School Days

It's hard to believe, but school has begun again! :o) Last week we met teachers at the respective Open Houses, ...

And got all our new school supplies carefully tucked away, ready for a bright and early start on the first day ... thanks for the beautiful coat rack, Uncle Pat!! It works perfectly for all of our bookbags!

Special pics for a special day ...

Hannah's first day of K5 ...

Peter's first day of 'K3' ...

And Matthew along for the ride ...

Although we may homeschool someday, for this year it seems best for Mommy to continue working part-time. Everybody's settling into the school routine very well and we praise the Lord for a good first week!

A Big Boy

Happy four months, Matthew!

At four months, Matthew weighs 17 lbs 9 ounces (91.58 percentile) and is 28-1/4 inches long (99.8 percentile). He's a BIG boy! :o)

He's become quite interested in books--eating them being rather a favorite activity. ;o)

He's definitely happier on his tummy these days!
And his smiles are as big as ever ...

We love you, Matthew, and can't imagine life without you!

Updates

Well, it's one of those "catch up" posts again, but that's all right ... at least we're "catching up!" :o)

Matthew is growing like a weed! Haven't weighed him recently, but at 15 weeks, 6-month clothes are about to be packed away. He's such a sweetie! He has a smile to melt your heart, and he's becoming much more interested in toys and "playing."

We need to give him more opportunities for "tummy time." He does fantastic sitting up in his Bumbo seat or exersaucer, but isn't quite as strong yet at pushing up on his tummy.

Lots of drool and lots of funny faces these days!We're still trying to find the right combination of lotions, etc., to help his dry skin. His scalp especially is quite dry and he tends to rub it vigorously, so we keep "mittens" (AKA "socks") on his hands when he's sleeping or just "sitting." Thankfully it hasn't deterred his cheerful spirit! :o)

We're having fun exploring new textures together!

Hannah and Peter are still best buds ...

and partners in crime! ;o) Umm, is that what the sandbox lid is for???

Hannah was privileged to hand out bubbles at one of her Sunday School teacher's wedding recently.

And she's as into crafts as ever! We've also been working through the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. It's been GREAT! I only wish we had started it about a year ago. She's been "reading" lots of words for quite a while (couple years?), but it was sight reading--she'd memorize words and was able to pick them out wherever she saw them. If she didn't know it by sight, she'd guess based on the first letter. This book is helping me teach her how to sound words out. It's really exciting! :o) Classic comment though: "My head knows the sounds, but sometimes my mouth gets confused."

She continues to be a big helper with Matthew, and recently made a quite perceptive observation: "Matthew likes me more than his paci, and he likes feeding more than me." :o)

This particular afternoon, she pawned an old cooking magazine off of me so she could do a craft. As she was working on it, she commented, "I love glue and paper." Yes, Hannah, we've all figured that out by now! :o)Here's her masterpiece--all of her favorite food pictures:

Peter has grown and matured a lot in the last couple months. He is talking. He's counting. He's helping and obeying.

We finally crossed the PT hurdle! Praise the Lord!!!! :o) When all's said and done, he was actually faster and easier than Hannah, but he still gave his Mommy some rather stressful days.

Being outside with Daddy, using tools, cutting down trees ... these are all of his favorite things. The afternoon that Hannah did her collage, Peter claimed the emptied box from a package we'd received so that he could use his drill:

And was quite pleased to get real wood from Daddy later that evening ...

HUGE praise! We found a set of solid wood bunk beds for $200 on Craig's List!! They're unfinished, so we'll be able to stain them to match the kids' dresser. What a blessing!

We heard a loud crack in one of our recent summer storms ... the next day we noticed one of our neighbor's trees leaning at quite the angle over our driveway. Peter was very glad to assist Daddy in using the tractor to pull it down! :o)

Mommy supervised ... ;o)

Thanks again for loaning us your tractor, Grandpa! We've used it lots and lots!

And that's about where things are at for now ... many many blessings in the midst of some unmentioned challenges ... we're learning much!

:::

"In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."

1 Thess. 5:18

:o)

Sparkle!

Hannah and Peter thoroughly enjoyed making short work of a box of sparklers from a friend at work. (Thanks, Kelley!)

Would you believe it was actually Daddy's first time ever using sparklers, too?? I was quite surprised, but he reminded me that he simply used bigger, better, noisier, more impressive things ...

Personally, I like sparklers. :o)

A Taste of Strawberry

It's hard to explain, but the Lord burdened me this summer to really make sure I'm investing myself in the hearts of my children. Sometimes it's easy to get in the rut of just making sure everybody's clean and fed and dressed ... okay, the kids are good to go, now on to housework, paperwork, bills, and so on and so forth. Sometimes I forget to really enjoy the wonderful blessings the Lord has given us! Especially when clutter reigns and whiny voices with increasing decibels are begging for this, that, and the other ... Yes. It's true. Our children struggle with whining. :o/ But they struggle most when Mommy has her focus shifted to other (far less important) things.

