6 Miles

I realized I don’t do a good job updating the blog without taking pictures.  And I’m wanting to get more general pictures, not just special events.  So tonight when we were enjoying supper out side, I grabbed the camera (well, more like when we were at the end of supper).  I grilled (yes, me! I’m proud of that! Well, I have to admit it was super easy chicken & veggies in a foil packet, but I figure if James keeps working nights and we want to eat grilled food I need to get used to it and better at it, so I’m starting simple) and we ate outside.

 Marcus woke up just as we were finishing up and he played on his play mat while we roasted marshmallows over the coals.

It was a nice relaxing evening as we start getting ready for summer!  We went from rain all last week and temps in the 70s on Friday to sunny and almost 90 on Sunday.  Hel-lo summer!!!  This is the boys last week of school, so I’ll have more fun pictures to share of the end of the year events later this week.

Last week the little guy turned five months…I’m only 6 days behind in celebrating it. I did get the monthly picture with his dog.  I love these little overalls on him and am glad I took the picture right after he was dressed…They didn’t last long on him (he’s been having problems with leaky diapers). [Edited to add...I was just looking in the past and realized I took his 4 mo. pictures in the same outfit!!! There's no difference! I guess I'll have to take some more tomorrow. ]

   
Marcus is starting to pick up toys more…they usually go in his mouth.  He loves to chew.

He’s turning around on his back more and more, and starting to enjoy sleeping with this white blanket. Sadly, when he’s on his back he doesn’t sleep as well. He’s done a great job sleeping all night–I’m hoping our having to wake him up at night to give him his medicine treatments doesn’t get him in the habit of waking up. (Or, I think he wakes up, he’s just quiet and goes back to sleep! I’m not sure if this is because he’s just a great kid, or that he’s #3 and Mommy is really tired and doesn’t hear him so he’s learned to go back to sleep on his own.) He is a really, really laid back child, which is a huge blessing! He puts up with getting dragged places and as long as he can watch the action, and you stop and smile or talk to him a bit, he’s happy. He gets the biggest smile when you do stop. (His brothers enjoy making sure he doesn’t get left out as well.) He’s usually quite content to sit in the high chair or his saucer and just watch all the going ons. When he starts to get fussy, he’s ready to go to bed.

He’s starting to sit up on his own for longer periods of time.  I have not gotten into a regular feeding schedule with rice cereal, he liked it but didn’t like it when I added apple sauce. It seemed most feedings ended up with more on his face then staying in his mouth so I decided to take a little break.   I’ll start trying again soon, he’s starting to try to grab things at the table.

He’ll chew on his fingers until he’s tired–and then the thumb goes in his mouth! (And then he usually gets put in bed and he goes to sleep quickly.)

Almost an action shot…he had just turned over!  He’s almost found his feet.

Marcus has been sick for the last few weeks. Friday he was sounding worse so I took him in to visit the Doctor and she didn’t like how his lungs sounded…plus he had an ear infection. So he’s on a machine called a nebulizer, it turns the medicine into a mist that he breaths in and helps reduce the swelling in the lungs, so he doesn’t have to work so hard to breath.  He started off on treatments every 4 hours and we’ve been stretching them out. He’s reached the point doesn’t mind them too much (usually).  (At the Doctor’s office he screamed and screamed because he was really tired and wanted to suck his thumb but couldn’t. The nurses were asking me “Does he have a paci? What do you usually do when he cries like this?” and I told them “He never does!”  Usually he gets put to bed right when he’s tired so he never gets that worked up. Poor kid.)  Thankfully he’s starting to sound better and we had a laugh over how he was helping James by holding the treatment mask the other day.

Tonight Will had a Kindergarten Concert. They sang “An Alphabet Adventure”, a list of songs A-Z, all about animals! (They sang 28, there were 2 songs for P because “We like them both!” and then an ABC Rock at the end). Thankfully they were short songs, and they were all really cute as well.  James took off a day last week to go on the church camp out with Will, so he couldn’t take off tonight. Thankfully my mom and dad came down to see the concert and to help me out with Alex and Marcus–it was VERY nice to have them here and even nicer to have help at the concert!

