Goodness Gracious! I'd make some kind of lame excuse about how it's been too long and I was busy or something but everyone knows that already. I kind of can't believe how time is flying at our house. Having three kids at home seems to have sort of exploded our lives. I honestly pinch myself every day because my children are such an AMAZING blessing to me, our family and this world. They do come with their share of physical work though and that does keep me on my toes most of the time. Our house is almost always loud and messy and sometimes it's even smelly, but rest assured that it is also such a happy place. I can't believe what a lucky girl I am.
Little Ben is always in the back of our minds and the thought of what our lives would be like with him here are always tugging a little bit. Just imagine what that life would be like! It would be just as blissful I'm sure, perhaps even more so. As we pass through this time of year with so many anniversaries (including that of his death) and the promise that Easter brings he is always on my mind. I miss that boy so much.
Of course I have lots of photos from the past couple of months and life has been moving so quickly.
A while ago we moved many of our toys from the living room to the basement play room. This has established a nice area for us to relax in the evenings with so few things left to pick up after bedtime and it's nice that all of the kids' toys are in one place. There are still a few things left in the living room and the biggest collection is the legos. We just really love playing with them and they are easy to put away. Many mornings we come downstairs and while I'm unloading the dishwasher or making breakfast or whatever, miss L and mister W end up building something. Sometimes they need help. Sometimes they don't. I just like that it is something they can do together.
This day they made a zoo/farm (sometimes our lines are skewed between those two) and a house with a slide.
Sweet little man enjoys the activity too. Sometimes he hangs out on the floor, or when his brother is feeling particularly handsy (which happens often) then he enjoys the scene from his bumbo or exersaucer.
This February we met with miss L's preschool teacher (who has been an absolute Godsend). She told us that she thinks that miss L is 100% ready for kindergarten. She said that she thinks that sitting still will always be a challenge for miss L, but that she didn't think that it was a maturity issue but rather a personality one and that miss L would hopefully have a great teacher who understood that. Brad and I spent a lot of time going back and forth about this. Where we live kindergarten is still only half day and many classes are in a rush to get through the curriculum they have. Miss L needs a lot of structure and one on one help focusing but she's so so so smart and she is such a hard worker when she is focused. We worried that public school may not be able to provide those things for her, especially in a stressed, rushed kindergarten classroom with 28 other five year olds (I am positive there is a special place in Heaven for kindergarten teachers). Private school really isn't an option for us at this point and those problems may exist in that environment as well. We talked and talked and continued to pray and search for the right answer for miss L. After much thought we've decided to homeschool miss L next year. Whether this is a single year experiment or a lifelong journey only time will tell. For now, though, we're pleased to be moving forward in this direction and we feel strongly that it's best for miss L. Who better to teach her than those who love and adore her, understanding the challenges that she faces with SPD and can help her learn to build on her strengths? We already do quite a bit of "schooling" at home. Miss L's OT required that we work on those skills practiced during therapy at home and now that she's been discharged from OT we continue that work and those activities lend themselves well to homeschooling.
Here are a few more photos from a random day in February. Miss L and mister W continue to use the ipad nearly each day. I love that it really works those logic, visual and auditory processing skills. They love that it's fun. When we bought it, it seemed like just another gadget, but it's really been great!
Sweet little man continues to blossom and grow. He now loves exploring his toys alongside his big brother and sister. I know that before long he'll be running after them!
Sometimes in those witching hours between preschool/quiet time and dinner our house becomes... well... a little whiny. Everyone wants a snack (which they can't have because it's almost dinner) and everyone wants to watch tv (which I'd rather they not do because we likely watched it during quiet time) and mostly we want mommy to do something with us, but mommy needs to make dinner. These are the moments when the playdough comes out. Lately, I've been trying to give them different things to play with their playdough and this day it was craft sticks. They made popsicles, lollipops, animals and lots of different, creative things that I don't think they'd have made with our more structured sets. (thank you pinterest!)
I love mister W's faces. He's asking me for something here.
Miss L is smashing her playdough flat.
...and sweet little man sat by watching. I swear he doesn't live in his bumbo, but it does seem like most of his photos lately are taken there. I keep waiting for the guy to get some teeth. Check out that drool line!
I have to be honest. My kids fight. They fight at least once every day. They whine. They sometimes even push each other. BUT... it gives me great happiness that they also love to be near one another. They enjoy the other one's presence and they miss one another when they are apart. Once in a while we'll turn on a movie or a show and I'll find this. I hope they always feel this way about one another!
