Another busy holiday weekend

We had another busy, but fun, holiday weekend. On Friday, Jill, Josh, and Tyler came up to visit. The kids all seemed to have a blast playing together. And of course, the first thing they did was to swim for a while in the pool. I think it was after 10:00 when we finally got them to go to bed.

The boys playing in the pool


Chris wanted his picture taken when he got out of the pool


Saturday was Chris's 3rd birthday. In some ways it has seemed like Chris has been 3 for a while now. In other ways it's still strange that the 3 years have gone by so fast. He was very excited that he had more cousins up visiting on his birthday. We all went to the zoo in the morning, which is one of Chris's favorite places to go.

Here Bryce is holding Daniel on his shoulder and the kids are by him while they're looking at the monkeys

Ben and Alex are checking out the bald eagles

Ben and Alex measuring themselves against the penguins

Chris, Tyler, Alex, and Ben by the komodo dragon

Josiah, Josh, Alex, Ben, Daniel, Chris, and Tyler in the giant nest


After the zoo, we went to McDonald's so the kids could play on the playground for a while. Chris was very excited because he was able to climb all the way up on his own for the first time. It's because he was 3 and was finally a big boy. After McD's, we came home where the boys all got in the pool again while I finished decorating Chris's birthday cake.

Chris's cake


He really wanted cupcakes, but we didn't have enough cupcake wrappers, so he picked out the Winnie the Pooh cake instead. He was pretty excited about the cake. After Jarom and Katie, with Josiah and Dennis, came over, we got pizza for dinner, then did the cake and ice cream and let Chris open his presents. He says that his favorite part of his birthday was getting the presents. Of course, his older brothers have played with his toys more than he has. He did get a new sleeping bag for his birthday and slept in it that night. He thought it was good fun.

Chris blowing out his candles

Chris waiting for his presents

Alex handing Chris a present

Chris checking out his new scooter


On Sunday we did our usual church thing and came home and had a fairly relaxing day. It had gotten quite a bit cooler on Sunday, so even if we were the type to go out and do things on Sundays, it was a bit too cold for that.

Jill and her boys left on Monday morning and the kids were sad to see them go. Their sadness was alleviated by the fact that Amy and her kids were coming to stay with us Monday night, so they knew they would be able to see more cousins. They seemed to have a good time playing on Monday night.

Of course, this morning, Ben was a bit sad that he wasn't able to play with them longer because he had to go to school. He didn't think it was fair that his brothers would get to stay home and play. They didn't get to play a lot longer than he did though, since Chris had a doctor appointment for his 3 year check-up this morning.

Chris was actually pretty excited to go to the doctor today. He loves to stand on the scale and thinks it's fun to find out how tall he is and all that. He is 36 5/8" tall (the nurse said 3-6 and 5/8", so at first I thought she meant that he was 3 1/2 feet tall) and weighs 28 pounds. He was 30% for height and about 13% for weight. So while he's still skinny, the good news is that he's maintaining his spot on the growth scale and isn't back down on the low end of the chart. Chris looks and is pretty healthy. He has had the issue where his one testicle has lots of fluid in it and so is much larger than the other, so his doctor is referring us to a pediatric surgeon. The doctor said that they do recommend getting that taken care of if it extends past infancy. He said there's no rush though. Chris got one shot today (the second dose of Hep A) and had to go get his blood drawn so we could check his iron levels to see if we can stop giving him the vitamins. He said that usually the problem doesn't persist, so he's thinking we will be able to stop supplementing him with those. (The doctor's office just called and his bloodwork all came back normal, so we can stop giving him the vitamins!)

After Chris was so good with the shot and the blood draw, I told him that we could go to McD's for lunch again today. He wanted to go back to the one with the playground and play for a bit, so we did. Alex and Chris were both very good there and listened and did exactly what I'd ask them to do, so despite being by myself, it was nice to take the 3 boys out for lunch.

Soccer Mom

So with practices 4 nights a week for my 3 oldest boys, I am officially a soccer mom. It makes me feel a bit old to think of being a soccer mom. I even have the minivan to go along with the soccer mom persona.

It is fun to watch my kids in their practices though. It's fun to watch Ben when he gets all excited and starts doing a little dance when his team scores a goal in their scrimmages. It's fun to see how athletic Alex is and how well he keeps up with the other players on his team who have already been playing for a couple of years. He seems like he'll be a good defender. It's fun watching Chris's practices because they're 3 year-olds and sometimes have a hard time paying attention to what they're doing. Often one or another will jump on the ball and grab it with their hands. I'm looking forward to seeing what will happen when they actually start their games next weekend.