I'm working on it across the board, but my greatest burden has been for Hannah-bug. As far as girls go, we're now in the minority--it's just her and me. The Lord really impressed on my heart that now is the time to be cultivating a special relationship with her--not when she's 13.

So, those thoughts have been on my heart. We've done some "special" things, but mostly I've just been purposefully including her as an important helper in my uniquely "Mommy" jobs--like bathing babies, going grocery shopping, etc. She goes grocery shopping with me now every week--and she's becoming a very fun companion! :o) (I usually go Thursday evenings, so the boys can stay home with Chris.)

Previously, I had gotten into the bad habit of allowing a treat from the candy aisle pretty regularly when the kids were shopping with me. Basically the treat was a reward/bribe for reasonably good behavior. Multiple issues had surfaced from that, including an inability to enter a store without thinking that we had to get a "special treat." So, as Chris as I talked about it, we knew that needed to stop. However, when I decided that part of the change I wanted to make was taking Hannah with me any time she wanted to come (which is about 99% of the time), I knew I needed a creative replacement for the candy so I had something I could say "yes" to.

So what did we come up with? $2. Hannah has $2 of my weekly grocery budget that she can pretty much decide to spend however she'd like to get a special treat for the family ... it's worked great! She loves the responsiblity, I'm able to teach her how to make good choices, and while it's still a "special treat," the selfishness is gone because it's for everybody and the whining is gone because it's a known quantity with a very specific framework.

So far we've enjoyed her choice of all-natural popsicles and strawberries ...

You mentioned strawberries? Enter Mommy's childhood cookbook and the original reason for this post which has gotten much longer and wordier than I intended! (Sorry folks!)

My First Baking Book

As the dog-eared corners testify, I loved this cookbook as a child!

The recipes are written with very clear, illustrated, step-by-step instructions. It's great for kids!

And Hannah has been wanting to make Spring Strawberry Baskets for months.

I knew they were going to be more than a little time-consuming, so I've been putting it off, but when a good sale combined with a good coupon made for a fantastic deal on strawberries earlier this month, I finally decided that now was the time ... and I was not disappointed. :o) Hannah was thrilled!

Yes, making the baskets was as time-consuming as I expected it to be, but we had fun and they tasted good even if they didn't look beautiful. :o)

Beautiful hearts are much more important than beautiful baskets.
Or beautiful houses.
Or "Me Time."

This Mommy is still learning. I'm glad God's not done with me yet! :o)

Let's play ball!

Trac Ball that is! Finding outdoor games that are fun for a wide range of ages and abilities can be a wee bit challenging if you've ever tried to do it. Especially when one of the adults who would be participating simply cannot do much effectively with a ball at. all. Grandpa introduced us to Trac Ball at his last visit and Peter especially enjoyed it--he can get some real mileage on his throws and his catching capacity is multiplied ten-fold! :o) When Daddy commented on how much he also enjoyed playing it with him, Mommy decided she had a Father's Day gift!

But, for the record, there is no "k" in Trac Ball. Try Googling for "Track Ball" and see how long it takes you to find this game! It took me a long time to get enough descriptive words before I finally stumbled on the proper spelling. But it was well worth the effort, as we've had lots of fun with it in the evenings. :o) Even I can throw and sometimes even catch the balls!! And that's saying something! (Don't laugh too hard, Heather!) Would you believe though that 3 times out of 5, I manage to hit the power lines? Ah well!

And thankfully, we've finally gotten Hannah to get over her fear of losing the ball and actually be able to enjoy playing with it! :o)

Peter, ... well, let's just say he gets into it. Thoroughly. :o) Stop for pictures? Mommy, I'm busy. playing. working hard. This is no time for pictures. Alright. I'll pause for 1.5 seconds. Got it? Good. Pose? Not a chance. :o)

So, what fun games do you like that work for athletic preschool boys, school-age artsy girls, clumsy non-athletic mommies, and very fast athletic daddies? :o)

Happy 3 Months!

At three months, Matthew is simply a delight! :o) He's happy, content, and blesses anyone who will give him the least bit of attention with huge smiles! He's about 16.5 lbs according to our scale at home. Definitely a chunky monkey! :o)

As of the last couple weeks, he is consistently sleeping through the night--every night! Yeah! :o) Hannah accomplished that at two months, but Peter was somewhere around 36 months (eh-hem!), so we're definitely thankful for solid nights of sleep! Matthew goes to bed between 9:00 and 10:00 and I wake him up to eat around 5:30. Yeah! Praise the Lord!

He has discovered mirrors and loves to stare and make faces at himself. :o) He's also batting at his toys and starting to roll from side to side.

We love you, Monkey!

:::

P.S. - I stole the star idea from a friend (Thanks, Bethany!) ... I wanted to do something similar for both Hannah and Peter, but I just never did, because I missed the first couple months, and then it seemed silly to start in the middle. I decided that this time, I didn't care. :o) We'll start at three months, and Lord willing, we'll get "star pictures" for months 4 through 12 as well! :o)