5 Miles

We were listening to some music in the van and the song “Please Read The Letter” by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant came on. (If you’ve never heard it, you can listen here, but the chorus repeats the line “Please read the letter that I wrote”. If you’ve not heard it, you really should listen, it’s an amazing song. If you have heard it, watch the video for a really cool old house.)

During the song, Alex asked me, “Mommy, why can’t that man not read that letter?” I had to explain that he WROTE the letter and was asking someone else to read it.

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Alex, eating a Snickerdoodle cookie we’d made, told me “These Doodle bugs are yummy!”

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Will said today at lunch,  ”Wouldn’t it be cool if flies could talk and you could play ‘I Spy’ with it?”

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Alex looked at the place of crackers and peanut butter HE ASKED FOR at lunch today and said “I’m just hungry enough to try this!”

We’re in between 2 big thunderstorms right now.  And while I’m tired, I figure I’ll stay up a bit more for round 2, just in case this second round is loud–if it is, I’ll be having a boy or two appearing. I’ve discovered I handle kids awake better if I’m already awake then if I’d JUST fallen asleep and they wake me.  (Or so I tell myself…or is this just a way to justify staying up too late?

I’m trying to do better at blogging. I don’t feel like I have lots of interest to say, but here are a few random thoughts.

We’re fighting a battle with a mouse. This mouse first appeared in the garage this winter with his family or friends. We caught several there. Then one night when I got up to feed Marcus I saw it run across the dining room to the living room. That freaked me out. I have no idea why I can handle dissecting various animals or other gross things, but a mouse makes me want to shudder and then go shower, but that’s how it is. I do not like rodents of any kind–we will not be owning a gerbil, hamster or guinea pig.  Seriously, I’ll take a snake or lizard first.   Anyway, so back in the winter we set out traps in the house (hidden from the kids) and caught another one. Then we had a bait stealer, one that kept stealing the cheese but never got caught.   Then we didn’t see any more evidence of a mouse and it warmed up, and I foolishly thought the silly thing had moved out side.   This last week I started seeing, um, “evidence” of the mouse’s presence again.  So, traps were set up again. And another one was caught again. And more bait was stolen. So now we’re bringing out the big guns, before we risk having a whole generation of smarter mice who can avoid traps being raised here.   I overheard some noise in the kitchen that I’m praying is the new trap doing it’s job. (It’s a  bigger, container ones that keep the mouse in them and say “set” or “caught” with poison inside–instead of the old fashioned ones we were using.)  We shall see, I let James check the drawer we’re seeing most of the evidence in.  And it appears I’ll be washing all the items in that drawer, again.  I’m very thankful for a dishwasher!!!   But this is a battle I will Win!

I’ve tried to not complain much about this summer, but, for the record, it’s been a hot and rainy summer.  Our garden has not done well, it’s so sad this year. Part of it is so much rain…part of it is we probably didn’t prepare our soil as well this year. Lesson learned! We’ll do better next year in hopes of better yields.  (Seriously, even our zucchini plant isn’t producing! Who has to go begging for zucchini?!?)  I’m reminding myself this, so when I start thinking “Why didn’t we go to all the parks I wanted to go to?” I can remind myself–it’s because it was WAY TOO HOT.  And you have a baby who needs naps and is heavy and hard to carry in a carrier and some of those are not as stroller friendly.  But I did want to try to do better at doing a few things with the bigger boys–thankfully they play together really well and have had a great time this summer playing sports in the back yard or playing with the hose, building a lake, a damn, streams, “bird bath” (flooded area), and making their own Wipeout course. (That’s a silly show on TV they enjoy, where people do various impressive obstacle courses and end up falling in water or mud. They do lots of jumping from spot to spot, sliding down the slide, running in the slip ‘n slide and other funny things.)

The big boys had their yearly physicals at the Doctor today. They were pronounced in good heath and Alex’s hearing and vision are fine. So the reasons for him saying “What?” all the time are not physical.

