All Ready

Okay baby... we're 38 weeks now and everything is ready!  I'm hoping baby El will wait at least another week (which is when Grandma gets here to help), hopefully 2 weeks and be born after Michael's birthday, but we are ready either way.  Finished this about a week ago- this one is special because it matches cousin Temperance's (slightly different, just the number of each color and the backing color) and it was made from fabric my grandpa brought home from Vietnam.  It was kind of challenging working with the fabric and I'm not sure it's going to hold up as well as the other baby blankets, but it's finished, and I like it :)  

The "nursery" is also ready... it's still the guest room, but the crib is in there, along with my rocking chair, and everything is clean (bedding and clothing).  We have been gradually been relocating some of the "stuff," mostly books, we keep in that room to free up space and make it more "Baby El's room".  We have diapers.  The blanket to the left was made by my niece Elizabeth (pretty impressive, she's only 7), and she and Connor also made (at Build a Bear) the big elephant stuffed toy.  Baby El's stuffed elephant from us is packed along with everything else we'll need for the hospital.  We'll move the other little elephant (from Aunt Jesse) to the car seat- which is already installed in the van.   

The cradle is in our room, taking up space.  Probably a good thing, as I'm pretty sure it's helping Daniel a lot with the reality of what's happening- not that he won't be rather shocked!  

Can you guess how many of these little things were NOT done when Daniel decided to show up at 38 weeks and a day?  Lesson learned.  Now we'll just enjoy our days at the pool (if the weather would cooperate a little more) and hopefully manage to be rested as well as ready when the big day arrives.  Not that life is ever dull here... ongoing projects still include me working on the finishing touches of planning for our school year, and Cullen working on planning the next Disney trips.   Oh yeah, and occupying all the big boys :) 

Now and Then

Wasps love our screen porch.  They are not very successful at setting up camp there though, because our boys spot them and insist we spray them immediately... to the point they won't even go outside if there's a wasp on the porch.  

Now apparently, if there's a wasp in the backyard it's not such a big deal.  In fact it makes them feel somehow powerful and manly to try to attack wasps they spot in the backyard.  We've explained to Scott in particular, countless times, that wasps will leave you alone if you leave them alone.  He doesn't seem to care.  I went outside earlier this week to check on them (Scott, Blaise, and Michael) and from the safety of the part of the porch that is not screened in, they were bombarding a pair of wasps working on building a nest in our bird feeder, with EVERY toy we had in the toy bin.  Mean mommy that I am... I made the big ones (Scott and Blaise) go pick up every toy, carefully of course, and thankfully no one got stung- though maybe that would help drive the lesson home?  They reminded Daddy to spray the wasps as soon as he got home.

The whole saga reminded me of a quite distinct, and somewhat embarrassing moment from my own childhood.  My cousins and I were at my grandparents house, which means we were out in the yard playing... I might have been 5, but just barely.  It was my brother, sister and I and our cousins Buddy and Somer.  Grandma's house, back in the early 80's, was a ranch... no side porch, and I can't remember if the pond was even finished at the bottom of the hill at this point.  We were playing on the hillside, probably near the clothesline, which was pretty much the edge of what actually got mowed.  At the top of the hill, not far from the corner of the house there was a post in the ground, with a bucket turned upside-down on top of it.  It wasn't something we were interested in.  Until... Grandma made a point of telling us not to go near it because there was a beehive inside it.  Buddy (who would have been just barely 7) wandered up the hill moments later to investigate.  Never wanting to miss anything, I followed him.  Don't worry, I know better than to follow Budd now :)  There most definitely was a bee hive in that bucket.  We pretty much got swarmed and chased, and ended up with at least 10 or so stings each.  Fun times.  

I'm not sure that Scott and Blaise believed me when I told them this story the other day... but hopefully, they won't end up with a similar story of their own.  

After escaping that opportunity to get stung by a wasp, Blaise apparently found another and was more successful.  Thursday they asked to go to the park and practice riding bikes.  I had to work myself up to getting to there (loading all their bikes into the car, doing sunscreen, and whatnot is just not an easy task at 37 plus weeks), but we made it.  They rode laps around the park for 40 minutes or so.  I felt light-headed, probably from the heat, so we had a little snack and a drink.  I noticed a huge swollen spot on Blaise's hand and asked him what happened.  He had no clue, so I showed him his hand.  Still no clue.  I made a mental note to watch him closely for any other reaction to whatever got him and checked to make sure it didn't hurt at all.  No hurts... nothing.  Benedryl at bedtime and again this morning.  Here's his hand a day and a half later... the swelling has spread from a spot about the size of 2 quarters near his middle finger, to pretty much his whole hand.  He was having a hard time picking things up this morning.  

Lovely right?

In other news... Happy Birthday USA!

Say Fireworks!

We celebrated the 4th by going to the town program in the morning.  The town does a nice presentation and short talk at one of the big churches downtown.  Love living in this small southern town :)  Then a processional over to Main Street, led by a bagpiper, for the firing of the cannons.  Can't beat cannons, in the eyes of little boys.  They also had fun playing at home and having Daddy around on a Wednesday... though that totally threw me off for the rest of the week- what day is it now?

Michael riding his horse named Scott

 I love when they play this game... it reminds me of a clip in the Snider Years (a home video from when my dad and his brothers were kids, right up through when I was a kid).  My uncle Doc (the 4th brother) had a hat collection and in this particular clip, my dad was his horse as he modeled all his hats for the camera.  I'm thinking my dad was closer to 10 years old though and Uncle Doc was around 5- technicalities though.

Check out the size of those ice cream sundaes

 The rest of our plan for the 4th was to actually go to the Knights baseball game and see if the boys would last for the fireworks after the game.  Then it clouded up quite a lot while we were eating dinner and the radar showed some pretty strong storms headed towards the stadium.  We decided we'd wait and try to make a game this weekend instead.  Cullen, genius that he is, managed to make Scott be okay with this change of plans and not totally melt down.  In fact, he even got away without spending as much.  His idea was ice cream, which if you know Scott at all, is his heart language.  Then he convinced  him that we should go to the grocery store and get stuff to make our own sundaes, because that would be better than Maggie Moo's, Cold Stone, or wherever.  Most importantly, he didn't disappoint.  Do you see the size of those ice cream sundaes, sitting in front of my little boys.  They ALL ate every last bite.

Makes for happy boys...

Yes, he ate a lot of ice cream... and wore a lot too.

 We concluded our evening with fireworks on YouTube.  One of the many ways the internet simplifies life (or allows us to think we're living, when really we're just sitting here letting other people live for us.)