Tying Shoes!

Hannah has learned how to tie her shoes! This has been a long time coming. We've been working with her off and on for months now. But the past two weeks I've been having her practice for 10-15 minutes a day. She hardly needed any help, she really already had it down, but had only practiced on a book. Well, after one week working on a book each day we've moved to shoes and today she tied her own shoes :-) You don't know how happy this makes me! Now she can get herself ready to go completely on her own. This is really exciting!

AWANA Awards Night

This past Thursday was the awards night at AWANA. Both girls loved AWANA this year and worked really had memorizing their verses and going through their books. They both completed two books. Evie finished both books for Cubbies, since she'll be moving up to Sparks next year and Hannah finished two Sparks books, she even did the review on the first one.
We brought the boys to the ceremony, which was a little crazy. But we made it through. Green Machine did not want to let me go...like screaming when I let go of him.....so I ended up bringing him on stage when they called the leaders up, but I didn't stay up the whole time like the rest of the leaders. For entertainment for Green Machine during the talking and such I took two pictures of Evie. They were the best pictures of the night.

Aren't they good? 

Here's Evie singing her Cubbies song. It's very hard to take pictures while trying to keep a two year old in line......

Unfortunately she turned away from me when getting her awards. Yes, she is wearing her Easter dress with her Cubbies vest :-)

I was not able to take pictures of Hannah on stage because they dragged me up there for that part since I helped out with Sparks. :-(

Here are both girls with their awards. Because Hannah finished two books they gave her a medal for such great work.

appliance repair 101

Anyone who has been to our house and done laundry or been here while it's going on knows that our washer gets off balance pretty bad pretty easily. I have good news for you! The washer finally started leaking a little so we investigated the problem and found the shocks on the washer were completely shot. We found it was a fairly simple fix and the parts were only $25. Now our washer works like new again :-)

slugs & bugs hidden track?!?

Why did no one tell me there is a hidden track (click the link to find out how to find it if you didn't know either) on slugs & bugs & lullabies? And why did I not find this out until after our CD was destroyed?!?! Have you found the hidden track on Slugs and Bugs? Will you share it with me????? My girls destroyed our CD by listening to it and taking it in and out of the CD player 100 times last summer/fall. And did you know Slugs & Bugs is coming out with a new all scripture CD? The songs are really cool, they have some of them on their blog and you can hear others on their kickstarter page.

I want it shorter

Evie and Hannah have been enjoying making paper casts for their arms. Evie cuts a piece of paper in half and then they glue it and it fits nicely on their forearm. Well, they were doing this this morning with friends and ran out of half sheets of paper, so Evie went to cut more. She had the scissors in her hand open and was standing near the couch. I saw her and told her to go back to the table and make sure she only cuts paper. Well, maybe 10-15 minutes later I hear "Evie cut her hair!!" from Hannah. Thank you Hannah. Fortunately Hannah saw it before Evie had gotten too far, she didn't cut off a large quantity, but she did cut about five inches off of the stuff she cut.  The most frustrating part was I had just told her to only cut paper! Anyway, after punishing her, I asked her why she cut her hair and she told me because she wanted it shorter. I showed her how short her hair was that she had cut and asked if she wanted it that short and she said no and showed me the length she wanted it.....only maybe an inch shorter than what she has. I told her I can cut her hair and her response was "but I want it cut NOW!" yeah, not going to happen. Ahhh, the life with a four year old. :-)

park days

The park days are coming. The past couple days were on the cooler side, but today was a beautiful warm sunny spring day. We went to the park with some people from the moms club I'm a part of. We were there about 2.5 hours. I think our spending all day at the park or beach aren't going to happen this year :-( This kind of makes me sad, as I loved the 4-5 hours at the beach last year. But I think our yard will get used more, and that's good. I've also made arrangements to do swimming lessons at a friends pool, which I think will work out super well and am looking forward to that. I'm sure by next year we'll be back up to more hours, but I think this year the boys limit is about two hours, which really isn't bad for a two year old :-)

S'mores

There has been a lot of yard clean up going on the past few weekends. We've had a couple of the jr. high boys from our church helping with it. Nathan's goal is to make all the yard useable. ie, the girls can run through it and play in it without killing themselves. This is quite the undertaking since most of the woods in front of our house has tons of dead branches in it and things like wild rose and raspberry bushes that have lots of prickers. The yard does have some grass and so it's broken nicely into quadrants. They started on the right front when looking at the yard from the house. They've managed to get almost all the wild bushes that have prickers out. Yay! And to dispose of them they've been having bonfires. So on Saturday we invited some friends over and did s'mores, you know, because you shouldn't let a bonfire go to waste! :-) 

 Enjoying the s'mores

The master marshmallow roaster, three at once! 

See behind all the people roasting marshmallows? That area used to be covered with bushes and sticks, doesn't it look great?

Yum!

Okay, so this picture doesn't really have anything to do with the s'mores, I mean it is of people eating s'mores, but I'd like you to note Hannah's hair. It's all in cornrows and it's still looking good after two weeks and it only took me an hour and a half to do!!!! Okay, so maybe that's not as exciting for you, but it's really exciting for me! :-)

weeping cherry tree

Our weeping cherry tree is in bloom again right now. So I took pictures. I figure I'll document it ever year and see when it blooms and such. I took these pictures Monday. Nathan pointed the tree out to the girls earlier this week and Hannah asked, "why is the tree crying?" since it's a weeping tree. Good question.

dress like a Bible character take 2

Two weeks ago at AWANA it was the last regular meeting of the year. Tomorrow is the awards ceremony. The theme was dress like a Bible character again and the girls were two of only a hand full of kids dressed up this time. 

Hannah was Moses. Doesn't you like the beard? And Evie, with the baby, was Elizabeth. Don't you love Evie's tights?

Hi!

One of the boys favorite words is "hi" if you are a non-threatening person to them they will say it to you until to you acknowledge them. If they think you're threatening they'll just run to me and cry :-) Green Machine will also hold everything and anything up to his ear and say "hi" remind you of anyone? I haven't taken any pictures of Green Machine doing it yet, but I need to! Just use your imagination. Toy cars, blocks (lots of different blocks), sticks, rocks, random toys. Yeah, I really should take some pictures :-) Both boys will also say "Phone. Daddy! Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!!" whenever the real phone does ring and are more than willing to say hi and bye to whoever is on the phone.

Fridays

Fridays are a uncertain day around here. We have to block off the day because we could have visits with the boys birth parents, but we never know until the morning of if they'll happen or not. Yesterday we got a call around 8:30 am saying their birth-mom was not coming, a call about 15 minutes later confirmed their birth-dad would not be there either, no visit. It's nice not having to drive 45-55 minutes one way for the visit and to have the day free. But yesterday I had some place for the girls to go, they were having a play date, I was going to have free time while the boys were visiting. This is the third time I've had arrangements for the girls not to be with me and the third time the visit was cancelled when those arrangements were made. Maybe I should just keep scheduling things for the girls so they don't have to come and we'll have more cancelled visits? Although honestly, I do like the school time I have with the girls during the visits. It's nice to not have a toddler (or two) climbing on and off my lap and vying for my attention while I'm trying to do school with the girls, so maybe I won't schedule anything. Yesterday the girls did have a good time on their play date and I got to do a little visiting with the kids mom as well since I didn't have anywhere to be!

More synesthesia?

Last year I posted about Hannah and Grapheme-color synesthesia. This week Hannah was listening to the Mozart music cube we have and plays a song and says "When I hear this song I taste sour." she repeated the song and repeated the comment. Nathan and I asked her if any other music gave her a taste in her mouth and she looked at us funny and said "No" like we were strange. She's the one tasting her music, but we didn't point this out to her. We're wondering if it's a form of lexical-gustatory synesthesia? It says words and written text can produce tastes, but maybe it works with music on some people too? Who knows. There are some times when I'd really like to know what's going on in that girls head!

Resting

The other day Hannah was sitting in our dining room and I asked her what she was doing this is her response "I was having a little rest since I hurt myself. I was looking at pictures, chewing gum and swallowing spit. Mom, why do you always have to swallow spit?"

Community Group!