Well, the storm is heading out and I really need to head to bed!  I’m just proud I didn’t wait 2 weeks between posts again.  Oh, I added a picture of the fish Will (and James) caught in the Lake Day post.

I typed this up last Tuesday night, but waited to post it until I could add his 7 month pictures…so there was a delay until James was able to fix the computer issues.   And I never really took official 7 month pictures, but did take pictures of him with a blanket James’ Aunt made for him, we just got it in the mail today–She calls it Pacific Blue.  It’s beautiful, I’m sad I didn’t get a picture of the boarder she put around it.  But you can see he enjoys it already!

I’ve been trying to savor this time with Marcus, knowing how fast it goes. And still I can’t believe he’s 7 months. Will pointed out last night in 5 months he’ll be one!

We’ve had some big changes this month.

He’s big enough to sit up in a shopping cart by himself. Usually I do my shopping when James is home & awake (between 11-2) but the other day I needed to do something when he was working. I realized Marcus was too big cart in the infant seat so we decided to try letting him sit in the front. He seemed to really enjoy it, he kept kicking his feet, seeming to enjoy the freedom.

Speaking of freedom, the little guy has started to find ways to Move.  When we got back from Pennsylvania (after a 12 hour trip) he was wide awake. I put him on the floor and then went to help unload the van. When I got back he’d rolled/scooted  his way from the center of the room off to the side and found some paper to chew on. In the following days it seemed he didn’t remember his first major moves (or was it a protest from being stuck in the car seat so long?) and we didn’t see much movement away from where I’d put him down. Today though, he’s showing me he remembers. This evening he rolled all over the floor several times, and he’s started to push himself up on his knees and elbows, then he falls back onto his belly. We don’t remember either other boy doing much rolling, so this is new territory for us!   And now, a week later, he’s showed he can go from laying on his belly to pushing up on hands and knees and rocking himself to sitting himself up!  I found him in bed sitting up today–and I sure didn’t put him in bed that way!

And here are Will and Alex opening up the package, it was Quite Exciting.

Last Saturday we got to join two other families in our small group at one of their families’ lake house. (Wow, was that a mouthful. One of the families’ grandparent’s house? Is that less wordy?ANYWAY, we were thankful they invited us!)  We had a great time swimming, boating, sharing wonderful food and fishing (we didn’t eat any of the fish, they didn’t look that big or yummy). (James fixed the blog so I can now put pictures in again, so I had to share! )

…Alex swimming…

…Marcus, watching and showing he’s ready for a nap! (He got to go in a floatie later, but I was with him in the water and couldn’t get a picture.)

“The Big Kids”, enjoying Popsicles (There were 4 other babies there, all were napping or resting at this time.)

…Will fishing…  He enjoyed it more then Alex, Alex’s hook was bent and his bait kept getting stolen.  Will did have a bit of success!

Theology from a 4 year old:

“Mommy,  God must be sad when he makes bad people do bad things.”

I automatically responded “They choose to do bad things, but your right, it does makes God sad.”

Then I realized, his comment has been a source of theological debate for how many hundreds of years?  Defiantly something I can’t answer or debate with him while driving in the van!

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Alex and Will like to chat with the neighbor boys and trade the newest trend–plastic bracelets in different shapes called “Silly Bands”.  Alex was telling me how he got his bulldozer shaped band “Mommy, I traded with Ethan or Isaac…I can’t remember which one, it was so long ago.”  Will, from across the room said, “ALEX, it was LAST night!!”

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We were talking about a potential shift change for James. I asked the boys what they’d think about daddy working from 10 to about 7 at night. Will liked the idea. Alex said, “I want him to work from 2:30 in the afternoon to 3.”  I asked, “3 in the morning or 3 in the afternoon?”  Alex said, “3 in the afternoon”. (Wouldn’t that be great if he could just work from 2:30-3? )

Man is this month going by fast! I can’t believe we’re already at the 20th–and my last post was about how fast June went! I’m sorry for the view faithful readers I have!

