End of the Year Update

It's hard to believe that we have 5 days left in the year... how is that time goes by so quickly, when sometimes  days can go by so slowly... especially certain hours in those days, like the hour right before supper.  There is something about the 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm hour that makes it last forever.
We are enjoying the start of the holidays so far, with Mike and Peter having a break from school and spending some time with family.  It will be a less busy holiday season than usual, with Mike's parents and some siblings enjoying some time in Florida.  We hope to get lots of work done in our basement over the next little while, and we are appreciating generous offers of help from family to help us out with some of the labor.  Mike has been able to borrow some tools which will make the work a lot easier, faster, and enjoyable.
I realize now that it has been quite a while since I've done a real update on the kids.  A post here and there about the antics that they have been up to, but not a "probably boring to you but important in a journaling-kind-of-way to me" post.  So, scroll on to the pictures if you wish, but here's a status update on the kids.
Let's start with the littlest one.  He's 15 months now, and catching up with his brothers every day.  He loves to be right in with them and participate in whatever they are doing.  I'll often find him happily sitting on the couch paging through a book (if he's not happily standing on the couch and jumping around...), or in his other favourite spot, flopping around on Aaron's bed.  He likes to bring us books and sit with us to read them, but he's not as good at pointing out things in the books yet like the older boys were at his age.  He's also not talking yet - other than the occasional time when we wonder - did he just say "hi"?  did he say "daddy"?  But these times are few and far between, and not repeated, so I wouldn't say he's really got any words down pat yet.  It will come!  For now, he communicates quite effectively with screeches, babbles, laughing, and whining.  He's a pretty good eater, as long as he likes it, and he's drinking a little better now as well.  Not that I keep really good track of how much he drinks, but he doesn't get annoyed anymore when I offer him milk and I'm regularly buying more whole milk for him, so he must be drinking something, ha ha.  We've been back and forth to the pediatrician with him for the last few months, trying to figure out this perpetual cough that he has.  It's not particularly bad, and it's not even always a cough, but his chest seems to be rattly most of the time.  We've tried a bunch of different things including a test for CF (negative, very thankfully!!), a variety of dosages on a puffer and now benadryl, but nothing seems to really kick it.  It was much worse in the summer with the heat and humidity, and at the end of August we installed central air in the hopes that he would improve.  Of course, the heat and humidity went away so he got a bit better, but it seems strange that he is never rattle free. It's an ongoing mystery, anyways.  In the meantime, I continue to take him on periodic trips to the pediatrician, whose parking lot fees are slowly sucking away the contents of my wallet.  Aside from the cough, he's doing very well.  For his first year of life, he was an amazingly cheerful child, and I have to say that in the last few months that unceasing cheer has deteriorated somewhat, but he is still quite agreeable, and he has a heart-melting smile.  I often get good hugs and cuddles from him, and every once in a while he will give me kisses, although he prefers avoiding those with a mischievous grin.  He is certainly a full-fledged toddler now, and it is a busy job keeping up with him and the older two.
Aaron is 2 years and 8 months, although I often surprise myself when I remember that he is only two.  He seems older than that for some reason - he definitely likes to be called a "big boy" and his communication and personality seem to me to be ahead of course.  That's probably just the proud mama in me :)  There's just something about his sense of humour and the way he can communicate with his eyes that has us constantly laughing.  After a few tries at toilet training (I think we tried for a few weeks starting in March, again in September, and then again at the end of October), he is now done with diapers!  Hurray!!He's had a few random accidents overnight, but if we're diligent at taking him to the bathroom when we go to bed, he's pretty good at waking up and asking for help if he needs it.  I certainly do not mind having only one in diapers!  The other night he had to pee at 2:30 am.  While sitting there, we had quite the interesting and heart-warming conversation:
