Kids say...

I have some posts to catch up on, but I wanted to jot down a couple of Isaac's comments from the past two days.  :-)

He was playing, and out of the blue said:
     There are Great Grandmas, and there are Good Grandmas. 

Yesterday, I posted this on Facebook:

Isaac: Is Nathanael a lady? Josiah: No, Mommy is the only lady in the house right now.
Isaac: Mommy's not a lady. She's a princess.
Mommy: I'm a princess?
Isaac: Yes. You look like a princess. (As I sit here in my knee-length cut-offs and macaroni and cheese stained shirt.)
Mommy: I look like a princess?
Isaac: Kind of. You need a princess shirt. A big one to fit you.

Today he continued the conversation:

Isaac: Mommy, you are a lady who looks like a princess.
Mommy: Why do you think I look like a princess?
Isaac: Because of the princess shirt.
Mommy: I don't have a princess shirt. 
Isaac: You need a BIG GIANT princess shirt!
Mommy: Am I giant?
Isaac: No you are big. You need a GIANT princess shirt like Elizabeth has a little princess shirt.

Isaac makes me laugh on a daily basis :-)

Here we grow!

We measured the kids to mark the start of the new school year:

Elizabeth is just under 50 inches.  She has grown about an inch in the last seven months!

Josiah is right about 43 inches.  He has also grown about an inch in the last seven months!

Isaac is 37 inches.  He has grown TWO inches in the last seven months!

Nathanael, standing, was measured at about 27 1/2 inches.  But it's pretty hard to accurately measure a bouncing baby :-).

First Day of School!

Today was the first day of school for two of our kiddos! 

 

Elizabeth started third grade!  She said she was a little bit nervous last night and said that sometimes she is shy.  But this morning, at the bus stop, she was yelling "hi" to everyone she knows :-)  This is her second year starting with a male teacher, and she thought that was pretty neat.  (Not to mention, they both have had compound words for last names:  Last year she had Mr. Whitehead.  This year she has Mr. Knightstep.)  She is also excited that she is in a gifted class.

Elizabeth got on the bus, then we had a half-hour before we had to leave to take Josiah to school.

Josiah started Kindergarten today!  Today was the first of the transition days for Kindergarten students.  (One-third of the class goes for two hours.)  He was able to meet his teacher, Mrs. Smith, last week.  I think that was great for helping this morning go more smoothly.

Next Tuesday will be the first regular day of Kindergarten and the first day to ride the bus.  The school system here is a bit different in that all the Kindergarten students go to one school.  They are the only ones in the building.  So, there are nine AM classes and nine PM classes.  It does make me feel a little bit better about sending my Josiah off on the school bus for the first time. :-)


The little boys and I had just over an hour between getting home from taking Josiah to school today leaving to pick him up again.  We took a few pictures, tried to play a game, and watched some Sesame Street.  Though I don't like that Josiah has to be on the bus as long has he does, it will be nice to have the three solid hours each day with just my littlest two...for another few months anyway.

We were home for lunch and a few hours of play, and I even got a nap!  Then it was time to get Elizabeth from the bus stop.

The kids enjoyed the first day!  Neither has homework, but I do.  Gotta love back to school paperwork :-p

What's happened in eleven months

It has been 11 months since my last blog post.  And it has been a crazy eleven months!  A lot has happened, as it always does. 

Our fourth child was born!  Nathanael James was born September 12, 2011.

In October, Isaac turned TWO!

At the end of January this year, we moved 450 miles away from our home for the previous three years.  We were blessed to move close to family!  But we do miss our friends and the area of Charlottesville.


We bought a house, and have been dealing with the joys and "joys" of being homeowners again. 


Elizabeth turned EIGHT!

Josiah turned SIX!  (We had our first Chuck E. Cheese birthday party.)

AND we are expecting our fifth child!  The newest one is due February 25th! 

Of course, that's just the really big stuff.  Phew!


I'm hoping to be better about blogging again.  (Shouldn't take much effort to be better than a blog post every 11 months ;-))  We've got so many more big things coming soon.  In a couple weeks, Elizabeth will be starting third grade, and Josiah will begin Kindergarten!  In a month, we'll celebrate Josiah being in our family four years!  Right after that is Nathanael's first birthday!  I don't think things will be slowing down any time soon :-)

School Days

This is our first year with TWO kids in school!