The first week of July was spent out in PA, visiting the family farm. We were able to go during the hottest part of the East Coast Heat Wave (yea for temps over 100! I realized I’d not had those since my days in Dallas).  We had a wonderful time. It was great to visit the other side of the family. It was a great combination of activity and rest.  We’re still having problems loading pictures up on the site, so here are the pictures of the trip.  We took one day to go to the Jersey Shore, that was the boys first visit to the ocean of any kind. They loved it and we had a great day there. It was hot inland but so comfortable with the ocean breezes, and when the clouds came in we were actually a bit cool. Here are the pictures from that time.

We came back Sunday the 11th.  The next week was busy getting back to being home and dentist visits for Will and I. We both have major work that needed to be done.  He got to be sedated because of the major work, his dentist felt he’d do better that way. He did do better, but he was a mess as we came home.  We discovered he’s weepy and emotional as he recovers from the drugs. It was a long drive home until the medicine wore off.   One that wore off, he was fine. We had fun asking him if he remembered parts of the drive home–as the day went on, he remembered less and less–it was kind of creepy!

And now we’re in the third week of July!  We have two weeks after this, and then school starts!  I’m still trying to find a balance of doing things with the boys, getting some fun summer activities in, but not overwhelm the boys, and not look back on this summer and wonder what we did.  Today the boys were starting to really bicker, the first time I’ve really noticed it to this extent. I’m thinking they’re starting to get ready to get back into the school routine.

Wow, we blinked, and it was gone!

Last time I wrote, I was telling how we’d just done Kids Camp (VBS). I had mentioned wanting to DO things during the summer, while balancing that with the desire to just let the kids hang out. My plans for the next week were then totally blown out of the water, and that answered that question!  Friday night when I picked Alex up, I was told that Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease was going around. And–it turns out he got it. (It’s a virus, symptoms are a rash on the palms of the hands, feet, or in the mouth, a low grade fever, and general malaise. Alex has more of the latter two.)  He was sick for the weekend. Sunday night Will came down with it.  So we spent the first part of the week resting up.

(I wanted to put in pictures of the stuff below but it’s not letting me right now, but you can go here to see the ones I put on Facebook.)

This last weekend we went up to visit Mom and Dad, visit Taylor Lake and work on our house we never sold up there & have been renting out. Our renters moved out in May and we’ve been doing some fixing up of it. The guy we have working on it can only work until July 1st, and we realized he wasn’t going to have time to do the painting that needed to be done, so James and I spent the weekend painting.   I went up early so the boys and I could play some. Then James came up Saturday and he and I painted the giant living room during the afternoon/evening. Sunday, we painted the downstairs bedroom, the dining room and the long hallway. (For those who’ve been there. The rest of you don’t care, but it makes me feel better to point out all we did in a day and a half.)  It was hot, tiring work. (The A/C isn’t working, we found out…it runs, but doesn’t cool.)   We decided to stay over Sunday night and then got to play at the lake more on Monday. This time James got to play with the boys and they all had a great time.

We left mid-day Monday so we could be back in time for supper. After supper we surprised the boys by taking them to the local AAA baseball team. We met some of the people James works with (his “team”, or group he works with during his shift each day).  The boys have been wanting to go and had a great time.  They enjoyed eating the food and actually watched most of the game (as opposed to last year where they spent most of the time going back and forth from out seats to Grandpa and Grandma’s seats). We had fun watching, but had to leave at the bottom of the 7th (Marcus had been SO good during it all but was reaching the point where it was about to get bad if we didn’t leave).

Monday was spent recovering from not getting home until 11 pm.  We’ve been trying to get things cleaned up, the library visited, the van worked on, the park visited and the laundry done–all in prep. of our trip to visit the other side of the family. All this during the most beautiful, cool weather! We’re loving dry, cool temps where we don’t get above 80!!! Sadly that’s going to be ending but I’m glad we’ve gotten to open windows/air out the house and enjoy some time outside.

And now, July! We have lots of fun things to look forward to!

