October

It has been brought to my attention (Hi Mother!) that I haven't blogged in quite some time. But when I logged in, and couldn't remember my password, then I realized that it really has been way too long.

I could attempt to explain why.... Reasons such as being busy seem silly since everyone I know is CRAZY busy right now. The fact that my laptop is no longer portable because it can't run on battery power for more than 3 minutes, is a sad fact, but it's still totally use-able, so not a great excuse! The fact that I now have a web-enabled phone is a great thing, and means that I use my phone for most of my internet access, which means I'm not even touching the aforementioned laptop very often. This is cool, but it's really hard to blog from a mobile device with a touch-screen keypad....I could do it, but so far I haven't!

Anyway, enough bad excuses. Here's the month in photos! Yikes, I just downloaded 183 of them!!!

Trevor the Cub Scout ready for his Den meeting.

When I was done taking pictures of Trevor, Izzy went and stood in the same spot... so I took her picture!
We bought Daddy a new car, since the clutch on the old one was about dead. You can also see the new garage door which finally got installed in late September. The old one got blown-out by the strong winds we have out here and the metal support rods broke!

We've done many soccer games and practices in the last month. These are pictures from one of the warmest October days we had, about 70 at 10 in the morning! This is about the 7th game of the season, and the first one we won! It's been a long season!Izzy came and enjoyed this game!

Then we had big happenings around here. Trevor lost his first tooth.
But he actually LOST it (as in gone, can't find it) while on the playground for recess at school. After being upset, the music teacher helped him calm down, and suggested writing the tooth fairy a note. So he did....
And it all turned out okay! The tooth fairy accepts notes in cases like this, in case you were wondering! She took the note in exchange for $1.

We had a surprise visit from my brother for a weekend. He was on the west coast for business, and had planned to go to Vancouver to visit friends, but he forgot his passport! Oopsies! So instead he came to see us! Great surprise, great visit. But I didn't take any pictures of it....oops!

A few days letter was Trevor's class field trip to the pumpkin farm. I'm thrilled I got to go, and we had a great time. They got to pick 3 different kinds gourds, a pumpkin, and 3 different colors of Indian corn to bring home.

The whole class posed...Trevor playing.
Then we dressed up our house for Halloween. We put up the pumpkin face last year, and this year we decided to add the orange behind the garage door windows (which we didn't have last year!). I

Of course, we've had some downtime between all the crazy. This was one weekend morning when Izzy wanted to watch a show with all her buddies (and Daddy!).
This past weekend, we went to a family wedding. I think it's the first one the kids have been to, and they did a pretty good job! Trevor asked to wear his tie. He asked to buy the tie too, for his holiday performance at school!!!

Izzy didn't sit for much, if any, of the ceremony. But afterwards, she was happy to sit... since there was food!!
Hubby and some of the family

Keeping the boys entertained. They were playing games on the (previously mentioned) internet-ready phone. Great way to entertain them!!!
Izzy had fun running over to the couch and sitting with the guys!
Last night we continued our Halloween preparations and painted bats with Scary & Kate.


Izzy enjoyed watching... for the first 5 minutes (not even). After that, she wanted part of the action too....
So we let her join in!

Tomorrow through Sunday continues to be full of Halloween fun and lots of photo opps. I'll be sure to take a bunch and post them sometime before Christmas!!

Izzy's New Game

This is the newest game that Izzy and Trevor like to play! Sometimes I wonder which one of them likes it more!!!

Izzy is 17 months!

Seriously! She's almost 1 and 1/2!!! Wow!

No, she can't ride the tricycle yet, but don't tell HER that!

Words she can say:
mama
dada (at least sometimes, many times she calls him mama too!)
baby
no
peek-boo
up-y (as in, "pick me up-y")
thank you (more like tank-u)
cookie
beep (as in, push on my nose and say "beep")
kitty
brother (sounds like "bubba" or "bruba")
coffee
diaper
poop
bus
dino (and usually, this is followed by "raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa")

She understands all kinds of things beyond what she can say, including "put your cup in the sink" (which she does!), "sit down"(which she doesn't do!), "time for diaper/jammies" (and when she hears this she heads for the stairs), and "shoes" and then she'll got get hers so we can go outside.


She's the queen of dirty looks! Dare you say hello to her, she'll grace you with one, and even once she knows you and is comfortable around you, you'll get a variety of looks somewhere between shy, cute, coy, and mean! It's too cute most of the time! However, she LOVES the camera, so it's actualy quite hard to get a picture of the diry looks.... this is close to one of them!


She loves to climb, and isn't particular about what she's climbing. The couch, the table (I found her standing in the middle of the kitchen table once!), the toys, the slide. She climbs anything she can! She also loves playing with anything that belongs to her brothers. She's gotten very attached to toy dinos, has learned to say the word, and loves to watch "Dinosaur Train" on TV with them!!
She loves playing with her brothers. She and Trev seem to have a special bond, but with him gone all day at school, she's been hanging with Blake a lot more and having a great time!

Ah yes, she's definitely growing up!

School Times Two

Finally, everyone is back to school around here.

Trevor started first grade 3.5 weeks ago, on August 17! Yes, mid-August is now back-to-school time. Personally, that feels way too early and way to HOT for school. Day 1 was no problem, it was also a half-day. He knew that there were 4 or 5 kids from kindergarten that would be in his first grade class. He was curious and excited to meet his teacher, see his friends, and meet his new classmates.
Trevor's first day, Blake and Izzy were waiting with him at the bus stop.

Trev was all smiles, with his hair spiked, the shirt he picked out ("Blame My Sister") and his skull sling!

The bus is coming, GROUP HUG everyone!!

Day 2 and onward, have been a struggle of varying degrees. Each morning he tells me he doesn't want to go to school. Some days it's a mention of it, other days it's a meltdown!!! His reasons vary from being bored by doing kindergarten level work (review), to missing his brother and sister, to it not being fair since I don't go to school (and get to spend all day with Izzy), to him not feeling good. He gets on the bus with tears in his eyes, nearly every day.

Inevitably, he gets home with a HUGE smile on his face and happy stories of friends and what happened that day in class. But as the evening goes on, he refuses to do homework, and starts to get upset again at the thought of going back to school.

Izzy is ALWAYS thrilled to see him. She cries when the bus leaves with him on it, and runs out to meet him when it drops him off!

On the plus side, he's doing amazing work....he's a pro at spelling (100% on all three spelling tests so far), he's great at math, and he's pretty good at reading! Now if only they would do something that would challenge him!!! ;)

Yesterday, Blake FINALLY started school. The fact that B didn't start til now did not help Trevor at all! So hopefully, things will get smoother from here!

Blake was ready, if not excited, to go back. We see quite a few of his school friends during the summer as their mom's are friends of mine. This year brings a new classroom, new teachers, and more days of school.

B willingly posed, with Izzy before we left. This is one of the RARE times that he didn't run the other way or hide when the camera came out!!! Since he had a backpack, she needed one too!We got to the room, and immediately Blake and Izzy were off playing with dinos. I had to wonder who was the kid going to school as Izzy seemed ready to stay and play, and could have cared less if I was there!!

One of the projects of the day was to find their name and make a beaded necklace to wear for the first week. Beads are one of Blake's favorite activities, he's quite the artistic child, so he was thrilled to do this.


Eventually, we left the dinosaurs, and Blake decided to work with the Lincoln Logs. He, of course, built the tallest house he could, with as many logs as he could find. As he finished, one of his teachers came over and asked if he was a Packer fan since the roof was green & gold. He claimed no, but I know he is!! Incidentally, that was his only interaction with any of his teachers. While he knows their names, he didn't want to talk to any of them yesterday! Tomorrow is his first regular day where I drop him off for 2.5 hours and come back later. We'll see how he does!!!

Bucket List Part Deux

Just after my Bucket List post, I read an article in a parenting magazine, "Savor the Last Drops of Summer". Basically, a list of things you should manage to do this summer. Many we did, many we did not.

So now a "Bucket List 2011" of all the things we didn't do this year:

• Visit the seashore (we did make it to a lakeshore this year)
• Lie in a hammock
• Jump off a diving board
• Make a fort
• Find a rainbow
• Stargaze
• Look for cloud formations
• Take a nap on the lawn
• Search for sea glass
• Skip rocks
• Dig for worms
• Set up a lemonade stand
• Put on a play
• Make mud pies
• Tell ghost stories
• Build a sand castle
• Learn to do a cartwheel
• Play kickball
• Do the hula
• Go on a scavenger hunt
• Build a box car

It's a good starting point at least. It seems the simple little things get missed the most!!

6 years and 2 weeks

That's how long it took.

Do you know for what??

For the first of my children to break a bone.

2 weeks after his 6th birthday, Trevor broke his right collarbone. Daddy, Blake and Izzy were present in the room when it happened. Me... I was 692 miles away on vacation in upstate New York!!! Talk about feeling helpless!!

