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.

It's Isaac!!!

Next week, Isaac will be 21 months old!!!  He's definitely not so much of a baby anymore.  He's becoming quite the little man.  He even answers "No" with a shake of his head when I ask him if he's a baby.  When I ask him if he's a big boy, he nods and answers "Boy!"  :-)

Isaac also just had a check-up.  He's currently about 33 inches tall and around 28 pounds.  (I forgot to write down exact numbers.)  Both of these measurements put him just about 50% on the growth charts.  We're blessed that he has been very healthy.  Other than a high fever after his last shots and "Nanny's Elbow", he's only really been to the doctor for well-visits.

Isaac's slowed down a bit in his eating, but he's still a pretty good eater.  He will usually at least try everything.  He has started picking one or two of his favorite things on his plate, but leaving the rest.  We're working on helping him understand that he can have more of his favorites once he at least eats a little bit of everything else.  He does have a bit of a stubborn streak, though :-)  He enjoys chocolates and other sweets, but fruit remains his absolute favorite.  He would live on fruit alone if we let him.

Isaac loves to do whatever the big kids are doing.  Even if he's playing on his own, he enjoys being where they are.  He doesn't let them push him around much, though.  He knows what he wants and stands his ground.  He does love balls, cars, airplanes, and the like.  But he also has been playing with baby dolls, kitchen toys, and phones.  It's so fun to listen to him play, especially since his language has just exploded in the last month or so! 

Naps are hit or miss these days.  If he's doing pretty well, I'll often let him stay up because it means he'll probably go to bed a little bit sooner.  But there are days when he needs the extra rest...even just crawling under the bench for a little snooze on the floor.

We're so blessed to have this happy cuddlebug as our third child.  I thought he would be our last, but he's never really had the "baby" personality.  Now we know he's going to be a great big brother!

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!

Elizabeth is 7!!!

Our Beautiful Girl turned SEVEN on March 24th!  We're so proud of the young lady she is becoming.  She is a great big sister and a thoughtful friend.  She is trustworthy and hard-working.  Sometimes it's hard to remember she is only seven.  She knows how to have fun, though, too :-)

We tried to keep her birthday celebration pretty low key.  She chose a family trip to a local indoor water park instead of big presents and a party with friends.  Saturday, we drove over and spent over six hours playing in the slides and pools.  She surprised me by going down the big tube slides over and over.  (Unfortunately, trying to keep up with everyone, Mommy didn't get any pictures :-( )  Even though we were only about an hour away, we decided to make it a mini-vacation.  We spent the night at a hotel.  We had a late check-out, so after breakfast we spent some time in the pool.  We went to our favorite Ethiopian restaurant for lunch, stopped for ice cream, and headed home.

This weekend, we added another part to the celebration.  After two years of waiting and set-backs, Elizabeth had her hair cut to donate.  Of course, she had to have it done by our friend Gareth.  Knowing he wanted to start shaping her hair right away, Gareth used a razor to cut off the braids.  It took a little bit of time, but her smile was priceless when she held the first braid.  It was funny to hear her gasp of surprise when she was turned around and saw the length for the first time, too.  She loved her sassy new do, and was happy to be a diva for the afternoon. :-) 

We love you, Baby Girl!  We are so excited to see God working in your life already, and can't wait to see the adventures you will have following Him!

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! :-)