On The Go

Nope Daniel is not walking yet... he's only 11 months.  Wait, only 11 months?  How is he this close to a year old already?  He is supposed to be the baby.  He does cruise and is very efficient at crawling- he now not only knows where the hall bathroom is for his flushing pleasure (hasn't put anything in yet, just likes the sound), but has also ventured far enough to know where the master bathroom is.

September was such a whirlwind of travel that it seemed to pass in a blink of the eye.  October is moving a bit slower, thank goodness... I've been absorbed in projects, with any luck I'll post again and tell you about it.  Our travels started the first of September this time, well technically August 31st.  We went to one of the most pleasant places I have ever been to and am now a renewed believer that it's the most peaceful place I will probably ever go.  I reflected to my sister as we were getting ready to head home that I can't remember a time I have ever wanted to leave there.  Got any guesses yet?

Michael on a rock, if you've ever been there, you probably recognize it.

The Adirondacks.  More specifically Grandma and Grandpa's lake house on Simon Pond, which is off Big Tupper Lake.  Grandpa always kept a sign there that said Neverest, which was his name for the place.  While it might have been appropriate for him, as he was always renovating, adding on, building something, or digging some rock out of somewhere- the irony of the name kind of struck me, since the rest of us find it a place of wonderful rest.

Michael and Daniel with Aunt Jesse and Bones

Daddy hiking with the big boys.

Can't go to the Adirondacks and not have some good soft serve!

We had a great several days there... swimming in the lake, playing with the paddle boat, canoeing a bit, hiking, walking, fished a little, had a campfire, enjoyed some blueberry pancakes, and got to share some memories with my boys.  One of the highlights... finding out that my sister is expecting :)  We missed Grandma though, it was definitely weird to be there without her, but then, it almost felt like she was there.

After that vacation we headed to Clemson to see our Tigers play.  As you probably know, and if you don't then you don't follow college football at all and that's your loss, we're still undefeated.  What a year.  We went to the Wofford game.  Daniel's first.  Scott was very engrossed in the entire game, while Blaise watched a lot of it, and had a good time just being there.  Michael was begging food, well ice cubes, from a friend we brought with us- so glad she could come, we don't see her enough.  Daniel loved the balloons and running down the hill.  He doesn't like it when we get excited, but he settled down eventually and fell asleep on Cullen's lap.

The family in Death Valley 2011

Next on the agenda... Indiana.  We have really good friends who moved there 2 years ago, so we are trying to make sure we get to see them at least annually.  Last year, we met halfway, but this year, with the addition of a new baby each, we just went all the way to them.  What a great time.  Almost makes me want to move to Indiana to be close to them again- except for the whole moving thing... and the winter thing... and the lack of mountains.

What a crowd.

The kids working on their fort- this is an ongoing activity.

Daniel and Elias, buddies already!

 
Finally... home.  Soccer season in full swing.

Ouch

It's been a rough week around here... Daniel is working on cutting 3, yes 3 top teeth, all at the same time. Poor little dude came down with a fever during church on Sunday (our apologies to GCC and prayers that no one else catches anything). He had a considerable fever, with no other symptoms, aside from those swollen lumps where he'll soon have teeth- from Sunday all the way through Wednesday and finally on Thursday woke up fever free and we got to see his sweet smile again.

This little man smiles all the time. It makes me wonder if he's heard that the baby of the family is supposed to be the clown? Oh, wait. He has heard that. Nana was just telling him that on Thursday. Then, that very same evening he was making a noted effort to make Michael and Scott laugh at him during dinner. He succeeded. It was a funny trick with his eyes and blinking and that smile- you really had to see it and everyone knows that the camera is much too slow to catch such things.


At any rate, the frequency and the level of cuteness contained in this one little face has earned the nickname, "Smiley Baby." Ask anyone and they'll tell you it's true... the checker at Aldi, the librarian...
Ahhhhh that's better. To sooth the swollen gums, we gave him his first whole piece of watermelon to chew on. He's had it cut up plenty of times, but this was the first time we handed him his own slice. I think he liked it.

First Day of School!

Scott officially started kindergarten on Monday. He is quite excited... still deciding on a name for our school, so far we think it should include the word Keen, I'd love to have Adventure in there somewhere (like the name of this blog) and Scott has demanded that the word school be in it as well... which effectively eliminates Cullen's suggestion of Keen Institute and my tendency towards Keen Academy. Ideas?

Blaise started K-4, which means I have a very simple math program from Singapore that I loved doing with Scott last year and I'm planning on starting to teach him to read, however slow it ends up going doesn't matter, he's only 4. He was thrilled to inform Daddy when he arrived home on Monday night that he gets to do school now too!!!!