The kids were encourage to dress up as animals (I had to laugh, the note sent home to us about it said “Please make sure your children know Spiderman and Sponge Bob are NOT animals.”). Will is the lion in the middle–this is his Halloween costume from 3 years ago, in a 4T. It was a bit tight, but he REALLY wanted to be a lion, and I was fine with that! (Something that doesn’t cost me money and we already have? Sure! ) He told me when I got home “Mom, I was the ONLY lion”, so I guess he feels he chose well.

Alex brought a notebook to work on while waiting for the concert. Once the music started, he enjoyed it a great deal.

Even Marcus enjoyed the concert, though he looks like he’s about to fall asleep here!

Once we got home Marcus got a second-wind and enjoyed time with Grandma while the rest of us had ice cream, then he had fun with Grandpa (who discovered he is very ticklish).   By then it was WAY past all the boys bed times and they all headed to bed soon after, while Mom and Dad headed home.

I was able to get pictures from dad today from our tadpole adventure last week!

 I love the look on Will’s face here!

The tadpoles are swimming happily in their bowl on our kitchen counter.  The boys wanted them in their room but I discovered I enjoy seeing them as well!  No signs of legs yet!

There several time this week I was wishing I had my camera (then I would have lots of pictures to share)!

Tuesday we went to visit my mom and dad. The boys caught some tadpoles out of dad’s pond. I was able to get pictures of that on their cameras but am still waiting for them to get emailed to me–so no pictures here! They had great fun catching them and we now have a fish bowl of them swimming around in the kitchen. Did you know tadpoles can eat lettuce or dried dog food?  And they’re quite interesting to watch swimming around and nibbling on leaves in the bowl.

Wednesday morning I was packing Will’s lunch, looked up out the back window and saw 3 deer between our yard and the neighbors.  By the time I grabbed the camera, they’d moved on.

Wednesday evening was our last night at Awana. Alex got his first book award, I was wishing I’d brought my camera to get a picture of him getting his award. Will did not finish his book this year, so I didn’t work too hard to make it up to his room (I’ve not mastered the art of being in 2 places at once yet!   I’m going to have to suggest they try to stagger the times a bit better next year for parents with kids in separate grades. I didn’t push him too hard this year because he will be in the 3 year Sparks program for 4 years (we let him start with his friends when he was 5, but not going into KG last year so he’ll be going an extra year).

Today Alex and I went to story time at a near-by bookstore. We got to meet Clifford (According to Alex “Maybe that was a grown-up dressed up like Clifford”), sing songs about him, hear a story and do a craft.  He really enjoyed it. All the other parents around me were taking pictures of their kids giving Clifford a hug and I was a tiny bit sad I didn’t even THINK of bringing mine. Oh well!

Will and James had gone on the End of the Year Camp-Out our church does for the Awana kids.  Will was SO excited to be able to go.  Friday, when I picked him up at school the first thing he said was “I can’t wait until 4:00!”  James had to leave early Saturday morning to help out with a Youth Group function that required him to drive the bus.  Will was given the option of coming back early with James and riding the bus, or staying with friends and he decided to stay.

It was a rough time for Alex. He’s not used to going to bed in the room by himself and he was quite upset to be “All ALONE!”  There were some tears as he was trying to fall asleep but he was pretty tired and fell asleep quickly. Having the story time  was a wonderful fun thing just for him and while he felt the afternoon without Will would “be TOO long” (He speaks in lots of capitals), he managed to find things to do.  One thing was working with James on riding his bike without training wheels–another thing I want to get a picture of ! (Marcus was napping while they were working on it on the side street/dead-end road that gets little traffic and is a great place for the boys to ride bikes on, so I was at home.)

Will got back around 4:30 full of stories of Capture the Flag (but they played with 2 colored balls), camp fires & smores, going on a zip line, boating, playing in a creek and how he stayed up until 10:30 last night!  He had a great time.  Now we’re looking forward to 2 more weeks of school and then the real summer fun will begin!

Wow, the post below was last week…it was a fun & busy week and I can’t believe it’s now another week later!  Where did this last week go? So much for posting more often!

