Now A Family of *gulp* Six.

Family members not on Facebook, this is for you!  I'll get to my family in a future post, but today - projects. We've attacked many. Over winter break back in January, we had the wood floors refinished. Over spring break in April, we finally decided to act on our daydreams and redid the living room. I can't say remodeled, because we didn't change much.... but gutted? Definitely. We were excited for this project, but you know how one thing just snowballs into something else? Well, we pulled the old insulation down and besides a mouse nest (complete with baby), we found rotted deck boards. A lot of them.  After a couple of estimates and some discussion, we also got - a new roof! All in all, we had 13 deck boards replaced, a new roof, and new soffets & downspouts too. On the upside - we've noticed a temperature difference in our house already. Anyway... after our budget was surpassed (thanks, roof) and our couple-week timeline turned into a month, it...

Christmas: check. New Year's: check. Charlie's birthday: check. Semester break: check. Practically February: oh my gosh! 2013 arrived with a whoosh and it's been nonstop since we all returned to work/school. We had a great Christmas break, probably the best yet - spent time with family & friends, visited the Institute of Art for some fun, had a couple lazy pajama-days here at home. As usual, Charlie's birthday snuck up on us but he turned 5 with much fanfare. It seems the older he gets, the less he wants to follow directions - there is a large learning curve going on in his life right now. Of course, he reminds me of... well, of me. And I turned out just fine! Roman is finding 4th grade to be really fun and really tough all at the same time. Homework is taking longer & is much more involved. He's done a couple projects & the great thing is, he tells me he doesn't get nervous before he has to do a speech or presentation. What a grea...

November 28. I want to mark this as the day I realized I need to find that Advent calendar... because usually it's December 1st and I'm taken by surprise. I feel ahead of the game this year. I finished shopping for both boys today. I have a few stocking stuffers to buy for Doug, easy enough to do. Half my extended family is taken care of, and I know what I'm doing for the rest - just need to get out there and do it (or wait until next paycheck!).  This coming weekend we will put the tree & the rest of the decorations up. It all seems too good to be true - I'm actually ahead of the game for once! We are looking forward to being at home through Christmas morning this year. It will be our second time in 11 years. The older the kids get, the more enticing it is to stay home. Go to our own church for Christmas Eve service, have Santa visit our house. We will embark on our usual Tour of the Families afterward, of course. It makes sense more than ever this year, because ...

Roman sold enough Entertainment coupon books to win the keychain, the drawstring bag, AND his heart's desire - the Alvin Chipmunk. It claims it's life-size but I've never seen a chipmunk that big before! We started Charlie at "Tiny Tigers" tang soo do (karate). He is wearing Roman's old top but we had to get new pants since he's much smaller than Ro was when he started. Here he's striking his fearsome Tiny Tiger pose!

(Proud Lake camping) The halfway mark of summer has passed for us - that's VBS. It's always the last week of July and I dread it and love it at the same time. I taught Roman's class this year which was fun - but Charlie had a real hard time being separated from me every day. We had a very busy weekend a couple weeks ago - camping & the air show - so this past and this coming weekend we're being lazy and sticking around home. I am also excited for and dreading school starting again. Now that my kids & I have a routine down, there's lots we want to do - and we'll have to undo it in a few short weeks! (P51 Mustang at air show) On the losing weight front, I am proud to tell my gentle readers that I have lost an unofficial total of 13.5 lbs in a month (weigh-in is not until tomorrow, but I may have cheated this morning and looked). I have gone down a shirt size and probably a pant size too, except I mostly wear elastic baggy capris in the summer so who kno...

Enough stress, deep thinking, & angst! We are having fun this summer, too. First, my news: In the first 2 weeks of Weight Watchers I've lost 5.5 pounds! Even had a 24-hour period where I blew it in terms of restaurants, but back on the horse & doing well. Now, my kids - when they're not annoying each other: Playing dress-up Helping Dad wash the car Eyeing the sprinkler before he runs through... Sparklers on the 4th of July!

A remote control Lightning McQueen! He can run it himself. Obviously, he's very pleased. Charlie got (Roman's) toy of the Leapfrog alphabet singing thingy. He clearly likes it. And this last one? Just an adorable shot of him sleeping in our bed while Doug was out of town. So. darn. sweet.

