"Baby" Michael Turns 1

Well, you might be aware that I am actually posting this not just a few days, but almost 2 weeks late. At least I am posting it!


It's hard to believe it's already been a year, since baby Michael joined our family. I've been told I need to stop calling him "Baby" Michael... There are lots of things I will never forget from that night a year ago, when he was born. The whole water breaking in my sleep thing is a big one, along with a few other details of his birth that I'll refrain from elaborating on right now. Scott's excitement to hold HIS baby. How much screaming Michael did in his first 10 minutes of life. The little head full of black hair. All our visitors arriving at the same time at the hospital... we had a room full! A very good friend who let Scott and Blaise sleep-over twice.


That was last year... this year, the little man is walking (he took his first steps around June 24, then really took off around July 19) and he's trying hard to keep up with his brothers. He "runs" the loop with them, not noticing he gets lapped about 4 times each trip around. He has 5 teeth and eats more than his brothers (they're picky, and he eats everything... except scrambled eggs.) Michael is quite the independent little dude. He already insists on self-feeding, everything, including his morning yogurt. That makes a big mess, but he is surprisingly (or not considering he's practicing daily) good at it. He also tries (harder than his brothers) to put on his own shoes when asked. No, I don't ask him to put on his own shoes, just Scott and Blaise, but he tries anyway. I'm glad he likes his shoes... I was a bit nervous, since he'd been barefoot all spring and summer until after the 4th of July, that he would refuse to wear them once we finally bought them. He babbles a lot. We think he has 3 words... Yeah, Scott, and Hi. He thinks he speaks in perfect English... if you ask him something, he will turn, look at you, and say a bunch of jibberish with perfect sentence intonation.

In the size department, well, he's right at 20 lbs and somewhere between 29 and 30 inches. I have no idea where that is on the chart, because I'm too lazy to go look. He'll finally go for his 1 yr old checkup in another 2 weeks and they'll tell me what percentiles he is and give me more "precise" measurements. We postponed his 1 yr checkup, because everyone got sick on the 24th and there's no point in going for a well-check when you're sick... especially when you still need the 3rd dose of vaccine that you've managed to avoid at both your 6 and 9 month checkups.

For his birthday celebration, we started the day with cinnamon rolls for breakfast and watermelon. He was a happy boy!


We had to cancel his party though, because Scott and Blaise were both feverish. He didn't mind, staying home and playing with Daddy is just as much fun.

I made him a soccer ball cake... which he enjoyed, but in my opinion (and Cullen's) didn't really do a great job of efficiently devouring it. He did stick his thumb all the way into the center of it and cleaned the icing off of it though.


He opened his presents after getting cleaned up from the cake experience.


Being a 3rd child, he had a lot of help... and didn't mind until after the fact, when his big brothers also wanted to play with his new toys. We got him a couple of new cars and a soft soccer ball (from Ikea.) He's still learning that you aren't supposed to use your hands in soccer and can often be caught throwing his soccer ball (chase it, pick it up, repeat...) or any other ball for that matter. He does like to play catch, whenever he can get someone interested. Unfortunately, by bedtime the birthday boy was also feverish... at least this isn't a birthday he will remember for years to come. And on the plus side, he got to celebrate his birthday for 2 weekends in a row, rather than just one.

Walking

There you have it. This little man is on the move on 2 legs on a regular basis now. He took his first steps back around June 25th at Uncle Mike's pool. He's been looking for windows of opportunity between the chaos created by his 2 big brothers to practice. He'd hit 8 steps by the end of the 4th of July weekend. Apparently on Saturday, he decided to overcome the chaos and walk anyway. I came home from a book fair on Saturday to a Michael who favors walking over crawling and I've seen him walk across rooms and even (repeatedly) attempt to walk over our somewhat bulky transition strips.

The Saturday book fair was wonderful. I went with a friend and I found everything I was looking for. The plan is to start a somewhat structured homeschool with Scott and Blaise in August, so I can experiment and practice with the daily log requirement before we actually have to report to anyone. We are all excited about it and intend to have fun with it.