We like smoothies. In fact, I burned my blender's motor up making them, but we went a couple of years without replacing it (we really only use it for smoothies and baby food and I ended up making most of mister W's baby food in the food processor). During my visit with Wendy, Brad decided to replace it with an immersion blender. It was less expensive and I have to say, it's been GREAT for all kinds of things and we've used it a ton. We've also started making smoothies again. One night, after making some smoothies and taking mister W's shirt off (because, like spaghetti, smoothies are generally a shirts off food at our house :o) he wanted his picture taken. He started making all kinds of funny faces. What a character!
I guess I can't get enough of the sibling on the couch photos. Here's another one.
...and seriously, we play with a LOT of legos. :o)
Spring has been beyond lovely where we live. It came early this year (or we quit trying for winter and just went for spring instead) and it seems like the sun just won't quit! Though we've been dealing with illness this season (more about that later) in our times between sicknesses we're trying to get out as much as possible. One morning before school the kids asked to go to a favorite park. The sun was so sunny and the kids were so excited. How could I say no?
We rode the tire swing, of course.
...and rocked on the boat too.
I do hope that the weather continues this way for a long time! We could all get used to this!
Of course, it has to rain sometimes and so we've got to come up with SOMETHING to do indoors. On one rainy Monday morning we decided to make some playdough. I have something of a lifetime's supply of the canned stuff, but it contains wheat and mister W is allergic (and he DOES eat the playdough). This recipe used mostly cornstarch instead of flour (again, thank you pinterest!) and I thought miss L could handle the actual stirring and cooking. I may have to set her up to cook our meals. :o) This playdough had orange oil in it as well, so it smelled great. We had a great morning with some good sensory play when we couldn't go outside!
Of course, the rain always comes to an end. I mentioned earlier about our witching hours between preschool/quiet time and dinner. Another of our favorite witching hour activities (or mommy sanity saving activities is really more like it) is to just go outside until daddy gets home. This way we can see him drive up (always fun!) and we're all a little happier at the dinner table.
The outside bucket has come out. I packed this up with outdoor toys at the end of last summer. Besides the fact that it spends the majority of its life in my living room (I have to find a better place to store that thing!) it's been AWESOME to just pull it out front, play and then pack it back up. You can also see a volcano we drew on the sidewalk. I love that miss L is so eager to figure things out these days. She went through a period of time where she wanted to know everything about volcanoes. We haven't made one yet but it's in the plan!
Even sweet little man loves being outside. I know he's just watching and learning. Pretty soon he'll be keeping up with the big kids!
Just as an aside... Can you believe how old she looks? I can't believe she's growing up. I wish I could freeze time!
We hate picking up. I mean, what's to like, right? It's just not a favorite activity at our house so we fight the daily battle of cleaning up because I'm crazy and also because I want the kids to help and I figure if we keep talking about it then eventually they'll catch on or you know... whatever. :o) One night I may have been particularly tired or the kids may have been but it wasn't going well. Then mister W volunteered to sit in the lego bin while miss L buried him. It was clean up magic. I mean, not really magic since taking him out of the bucket meant we had to clean them up again, but we were in better spirits by then.
We love dressing up. Until Christmas our dress up bin consisted mostly of things like fairy wings and tutus, but mister W got several new dress up outfits with a few different themes. We're loving them!
I just had to take a few photos when mister W wanted to wear the baby carrier complete with a baby owl. We had to wrap it around a few times, but how cute is that?
I seem to have a lot of photos of this kind of stuff this time! Part of our "school" time includes a yoga warm up. It's a great heavy work activity that gets miss L's body in gear and ready to sit. I love that mister W wants to be a part of it too. Here's a little downward dog.
...and a little cobra. How cute!
I can't believe how big sweet little man is getting. He's six months old today, in fact. Since I'm a delinquent giraffe photo taker I'll just tell you what he's doing and hope to get those giraffe photos up next time. He's rolling over both ways now and just last night was trying to get his knees up under him (oh GOODNESS). He's happy and easy going most of the time, loves nursing for short periods often and belly laughs at his older siblings. He's such a lovey little dude and wants to cuddle whenever he can. I joke that he thinks he's a first child, because he is pretty demanding about being held and nursing and he's a very light sleeper, but he's got a happy spirit and he's got me wrapped around his little finger (of course). He's babbling a lot lately and Brad is pretty sure he's saying, Da Da. :o) At his four month visit he was right around 14.5 pounds and I'm looking forward to seeing what he weighs at his six month visit. He's a constant source of joy around here.