We're off to a good start. I've changed our daily routine, most notably to not include the computer at all until after lunch, it's helped tremendously with MY focus. I really wish I could function without a computer, it would save me hours every day. I don't understand why it is such a distraction for me to stare at a computer screen... catching up on other people's blogs, browsing facebook, and just reading whatever there is to read... oh and sometimes finding some logic puzzles to zone out.

Michael is kind of stuck in the in between... he doesn't understand why Scott and Blaise are getting so much of my attention and wants to be involved, but doesn't have the attention span to necessarily sit with us. He's getting used to our new routine though... I give him a coloring book, a puzzle or something to do close to us and try to include him. Of course, he misses his best buddy Daniel, who naps during school time... see they like to play together :)

Daniel, doesn't know what's going on, because he's asleep for the whole process... which takes about an hour during his morning nap and about an hour during his afternoon nap. But he's making strides of his own... crawling fast, cruising some, putting EVERYTHING in his mouth- see lint, put lint in mouth, see tiny piece of leaf, put tiny piece of leaf in mouth, gag, etc... I think he's cutting some more teeth, at least I'm hoping that's why he's been fussier than usual lately. Although, even fussy, he's still a smiley baby and mostly happy.

I have almost the same video somewhere of Blaise at about this age pushing a laundry basket across the living room floor. They grow up too fast.

Child-like Faith

A few weeks ago a friend mentioned that her 4 year old daughter wanted to ask Jesus into her heart (or something like that.) A conversation (Facebook) ensued about whether or not that would be real and at what age it would be real. I've been thinking about this very frequently.

Here's the rub- can a 4 year old have saving faith in Christ? I think they can, but certainly I'm willing to consider other opinions. I think they can, partly because I've been there... if I were to rehash my whole testimony in 4 sentences it would be as follows- There has not been a day in my memory that I have not known Christ as a friend and Father. At around age 12, I came to understand a bit more clearly the huge sacrifice Christ made on my behalf. Shortly after high school I realized that I had a bigger role to play in maintaining a real relationship with my Savior and I began living a changed life. I continue to see my shortcomings and understand His grace more fully daily.

I don't think a 4 year old can really grasp the magnitude of the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf, but that isn't to say that they love Jesus any less or that that same sacrifice doesn't count for them. Besides, doesn't Christ himself call us to child-like faith?

I remember a camp skit... yes, it always comes back to camp... The President Skit. It was from my first year as a counselor. There is a President sitting at his desk and various persons come in to speak with him. One doesn't consider himself worthy, one tries to use only very complex vocabulary, one has a list of what they want from him, one doesn't have time to be there talks quickly and leaves immediately, one is too tired and falls asleep... you get the idea. Finally a little child comes in with a teddy bear, sits down talks, listens, asks questions, enjoys being there... great skit.

At any rate, I'm thinking a kids as young as 4 could sincerely ask Christ into their hearts. Their faith would certainly grow over the years as they mature and can grasp more of the greatness of God, just as ours does as adults. Paul, in one or more of his letters mentions needing milk as babies and then needing meat as we grow. On the other hand though some 4 year olds are very likely to say such a thing, because they know it's what you want to hear... same thing with 7-12 year old campers really. In the end, you never can know someone's heart for certain, so it's our role as parents, mentors, and friends to just keep on praying and just keep on living for Christ everyday.

What do you think?

Is God Wet?

We had a conversation on the way home from Aldi this afternoon, that I just don't want to forget. As we were pulling out of the parking lot, Blaise asks/observes, as he's looking out the window, "Mommy, God is in that cloud." I'm pretty sure he had a specific cloud in mind...

I answered, "Yes, he is, but you know what, he's also in our car." Blaise was okay with this statement. Scott added, remembering some of the 1st catechism questions we looked at in Sunday School this spring, "Yeah, He's everywhere."

Blaise went on babbling about the clouds. Scott got thoughtful... which usually means a hard question is coming. He didn't disappoint. A couple of minutes later he asks from the way back seat, "God is in the clouds, so is God wet?"

I thought this was a great theological question and we pondered that God might or might not be wet, we suppose it's up to Him :) We talked about Jesus walking on water, and about God protecting Rack, Shack and Benny from the fiery furnace. Of course, now that I'm sitting typing it, it's a great scientific question too, coming from a 5 year old. It's amazing how much he knows and how much he's always thinking and figuring things out.



Picture is from the beach early in June. We went to Ocean City to pick up Blaise from his week-long stay with Cullen's parents. This was out on Great Grandma's dock.

Baseball

Baseball season is in full swing... and we are loving almost all aspects of it. Almost, because as Scott informed me at lunch a week or so ago, "Mommy, I don't like pollen." Nope, pollen is no fun. Allergies seem to have hit him pretty hard this spring and he is now taking Clariton regularly, hopefully only until the pollen settles down in a few more weeks and not year round like Daddy.