 Marcus weighed in at 17 lb. at the Doctor this week for his Well-Baby Check-Up. He’s starting to sit up more and more. He has rolled from belly to back and then back to belly (but not all at once yet)

He’s started eating solid foods twice a day now–and is Quite Hungry if I don’t think to feed him around lunch or supper time. He’ll let you know by licking his lips or starting to lunge towards the food. Once you start feeding him, he’ll try to help by lunging his open mouth towards the spoon. He still spits some of the food out at times, and isn’t that happy if you wipe it off his chin and put it back in his mouth. So we bring the spoon back to the bowl and he doesn’t know any better.

He is putting more and more towards his mouth and chewing, chewing, chewing on his hands or anything he can get in it. He’s often sucking on his bottom lip (like in the picture below). I am expecting to see some teeth starting to pop out soon! 

He continues to be a mellow, laid back child who puts up with so many changes in schedules or routines, getting dragged along to lots of places and  rough love from his brothers and he just goes with the flow and is usually a really happy guy. He’s a great blessing and very much loved!

Well, we’re mid-way through June, and about 1/4 of the way through our summer (Will starts school Aug. 10, so I’m feeling like our summer is only June & July)…which is quite depressing and I don’t want to dwell on it too much, yet I want to be aware so I can use our time wisely!  The first two weeks of June have been Quite Busy.  I signed the boys up for swim lessons early for them to get skills we’ll try to work on with them the rest of summer. So the last two  weeks they’ve had swim lessons M/T/W.  Plus, we’ve had soccer (as you saw below) on Fridays.

Two weekends ago we took the boys to a Colts Fan Open House at Lucas Oil Stadium.  You can see all the pictures here if you’re interested (that takes you to where I posted them all on Facebook).  We all had a great time seeing the stadium and starting to get ready for football!

This week our church is having VBS, or Kids Camp as they’re now calling it. They are having it in the evenings, and so each night is busy as we all go to that. If you’re interested in the pictures I put on Facebook from that, you can see here.  We’ve been going back in time to Egypt and “meeting” Joseph.  I’ve stuck with the area I’ve discovered I really enjoy–crafts, and have been having a great time.  Each day the kids go to a different “Marketplace”, or craft tent. Our tent is making Mummies! (Mummys?)  They have plastic skeletons they wrap in strips of plaster of paris. It’s a mess, but fun, craft. I love helping the kids do something they’d never get to do at home.

I’m trying to strike a balance between having down time and doing. I don’t want to look back and think “What did we with do with the summer? I had so many ideas!” but also don’t want to over schedule it. (But that quote would be what I said about LAST summer, so I do want to enjoy doing things with the boys.) Today we had time to just take a walk and enjoy some time outside (the pictures you see here), then the boys played with Legos most of the afternoon.  I like letting them have time to just hang out together & be creative together.  Next week we’re looking forward to vising Grandma & Grandpa and Taylor Lake, a playdate with friends and a bit more down time, where we’ll visit a spray park or another park with a shallow creek to wade in. It’s been quite hot and muggy most of the days, so I figure either of those will be a nice way to cool off!

The boys have started up taking soccer again, this summer we go on Fridays.  We’re at a different, but closer, park then last year.

I originally signed Alex up for a class for 4 & 5 year olds at 10:30 that is games that teach skills, but one step up from what he did last year.

I signed Will up for a smaller class for 6 & 7 year olds at 11:30 that includes a scrimmage.  The last two weeks we’ve been there for two hours while one plays and the other watches or plays on the playground.  Last week was hard because it was HOT and MUGGY.  The two classes at 11:30 were both smaller and they combined them.  Alex was sad that Will got “to play REAL soccer” and he didn’t. When I talked to the coaches about letting Alex move to Will’s class (since there were now kids his age and with his skill level in it), they said that’d be fine.  I LOVE that we won’t be there for two hours during the heat of the day and during Marcus’ nap time! 

Marcus hasn’t had much to say about it, but he was enjoying the swings.