Aaron:  "God is good, eh?"
Mom:  "Yes, He is very good, Aaron."
Aaron:  "Jesus is God, eh?"
Mom:  "You're right, Aaron, Jesus is God"
Aaron:  "Jesus died on cross to pay for our sins.  He rose again, give us eternal life, eh?"
Mom:  "Yes, Aaron, you're absolutely right"
I certainly don't mind being up with him in the middle of the night when he gives such a sweet confession of faith as that.  It was a pretty amazing moment. 
He can be very sweet, but he also has a knack for being quite pesty to his brothers, especially to Nate, when I am not in the room.  I have caught him on numerous occasions giving Nate a soother so that he can steal his toys without making him cry.  If I hear Nate start to cry and go to see what's going on, Aaron can often be found high-tailing it out of the room, standing somewhere in the room with his hands over his eyes, or running to get Nate a soother to cover up the problem.  The other day we were at Mom and Dads, and Mom peeked into the room when Nate started wailing, only to see Aaron trying to cover up his mouth, likely thinking "shhhhh!  I'm going to get in trouble!!".  What a pest!  And half the time I don't even know what he's doing since he makes sure I'm out of the room.  He can be a bit mean in his pestiness, and I am trying to teach him to be a bit more kind to others around him.  However, it is much more fun to roll over and squish your little brother than it is to be kind.  Nate still loves to play with him, though, and I am sure he is figuring out how to defend himself and participate actively in this rough "play".  Growing up in a family of all girls means that I am not accustomed to the ways that boys play, and I have to tell myself often that boys do need a little more rough-ness than girls.  But it's hard to know where to draw the line.  Anyways.  What else is going on with Aaron... he's pretty good at counting, and he knows a few letters of the alphabet.  I don't work very hard with him on these things, but he's picking it up from our daily conversations and from Peter.  He loves to sing, he loves books, and he really enjoys playing with play-do.  He's starting to draw some recognizable people-shapes, which is fun - the other day he drew our whole family and I was impressed with how we all had heads, arms, legs, hands and feet.  Pretty good for a 2.5 year old I think!  He is still napping in the afternoons at the same time as Nate, which I really enjoy.  Peter is at school in the afternoons, which means I get a bit of quiet time most school days when the two little guys are asleep.  This is VERY appreciated!
And on to Peter - his birthday was in November, so he is 4, and quite proud of it.  As I have said before, the first month and half or so of school was a bit rough for him, and it took a while for him to settle in.  He seems to be enjoying it now that he's into the routine, and he is learning SO much.  It's fun to hear and help him sound out words and try to figure out how to spell them.  However, he seems to be thrown off pretty easily when anything is out of routine.  His class was practicing for weeks for a Christmas program during the last week of school, but when it came time for the program he became very upset, ended up seeing me in the audience before he walked onto the stage, made a bee-line for me and absolutely refused to participate.  It didn't really surprise us but it was a little disappointing, especially since he had been quite excited about the whole thing beforehand.  He has been a bit of a challenge the last little while, as he has been increasingly defiant toward us and he seems angry a lot of the time.  There is a lot of fighting between him and Aaron, and he reacts by hitting, name-calling, or loud screaming.  We are struggling with trying to figure out how to deal with this, and how to teach him how to manage his anger in an acceptable way.  I surely hope this is just a stage, as some days I just don't know how I should deal with him.  Sometimes it seems like parenting is just a big experiment, and we hope the kids turn out in the end, but I am so very far from being an expert.  How is it, anyways, that people are allowed to have kids without having a license?  This job is harder than you think, and we've only experienced the first four years so far.  Just wait till they're teenagers.... Well, I'm sure every age has it's particular struggles, but it is a comfort to know that we can bring all these things to the Lord in prayer.  It is He who has entrusted these children to us, and though we do our best to raise them up to be godly young men, it is a comfort to know that He is ultimately in control of all things, and we rest in the promises that He has given to our boys at their baptisms.

And now we come to the end of another year... 2011.  A year in which we've settled into our new home, sent our oldest off to school, done some work to our home, learned a lot, loved a lot, cried a little, laughed a lot, grown.  We're excited to see what 2012 has to bring to our doorstep!  Happy New Years everyone!

Nate at 15 months:  25 lbs 4 oz, 33.75" tall

Peter at 15 months: 27 lbs 2 oz, 32.75" tall

Aaron at 15 months:  30 lbs, 33" tall

Peter now: 42 lbs, 41.5" tall

Aaron now: 39 lbs, 38" tall

We took the kids to see Sinterklaas at the Dutch store at the beginning of December.  Peter was surprisingly agreeable about the whole thing, and Aaron was a little nervous... no smiles, but he did agree to sit on Sinterklaas' lap

Nate was not so impressed.  He spent a few moments checking out the scary dude with the big white beard, and proceeded to burst into heart-wrenching sobs

Once home, our middle child delighted in the treats

Peter was equally pleased by his treats.  They both expressed much love for Sinterklaas.

Preparing their shoes by the door for Sinterklaas and his horse

Shoes all lined up at bedtime with carrots for the horse

Amazing!  Sinterklaas must have visited during the night! 

Nate enjoying an early morning present

Aaron opening his present from Sinterklaas, sunrise in the background

Peter figuring out his new play-dough toys

Maybe Sinterklaas isn't such a bad fellow after all? 

Some basement pictures... here, the subfloor is being put in place.  First a layer of delta wrap on the floor, then tongue-and-groove plywood laid over top. 

Finishing up the last bit

Working on the rough-in for the bathroom plumbing

Mike got to rent this sweet tool to drill out a hole in the foundation for a dryer vent.  It was HUGE!  He was pretty excited about it!

Hard at work

Dad M was here for the day and he got a turn too

Some walls are up, and things are progressing nicely!

Laundry area on the right, then the bathroom, and the workshop in the corner

That's it for basement pictures.  On to the random pictures on the camera from the last little while.  Here we are decorating the Christmas tree at the beginning of December.  The boys really enjoyed this!

Hanging an "ordamen"

Helping me do some baking one morning.  The unfortunate thing about them "helping" me in the kitchen is that when they are helping, there is no longer any room at all for me to work.  We have a one-person kitchen, and having two chairs and two boys in there with me is an exercise in patience. 

Mixing the dough

Rolling out the sugar cookies.  These cookies are for kid-consumption only - don't worry, I will not serve you cookies prepared in such a manner.  Note Aaron stuffing his face with dough. 

Nate eagerly watching the cookies baking

Cooling on the counter, waiting to be decorated.

I decorated a bunch while Peter was at school and the other two were napping.  Melted snowman cookies!  They were fun to make, and the kids enjoyed them, but they were very very sweet

  Decorating cookies - note how Nate is happily eating the lid of the container

Caught in the act!  Seriously, this kid loves to eat.  He was too busy eating cookies or toppings to get much decorating done.  Needless to say, he didn't want a lot for lunch that day

Proud of his man-cookie!

A few of the finished cookies. Happily, this cookie adventure worked out much better than the last time we tried it.... Amazing and Unsuccessful Sugar Cookies of February 2011

  Opening a few early-morning presents from under the Christmas tree

Going over the stories from the Jesse Tree.  I've never done anything like this before, but it was fun to do with the kids.  It is kind of like an advent calendar, starting with creation and working its way through the Old Testament towards Jesus' birth, showing how everything points toward his coming.  I'll have to change a few things when we do it again next year, but I liked the idea of it. 

An armful of blessings getting a bedtime story

 Nate in one of his favourite places, Aaron's bed

I couldn't find Nate this afternoon until I looked in Peter and Aaron's closet and found him hiding in their laundry basket, playing with a tape measure with the door almost closed.  Funny kid!

Portraits by our Budding Artists

Here we have an original Peter, entitled "Daddy and Mommy".  Daddy has very large arm muscles as well as long toes and no fingers.  On the right, Mommy gets to have fingers, four strands of hair, and very large feet with long toes.  I am impressed with the details in his drawings, especially when he draws just a face, as, depending on who he's drawing, he'll usually include eyes with pupils, glasses, a mouth with teeth, a beard, and eyebrows, and sometimes even a canker sore if you're lucky, lol.    

Aaron has also started to show some fantastic drawing skills, in this piece also entitled "Daddy and Mommy".  Daddy is on the top, complete with a body, a somewhat skinny head, two arms with hands, and two legs.  Mommy is below, similarly composed with the addition of feet on each leg.  I am quite impressed with his drawings!  It's the first time he's drawn anything so recognizable, and he's moving away from just scribbles.  Fun!!

Merry Christmas!

Under the Weather

Mommy flops down on the couch, feeling a little under the weather.  Immediately, as if warning bells have gone off, all three kids swarm the couch and must maintain physical contact at all times.  Kid One climbs onto the couch, settles himself behind my knees and proceeds to poke at the buttons and stitching on my pants, asking questions without hesitation.  Kid Two tries cuddling with me for a few moments, then brings a book to read to me to make me feel better.  I am entertained by a somewhat adapted version of "I Have To Go" whose main character, Michael VannerDeen, takes Grandma's sandwiches away and can't find the toilet.  Kid Three keeps himself heartily amused by repeatedly poking my nose as hard as he can and hitting me on the head with a board book.  My rejuvenating rest on the couch is brought to an end by the Board Book Headache, and I decide the best way to deal with being under the weather would be to start supper. 

