With all of our spring cleaning, we have found quite a few items in places they shouldn’t be. While cleaning Ben’s room, we found a Lego Duplo fish. I asked Ben to take it downstairs and put it in the duplo basket. I then promptly forgot all about it – until today when I was walking through the kitchen. Teague’s bike helmet was sitting on the kitchen counter and something silver caught my eye. I backed up and looked closer. I pulled it out and realized the Duplo fish and not been placed one room further in the lego basket, but had instead been hidden in the bike helmet. Story of my life…
Grafton – Oak
One of Kaitlyn’s requests this week was a sleepover. Thankfully we found a night that worked for everyone and last night her friend came over after soccer practice and we got back from our hike. They made brownies (a raddish recipe), played a favorite game, and watched a movie. Then this morning, I woke up to the girls already watching a movie. Kaitlyn made waffles for everyone and then they built a fort to watch another movie.
Today was busy! Alex and Wade were ringing bells at church so we all got there on the early side. Then Alex shocked us all and joined the littles for the Children’s message. (The picture of random objects shows what Ben brings to church to entertain himself. I’m always amused by what he packs in his bag, but he is always content and mostly quiet.)
I was reading downstairs when I got a text from Wade telling him to come with my camera. Evidently he had promised to play with Ben and the game of choice was pirates.
Then Wade flew out to Seattle for a few days and the rest of us began spring cleaning. We started with the toys downstairs. The kids decided they were ready to put most of the duplos in the attic so we bagged up the sets, which meant building them first. Even Alex got in on the fun.
Wade determined late Friday night that we needed a new dishwasher. Wade had replaced a part, we had a repairman, Wade ordered two more parts, and now we have to pick out a dishwasher. I did some online research and then we went to an appliance store. We found a dishwasher we thought we’d be happy with and thankfully it was in stock. We asked about installation and Wade decided to install it himself. When talking to the man we had realized he lived only a mile or so from our house. We asked about delivery and removal (more so we didn’t have to worry about disposal of the old dishwasher). The man offered to just drop the new one off on his way home from work and pick up our old one. Perfect! By the end of the evening I had a new dishwasher.
My kids are all still enamored with the skateboard. Wade and I were dishwasher shopping today and happened to see free one on the side of the road. We stopped and picked it up so the at least we would have two skateboards. The kids (all of them) are still spending quite a bit of time on it trying to learn to ride. I love watching them try to figure it out.
We woke up to snow today! Enough to cause a two hour delay to the school day. The craziest part is it continued to snow all day. There was never much accumulation on the ground but it was pretty coming down.
The Easter Bunny brought Alex several new dog toys for Pepper. The hope was to find some things she likes to chew to replace her sudden new love of my couch throw pillows. Two of the toys she won’t touch at alls. This elephant I have noticed her carrying around quite a bit. Today she was definitely snuggling with it.
I keep both a grocery list and a BJ’s (our local warehouse store) list ongoing in the kitchen at all times. Anyone can add to it and then when I’m going to one of the stores I just grab the list. Today I was going to BJ’s, but as I was running out the door Ben asked for sushi. (Our store just started carrying sushi a few weeks ago.)
Kaitlyn and Ben love to play outside (when they have used their iPad time). Their iPad time was up, they had eaten dinner, and had about 20 minutes until we needed to leave for swim lessons. They ended up creating a game with bikes and flags and even Alex joined in.
We had a wonderful slow Saturday today. (I know they are coming to an end. I am beginning to get all kinds of emails about spring sports.) The littles watched a few cartoons as soon as they woke up and waited for Teague to get up. He had promised to make Belgium sugar waffles for breakfast. Then the kids did their chores. I had to return the skis we rented for the season and Wade took Ben to a birthday party. The rest of the day the kids played and enjoyed being outside. I did a little prep work for Easter lunch and the littles were quite happy to lick the bowl.
Even with the crazy weather, these two wanted to be outside. They braved the spitting rain and played until the downpour started.
Alex showed up at some point during the day and informed me that he wanted to bake a cake. My obvious next question was, “Why?” Evidently one of his friends has a birthday on Monday and everyone is getting together at the Common on Monday to celebrate and Alex offered to bring the cake.