We officially have 2 cars that will seat our whole family after the baby comes in November. We bought a new Mazda 5 on Friday. Scott got to go test drive it with Cullen the weekend before that, so that was a really special thing for them.

Blaise has promoted himself from the kid-sized potty seat to the regular seat.

I have the opportunity this month to teach swimming lessons at a friends pool. My class of preschoolers includes my big boys and we are all having a blast... and learning that God controls the weather. We can pray and ask God to give us good weather... and sometimes he says "Yes," but sometimes he says, "No." So far, 2 out of 4 days have been postponed due to thunder and lightening.

I figured it was time to add a few videos again, so here goes. Michael is on the move on 2 legs now. Well... he's not really moving to walking exclusively yet, crawling is still much faster. He took 3 steps at the pool on Friday. On Saturday he was playing quietly behind me and I turned around to check on him and witnessed 5 steps across the living room (he didn't see me watching him.) He's been taking 2 or 3 steps more frequently since then and I expect he'll take off by the end of the week. Of course, the little man knows what a camera is and there's virtually no chance of catching any walking with one of those yet. However, he's also quite the proficient climber. Already capable of climbing onto the slide on the back porch, the top of the kids plastic picnic table, the couch (and safely back off)... and I got him mastering the old beach chair on video. Sorry, it's mostly of his backside :)

In other Michael news, he also likes to feed himself with a spoon now. He still needs quite a lot of practice with this new skill.

Scott and Blaise are still keeping busy entertaining me too. Blaise constantly says the most amusing things. 2 examples...

#1- While getting ready for bed a few weeks ago, Cullen had "encouraged" him to hurry up with an exasperated, "Come on, Blaise, get your pajamas on." Blaise looks over at me, dressing Michael, and says, "I'm coming on, because Daddy told me to come on."

#2- After dinner tonight, the boys are all playing in the living room, while I was putting things away. Blaise says to Scott, "Scott, let's do that thing where we hug each other and make us dead." Scott responds, "Okay." And for those that are wondering... here's the video of that thing.

We had our ultrasound yesterday... I guess you could say it went well. It's a baby! What we could see of the baby was perfect and actually measuring a few days ahead (we are 19 weeks now.) The parts of the ultrasound that didn't go so well... oh, the screaming 11 month old big brother who would have rather been actually taking his morning nap, and also the uncooperative baby who was basically folded in half with both legs and both arms up over his head... we have to return for a follow-up in 4 weeks, since they couldn't see everything they needed to see. This is our 3rd uncooperative baby in utero, for the record. (Anyone local want to keep the big brothers for the next one?)

For those that want to play the guessing game with us I started a new game at www.expectnet.com called "chipmunkkeen" Yes... this baby's nickname is chipmunk, as in Chip & Dale and we even have authentic Disney World Chipmunks for the baby's first stuffed toy (since we decided to start trying for this one in Disney World.)

It's June!

Can't say I'm sad to see the end of May. May was a long hard month for us... with a celebration on either end. First B's birthday... then sickness... then more sickness... then bad news... then worse news... then a wedding :)

Okay, here are a few details, but just a few. All 5 of us, yes, even baby Michael at just over 9 months old, had strep throat. Cullen missed several days of work that week. The following week he was out of town and I started a major head cold/sinus infection that I've been dealing with for more than 2 weeks now. While Cullen was out of town, we found out that my dad has a 2 inch tumor on his pancreas. More than a week later, he finally had a biopsy and they confirmed the tumor is cancer. They are still trying to work out details of a treatment plan, but have an oncologist who is setting up chemo and radiation, at the same time as they are meeting with a surgeon to determine if/when surgery will be possible (which would be best case.) PS- if you're not familiar with pancreatic cancer, it's not a good thing, the life expectancy is 2 years at best.