Here are some pictures of the boys at their practices:

These first two are at Ben's practice:



These next two are at Alex's. He's practicing throwing in the ball in the second picture:



This last one is Chris at his practice:

The Dangers of Waiting For the Bus

Ben's bus comes to pick him up in the morning at about 7:50, sometimes a little before, sometimes a little after. Some mornings we get there and have to wait for a few minutes. Other mornings, we're running a bit late, and just have about 30 seconds before the bus arrives. Today was one of the latter. I actually kind of like it when we time it like that, although it makes me a little nervous to think of what would have happened if we had been 2 minutes later.

Usually waiting for the bus is a pretty uneventful activity. The kids all just line up on the sidewalk and wait for the bus to arrive. There's typically no pushing or shoving or horsing around, even despite the fact that there are mostly boys waiting in line.

However, occasionally there are some dangers involved in waiting for the bus in the morning. Here is a picture from this morning to demonstrate:



Yes, in case you can't tell or aren't sure, those are mosquito bites on Alex's legs. In the 30 seconds we were waiting for the bus to get there, Alex got 5 bites on one leg and 2 on the other. It's a little amazing to think of, considering that Alex never sits still. You'd think the mosquitoes would have gone for someone who was standing still, who would have been a better target. But maybe Alex's blood was pumping faster and therefore more enticing. Whatever the case, they decided to go for him.

So you can see that waiting for the bus to come in the morning isn't without its thrill of danger. Who wouldn't love to take the risk of possibly being infected with West Nile Virus?

I do think that we'll make sure we all get some mosquito repellant on before we head out to the bus stop the next time we go.

My crazy kids

Okay, I thought I'd do one more post today while I'm posting and just include a few pictures of the boys doing their normal everyday stuff. They can be pretty silly when they want to be. :)

Here the boys put the futon cushion on the floor and wanted to pretend to go to sleep. Alex is actually hiding under the cushion here, so you can't see him:




Here, Ben got out the camera and would "get" Chris with it. Chris was kind of trying to hide on his bed:



Ever since we got the pool, swimming is a common activity for the boys. In the first picture, Ben and Alex wanted to show off their skills of swimming under water. In the second one, Chris was just drying off on a break from swimming. He's so skinny that he gets cold while he's swimming and shivers a lot, but doesn't want to stop swimming. He will usually get out of the pool, dry off, then get back in.




Now if I had only remembered to take a camera to soccer practices, I could show pictures of Ben's first soccer practice and Chris's. And just in case you were wondering, it's kind of comical to watch 3 year olds in a soccer practice. Half the time they refuse to do what the coach (who is our neighbor from across the street) asks them to do, part of the time they're looking around at other stuff (the playground right next to the field is a big temptation), and the other part they're actually kind of trying. It will be very interesting to see their first games on the 6th.

Big 1st Grader

Ben started his first day of first grade today. He's been pretty nervous about it for the last couple of weeks. He didn't think he'd like going all day, he didn't want to do harder stuff, and I think he was afraid he wouldn't know where to go.

Last Friday they finally posted the class lists, so Ben and I drove down to the school to see who his teacher would be and who was in his class. He was happy to see that there were quite a few from his kindergarten class in his class with him. His two best friends were in other classes, but he was okay with that.

On Monday they had a meet the teacher night, so we went over to meet his teacher and she let him pick out where he was going to sit today. She wrote his name on a post-it and had him put it on the spot where he wanted to sit. He first put it at a table where no one else had put their names, but when his friend Juan showed up and put his name at a table, Ben moved his to sit across from him. He was happy to know that he'd be sitting by someone he knew.

Last night, Bryce gave Ben a Father's Blessing and told Ben that he wouldn't be apprehensive or nervous, that he would be excited. He said he'd be excited to learn and be able to learn what he needed, that he'd meet up with old friends and make new friends, that he would want to be good and obey his teacher. Ben actually has strong faith when it comes to prayers and blessings. He surprises and impresses me quite often with how strong his faith is. He started feeling a bit better after the blessing, but this morning when he got up, he said he wasn't nervous anymore, that he was just excited. He kept asking when it was time to go and made sure his brothers were up so they wouldn't make him late for the bus. He did get a bit nervous when the bus came and wasn't sure where he wanted to sit, so I had to go help encourage him to sit and that he would be fine, but he was still excited to be going to school.

Here are a couple pictures of Ben ready to go on his first day.

Ben wanted to look grumpy for the first one, mostly because he didn't want me to take his picture because he was afraid it would make him late:


Now he's finally smiling:


Here he's waiting for the morning bus (his first time on this morning bus) with Alex and the other kids: