Bedtime Story

Grace:  Mommy, I'm going to look at the Curious George Table of Conference and tell you what I want you to read.

Did You Know?

Grace:  Mommy, did you know that I can hang upside-down on the monkey bars?
Me:  No, I didn't know that!
Grace:  And did you know that I can walk upside-down on the monkey bars?
Me:  No, I didn't know that!
Grace:  But I can't do it until I'm older.  Because I think that if I did it when I'm three, I'd fall down.

Speech

Benjamin had his second session of speech therapy today. It seems to be helping him (and us) little by little. His therapist gave me this handout that tells by what ages the sounds will normally emerge in a child. Interesting...Grace has them all except for L, which she can often say, and TH, which she can say only occasionally. Benjamin's favorite sounds are P and K, which he'll say alone to get us to give him something, since he knows we want him to say sounds of some kind before giving him something. We are working...

Engineer Soup

Mommy, we should make Engineer Soup.  We should get wagon wheel pasta to represent gears, and that twisty pasta (rotini) to represent worm gears, and other kinds of pasta to represent other things related to engineers, and put it all in soup.

No need to tell you which kid told me this, right?

Coloring Pasta

While we were grocery shopping today, I had the urge to make pasta necklaces with the younger kids for the first time. Here are the colors of pasta that are drying outside for Grace. I think I'll get some fatter pasta for Benjamin. He loved stringing car beads with his speech therapist last week, so maybe he'll like stringing pasta beads, too. I feel so domestic. :)

Swimming Lessons...from July

I had planned to post this in July, but I only got it as far as a draft without captions, so...here we are in August.  The next two posts will be from July as well.

This year, I wanted Jonathan to be in swimming lessons to continue with the progress he had made last year, and since it took so many summers for Jonathan to truly love his lessons, I wanted to get Grace started, too.  I knew this would be a summer of breaking in for her, not a summer of actually learning to swim.  I was so happy to find out that their lessons could be scheduled at the same time, AND there was a Mommy & Me class that Benjamin and I could attend while the two older kids were in their lessons.  I figured it would be easier (and cooler) to be in the water with Benjamin than to try to fight him and keep him out of the water for 30-45 min./day.

Here are some pictures from the first day...and that's all I have, because Jeff could only drop in on the first day of lessons.  Benjamin loved his swimming lessons, especially the part with the songs.  He was also a champ at blowing bubbles, but not so great at kicking.

That's Jonathan underwater kicking.  He LOVED swimming lessons.  He told me that he wished he could have swimming lessons all day, every day.  I predict that he'll be an independent swimmer next summer.  I was really proud of him.

More adorableness from Benjamin.  He wanted to nap on the kickboards each time we tried them...until he realized it was really fun to bat them across the water and then get me to carry him over and fetch them.

There are not any pictures of Grace in her lessons.  Partly this is because she was stubborn and not a very good participant, and partially because her teachers were teenagers who are inexperienced with 3-4 year-olds.  I had forgotten about this stage, but it was true with Jonathan, too:  I don't usually ask my kids whether they want to do something, at least when they are little.  I tell them what I want them to do, and I expect for them to do it.  So, when someone asks whether they want to do something, they answer honestly.  It works well at our house, but not well at swimming lessons.  For example, Grace's teacher would say, "Grace, do you want to get in and kick now?"  Of course, Grace would answer enthusiastically with a "NO!"  (Which was honest, but the teacher was expecting her to get in, not to answer.)  After I gave her teachers a couple of, um, motivational pep talks, they got her into the water and her swimming lesson experience got much better.

I love these sweet, crazy, unpredictable kids.

Super J Cape...from July

This craft was inspired by Jo's kids' T-shirt capes, and VBS...Jonathan was supposed to dress up on a theme day as something that could fly.  I was stumped until the superhero idea hit me.  And, it cost me nothing, because I used stuff we had in the house already:

An old T-shirt of mine...

Jonathan's sketch of what he wanted his logo to look like...

He kept himself busy weaving yarn into a strawberry basket because he thought weaving was fascinating for awhile this summer.

The beginning of painting.  I sketched his idea onto the shirt with ball-point pen, and just in case you ever wonder, acrylic paint does NOT cover ball point pen.  Oops, and oh, well!

a little more paint...

Ta-da!

Jonathan loves his super J cape and has even worn it out in public a few times.  And I figure, if he's seven and thinks it's cool to wear his super hero cape, then he is welcome to wear it!

The Twins Turn Two

Another draft post from July!  My twin nieces, Darcy and Mary Ann, turned two!  Here are the kids making cards  for their birthday.

But, since Jeff was leaving on yet another business trip...

I was at the birthday party with my kids by myself, and I don't have a single picture of the twins.  Here is a picture of Jonathan trying to take Charlotte down the slide.  She wasn't into it.

Here's my mom helping me with Benjamin.

And here's Grace getting her uncle Todd to swing her.  She loved it!  Todd is the tallest pusher of swings she has ever had...or probably will ever have.

Comfort

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God."

2 Corinthians 1:3-4...This has been one of my favorite passages from the Bible for a long time, and I just had to share it.

At the Fountains...Again!

We're so happy to have a little more time to enjoy summer break.  We spent another morning at the fountain park with my friend, Brenda, and her kids.  Only the youngest three kids are in the pictures, but we were happy to spend time with the whole crew!  And, they had never been to this park before, so we enjoyed showing off our little spot.  The pictures uploaded in random order, again...

Benjamin made the most of the playground this time, and learned to climb up to the toddler slide and then go down again all by himself...over...and over...and over.  He fell the first time he tried, so I was happy that he kept pushing forward until it was really fun for him.

Thanks, friends, for a fun morning in the fountains!

Glasses

We went to Penney's today to take advantage of their amazing kids' glasses deal for August. (If you haven't heard about it, just ask me or go to their website!) Jonathan chose some new glasses to order. His old ones are still working, but they're bound to bite the dust sometime soon. I was so thankful for this super deal! Grace and Benjamin ate their morning snack during the very short try-on session, and Grace found some glasses that she thought she couldn't live without. She was devastated to leave them behind!

The Second Part of our Big Trip

And these pictures posted in the correct order, unlike my previous post.  (???)

After a visit full of fun at Mark and Jennie's - they had fun destinations planned for us every day - we set out for the family reunion.  At lunchtime, we stopped at the home of two college friends of mine, Jason and Karen, who also became good friends of ours at church in our previous town.  Jeff ran a marathon with Jason right before Jonathan was born.  Jason and Karen have five kids:  Andrew, Tim, Nate, Kaylyn, and Karley.  They hosted a great lunch for us, and it was fun to catch up and for the kids to be out of the car and play.  (No picture, though!)

Here are the kids in the car.

 Yes, those are Jonathan's feet.  He spent a lot of the trip reading.  I wish I could read in the car as easily as he can!  He didn't get my unfortunate motion sickness gene.

 Right before we got together with family, we shared a meal with Rob, Jenny, and their daughters.  I had only met Rob before, and neither of us had met the girls.  We had a great but quick dinner with them, and then set out for the family reunion.

I should note that we were within a few hours' driving distance of a lot of other friends, and I wish we could have seen them, too, so if you're reading this and that includes you, please know that we thought of you!

The big highlight of the reunion for us was meeting our twin nieces, Hailey and Brianna, for the very first time.  They are so identical that Jeff's sister, Michelle, paints a toenail on one baby to help tell them apart.  So, I won't be identifying each baby in the pictures.  But, here is Jeff holding one sweet niece. (And yes, we have two sets of twin nieces.  My sister and Jeff's sister both have twin girls. We got five beautiful new nieces in one year.  Charlotte was born in between the two sets of twins.)

 Jonathan loves babies and has lots of experience entertaining them.

 As you can see.  We got to the reunion early to spend time with Michelle and the twins.  We didn't realize that most of the rest of the family would get there early, too, so we got to see lots of people early.  Here's some more time with the twins.

 Great Grandpa Don watched Jonathan build his Lego Tecnnic...

 Helicopter.  Which has provided hours of fascination both on our trip and back at home.

 Jeff reading a bedtime story to the kids.  Sleeping arrangements in a little hotel room for our family are always, um, interesting.  But everyone slept, so I can't complain!

 There were kids everywhere at the reunion!  17 of them age 12 and under, and 5 of them were Benjamin's age and under.  I don't know how many adults.  That's a lot of people in a hotel conference room.  There were a lot of group pictures taken, but not on my camera, so I don't have any to included here.

 More niece bonding.

 It just so happened that my dear friend, Krista, and her kids, Caleb, Katie, Daniel, and Isaac, were visiting the city were our reunion was, so we got to have lunch with them and their grandparents.  (Krista's husband, Chad, couldn't come.)  We had lunch at a restaurant where a little train engine delivers lunch on overhead tracks.  The kids loved it.

 Here's Jeff calling in the order.

 I had a wonderful hour catching up with my dear friend, roommate, and bridesmaid.  I could have spent a few days catching up, but I was grateful for the hour!

Jeff's mom and the older kids watching fish at Cabela's.

There were kids everywhere.

Everywhere.

More niece love...

and entertaining...

and relaxing in the stroller

Jonathan shows his new helicopter's features to Silvia and little Nicole

Michelle with some of the cousins

Jeff's mom with her grandkids.  

The last picture of the trip...this is sort of a long story, so I'll shorten it.  For those who don't know, Jeff was hit by a car when he was three years old, and he almost died.  Obviously, we are thankful for God's mercy and healing!  Feel free to ask Jeff to tell you the story sometime.  The man who hit Jeff stayed in touch with Jeff and his parents and supported him through the years, and now is in touch with us as well.  The kids and I had never met him or his wife.  So, at the end of the family reunion, they came to see us (they live close to the hotel where we were staying) and we all had some Culver's custard together and got acquainted.

And then, we drove back for a quick meal with Jeff's, dad, slept quickly, got up early, and flew back home.  And the one suitcase that held ten days' worth of clothing for the kids and me kept me busy doing laundry for quite awhile!