Elizabeth started second grade about two weeks ago.  She went into this year with excitement and confidence!  She has a male teacher for the first time, as well as a class pet!  (Lucky the hamster just spent the three-day weekend with us.)  There are two girls from the neighborhood in her class, so she was very happy about that.

Ready for School!

Coming off the bus at the end of the day

Josiah had his first day of Pre-K today!  Last week when I asked him about starting school, he said he didn't want to go.  He'd rather stay home.  However, by the open house, he was happy to show David his school and his new classroom.  Today, he was excited to get to school.  When I picked him up, he said, "It was the best day of school ever!"  Hopefully, there will be many more of those :-)

Ready for School!

Heading out to the car!

Showing off the cubbies before going into his classroom.

 Isaac had a pretty good day today, too.  We stopped by Target and a fun Amish spice store on the way home.  Then after lunch, it was about time to go back to get Josiah.  He did ask about the kids a few times, but he'll get the hang of it.

I think both kids are going to have a great school year! Elizabeth loves school.  She loves the learning and the time with friends.  It will be good for Josiah to have something of his own, and to be able to learn with peers and other adults.  It will be interesting to figure out the schedules with the new baby.  I'm thankful my mom came out to help with Josiah starting school today.  I am much more at ease knowing she will be here with the kids when things start.

Re-entry can be rough

Our three little travellers just had a two-week visit to Grandma and Grandpa's house...without Mommy and Daddy.  They had so much fun going to VBS, visiting playgrounds, staying overnight at a water park, flying with Grandpa, and so much more!  There were a few special girl things at a Sleeping Beauty dinner theater and a tea house.  The boys visited the Air Force museum and toured a former Air Force One.

Then our young journeyers return home.  After so much fun and adventure packed into two weeks, it's no wonder there are a few bumps as they re-acclimate.  They are tired from all the excitement and travelling.  Though they are not without boundaries at Grandma and Grandpa's, things are different.  David and I jokingly call the time of re-entry "de-tox."  We know emotions are going to run higher.  We know there will, once again, be testing of boundaries.  This time has just been a little harder than we expected.

Our oldest traveler started a high fever the day before they were driving home.  But other than that, she has done amazingly.  There have not been more than a couple instances of testing or such.  She has done this enough times now to know how things go.

Our second, has had the most difficult time.  Today is only the fifth day since their return, but there has been significantly more turbulence than we anticipated.  We have seen A LOT of attitude for every little thing, along with many other bumps.  As I said, we expected some of this.  It happened last year.  But something else seems to be going on.  I've tried to work through the reasons.  This is a time of big changes for this one, historically and presently.  We are nearing the anniversary of our son going through the biggest changes of his young life.  He's starting to think about starting school and having a new sibling all in the next few weeks.  I know there is so much going on in his heart and in his head.  But it's hard not to take his actions and rejection personally.  And I'm not doing a very good job controlling my reactions.  Tonight I've been thinking through so many ways for both David and me to consciously give him more time and attention.

This was the first of such trips for our youngest, so we were not quite sure what to expect.  I was a little bit worried about how he would do for such a long time.  While away, it seemed like he barely noticed that we weren't there.  He did seem to return home with an ever-present whine in his little voice.  He's been quicker to tantrum and to cling.  But I think he is slowly starting to work out of those.

We are glad to have the kids home again.  Though it was nice to relax and rest for a time, the house and my days felt pretty empty.  We missed the hugs and snuggles and giggles.  We missed the kids. 

I am grateful they are able to go and enjoy special time with family.  I am grateful we have several weeks together before school and more craziness starts.  I am especially grateful for the example I have of my Heavenly Father who loves me as I am...even with my testing, whining, rejection, tantrums, and attitude.  Praying He'll help me love the same way.

Update on Josiah!!!

It's hard to believe, but Josiah is FIVE!!! 

I missed doing a post for his birthday, but he turned five on May 8. 