Ah, the fun stuff... the wedding. My brother got married on Saturday. We had a fun weekend with lots of family in town. Scott got to meet his birthday buddy for the first time. He and my cousin Rachael (who lives in Texas) share a birthday. Blaise slept through the wedding. He fell asleep in the car on the way there, we put him down on a pew inside the church and he didn't wake up until the very end of the wedding. Michael enjoyed eating watermelon with my cousins Rachael and Laura... in fact he basically stole Rachael's watermelon, rind and all, and chewed mercilessly on it. He cut a top tooth on Friday and I'm sure watermelon felt great. I got to visit with my cousin Somer, who I haven't seen since Blaise was a newborn. According to Somer, we haven't seen each other since, "I don't know, there were only 2." :)

Sunday morning the boys had a performance at church, for the end of our Sunday school class for the year. They have been doing and ABC Bible Verse class, learning a verse for every letter of the alphabet. Blaise opted out of the performance, but Scott was in rare form. He did interpretive dance the entire time. Never doing what everyone else was doing. Stamping his feet, standing when everyone else was ducking down... it was quite entertaining. I'll be trying to get a copy of a friends video of that one.

One more funny... yesterday Blaise was playing with a toy airplane. It was going down the runway (arm of the couch) and then taking off. After about the 5th take-off, he looks up and says, "Off to Neverland!"

Maybe I'll add pictures later... I'm waiting for them to finish uploading from the memory card.

4

And then there were 4...

Happy Thanksgiving :) This years holiday season is looking to be quite a bit different than years past!

When Blaise Turns 3

What a day! Blaise turned 3... wow, where did the time go? We had a very busy day of celebrating. At his request we spent the morning filling the kiddie swimming pool on the back deck. We'll see how long it lasts this year before breaking. With another year behind each of them, they seem quite a bit rougher this year. They had a blast. Giving each other "baths" with the hose. Blaise wasn't quite as interested as Scott, so mostly Blaise hosed Scott- which I thought was a nice change :) And the water was COLD, but the weather was nice and warm.

Then we went to Carowinds. The boys wanted to go and a friend of mine I hadn't seen in a very long time was going to be there. Yes, I know, I'm crazy to take 3 kids by myself to Carowinds (before the water park is even open.) We managed. We only stayed for about 2 hours, at least 40 minutes of which was walking back and forth from the parking lot. Blaise insisted he didn't need the stroller, so I wore Michael and got to carry Blaise on too on the way back. We did get to see my friend- which was really neat. We rode the carousel. Scott rode the airplanes, kind of like Dumbo only much smaller, lower, and slower. Blaise said they were too fast. We all rode the little train and the sky tower. Blaise was pretty worried when the sky tower first started up, but he calmed down, when he realized it wasn't going to do anything fast and enjoyed the view.

Grandma and Grandpa were here when we got home, but Blaise and Michael were completely asleep in the car (after the whopping 5 minute drive.) They napped and we played. Then we all went out to Cheesecake Factory for dinner. Blaise had requested a "cheese birthday cake," and when presented with the option he was quite excited about dinner at Cheesecake Factory. He ended up with a hot fudge sundae with 3 candles and waitresses singing Happy Birthday to him- which he thought was really cool. (We did share some cheesecake with him too.)

He's still fairly small for his age... 36 inches with shoes, and just under 30 lbs. But he is growing and eating well. He's 99% potty trained day and night, only occasionally needs to be reminded. He still has an amazing vocabulary for his age and is very quick with words. He loves to play with Scott and with Michael. We're not 100% certain that he really knows his shapes and colors, but we think he does (at least for the most part.) Probably 50% of the time he will answer all color questions correctly and the other 50% of the time he will say, "purple." "Green" was Scott's go to color, when he couldn't remember the name of the color he was looking at, so maybe it's just that, or maybe he's just pulling out leg, or maybe he really is still a little confused- who knows, but we're not worried. He can spell his name, but isn't into writing much of anything. Although, recently I handed him Scott's dry-erase maze book and he spent a long time just doing the mazes (and erasing them) over and over again. He's so independent- so different from Scott.

He's gotten a lot faster at running, better at jumping, and was even galloping a little and experimenting with standing on one foot recently. He has a blast every time he gets his scooter out and is remarkably good at that too. (Too bad for him, our driveway is gravel and we only have a short sidewalk to scoot on.)

Just Add Water

It's officially strawberry season! The strawberry patch up the road opened on Friday and we were there that day picking our first 2 gallons. They're almost gone. How many gallons do you think we'll pick this year?