Monday-Will had the day off school, it was a Flex day in case they needed it for a snow make up day…which they didn’t need. So Alex got to go to school, and Will stayed home. He helped James outside some but was pretty happy when Alex was home.

Tuesday-I got to take a meal to a family with a new baby, vote, and run some other errands before James left for work. In the afternoon we went to a place called Bouncer Town, a big store filled with those blown up bounce houses. The kids had great fun running around, bouncing, climbing, sliding, etc. Alex’s preschool had a fundraiser there. I took a book and the computer in hopes that I could stay occupied and let them stay as long as they wanted. After 3 hours I had to go. Between the buzz of all the blowers going to keep the houses inflated + the noise of the kids and Marcus not napping well, it was time for us to leave. Neither kid was that upset when I told them it was time to go. To make up for spending a beautiful day inside, we had supper outside.

Wednesday-This was the last Women’s Bible Study of the spring semester. It closed with a brunch and we talked some about what we learned during the semester. Someone brought up the study she did in the fall and I had to stop and think “Did I take a study in the fall? What was it?”  Then I remembered I did, but I was pregnant/sick and missed over half of it. At least I got a cute baby out of it!

Thursday-Typically this is our cleaning day. I didn’t get as much done as I wanted but I did get a double batch of waffles done, the kitchen cleaned up and laundry washed/dried (I’m going to fold it after typing this–can we say “Procrastinating!”?)  The boys and I went for an evening walk/picnic at the local park. They had great fun playing with other kids at the park (it’s located by some apartments and I’ve noticed it tends to be busier in the evenings and weekends then the days).  Sadly, Alex pinched that fleshy part of the hand between his thumb and pointer finger and was already pretty tired so he didn’t handle that injury well. He was crying and sobbing and kept freaking out because it was bleeding. Of course I didn’t have any band-aids on me. I finally had to rip up a baby blanket I’d brought along and use that to wrap around the spot. It was a LONG walk home as he kept sniffling/crying when the bandage would come unwrapped or he’d get stuck and we were trudging back uphill to get home.  Finally we got home and he fell asleep quite quickly.  It was Marcus’ first time to sit in the big boy stroller and to be pushed in the swing.

Friday-Today!  It was a frustrating morning. I had a giant bag of potatoes that was sprouting so I made a big batch of mashed potatoes to freeze and made cheesy scalloped potatoes for lunch. I kept getting interrupted and Marcus was fussy and then I had to get Will and it kept happening…before I knew it I was just getting it into the oven and it was time to get Alex (or 11:50) and it takes over an hour for the potatoes to cook!  Thankfully the boys were able to survive until we ate.   This afternoon our library had a special story time for Race Fans, so we went out to that. The kids enjoyed books about racing and then they got to decorate toy wood cars and race Matchbox cars. They had lots of fun while I got to pick out a few new books to read…hmmm, now that I think about it, I went to the library on Monday and already had 3 books to return, maybe THAT’S why I’ve not updated here!

Few quick funny quotes/tid-bits:

* Will lost tooth #6 yesterday! It was REALLY lose and he woke up in the morning with it out, but still in his mouth! I was impressed he didn’t swallow it.

* Alex’s teachers had the class answer questions about their moms. Here are my favorite ones Alex said “My mother is does  __ stirring __ better then anyone.” Stirring? He was proud he got my age right, he was laughing that one kid in class said her mom was five. He did say my favorite food was cheesy broccoli (um, no) and that I spend most of my time taking walks. Yeah, if I did, I would be a bit skinner then I am now, we need to START doing more walks!

* Will’s class had eggs they were incubating this spring, in hopes of seeing the baby chicks hatch. One hatched and we were talking about what he thought his teacher would do with the chick as it got bigger. He suggested she’d take it home for a pet. (This is a young, single, first year teacher. I don’t see her wanting to have a chicken as a pet!)  Today he said she told them they were giving the  chick that hatched to  farmer and the rest of the eggs were going to have to go.

* Alex was drawing a picture of a football field with numbers on it (the score). He said “I’m the Indianapolis Colts and these are the Haystackers and we’re winning.” (Where does he come up with these names?