It all started because t-ball was canceled. Although the weather seemed nice, apparently there was standing water on the field.

During the morning, a used disposable diaper had been ripped apart and the little beads that absorb the moisture were all over the floor of the boys room. So Daddy wanted to vacuum it up. He did so with all three kids in the room (kudos to him, but I think that's crazy... I would have put a movie on and left them downstairs!).

As he vacuumed he decided to clean the rest of their room, including under a chair in the corner where the cats sleep. So he moved the chair out of the corner of the room, and into the middle and the kids played on it.

(Can you figure out what happened yet??).

Both boys were on the chair (I have no idea where Izzy was)... T was sitting on it, and B climbed up the back of the chair (which is normal, but has no effect when the chair is in the corner). B climbed up... the chair tipped over... T flew out of the chair, and whacked his collarbone on the bunk bed post.

Immediately, two things were true... Trevor felt no pain and Daddy KNEW it was broken. He KNEW because he broke his twice as a kid. I later learned that his Dad broke his once so it's a requirement for the oldest son on that side of the family. On the plus side, Daddy's younger brother didn't break his, so we can hope B won't either!!

After finding Aunt Kate to come stay with B and Iz, Daddy took T to the ER. It took an x-ray, a 3-minute visit by the Dr, and a $450 ER bill to tell us what we already knew. It took $50 to get T a sling that he HATED (because it has teddy bears and balloons on it and is very babyish).

On Sunday I came home. Nothing much had changed. Monday, as recommended by the ER doc, I took him to an orthopedist to recheck it and see if anything else needed to be done. She said it was fine, nothing to worry about, sling for 4 weeks, no swimming, t-ball etc, and she'd recheck it in a month.

A few days later Aunt Kate provided a great fix for the sling....

For the most part Trev has been pretty good during this last month. But the realization that he couldn't play t-ball (3 weeks left) or swim for the week of summer camp (which started 2 days after he broke it) made him REALLY mad. Mostly because it was Blake's 'fault' that he was injured, but Blake was able to do all those activities. The other part of the problem is that it's never hurt him. It's hard to stop a 6-year-old from being active when the broken bone doesn't hurt!!!

I've tried to take pictures of the two sides, but it's very hard to see anything in pictures. At first there was a visible difference, and even now there is still a bump on the side he broke. I just hope that doesn't mean it healed wrong!!!

Tuesday is his follow up appointment with new x-rays scheduled. In the last week he's been swimming and I even let him play the last week of t-ball (lefty of course!). I'm just hoping that the x-ray shows all is well!!!

Bucket List

When summer vacation started on May 27th, I didn't ask Trev what he wanted to do this summer. In retrospect, I should have. I didn't ask Blake either, but that is probably for the best!!

Regardless, I tried to plan a fun summer that all three kids would enjoy and that would take advantage of all the free time we would have. After all, this fall brings full-time school and that restricts the activities that we can participate in (or at least, when we can participate in them).

As I look back, here's a few of the things we can check of this summer's bucket list:

• participate in soccer league (Trev)
  
• attend graduation party
• attend mommy's volleyball games (and stay up and out past bedtime!)
• go to lots of friend's birthday parties and celebrate two of our own
  
• go to new village park grand opening, play in soccer tournament, win our first game, play in the rain, and jump in huge mud puddles
• learn all about reptiles at the library
• go to lots of new parks and a bunch of old favorites
  
• go to a MLB baseball game (not the Cubs!-at the kids request)
• visit Grandpa
• learn how to make cool scientific reactions using basic household materials (vinegar, baking soda, m&m's and more) (more fun at the library)
  
• go camping and get REALLY dirty
• go strawberry picking
• make LOTS of strawberry and raspberry jam
• go to summer camp
• learn to swim (Trevor!!!!)
• practice reading
  
• spend the night at Grandma's
• go to the zoo
  
• watch at least two sets of fireworks, and set off some of our own
  
• participate in t-ball league (T & B)
• learn about dinosaurs at the library (and show off our knowledge - good job Blake!)
• attend Zoo camp and be a "Junior Zookeeper" for the day
• go to the pediatrician and not get shots (Trevor! Izzy still had to get shots!)
• survive a week with Mommy gone on vacation (they survived, but there are scars!)
• go to the movies
• go to Great America
  
• go to the farmer's market
• go to the 'skyscrapers' (what the boys call going downtown) to various museums
  
• go fishing with Grandpa
• make home-made ice cream

Whew!! Part of me wants to find pictures for lots of those items to put up here, but if I do that this post will never go up. So for the moment, I'm posting this sans pictures. Maybe once school starts again I will get better about blogging more regularly. But I'm not promising!!