The good... we get to play outside more. We've been walking the neighborhood fairly regularly again and have gotten to spend several afternoons playing with neighbors. The boys really like it and ask everyday now if we can walk to so and so's house. Specifically, Daniel's house, and they always clarify, "Not our Daniel though, the other Daniel." As if I didn't understand.

Then of course, there's the baseball. :) Scott's tee ball season kicked off last week. It was supposed to start the week before that, but it rained... talk about a disappointed little boy.
So, we started last week. I am coaching. It's crazy, but I love it. Playing with little kids and listening to them and watching them try and figure out life is still one of my favorite things... and I am really missing my camp days this spring.

Scott is enjoying playing baseball too. Though, I think we have a problem... since we don't own a tee, he's never hit off of a tee before... he's not very good at it. He can hit a pitch, no problem, but the tee he's just not used to. Hopefully he can figure it out before the first game, but thankfully, this is the most non-competitive league I've ever heard of. I love it. They are passionate about baseball and introducing it so that kids learn to play and really like it, but more importantly, they are a ministry and the real purpose is to share the gospel, through the "wordless book" or in this case, the "colorful ball" and of course, through modeling the love of Christ for the players and their families.


Oh, and it's not just playing baseball, but also watching! We took a trip down to Clemson this past Sunday, for the baseball game. It was hot in the stands, but we enjoyed the 5 innings we stayed for. The boys, all 4 of them watched the game for almost a whole inning. The bigger ones enjoyed the game, the littler ones got sick of sitting in the stands, they were hot and tired and kind of cranky... apparently we still need to teach them "There's no crying in baseball."


Of course, by the time we were ready to take a nice Clemson family picture Daniel was asleep. The boys were very excited when we headed over to the 55 Exchange for some Clemson ice cream after the game... Blaise chose pink, and Scott chose mint chocolate chip (green), then they gave each other a taste (Blaise even shared a bite with Michael too) - I love it when they do sweet things for each other :)

Daniel Truth

I can't believe Baby Daniel is 3 months old already... time flies!

Here's the story, and I'm going to try to condense it a little bit...

We headed down to Clemson for the NC State game on November 6. Had a great time with friends. A few didn't even realize I was pregnant! I was 37 weeks. It took a LONG time to climb the stairs to our seats and boy was I winded when we got there... but no problems, enjoyed the day and Clemson even pulled off a win!



Fast-forward a whopping 5 days. Thursday morning I woke up damp and lay in bed wondering what was going on... possibilities being I wet myself, I lost my plug, my water was leaking. When I finally dragged myself out of bed, no easy feat for someone who is 38 weeks pregnant, it turned out to be option 3. After a moment or two of disbelief, I decided to change and go back to sleep (it was 5am). Yeah, that didn't work... I told Cullen, my water was leaking, so he should stay home and then got on the computer and notified the 3 people who needed to know what was going on- still in disbelief and wondering if it would seal itself back up and wait another 2 or 3 weeks. Cullen jumped into action, doing important things like packing the hospital bag. Nothing was ready, because we weren't expecting this for another 3 weeks. I should add, I was not having ANY contractions, just leaking water every time I moved. It amounted to about a pad every 1-2 hours.

Yep, spent the ENTIRE day like that on Thursday. The in-laws arrived, with my nephew, for the weekend, I finished everything that still needed to be done... including, washing, folding, and putting away all the baby clothes and the baby blanket. Later, my sister-in-law arrived with my niece and decided not to leave the 2 kids for the night :) I went to bed with a plan: pray that my water stops leaking or contractions start for real. In the morning we planned to call to dr office and head in to at least get checked, if we weren't on our way to the hospital. Cullen was going to work and his mom would take me wherever I needed to go, while his dad stayed with the big boys.

Friday morning... contractions, yay! And my water stopped leaking, yay! Cullen went to work. I hung around, contracting every 30 minutes or so. Michael woke up at 7 and wanted to be held, no surprise there. Suddenly, contractions were every 5-10 minutes. I told Mom it wouldn't be long, so she might want to get dressed. I called the office. The nurse called me back. I told Mom we should probably leave right away. I threw up. Jan (my amazing english mid-wife) called back as we were walking out the door. She agreed I should come in and mentioned how excited she was that she was on call... I agreed!

We met Cullen at the hospital around 8 am. Jan confirmed that my bag of waters was in tact. Good thing, because I was NOT admitting that it had been leaking since early AM on Thursday. I labored and answered the bazillion questions. Daniel was born in 1 push at 9:48am. No tearing, no problems, he was perfect. Noticeably smaller than his brothers, but also 3 weeks earlier than any of them. Born on November 12, 2010, 7lbs 3oz, 18.5 inches. I breathed a sigh of relief for another boy. I love my boys, all 4 of them and their daddy too.