Michael is getting quicker with this walking thing. He definitely still needs some hands or a walk-behind toy to hold onto, but he's cruising faster everyday. It seems to come with being the littlest, he's good at holding on tightly to things he's playing with and getting around (or over in some cases) obstacles (like Blaise, or anyone else) that are in his way.

Other Michael news... he seems to be changing so fast these days. Babies never cease to amaze me in that regard. In the past week, he's significantly increased his speed with his walking toy, he's started waving (mostly to that incredibly cute baby in the mirror), he finally cut his 2nd tooth, and he started clapping a couple of nights ago at dinner. Busy guy. They learn so much so fast in their first year. Amazing.

We are gearing up to celebrate Blaise's 3rd birthday on Friday. Actually his 3 friend play-date (party, but so named to discourage gifts, we have plenty), is tomorrow. In getting ready for that, we've been cleaning up the porch and that included cleaning out the sand table.

We'll add more sand in a couple of weeks maybe... but for now this is great! I really should have thought of this, oh, say, 2 months ago- being as there's only been a really small amount of sand in the table left over from last summer anyway.

Now the question is... how many minutes til they ask me to get the pool out again? Oh wait, they just asked at dinner tonight.

On The Road Again and Home Again

We've had a busy month... Cullen has started a new project at work and he's been out of town for a couple of LONG trips lately. It made our Easter Basket devotion, well, not quite the same, since he was out of town the whole week leading up to Easter. Thankfully, he was home for Easter and we had a nice celebration. We welcomed him home with peanut butter Easter egg candies (his Grandma's recipe). Then we made "Resurrection Cookies" on Saturday night that you leave in the oven overnight. (Everything is all about dessert here!)

We had a nice morning in worship, did our own little Easter egg hunt at home, and then headed over to my mom's for Easter dinner. It was a nice day. And gorgeous weather too. Scott, Blaise and I went out with Mom to walk the dog and found a little turtle on the way. Scott was kind enough to pick it up and move it from the road to the grass- he loves touching wild animals. When we got back to the house, Kelly and Joseph (Mike's fiance and her son) were there, so the boys were very excited to play with Joseph... and dig in the sand pile in the driveway together.

Then the pollen came... and my oh my did it come. Scott has bad allergies, by the way, and couldn't sleep from the cough and congestion. Well, until I caved and gave him Benedryl... I just hate to see the kid start his lifelong daily dosages of allergy medicine at age 4.

Michael in addition to cutting his first tooth, had learned the all important skill for all little boys- pushing a car...

... oh, and fighting off Blaise at the same time!

For Cullen's 2nd long trip, we took a long trip of our own. We stopped in MD and dropped off Blaise with Grandma and Grandpa for his first solo visit. Then Scott, Michael, and I headed up to CT to visit with Jessica. Ah, relief from the allergies! (There's still pollen up north, but it's not as bad yet as it is here.) The driving was killer... but otherwise we all had a blast!

Blaise had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa... he demonstrated how sneaky and quick he is and why he manages to get into so many things. In Grandpa's words, "We figured out you can't blink too long with him." He got to do lots of fun things while he was there, go to the Marine Museum, see the airplanes, the playground, eat a Dunkin Doughnut for snack (the powdered sugar covered, creme filled variety) without making a mess, go to work with Grandma, go to Chic-Fil-A with Grandpa. Yeah, he had a good week. To top it off, he got to go pick out part of his birthday present... he wanted a skateboard. He picked a really cool Toy Story scooter, just his speed and matching helmet. It even has a bell, which makes him quite happy.

In CT, we got to see Aunt Jesse's house. We approve. It's big, and feels a little empty, especially without Uncle Darrell, but it's very nice and she's got an amazing backyard (even if we didn't go out there.) We went to the Mystic Aquarium. It was nice and we had a great time, but if you're planning a trip to CT, it's a little overpriced for what it is. We stayed for 4 hours or so, but easily could have seen everything in 2. Scott liked petting a shark and seeing the sea lions. Michael just wanted to walk... a bit annoying, since he doesn't know how and that means that I have to bend over and hold both his hands. On the other side of the coin, I mastered the art of folding Michael in order to buckle him into the stroller (he likes to arch his back and fight the process.)