Of course big brother can't help getting in a photo too.
AND... another random day. This day for our "school" time we did a sorting activity making a lego rainbow for St. Patrick's day.
Of course, while miss L is busy doing her "work" the boys hang out and play.
I just love those eyes. Goodness gracious he melts my heart!
Being March and being that spring seems to have sprung around here we're talking a lot about gardening. I feel like every year we get a little bit better about growing what we want and simplifying in a way that not only makes our lives easier but yields more of what we really can use. This year we're working on growing lots of garlic and onions and planning to put in tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and perhaps even some squash. Of course, all of this garden talk lends itself well to our "school" work and both of the big kids are very interested in how the whole thing works. I very fondly remember growing a bean in a jar and when I saw this on pinterest (really, what did I do without it?) I decided we should do the same thing. We grew a runner bean, an okra seed, a carrot seed, a sweet pea and something else (I think). Brad and miss L set the whole thing up and we waited. This photo is when the bean first began to sprout. The kids had so so so much fun watching the different seeds sprout and begin to grow and would check the glass probably a little too often. They all did eventually sprout and we just threw them out yesterday.
We spent most of our weekends in March out in the yards clearing out beds and weeding and planning where things might go. Miss L had her preschool's class "pet" (our most favorite thing, I think) and so we took him out back to take a couple of photos. I love this picture. What a beautiful flower she is!
I tried to get one of the both of them (sweet little man was inside asleep) but my little dinosaur wouldn't look at the camera. :o)
Every once in a while we'll have a movie night on Fridays. The kids get their pajamas on and they are required to lay down, but we have popcorn and cuddles and everyone enjoys staying up late and enjoying family time. I hope we always have these!
I mentioned that we'd had quite a period of illness this winter. Miss L came down with her first case of strep throat in January. She had a fever for five days and complained of leg pain (which made me think Lyme) and I took her in to be seen by the pediatrician. They were a little perplexed by the leg pain but swabbed her for strep and it came back positive. Miss L started antibiotics and we didn't think much more about it. Right around the time she stopped the meds her fever came back. We took her back in and the strep test was positive again. More antibiotics were prescribed and the ped recommended that we come in the day after she stopped taking them to be certain that she was clear of the strep, but she felt like it was a reinfection rather than the possibility that she continued to be infected. Ten days later she was positive again and the ped became more concerned and switched her to a more powerful antibiotic. Ten days later and it was positive again and we were referred to an ENT. She was positive once again after that as well. With five consecutive cases of strep the recommendation was made to remove her tonsils so we made plans to do that. It was so hard since she hadn't had strep before but it became clear that the antibiotics were only suppressing the strep but not clearing it. I'm hoping that the tonsillectomy (which was done yesterday) will provide her with some real relief. She did very well and is resting at home now. Hopefully we'll be all done with being sick for awhile after this!
Our plan was to attend the yearly kite festival, which we do as a way to remember and honor Ben, and then head to our hometown for spring break. Sadly, since we needed to schedule miss L's surgery we had to choose between our vacation and the kite festival and decided that we'd catch the festival next year. It was a hard decision to make but I think it was the best one. We had such a great time seeing our family! Miss L and mister W love their cousins and I think we played outside almost the entire time we were there. As miss L and mister W say, Pawpaw has a park in his backyard!
Cousin K found a ladybug while playing in that park. Miss L took a turn with it when he was done and had the best time letting it crawl around. We just so enjoyed our break!
We enjoyed some inside time too.
Getting back for miss L's surgery yesterday meant we had to be on the road for Easter so we celebrated a little early this year. We decorated eggs with glue dots and glitter (man, pinterest, I sure do love you!).
...and of course we hid them and hunted them.
...and there were baskets.
I'd found these masks in a three pack which seemed perfect. I can't believe we got them all mostly smiling!
After our egg hunt we went to a park where I remember playing as a little girl. It's so fun to see them experience those same things. (and I love that miss L never took her mask off)
Even sweet little man enjoyed himself.
Mister W is my nervous child. This actually serves him pretty well. In this case he really wanted to slide down this very tall slide, but he was nervous. With a little prodding though, he did it and he was so proud!
It's hard for a two year old and a four year old to work a seesaw on their own. Good thing that pawpaws know exactly what to do.
Eventually all good things come to an end (or tire you out).
So now we are home and resting. Miss L's surgery was unremarkable and she's currently sleeping on the couch. I hope that things continue to go very well for her! We'll be back soon with another update. Maybe in another week! Have a happy spring!