Today we went on a picnic/hike with some friends. Or we attempted to. Green Machine pretty much cried the entire hike. Both boys got upset before the hike even began because I wouldn't let them play in the creek, but I really didn't think that would cause crying for the entire time. I think Green Machine might have been hungry as well, he did a little better after having lunch. But, the good thing was all that crying wore him out and he took a super good nap. Little Boy Blue was up at 6:15-6:30 am this morning and was pretty tired too, so he took a good nap as well. This was the first Tuesday that we have had community group where the boys napped. I hadn't wanted to try community group, which starts at 6:30 pm when their normal bed time is between 6 and 7 when they hadn't napped. But I got to go tonight because not only did the boys nap, but the girls both slept as well. It was amazing! So we made it to community group only to find out that none of the kids were going to be there, thankfully one other kid did show up, so it wasn't only my kids, but it was kind of crazy. We had a good time, it's much more difficult to get four kids home and ready for bed at 9 than two, I'll have to say that. The girls weren't in bed until 9:30 pm. Everything went smoothly though because all the kids had had such a nice nap. That's the excitement of the day. On to tomorrow.

a weeks gone by?

Wow, didn't realize I hadn't posted in so long. Last week was another week of doctors appointments. Hannah's had some itchy bumps on her fingers that have been there for awhile and spread, so I figured I should probably get her checked out. The doctor said it was contact dermatitis from our hand soap. I don't believe that, but whatever. I started using a prescription cortisone cream we had for her already on it and it seems to help, I should have done that before going to the doctor, but I was just using the over the counter stuff.  That was Wednesday. Thursday we took Green Machine to have him fitted for new orthotics. That was all good and dandy and fast, the only issue was Little Boy Blue falling onto a bucket of toys while we were waiting and cutting his lip and scraping above his lip. Another call to the social worker. Which, we got to see their social worker on Friday as I took the boys to Hartford for an ENT check up. I left the girls with friends to spare them the 1.5 hour car ride one way. It was a great time with, at one point seven adults in a small little exam room. Both birth parents showed up, along with the social worker, and Barb and John (former foster parents) were there. I was very thankful for Barb and John being there, as the boys still like them and Barb was super helpful during the exam holding Little Boy Blue while I had Green Machine. It all worked out fine and the boys are doing well. But unless I can find a pediatric ENT closer to home I will be heading to Hartford every six months for follow ups. After getting back from Hartford around 4 pm, I made dinner, ate and then headed out to CT Kids Closet, which is a one weekend consignment sale. Friday was the pre-sale day and I had a ticket to get in. I was given two huge bags of clothes last week, which was super exciting as it's warming up and I didn't have any short sleeve shirts, and the boys had out grown a good number of the pants they came with, but I was still missing some items, like shorts and needed some things for Hannah. It was an interesting experience. I was able to get what I needed for the boys, but the stuff for Hannah was a little harder to come by. That and it took over an hour to check out, kind of crazy. But I made it through the craziness. The past two Saturday Nathan has been working with one of the kids from our youth group to clean up our yard, which I think is a several year project, but we'll see. So this past Saturday they were working at that the whole day while I had kept the kids entertained. Sunday I ended up keeping the boys home from church because they've had a pretty bad cold. Yesterday was a pretty low key Monday, as there is no library time for the next couple of weeks. We were able to get some schooling done (even though it's spring break for public schools) and relax a little.

Easter

On Easter we had the family over to our house after church for lunch and an egg hunt. All the kids really enjoyed the egg hunt. Especially Evie and Little Boy Blue, who even yesterday when we were playing outside looked around and said "egg" looking for still more eggs.  :-)

 Evie searching for more eggs

 Hannah showing off her loot

 Sampling the goods. 

Pretty Easter dresses from Grandma!

Birthday party

On the Saturday before Easter we had birthday party for all the March birthdays in the family. Which is quiet a lot. We went up to the house my in-laws had rented and partied their. The house was great, there was a pound that you could walk to that had ducks, geese and swans, so when we first got their we took the kids for a little walk while waiting for Rachael and her family to arrive. Everyone enjoyed the walk. Then it was party time. We had some super yummy pizza, ate cake and opened presents.

 Evie chatting it up on the phone. The phone (a disconnected land line with cord phone) was on of the hottest toys of the day. 