We also went to the beach while we were there. Technically, it was a beach on Long Island Sound, but it was very nice. The water was blue, there were lots of little stones, and seashells to look at and plenty of sand. Things look promising for the beach this summer... Scott got wet up to his knees (and it was FREEZING) and ran all over the place playing in the sand, Michael again wanting to walk, tried walking out to sea, and tried (very hard) to eat large mouthfuls of sand- he was mad when we wouldn't let him.


This week... we've been home... without a car... with a sick Scott... with a couple of guys in the backyard building us a fence. This week is almost over. The fence is finished! Scott feels better! The transmission in the car should be ready this afternoon or tomorrow... things are starting to look up. Oh, and CJ Spiller is going to play for the Buffalo Bills. (Probably not the most exciting place for him, but you can't be disappointed about a #9 overall draft pick, and if you know me- this means I don't even have to get a new NFL team, I've been a Bills fan since 6th grade, though much less interested since I discovered college football at Clemson.)


And a random picture of Blaise wearing my sneakers on the porch. He's actually quite coordinated in them.

Bi-Weekly Maybe?

Okay, so now that I've already failed at the weekly thing... who was I kidding anyway? Here's an update on what we've been up to.

Well, first thing's first... we celebrated Cullen's birthday! Scott and I baked him a "super-chocolate" cake. Which is basically a two-layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. I really liked the recipe I found in Cullen's chocolate lover's cookbook, and was surprised we hadn't used it before. Cullen liked his cake... which of course, had to have candles. What luck! The only number candles we have are the #1 and the #3, which is perfect when you're turning 31... unless you really want 31 candles on the cake. The boys did an excellent job of singing Happy Birthday (they wanted the cake.) For the record, Cullen did not interrupt the song by blowing out the candles, they had already sung that line about 13 times... it's the latest "song that never-ends."


Still loving the nice weather and looking forward to another warm week. I think we'll be living on the porch through the rest of the summer. The boys are really loving their sand table, despite the fact that there's not much left of last year's sand and we really need to get a new bag for them. Our major "house" projects for this year are getting the backyard into a really sweet play-able place. We've already made major strides - if you'd seen our backyard when we bought the house 6 years ago (wow, we've been here awhile!) Our hopes for the summer include getting a load of dirt into the backyard to try and level it out some and putting in a fence. Volunteers to come help are welcome... let us know when you want to come and we can plan to have said dirt dropped off then :) We'll see how it progresses. Actually, the boys already have a nice track around the trees they like to run, it's just a bit hilly.


Michael enjoys the porch for standing up... yes, he's mastered pulling up on things. All kinds of things. Even pulling up on things he shouldn't and falling face-forward into them (toy bins, laundry baskets, etc...) No fear! Today he even mastered pulling up in the crib, oh joy. Today, it hasn't hindered his sleep, it was just when he woke up this morning and he was quite pleased with himself and again at bedtime when I came in to tell the big boys to be quiet. He loves it if someone will hold his hands and let him walk all over the place. He's taken a few steps behind his push toy and done a little bit of cruising along furniture (a couple of steps towards something he wants) and quite likely by the end of the week will be cruising all around the house.

We spent this past weekend up in Maryland visiting with Cullen's parents and grandparents... a bit of a change of plans, as we were supposed to go for Easter, but Cullen has business out of town all this week and next weekend just wouldn't work for traveling. Nice to be free to switch things up on short notice as needed!

We had a delightful visit, though short. Michael cut his first tooth! The video is of Grandma trying to catch a glimpse of the tooth... as soon as anything gets near his lip, he sticks his tongue out and completely blocks the view. Funny boy. Anyway, we played Wii, watched a movie and had popcorn, hung-out at the house and then headed up to the beach to see Great Grandma and Papapa. The boys were wonderful at their house- didn't touch the clock once! It's usually a great temptation- they must have forgotten it was there. We went for a short walk on the boardwalk and brought Papa some Fischer's Popcorn... but it was frigid, so it was a short walk.


