Smiles for Daddy!

Monster 4 is here!

S was born on Thursday Oct. 7th @ 6:52 AM

8 lbs 11 oz

21 in long

Summer...

Since it's finally over, and the leaves are falling off the trees, I suppose it time to post about what we did this summer. It went by so fast (and slow at the same time). The previous statement was written in the beginning of October. It is now the middle of December and there is a foot of snow on the ground and summer is almost as far away as it is past.

The original intent of this post was to try to sum up the whole summer in one ginormous entry. I've since changed my mind. What better way to pass the long winter than with memories of summer. Not that I don't like winter, it's always been one of my favorite seasons. Then we moved to Michigan. The best and worst thing about Michigan winter is the snow. There is lots of it. We get the foot of snow and more all at once that we always longed for in Missouri. At least when there is snow on the ground you know it's supposed to be cold. And an overcast day seems brighter because of the snow. I really think I will enjoy it more when the kids are a little older and we can get out and do more winter sports together, like skiing and snowshoeing. That's hard to do with a newborn...or maybe it's just easier to stay inside. Winter brings more laundry...I hate laundry, but I'm trying to overcome that, it never goes away after all. And puddles of melted snow in the floor that make my socks wet when I step in them...I hate wet socks, I've learned to wear slippers with soles on them. The snow pretty much covers the ground for a full three months. The kids love it. E was asking all summer when it would snow again. And the first snowfall this year she wasted no time getting dressed in all her gear. She was outside before the sun was up to melt it. She came back in slightly disappointed that there wasn't enough to make a snow angel.

But anyway, since we were talking about summer....here's a few pics from our Fathers day hike. We had lots of fun! The kids brought along some bags to collect some shells and rocks. They had so much fun.

Birthday for a Three Year Old

Here is the birthday girl opening her presents. It was so fun. She had to give everyone a hug as soon as she opened the gift. What a cutie.

We had so much fun making the cake together. I let the girls help with the decorating, it's so fun to see their ideas. Had I done it myself, it would have looked totally different. We had a great time.

Top Ten Messes

I thought I would make a list of the top ten messes my kids have made. Mostly because I want to remember them, I didn't take pictures at the time because I didn't want to encourage that behavior. But now that they are well in the past, I think they are fun to remember. I always enjoyed when my parents would share stories of the things we did when we were little.

#1 Soap

This is the first one that I remember, when B was 18 months old he discovered he could unscrew caps off of bottles. He found a brand new bottle of baby wash and emptied the whole bottle into the carpet. At least it was a "clean" mess, but soap is not easy to get out of carpet. This is when I bought my spot bot, and I have used it much since then.

#2 Cinnamon

G has been quite the little mess maker by herself. She loves to get into the kitchen cabinets. I had a quart size container of cinnamon in the cabinet. She dumped out the entire thing and many other spices as well. Cinnamon is not easy to clean out of tile grout, or clothing either. I actually do have a picture of this one.

#3 Moon Sand

G again. We got some moon sand for Christmas last year. It was fun stuff. However, not when kids decide to throw it all over the house. I think I followed a trail from the living room, through the dining room, through the kitchen, down the stairs, and then the grand finally, thrown all over the basement. The good thing is, it vacuumed up really easily.

#4 Milk

Last summer the kids dumped an entire gallon of milk into the carpet. It took several cleanings to get it all out. Even then the milk smell still lingered. I had some good friends the recommend "Kid's and Pets" to get the smell out. I had to do quite a bit of searching to find it, but I finally did. It is quite useful stuff.

#5 Mud Soup

This is not necessarily a true mess, but it's cute and I had to stretch a little to get to ten (that's a good thing). We have two birdbaths in our yard. The kid love to use them to make Mud Soup. They load dirt and sand in by the bucketful and then whatever bits of grass and plants they can find. The girls always add flowers, which does kind of make it look pretty. Then they all find a long stick and stir together. I wouldn't mind as much if they didn't pick all the new plants coming up. The favorite seems to be the sedums. Hopefully they recover okay.

#6 A Pool of Their Own

My kids love the water, they always have. When winter gets long what else is there to do but make your own swimming pool. I remember coming into the kitchen and B and G were in their swimsuits. E was there too, she was just learning to crawl and get around on their own. They were filling up cups from the water in the fridge and dumping it into the floor and "swimming" in it. It really was quite clever for how little they were.

#7 Colored Snow

Technically this one was a supervised mess, because I let them do it. I had been saving yogurt containers and we filled them up with water. Then I gave the the food coloring and let them mix the water into different colors. The idea was to take them outside and let them freeze, then build a really cool ice tower. We just happened to pick a day when it was above freezing all week so they never froze, so we just had some really cool colored snow. It sort of reminded me of "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back."

#8 Sprinkles

The kids climbed up and got down my box of sprinkles. When I discovered them, every single bottle had been emptied onto the living room couch. Also the gel food coloring I had was squeezed out. However, the cleaner that came with our couch is awesome. Worked great and I got all the food coloring out. I haven't bought anymore sprinkles though. I told them they were grounded form sprinkles for a year. This was just last fall, E will turn 3 next month and she wants pink sprinkles on her cake. I don't want to give in, but I'm a sucker for sprinkles. We'll have to see what I decide I guess.

#9 Ashes, Ashes

We were having the missionaries over for dinner and I was cooking. The kids were all in the basement playing nicely. When they got here I called the kids up for dinner and all three of them of them were covered from head to toe in ashes and soot from a wood burning stove. The stove was unhooked before we moved in, but had apparently never been cleaned out. The kids did a good job of it. Not only were they covered, but all of their toys and books and the floor. It was quite a mess. The Sisters even attempted to help clean up the best they could. We had to get the vacuum cleaner serviced after this one.

#10 Eggs

Not too long after the ashes, it was Easter. We had a lot of fun coloring Easter eggs. We enjoyed eating them too. The kids even tried to peel them themselves, in the basement. Luckily it was still fairly clean or the clean up would have been harder. I think they peeled and smashed at least a dozen boiled eggs into the carpet in the basement. After they ran out of boiled eggs, they got the raw eggs. I don't know how many eggs ended up in the floor, I do know boiled or not, eggs are hard to clean up. I borrowed a carpet cleaner from a friend, Berber doesn't clean easily anyway, but I did get it all out. Somehow. We have our own carpet cleaner now. Thankfully I've only had to use it for normal cleaning.

Today's Ultrasound

A very sweet profile of our baby! And it's a BOY! The girls are still excited, even though they said they wanted a sister. G has been saying all afternoon she loves baby boys. I'm glad. We can't wait to meet him in October.

P.S. I thought this was a great 100th post!

Spring Break

I sure love my little illustrator. I am amazed at his memory. Just for reference, here is a photo of the front of the Indianapolis Children's Museum.