Another hot play item was the ottoman. It was on wheels and great for rides. I couldn't find a picture of Nathan giving a ride to kids on it without one of the boys in it, so you'll just have to picture it with kids sitting on top being pushed by Nathan :-) 

Or if you're bored with all of the above, maybe a little stretching on the couches would do the trick?

Rachael, Jamie and Nathan waiting to partake of their yummy birthday cake!

Enjoying the cake! 

Rachael made super cool felt board things for the boys for their birthday. Hannah spent a good part of the day playing with them. Here she's helping open them.

Easter Egg Decorating

The girls colored Easter eggs with Grandma this year......for some reason I had other things that kept me busy, but I did manage to snap a few pictures.

Please note the blue strap seen under Evie's smock. That's her bathing suit. The girls were running around in their suits all day. Sometimes with additional clothes over them, some times without.

See all the pretty colored eggs? 

 They also added stickers and colored with crayon on the eggs. 

Peep cars

My girls had some fun with Grandma while she was here. Grandma found a super cute eatable Easter activity to do and the girls loved it. Peeps in race cars! What would be better than that?!

Great Grandma supervised while the others worked on the cars.

 Evie working hard on her car

Hannah, putting hubcaps on her wheels.

The first one they made.

By the end they had a whole fleet. Evie even thought of putting head lights on the later ones and I suggested taillights, as you know there can never be too many M&Ms. 

The park solo

Yesterday I took the kids to the park on my own. We went to a slightly smaller park than we went to last week and it was great! The boys really loved to swing and were upset when I wouldn't push them any longer. But that just shows that they're meant to be part of our family, as the girls would never get off the swings either :-) The boys also figured out how to climb up on the playground several different ways and liked going down the slides, so that kept them busy for awhile. Running was also a good time. We only spent about an hour at the park, but I'm sure we'll be heading to the parks a lot more now that the weather is nicer. The boys did great and made it super easy.

seven kids

Wednesday I watched one of my friends three kids for an hour. She realized after asking me to watch her kids that it would give me seven kids. No problem, we had fun. Her older two are the same age as the girls, so those four played together while I played with the younger ones. Until everyone got hungry then I had to figure out how to much lunch for seven kids with the twins and a one year old. The boys were really good, it was the one year old who was a little tricky, but I put him in the learning tower my parents gave the boys for their birthday and we were set. Seven kids six and under isn't that bad, anybody can handle that right? :-) We had fun and we all survived. 

Elevator drama

I'm sure Hannah thinks all elevators are out to get us now. On Monday at the library I decided to venture in without the stroller. It's a pain to have a stroller and the boy know how to walk and it's only for half an hour and it shouldn't be that bad right? Right. Anyway, the girls were going to play on the computer while I took the boys to their story time. We got on the elevator with three other families heading up to story time and all was good. We had made it in and were on our way, we were all good. Right? Wrong. The elevator door opens at the second floor and Little Boy Blue decides he has to make sure that the door opens all the way, because you know, it doesn't do that by itself or anything. So he put his hand on the door and slides it with the door. His fingers end up stuck in between the door and the wall (door frame, whatever it is there) and I had to pull the door out/closed (there is no close doors button on the elevator at the library) to get his fingers out. So much for making it smoothly to story time. Fortunately I have a friend who watched Green Machine while I took Little Boy Blue downstairs (going down the stairs) to look for some ice. They wouldn't give me the first aid kit until their was a supervisor present (what's up with that?!!?!) which was a pain because I found that I didn't really need an ice pack, I needed a band-aid because he took a chunk of skin off and was bleeding all over. A supervisor came, I cleaned up Little Boy Blue, filled out an incident report and then headed back upstairs....we were upstairs for one song and then I had to go back downstairs and get another band-aid because he had bled through the first one. Oh the joy of boys! :-) And you think he would have learned from getting his fingers closed in the automatic shutting car door the day before....apparently not. And maybe ten minutes after we got home from the library Hannah was chasing Little Boy Blue and he wasn't watching where he was going and ran into a piece of furniture and cut his gum and lip......I think their social worker is going to be sick of hearing from me! Anyway, needless to say Hannah wouldn't use the Elevator today at the library.