the most part, but Jonny was a difficult subject.  He kept doing the opposite of what the photographer wanted him to do!  She kept saying, “Everyone had good smiles but Jonathan!”  We should have an interesting set of proofs to look at tomorrow.

Today after church we decided to take a road trip.  We needed some wine for the holidays, so we visited the Nissley Vineyards in Bainbridge, PA.  We used to go there fairly often years ago when we lived near Harrisburg, but now we average one trip every other year.  It’s a neat place with a self-guided tour of the winery, and in the summertime they’ve got music festivals on their large front lawn.

The big boys had their video games as usual, and Ben and Nate just sort of hung out.

The owners’ dog was very interested in the boys:

It’s so beautiful there, even if it was freezing today.

We didn’t stay long.  We tasted a couple of new wines we’d never seen there before, paid, got our precious bounty into the van, and left.  We really need to come back here when it’s warmer so the boys can run outside.

We made a couple of brief stops for photos on the way home.  The Nissley Winery is only a very short drive from Three Mile Island…

…and we even stopped so I could get a photo of the Star Barn before it is moved to its new location in Lebanon County.

We got home in time to make a quick dinner and get everyone off to bed.  Overall, the kids did well on the trip.  (Unfortunately, Jonny drank an entire container of one of those dreadful Nesquik milkshakes.  It didn’t agree with him and we had to make two emergency pit stops at area bathrooms, but he seems OK now).

I hope that as the kids get older we can take more adventurous day trips with them.

“It’s a good night to look at pumpkins.”

At least that’s what Jonny kept saying as we had our annual pumpkin carving last night.

We bought our pumpkins almost two weeks ago, but because Mark and Isaac went to the Steelers game last weekend, we did most of our carving last night.  Isaac and Jonny did manage to trace their designs last weekend.  Jonny did a great job tracing his own design this year, although I did have to help him cut it out.  Isaac was able to work completely independently for the very first time!  Mark did all the yucky stuff for all of us (i.e. scooping out the pumpkin innards).

Jonathan was so excited!  All the photos I took of him last night are blurred because he was in a state of constant motion.

I found a Gyarados pattern online for myself.  For those not familiar with Pokemon, Gyarados is a flying water-dragon type creature.  I think it turned out well.  Mark did a creepy skull design.

Both Ben and Nate took very well-timed late evening naps allowing us to finish all four.  Here’s the final result:

I love pumpkins!

Pumpkins!

We made our annual trip to the pumpkin patch last weekend.  The weather was a little cool, but it was sunny and overall not too bad.  Actually, it was what Mark would call “A Perfect Fall Day”.   We put Ben in the stroller and I strapped Nate into his carrier where he promptly fell asleep.  For some reason Ben was very intent on putting his nose on the side of his stroller.

The big boys chose their pumpkins…

The pumpkin patch is run by a local farm.  They have great produce at this time of year, and we made sure to stock up on butternut squash, cauliflower, apples and cider before we went home.  Jonny was excited to learn that there is an apple variety named after him!

If it wasn’t for the 40 degree rain, I could really learn to love fall!

Green Tea Ice Cream

I love green tea ice cream.  I first tasted it at a Japanese restaurant in the area only a few years ago, and I couldn’t believe that such a wonderful flavor wasn’t sold at the supermarket along with the vanilla and chocolate.  It turns out that in our small town, if you want green tea ice cream (and you didn’t want to go to a restaurant with four young children), you’d have to make your own.

My only problem was that the Japanese green tea/matcha powder isn’t sold locally either.  Fortunately, our friend Miss Behaving sent us some genuine matcha powder all the way from Japan this summer.  You know it’s real matcha when you can’t even read the writing on the package!  Isaac, who is very much into Nintendo, Pokemon, Bakugan, and all things Japanese, was very impressed.  He eagerly volunteered to help me make some green tea ice cream.

This was my first attempt at making any kind of ice cream.  I found this recipe online and I doubled the amounts.  It turned out to be really simple to make.

We dissolved the matcha powder in some hot water, made some custard out of sugar, egg yolks, milk and cream…

…combined everything and cooled it…

…and churned it in our trusty Kitchen Aid.

It turned out really well!  It was simply delicious, and the entire container was eaten in less than a week by Mark, Isaac and myself.  OK, maybe I had more than my fair share! 

Thank you, Miss Behaving, for a real treat!

A Birthday and a Surprise Baby Shower

Almost exactly 8 years ago I became the mother of my very first little boy. After 24 hours of gruelling labor, Isaac, my oldest son, was born. My life has never been the same.

I can’t believe that Isaac is 8 already. Mark pointed out that he’s halfway to driving age. I gasped in horror. Surely he can’t be growing up that fast!

These days, Isaac is into anything Pokemon or anything having to do with playing video games. He enjoys playing the piano, and surprisingly also likes doing any kind of craft project. He is very loving and caring toward Ben (but of course he and Jonathan have their typical sibling spats.)

On Friday night we had a couple of Isaac’s friends over for a sleepover to help him celebrate. All the big boys had a great time and (except for Jonathan) were up until 1:00 am despite all my threats! They still managed to wake up at 7:00 am as usual. Isaac was very patient – he didn’t get to open presents until this evening! And one of his parents went overboard and bought WAY too much stuff. I won’t say who…

I am approaching the end of my pregnancy with my fourth little boy. Little Boy #4 was lying at an oblique angle at our last checkup on Friday. This Thursday, we are planning to try to get him into a better position, and hopefully induce labor on Friday. If he remains in his oblique position, I’ll need a c-section, which I’ve not had with any of my previous 3 kids. We are hoping and praying for the best.

Our church threw us a surprise baby shower this afternoon! I never expected such a thing. After all, what could one possibly need for a fourth son? Well, here it is!

We really needed a double stroller since Ben is nowhere close to being able to walk on his own. So they bought us one! What a blessing! We are so grateful. We had a great evening spending time with our friends and their families. The big boys spent most of the time in the big wading pool.

It was too hot outside for Ben who was quite content to play (and sleep) indoors.

So we really had a very enjoyable weekend. And who knows – it might be our last one with only 3 boys!