AND in less than two months, we'll celebrate Josiah being home with us for three years!!! 

   Josiah just had his five-year-old check-up. Yeah, I was behind on that, too.  He's now almost 34 1/2  pounds and 40 1/2 inches tall. On growth charts he's progressed to about 5% for both height and weight. 

At this visit, the doctor heard a heart murmur for the first time.  We actually got into the pediatric cardiologist's office two days later.  Josiah was a rock star during the EKG and very involved sonogram of his heart.  They found that he has a "very impressive innocent murmur".  They did find an abnormality in his aortic valve, but that is not causing any problems now.  It's something we'll keep checking as he grows.

Josiah has boundless energy, it seems.  He is constantly running, jumping, climbing.  He's really enjoyed taking gymnastics classes the past few months.  He's started asking about ice skating again, so we'll be looking into that once the local rink puts down ice again.

We are going to wait to have Josiah start Kindergarten.  He is doing well learning numbers, letters, and all of those types of things.  But, especially since he has not attended any kind of school yet, we want to give him another year to grown and mature before sending him to full day Kindergarten.  He will be attending a transitional kindergarten class half-days at a local pre-school. 

Josiah's personality shines though more and more.  One of the children's helpers at church always tells me that he is so full of joy.  Much of the time he is.  However, I think maybe "full of life" is a better way to express it.  He very often has a huge smile across his face, but he has very passionate emotions on all sides.  He's a full-speed-ahead kind of guy.  He's a chatterbox and so curious about everything!  He still stays very close to Elizabeth when she is home and does not like to play on his own.  But he is becoming more and more of a leader and helper with Isaac.  He's affectionate and wants to be close.  He has a much better understanding this time about a new baby joining our family.  He's surprised me by rubbing my belly and talking to the baby frequently.

We've heard a lot of new questions and thoughts the past several months.  Josiah has started asking why he's the only one in our family who has brown skin.  He's said he wants to match the rest of the family.  Even though there wasn't really any information we haven't discussed, watching a DVD of his Ethiopian family brought dying and heaven to the forefront of his thoughts.   Prayerfully, we do our best to answer his questions and acknowledge his feelings.  We are so blessed to have him, just the way God made him, as part of our family.

We are looking forward to see how God is going to use Josiah to impact this world!

Holy Moly...

...it's already the middle of February!!!

I figure the best way to get back into blogging is to start with pictures.  These are from mid-December during my attempts to take a  Christmas card picture :-)

We ended up using crops of these three individual pictures:

Snow Days

Yesterday and today have been snow days.  We got maybe three inches of snow yesterday, but it came down pretty quickly in the beginning.  I felt kind of bad.  We never made it out to play in the snow yesterday.  David was home, but he put in a full day of work and took two finals for his classes.  I just didn't have the energy to take the three kids outside while it was 20 degrees and below.  We did finally get our Christmas tree decorated.  Elizabeth and Josiah were very excited to go through our huge tote of ornaments and see which ones they recognized.  I think Josiah was a bit disappointed that he didn't have as many ornaments as Elizabeth.  Isaac got in on the action, trying to put ornaments on the tree.  Unfortunately, I was just trying to manage chaos, so I didn't get any pictures.  Elizabeth made some cards and wrapped presents for her school teachers.  We started working on some pipe cleaner and bead ornaments, and we still need to complete those.

Today, Elizabeth was disappointed that school was closed again.  It would have been her last day before Christmas break, so she missed her party and giving presents to her teachers.  But she and Josiah have been doing a good job playing.  We made it outside today!  Elizabeth, Josiah, and I went out while Isaac was napping.  It was helpful that the temperature was up to almost 40 degrees.  :-)  We haven't managed to get a good sled yet, so the kids tried sledding on a cardboard box.  It was pretty funny.  At some point, Josiah just decided it was easier to go down on his bottom.

Notice the pink mittens?  Guess we still need to get him new snow gloves, too :-)

Wipe out!

I think we're going to need to go to the store in a bit.  We're low on a lot of foods, and we still have a few gifts we need to pick up for this weekend.  Tomorrow, we'll celebrate Christmas a little bit early with some of David's family. 