I am not a fan of birds. But this summer, I was possessed with the desire to own a birdfeeder & attract them. I'm not sure why. And of course, being a beginner, I ended up attracting a squirrel. Not just any squirrel - Jumpy. Jumpy has been hanging around our house since before Charlie was born, hiding his nuts in our yard & basically being a nuisance. Roman is the one who named him. Well, the arrival of the birdfeeders appeared to be the challenge Jumpy was looking for. It doesn't matter what kind of feeder I buy, Jumpy figures out how to get seeds from it. He destroyed the one pictured below within 2 weeks. The thing is, I don't really mind feeding Jumpy. Of course, he's getting quite fat and may not make it up to his nest in the tree across the street eventually, but I like seeing him. But I do miss seeing birds strangely, so yesterday I bought a magazine from Birds & Blooms with tips on what to put in feeders to attract certain kinds of birds. And it daw...

Monday night was really hard on Roman. He went to bed at 7:30 just to end the day and get on with school. But of course he had a hard time sleeping - up three times, ended up in our bed to fall asleep, took forever. Complained of a stomachache, headache, needed a Band-Aid, you name it. Charlie wasn't much better - he's had a cold the past few days so he's generally grumpy and at bedtime HE wants in our bed now, too. Ro's first day of school was awesome, though - Charlie's too. We got home & I'm paging through Roman's zillions of handouts and I see one that says they've added a split class (1st and 2nd combined) because of the high number of students. I knew right then - Roman was selected. And sure enough, we had a message on our machine stating that Roman would begin in the split class tomorrow. So what do you know... he has no idea who is in his class, he knows nothing about his teacher, and he is already worrying about the get-to-know-you "ho...

While traditionally we should be at the beach watching the boats from the Tri-State Regatta with my parents, or camping in Grand Haven with Doug's parents, we chose to stay home this weekend. We had a pretty busy summer coming & going to so many fun things. The past couple days have been nice to just spend as a family of 4. Yesterday we puttered around the house, doing yardwork & generally putting things away. There were a couple moments where we *gasp!* had nothing to do but watch the kids have fun. Amazing. Today we ran a couple errands but again, nothing too strenuous. Doug came up with a fun idea for dinner tonight - I don't know how he got it in his head - but he wanted a "P" dinner. Everything had to start with P. We had pigs in a blanket, popcorn, peas, punch to drink (Doug had pale ale), & Doug also made a small bit of pork ribs for himself. Roman was sad it didn't include pears. Tomorrow is our last day of rest. On the agenda is really, again,...

Man, has it been awhile since I've been here. I think about posting every few days but am so exhausted. End of the school year, students had projects I was furiously grading, you know... excuses, excuses. Here are the highlights of the last couple weeks: CHARLIE Charlie can drink out of a regular cup. He's very proud of himself, too. Charlie also loves to eat his boogers. Complete with a satisfied "Mmm!" as he sticks his finger in his mouth. We went to the Blossomtime Parade in my hometown a couple weekends ago and Charlie loved it. He appeared to like the floats best, as well as the characters in the cars like Elmo, Big Bird, & Ronald McDonald. Charlie would survive on oatmeal if we let him. It's his request for every meal. Apple Cinnamon or Dinosaur Eggs (maple/brown sugar). He even dreams about it - we heard him call out the other night in his sleep, "oatmeal!" His greatest desire is to be outside in the backyard. Not even the suggestion of a bath...

Charlie loves anything big brother is doing. Recently they've played a combination of chase and Star Wars. Roman will shoot at Charlie with his clone blaster, Charlie will screech, laugh, & run for the mini hockey stick. He holds it well, too - sticks the bent part under his armpit, points it right at Roman, and makes noises like he's shooting. If you ask, he will inform you plainly it's his gun. The boys then go running around the house shooting & chasing each other (& then falling down "dead," like above) until they are both laughing hysterically - or someone trips & falls. Of course, at first Charlie's gun play bothered me a bit. It's funny to see a 2-year-old say "gun!" and make shooting noises, but then I think... oh gosh, he's 2. Should a 2 year old be able to do that? Imitation is the greatest form of flattery, though, and goodness knows based on what Roman did at the same age, Charlie will make a gun out of something ...

I did it! I took a picture every day for a whole year. 365 days. Well, to be honest, there are 3 days that are missing pictures, and some days I took more than one to fill in the gaps… but really, I documented our life every day for a year. And it was good. Strangely, the year seems to have flown by. It feels like I just started Project 365 a couple months ago, and as Doug said “it feels like I was just laid off a month ago!” Funny how at times I can’t remember what last Spring was like, but yet it feels like a few days ago. That’s the trick of time, I suppose. I don’t have a great retrospective in pictures or anything. It would take too much time and the kids are getting along for now , but who knows when that will blow up. I’ve scrapped my P-365 pictures for the first 26 weeks but was getting bored with the elements & layout, so I spent the last couple nights making new templates with my own papers & stuff I downloaded from Shabby Princess . I also found a local picture deve...

Sunday afternoon after Charlie's nap we ventured to the next-door town to see Santa. He has a little house in the park downtown. We had to wait almost an hour outside, and toes were getting mighty cold! The cool part was that each family got their own private time in Santa's house with him. Charlie was afraid at first, so he and Doug sat in a chair next to Santa while Roman made his requests. Then Santa pulled out a teddy bear to play with Charlie and C. just lit up! By the end of our visit he was willing to sit on Santa's lap. Roman did a lot of Santa-hand-holding. Roman asked for a clone commander blaster or dual-action lightsaber, and requested SpongeBob's 100 episode DVD for Charlie. We encouraged Santa that Charlie would like a toy instead!

Roman had a very calm past few days. He's been quite enjoyable, really. He has hung out in the living room or dining room coloring, painting, playing video games, turning his brain to mush with SpongeBob, that sort of thing. He has been satisfied with this routine until today. We are noticing more whining, more restlessness, and he got emotional because he wanted to watch a video from downstairs but couldn't decide what... and obviously couldn't go downstairs to be reminded of what we had. The boy handles his feelings really well, or hides them really well, because this was the first evidence of his unhappiness in many days. Mostly, though, our evenings (and weekend) are like this: I'm hoping to arrange a visit from Roman's teacher this week. She wants to bring cards that his classmates have made, and then hopefully encourage some Math work and reading. Roman's got thank-you notes to write as well for very thoughtful people, so that will count as some handwritin...

I could blog about how cool the Lego Castle Adventure is at Henry Ford Museum , or I could just show you the pictures. But just posting pictures isn't really blogging, is it? So I'll put little captions too. Being a member there (for the past 3 years) has been worth every penny. Roman would go there every weekend if he could. Trains, planes, cars, the Weinermobile... and the best special exhibits. Um, not much to say about the entrance. Except you had to cross a drawbridge over a pretend moat. This knight greeted us at the entrance. Made entirely of tiny little Legos. Dragon protecting its treasure - and a baby dragon that is right behind Charlie (you can see a little bit of red from its wings). Again, the dragon & most of the treasure made out of Legos. The throne room of the castle. The "stained glass" is all transparent colored Legos. An interactive game where Roman could select what type of Lego wall he'd put around his castle for defense, then wind up th...

Grief is strong in my mind today. Not wanting to go to Thanksgiving, first holiday in all my 35 1/2 years without my Grandma there. This has hit me harder than when my Grandpa died - with age comes more sadness, perhaps? Maybe because of what my own children have lost.

Need to do a better job of getting pictures of my husband.

So I'm a couple days behind with my pictures, but you'll forgive me when you see how adorable the kids were. We went trick-or-treating in my old stomping grounds with my niece & nephew. The 3 bigger kids ran ahead and I stayed with Charlie, doing less houses but having no less fun! He was a hit at one house, cooing at their dog until the owners came out on the steps with the dog to let Charlie pet him. Very nice. He got compliments at many houses, and one elderly gentleman just kept chuckling as Charlie waved & said "bye!" in his cutest voice. Reports from Doug state that the big kids just ran from house to house, intent on getting all the candy they dreamed of! Roman was Anakin Skywalker (from the Clone Wars) and Charlie was a dragon/dinosaur, whatever people wanted to call him. I hated being "that mom" but oh yes, he did wear his coat over his costume. Thank goodness he'll never remember. Roman ended up putting his coat on under his costume. A ...

I had made a decision to be more cheery in my blog, as I felt I was getting weighed down with all the therapy & speech delay and whatnot. This lasted what, one post? And now here I am, blogging about a downer again. Usually I call my parents, and they rarely call me. This began in college, where I didn't want them calling and interrupting my very independent life, for goodness sakes, and they needed to be available on MY schedule and not the other way around. But I wasn't selfish, or anything. :) Anyway, it just has continued that way. So when my parents call ME, it can't be anything good. Unless we're trying to coordinate a Christmas gift, or something. So my mom calls me Monday night. My grandma (we'll call her Oma) has been admitted to the hospital for a probable perforated intestine (and emergency surgery). A quick glance at WebMD tells me that this is a hole in the intestine which allows the waste to spill out into the abdomen. And commonly caused by cance...