Rainy Day Shopping

Today is a rainy, dark, blah and dreary day.  One of those days that you have to have some lights on in the house during the day so you don't wreck your eyes because there's no sunshine coming in.  The wet, cold weather outside sucks out the cheer and leaves you scrambling to keep the kids busy with play-dough, Lego, games, and food to keep them from each others' throats.   I thought, since the fridge was getting a little empty and the grocery store has lots of light and activity, it would be a good idea to take the kids out for a bit.  I packed them all up in their coats, hats, and rain boots, trudged out through the rain to the van to strap them in, and took off for the store.
Once there, I found that all the grocery carts were wet.  Oh well, I guess Nate and Aaron will have to deal with a wet bum.  I strapped them in and started filling up the cart.  Hey, look kids!  Chocolate milk!  Fantastic.  I put three of them in the cart, and plan on "price-matching" them to a competitor's flyer when I get to the checkout.  Chocolate milk never fails to excite the kids.  Then things start to unravel.  I'm halfway down an aisle before I realize that Nate has lost a boot and is just about to lose another one.  We backtrack to pick up the wayward footwear, and continue down the next few aisles, scratching things off the list as we go.  Nate decides to try something new, swiveling around in his seat, and although he is strapped in, he somehow manages to sprawl himself out over the groceries on the top of the cart, facing backwards and wiggling out of the seat belt.  I sit him back down and belt him back in at least three or four more times before we reach the checkout.  Thankfully, the line-up there isn't too bad, but the cashier is new and needs manager assistance to do the "price-match" for my chocolate milk.  No problem, except while she's doing this, Peter has climbed into the top tier of the now-empty grocery cart and is leaning out precariously, trying to reach the items on the bagging table while the buggy swings out the opposite direction.  Ahhhh, get down from there please before you break your nose!!
I tell the cashier I've got seven bags with me, and she gives me a blank stare.  They usually ask how many reusable bags you've taken with you, and give you a point for each bag.  I explain this to her, but instead of adding points, she decides to redeem all my points on the current purchase.  Hmmm.  No, actually, I would like to wait to redeem those points until there is a promotion please, not now yet.  The manager, who is still hanging around to help the confused cashier, cancels my order and takes me over to customer service.  I really didn't want to be a big pain, but the headache only becomes worse, for both me and the manager.  She rings my purchase through again and attempts to restore my points balance, but the balance is now down to zero, which is not great because I had at least $70 worth of points saved up.  While all this is going on, Aaron is busy man-handling Nate in the grocery cart, Nate is wailing, and Peter is wandering farther and farther away.  Finally, she says to just check my account over the next few days to see if the points have been returned, and we exchange names and phone numbers in case the situation is not resolved.  I think next time I won't say anything about points for my bags.
We make our way back to the van in the now pouring rain, and drive home.  While unpacking the groceries, Aaron's insistance on having a full cup of juice NOW escalates into a loud temper-tantrum, while Nate goes into hysterics because I stop him from walking around the house with a bottle of salad dressing that he stole from the fridge, and Peter is making loud noises in the background just for the fun of it, possibly just to tip the scale of insanity for his dear mother.  Perhaps a glass of chocolate milk will calm things down in here, I think.  But just before I pour the milk, I see that all three 1L containers that I brought home expired a MONTH ago.
Ugh.  This is not turning out to be a very good morning.

Frog Legs

When it comes to my home, I'm not terribly good at decorating.  Yeah, I have ideas, but it's not very often that those ideas actually turn into real projects, and even less often that those projects are presentable enough to use.  I see pictures of other peoples' homes and how they have decorated, with all coordinated colours and art and stuff on the walls.  Looks nice!  It's not my house though.  When it comes down to it, it's a matter of budget combined with space restraints.  I don't really have any window ledges or open shelving around to put things on, and chances are, my kids would knock it down anyways.  Perhaps one day I will have more time, money, and energy to put into decorating, but for now I'll just focus on keeping these darling kids of mine fed, cleaned, and somewhat happy.  I wouldn't mind having my kids' rooms looking a little more kid-friendly, and I did put up some alphabet wall stickers around the perimeter of their rooms, but that was about as far as I got until I saw some cute adhesive mirrors in the dollar store a few months ago.  I picked out a package of three frog-shaped mirrors and carefully stuck them to the wall in Nate's room.  What a wonderful idea!  My kids could oooh and ahhhh over these amazing mirrors, and look at themselves, and have lots of fun with their reflections.  Yeah, it was a nice idea.  Well, needless to say, they didn't last very long.  Besides the fact that I had to try three different kinds of adhesive material to get them to actually stick to the wall longer than five minutes, I didn't realize how attracted my youngest son is to frog legs.  Perhaps he has a thing for french cuisine, or perhaps he just likes needless destruction, but in any case, he ripped one frog's legs off one by one and the poor frog has now been reduced to a limbically-challenged reflective blob stuck to the wall.  So far the others have remained unscathed, but I have a feeling their doom awaits them when their reflective surface catches a certain young boy's attention...