Trevor's 6th Birthday (a month late!)

So we celebrated on time, have no fear, but it's taken me until now to post the pictures and story!!

The actual day started with breakfast of Trev's choice, Swedish pancakes made by Daddy, and then tball practice followed by lunch at Culvers! Then we headed home to be there in time for guests and the party!

As always Trev ends up with a backyard pool party, but the kids always seem to have a good time. We ended up with about 10 other kids here in addition to our 3, and while less than many of our regular coffee playdates, it was still plenty of kids and plenty of fun!! But we did miss those friends who couldn't join us! I think all the kids had a great time in the pool and sprinklers, and playing with the water guns and balloons.

spraying each other with the sprinkler
everyone in the pool
it's time to slip n slide

Time for water balloons
everybody run, water balloon fight!!
Izzy slept thru some of the festivities, but that was just fine with her as she wanted NOTHING to do with the pool or sprinkler!
The birthday theme this year was Space as Trev has become very interested in all things space and all 9 planets. He still considers Pluto a planet and is very offended if you dare to say there are only 8!! So Daddy made a space cake, and we had some space decorations as well as themed goody bags.

the space table cloth that the boys painted
Saturn
Neptune

T's cake with the WHOLE milky way on it, including a few extra details (click the picture to see it bigger). This is by far one of my favorite cakes of all the ones Daddy has made so far.
everyone enjoying the yummy beautiful cake!


Later in the evening, Grandma, Kate and Scary joined us for present opening and more cake. Trev was thrilled with all his presents, and the fact that most of them were Lego related!! He's easy to please in that respect these days!!

it's present time!
the fish pillow he's been wanting for MONTHS (and it's almost as big as him!)

T-ball

Many times in the past, we have asked the boys if they want to participate in various sports: swimming, soccer, t-ball. Initially, Blake has resisted them all. He now willingly takes swim lessons, but only if he's with Trevor. He's declined many chances to play soccer and t-ball, and prefers sitting on the sidelines watching. Once he said he'd play soccer and we signed him up, only to have him refuse on the first day.

Again, this spring we asked if he wanted to play t-ball, and this time he said yes. I was cautiously hopeful since the t-ball was for 4-6 year-olds, so both boys would be playing together. Not so gently, I reminded and 'encouraged' B that he was going to play t-ball and that if he did, we could go to Culver's for lunch after. After 4.5 years of parenting this kid, I've learned how to motivate him!!!

Week 1 of t-ball was in mid- June, while we were camping. Oh well.... It wasn't very expensive to sign them up, so I wasn't too upset we were missing one.

Week 2 of t-ball was canceled due to standing water on the playing field! Yes, we had a good amount of rain in mid-June but I was sad that this was the case. So we had our own t-ball practice in the backyard, and I think the boys had a good time!!

T batting
T throwing to B, who might catch it, if he takes his glove off his head!
The boys trying to catch the balls Daddy was hitting.
Daddy hitting balls to the boys


Then they had a week off for 4th of July.

Week 3 of t-ball was on Trevor's birthday. They were excited to go play, and they both ran on to the field with out an argument! They got put on teams, and got to pick their own numbers.

B trying to beat the throw to first
B getting the ball to throw out the runner
T running past the kid in front of him. He always HAS to be in front!
T taking a swing.
B getting ready to bat

Week 4 was similar to week 3. They worked on more skills and fundamentals. I am pretty impressed by the organization running this program. There are a good number of 'coaches' for the number of kids playing, they focus on basic skills and really reinforce them (good throwing stance, running the bases, how to hold the bat, etc.) and yet they do it in a really fun way so the kids are having a good time and don't realize how much they are learning and how hard they are working. I think it was money well spent.

B (blue hat) and T (red hat) playing the field.

T playing 1st and hoping someone will throw him the ball so he can get someone out!
B taking off for first after hitting the ball.

Week 5 was rained out while I was on vacation. Lucky Daddy didn't have to deal with taking them on his own while I was out of town.

So instead of t-ball finishing up this weekend, we've got 3 more weeks to go. I guess it's not a bad thing since we don't have vacation plans, but it's not exactly how I planned it! I just hope August isn't burning hot!!

I LOVE the jersey numbers they picked. I will always remember how old they were for this season of t-ball!