I was actually quite surprised that Papa managed to read this book to Scott. It's Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel (which I'd heard a lot of good things about and finally gotten from the library... we would love to have this book and will probably renew it a few times.) Anyway, Papa isn't breathing well. He gets out of breath after about 3 words and has to stop and pant a little to catch his breath. It didn't bother Scott... maybe he appreciated the slower reading pace? Please pray for Papa's health.


Among Papa's other tricks... he managed to pick up a squirmy Michael and hold him for a few minutes, before helping him practice standing and then leaning all the way over to put him back on the floor.


Grandma seems quite tired too lately and older. It's part of life, but it's hard to watch them age. Blaise enjoyed a "drink" (of water) with Great Grandma before dinner. We enjoyed visiting and I'm sure they enjoyed having us, but I'm also sure we wore them out in less than 24 hours... busy boys!

Now we are back home and getting ready for Easter. We are hoping to make some of Great Grandma's peanut butter eggs for Easter and will be celebrating the resurrection with my parents and soon to be sister-in-law and nephew (Mike can't come because he has to work on Sunday.)

He is Risen!

Visit with Aunt Jesse

Aunt Jesse went back to CT on Friday. We had a great and very eventful visit with her. I already posted the part where Michael started crawling for her. Wore him out!


The weather finally warmed up while Jessica was here and we were able to take lots of hikes. While she was with my parents on Sunday, the 5 of us went out to Crowder's Mountain State Park and got to wait in the car for 30 minutes because the park was at capacity and the ranger was letting people in one at a time as others left. We waited it out. It was a nice day and worth the wait. Scott was very excited about hiking.


And tree climbing... he wanted to touch all the trail markers, once we pointed them out to him. I don't think he'll get lost in the woods. I also think he needs to find a better method for climbing trees!


We hiked the "Fern" Trail, which was about a mile and had this cute little stream where it crossed the "Lake" Trail. Scott and Blaise both did a really great job hiking on their own and didn't really want to leave... I didn't either. What a fun family day we had!

Then we took Aunt Jesse to a park I used to take Patience to back in the day. That was really nice too. A little walk around a pond, where we got to see a turtle and a lot of time on the playground... where Aunt Jesse got some great pictures of the boys that we'll be hanging on the wall. It's nice to have a budding photographer in the family :)

Another day another hike. We revisited Landsford Canal State Park with Aunt Jesse for a picnic lunch and hike along the river. The boys absolutely LOVE it there. Throwing sticks into the water is the name of the game:

We didn't actually hike very far, they were having too much fun throwing sticks into the water.

Then we went home and after naps spent the rest of the afternoon outside at home... Michael got to play in the sand for the first time. I think he enjoyed it!

He also discovered gumballs. Joy. I think they're nasty things and don't like them at all, but every time we go on the porch he crawls over and picks one up and tastes it of course. The funny part is the whole time he's doing this he has this awful look on his face. Funny dude.

That afternoon turned a bit scary. My brother Mike came over for dinner and on his way over he started feeling badly. As we were sitting out on the porch chatting and the boys were playing (I was feeding baby Michael,) Mike got sick and passed out. He's a big guy. It was scary. The paramedics came and he got to spend the night at the hospital. I'm not sure how much he wants here for the whole world to read, but it turns out it was just a bad stomach bug that triggered convulsive fainting. It scared Blaise and he had a hard time getting to sleep that night (despite it being late by the time they got to bed.) Scott on the other hand... could be a doctor someday, he's just so fascinated by all things related to medical practice. Baby Michael was a little annoyed that his dinner got interrupted. The rest of our visit with Jessica was kind of back and forth between here and the hospital... we settled a little bit back into our normal routine, since she spent a lot of time with Mike. The boys were sad when she left... they had come to believe that this was her new home. "When is Aunt Jesse coming home?" they asked. I tried to convince them that her home was far away in CT... maybe they believe it now?

Michael has made strides with his coordination crawling since last week:

It seems the greatest motivation for him is getting to me or getting to something that belongs to the big brothers. They are getting used to it already- don't like it, but are getting used to it.

I've decided to "attempt" to post here on a more weekly basis, with more pictures and videos. I'm trying to record the little things elsewhere. We'll see how that works.