The big brothers came to meet baby Daniel in the afternoon. Michael didn't like the hospital and didn't really care one way or the other about the baby. Scott and Blaise both wanted their turns to hold him. Daniel and I went home the next day and we began to settle into a routine.

Michael decided he really liked the baby, once we let him hold him. Now he regularly asks for turns to hold him and is constantly "petting" him on the head. While he liked the baby, he did have a hard time adjusting and we dealt with an extra helping of moodiness and drama from Michael for a month or so... none of it directed at Daniel, so we were thankful for that.



Daniel and I had a hard time at the beginning with nursing... we're talking the most painful 3 weeks of nursing EVER, and that's saying something, because it was no cup of tea with Scott either. I learned that it doesn't matter how many kids you have, they are all different. I already knew that... but now I know it more... and I'm sure I'll learn it even more everyday as we keep trying to figure out how to parent 4 very different little boys.



Now baby Daniel is already 3 months old... mostly sleeping through the night, smiling, except for the camera, laughing, babbling, grabbing for toys, still obsessed with his fingers and sucking on them, cute as can be. He's in the 14-15lb range, I think, and around 25inches long already, so a fairly big boy. I think he looks most like Scott, but also totally himself :)

Some Random Stories

Here are a few stories from our household that I don't want to forget. Figured I would write them here, since I haven't updated at all in ages.

This morning, when asked why he wasn't wearing his Clemson shirt, Scott (our 4 yr old who dresses himself), responded with, "I'm wearing McQueen, because I want them to run fast." Okay, I suppose I can't argue with that reasoning. Go Tigers! Beat Auburn.

Recently Blaise has coined the term "Beat-beat." This basically means it was a tie game. You see, Scott and Blaise insist on racing all the time to see who can dress the fastest, put sandals on the fastest, pick up the fastest, etc... this generally ends in someone victoriously shouting, "I'm the winner!" And someone else, throwing themselves on the floor crying, because they didn't win. One happy day, instead of doing that, they finished at about the same time and declared that they had had a "Beat-beat." I really like this new term :)

Michael has gone and gotten very dramatic... no really. If Grandma says, in a very sweet grandmotherly voice, "No, no, Michael, don't touch the oven." He throws himself on the floor and kicks and cries. Somewhat annoying and somewhat amusing at the same time. Generally, I have a hard time not laughing at him.

A quick update from the past 2 months... we officially started home-preschool with Scott and Blaise the last couple of days of July. (I know we'll be slowing down a lot in a few months for a new baby, so wanted to get a head start.) They are both doing really well. For now, we do a little bit in the morning while Michael naps and a little bit in the afternoon while Michael naps. Here's hoping he keeps napping... it's much harder to accomplish anything with him walking around trying to steal and eat crayons :) Scott likes math, quite a lot. We are doing Singapore Essential Math K, and he could probably complete the book in a week if I let him... I let him do 6 pages one day this week. It seems to just make sense to him right now, which I can totally relate to. I'm sure it will get more challenging and hope he continues to like it. He still loves to be read to, but isn't a really big fan of reading himself- though he's gotten quite good at it. Blaise likes to be read to (depending on what we're reading) and likes to talk- ALL THE TIME. He's quite the distraction and we are adjusting to working through the distraction. He's learning his letters very quickly and I wonder how much he already knows that I just don't know he knows. So far, I'm pretty sure he can do all of the math stuff we've done with Scott, but his fine motor skills, attention span, and desire to follow directions are not to the place where he wants to do a lot of workbook work. He might be almost as much of a perfectionist as Scott... if he circles something in a workbook and the circle touches something else, he can't circle the other thing, even if it's the right answer, because it's got writing on it. I still have NOT found a format for record keeping that I like... but we're having a good time with it and they seem to be learning quite a lot.

They really enjoyed a visit from their cousins back in August. It really made me wish we lived closer, the kids had so much fun playing together. Then Scott got to spend a week with his grandparents... he was supposed to get to go overnight on their boat, but that fell through (thank you Earl, for saving Grandma from having to clean major messes on the boat, since Scott wasn't feeling well that particular night.)

Settling back into the routine at home has been really really busy and feels very chaotic to me. Perhaps it's just that I'm feeling more tired and big (which means moving around takes more effort.) Scott has started soccer and seems to like it (everyday he asks when he gets to go to soccer again), though so far, it takes him a while to get into it... he likes to be "shy." It should be amusing to see how a game goes here in another week or so. Blaise would really like to be on the team too and I'll be looking forward to seeing how he does next year when he's old enough to play.

Maybe I'll update again, before November... no promises though :)

"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.