My once-lovely decorating job

 Poor Mr. Frog  Blob

 Carnage in the bedroom

Embarassing Confessions of an Unofficial Amnesiac

A few weeks ago, I was in Hamilton and had the opportunity to go shopping with my Mom for a new pair of jeans, as my favourites had developed a hole in an "inconvenient spot".  Thankfully, I noticed this hole myself and didn't need to have my attention drawn to it as my husband's students so graciously did for him a few years ago with a note left on his desk:

I digress.  But this is the subject of my post in the first place, so I suppose I am allowed to digress.  I have, since my childhood, been a somewhat scatter-brained and forgetful individual.  I find that this condition has not become better with age - in fact, it has become worse with increased distractions.  I constantly forget things and leave things behind, and my multi-tasking during the day usually means that lots of things get half-done.  I'll start washing dishes, go to change a dirty diaper, then clean up toys in the living room, check the weather and clean the bathroom.  By the time I make it back to the kitchen an hour or two later and discover that I didn't in fact finish washing the dishes like I thought, the dish water is cold and I have to start all over again.  I will blame this on "Mommy-brain", although in all honesty, it is probably just a worsening of my original condition of forgetfulness that I have had since I was young.
This "Mommy-brain" not only has influence on my forgetfulness, but also my perception of the world.  The other day, Peter came home with a colouring sheet he had worked on at school.  He had written his name at the top, and I took a look at it and noted that although it was a little bit messy, and perhaps the second "e" was written backwards, it was definitely readable and I was impressed that he was writing his name on his own now.  It wasn't until Mike got home and pointed it out that I saw that he had written his whole name right to left.  Yeah, I didn't even recognize that my kid wrote his name backwards.  It looked perfectly fine to me...

Back to the story of the jeans.  So, I was shopping for new jeans, you know how that goes.  I picked out a number of jeans to try on - I probably had about 6 or 7 pairs, and I made my way over to the change room.  Once I had locked myself in, I turned to the pile to decide which one to try on first.  To my surprise, my pile was not what I thought it was.  Instead of 6 or 7 pairs of different jeans, I had a pile of 6 or 7 pairs of identical jeans.  All the same size, length, colour.  Hmmm.  That was not how I shopped.  Mom and I did a store-wide search for my original pile, which was discovered on a table where I had inadvertantly switched it with the stack of jeans for sale there.  Whoops.  So I tried on the jeans, and after a while I found a pair that I liked and we went to pay for them.  We were almost out the door when Mom asked me where my coat was.  Hmmm.  That's a good question, Mom!  I have no idea.  Backtrack through the change-rooms that I had used, and I found it in the first one.  I don't know how I manage to go grocery-shopping with all three of my kids and consistantly come back home with all three, as it is apparent that in my absent-minded condition, I can't go shopping without leaving things behind me in an amnesiatic blur. 
Well, I think that's about enough embarassing revelations about myself for today.  What embarassing things have YOU done recently?        

Photo Update

 The birthday boy opening one of his gifts in the morning - Playmobile! 

I had a lot of fun creating Peter's birthday cake, and he was pretty impressed! 

I had the opportunity to observe in Peter's classroom on his birthday, which I really enjoyed.  It was nice to see the class in action, and to discuss things with the teacher afterward. 

 Playing in the leaves on a crisp fall morning

 Wheeeee!

 Start them on yard work early, I suppose! 

 I hyped the kids up this morning to take a trip to Happy Rolph's petting zoo.  Peter excitedly clutched the bag of old bread as we drove out there, only to find the gates locked.  Whoops, should have thought about the possibility of closing for the season.  So instead of the petting zoo, we went to the beach.  First a stop off at the playground for some swinging:  

 And then off to the beach to play in a HUGE sandbox. 

 I like how this picture turned out, even 

though he's pretty serious-looking