Happy Snow Day! :-)

Christmas Ornaments

Warning:  Grandma Baber and A.J. don't read this post...at least not until after Christmas :-)

Each year we try to get the kids ornaments to add to the tree.  This year, Elizabeth and Josiah decided they wanted to make their own.  I had found a Shrinky Dink kit a few weeks ago and thought that would make some neat ornaments.  The kids were intrigued!  Josiah quickly decided he wanted a Rescue Pack ornament--big surprise, right? ;-)  Elizabeth took a little more time to choose, but decided she wanted to make a star.  We chose a few other patterns to make as gifts.

I printed out the images we needed to trace.  I traced the Rescue Pack onto the plastic for Josiah and then he colored it.

Elizabeth traced her star shape onto the plastic and then colored it in.  She said she chose a Christmas star and wanted to hang it near the top of the tree because as star is what pointed the Wise Men to Jesus.  She decided to add words to her star, so I had her use marker to write the words on a piece of paper.  Then we flipped the paper over, and she could trace the words backward on her plastic. 

The kids chose a candy cane shape as a gift for Grandma Baber and a Mario for cousin A.J.  I traced the images.  Both kids colored the candy cane.  Elizabeth colored the Mario as Josiah was working on another gift for A.J.  Then into the toaster oven they went.  I forgot how quickly it works and how much they shrink!

Both Josiah and Elizabeth did a great job!  I like the idea of making a yearly tradition out of making their ornaments.  (We do still have to figure out what to make for Isaac this year!)

I don't deserve these kids

Today was one of those days.  It was a bad mommy day.  I was grumpy.  I had no reason to be grumpy.  But all I did was snip at the kids a l l  d a y  l o n g.  Elizabeth, after getting up and ready on her own, came in this morning wearing a pair of pants she knows she is not supposed to wear to school.  The first words out of my mouth let her know just how displeased I was with her choice.  And the day just seemed to go downhill from there.  Isaac spilled milk all over the kitchen.  Josiah made the choice to clean it up without even asking for help.  Instead of telling him how proud I was, I complained at him for his excessive use of paper towels.  Even though I was telling myself how mean I was being to my kids, it didn't change the negative words coming out of my mouth. 

So, instead of letting the kids choose where to have dinner, I  decided my rough day meant I deserved to have my choice.  HA!  The kids weren't happy, and they complained for a moment, but they came into the restaurant and were angels.  They had been promised playtime at the mall, and instead they were stuck in seats at a sit down restaurant.  They sat well and used their manners.  They did a fabulous job eating.  As the group at the next table was leaving, they gushed about our kids--everything from how cute they all are to how well-behaved they were.  I didn't need them to tell me those things, but it was reinforcement of how very blessed I am to be able to parent these three.  And how very blessed I am that they are amazing, despite me parenting them.

Thank you, God, for these blessings...and for reminders from others that they truly are blessings!

Trick or Treat!

(Don't mind that they were ringing the doorbell when there is a bucket of candy by the door.  They were posing in front of our house. ;-))

It's the Baber kids!

Elizabeth the Pink Rock Star! 

Everything she wore was something already in our house except a $2 can of pink hair spray.

Josiah and Isaac: Diego and Baby Jaguar from Go, Diego, Go!

I did buy the shirt for Josiah, but it's one he can wear again.  We  had the vest, and we printed and added an iron-on patch.  I made Rescue Pack.

Isaac is wearing a costume that both Elizabeth and Josiah wore.  I love that they all got to wear it!

Rescue Pack!  My first real sewing project without adult supervision ;-)  I'm relieved with how it turned out.  I used a towel, figuring it'd be sturdy and cheap.  I forgot how thick it would be as I was finishing edges and such.  The face was made with printable iron-ons.  Josiah wanted to add a zipper after most of the bag was already put together, so it's not so pretty, but it works.  Josiah loves it and wants to play with it all the time.  That makes it worth it!

Snitching candy!

Josiah and Elizabeth were as excited about handing out candy to others as they were going around to get their own. :-D



We had a fun evening.  Now Mommy and Daddy need to assess the safety of the candy.  I have a feeling most of the chocolate is going to need to be confiscated.