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.

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! :-)

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!)