He finally decided on our current favorite chocolate cake – Death by Chocolate Cake.
Kaitlyn has been begging to take piano lessons for months. I told her that we couldn’t add to her schedule during the fall. Then Christmas was crazy and somehow I didn’t quite get around to calling until a few weeks ago. Of course we ended up with a scheduling conflict today, but thankfully Wade was available to walk her to her lesson. She was walking on air!
Ben and Kaitlyn were determined to try to catch a leprechaun. They spent the evening building a trap. Their grand idea was to play a movie to draw him in. They settled on Pirates of the Caribbean because it was all about gold. Then they used the stage Kaitlyn build a few months ago and box with a trap door (and air holes). When they woke up this morning there was no leprechaun but there were several treats left for them. They loved them! (Ben decided most of his needed to go to church too.)
Wade has spent the entire week traveling for work. He left very, very early Monday morning for Belgium and he got home this afternoon. I wash shocked he didn’t immediately crash, but he had dinner with us and then provided dessert with a variety of treats he brought home with him. We all took a sample of everything and everyone had a different favorite.
A month or so ago, I decided Ben’s brown shoes (from last year) needed to be replaced. I was shocked to find that he needed shoes almost 2 sizes bigger than the shoes he had been wearing, which he insisted still fit. The problem came when he realized I was going to through away his old shoes. He got quite upset and demanded to keep one of the shoes. I’m not sure where he keeps it, but every once in a while he will randomly appear with one new(er) shoe and his old favorite shoe.
Ben got to stay home with me today. He mentioned right before swim lessons last night that his ear hurt. I just brushed it off and forgot about it until he started acting agitated and grumpy as we watched a movie before bed. Then Ben proceeded not to sleep all night long. He was very vocal about his ear hurting until about 5 am.
When he woke up at 9, he seemed great. He said his ear didn’t hurt but felt a little stuffy. I had already decided to keep him home from school due to the lack of sleep. I feared an ear infection, but with four kids, we’ve only had one ear infection so I don’t know a lot about them. I called the doctor to see if they thought I should bring him in and they said yes. We had time for breakfast and Ben wanted to make donuts, so we did.
The doctor told me she was very surprised to see an actual infection. She had anticipated fluid or redness. We got medicine and spent the rest of the day doing fun things like the grocery and a very long nap for me.
I’m not sure if the time change hit Ben extra hard or if he just really loved his back rub, but we were ready for church early this morning. I sat down on the couch to read, Ben crawled in my lap, pulled up his shirt, and asked for a back rub. It was only a few minutes before I realized he was asleep.
This lazy Saturday morning didn’t even start with cartoons. When I got downstairs Ben was entertaining himself by jumping backwards off the arm of the couch. As soon as the cartoons were done and chores started, the littles decided building a fort sounded like a much better idea than just plumping the couch cushions.
Ben has been asking to buy his teacher flowers for weeks. The other day I finally remembered to grab a bouquet when I ran in to get a few items. I had them waiting when Ben got home from school. He took one look and his first question was, “They are going in a vase, right?”
The next morning I got them in a vase and agreed to drive him to school. He wanted me to carry the vase till we got inside the school. Then he told me, “I got this mom” and off he went down the hall.
I love winter Saturday mornings. We rarely have anywhere to be and have very slow mornings. Alex sleeps late. The littles get up first and start the morning with a cartoon each. Teague appears at some point during these and usually chooses to watch a cartoon too. Then at least one child usually wants to cook something for breakfast – waffles pancakes, muffins, crepes, etc. After breakfast, we finally get around to starting our weekly chores. I am not looking forward to spring sports and the hectic mornings that go with them.
As long as I have known Wade, I have known about his fascination with rolling ball sculptures. He loves to find them in random malls, hospitals, and sometimes restaurants. Visiting Boston Children’s Hospital has always been a treat because of the huge sculptures they have (until the last year when they took it out)!
Today a box arrived at the house addressed to Wade. He looked a little confused and then got the most excited look on his face. Evidently he paid into a Kickstarter campaign three years ago and they finally delivered – a desktop rolling ball sculpture.
These three were pretty cute tonight all cuddled up in the big chair:
I sometimes place my camera on the floor besides my desk until I get the pictures off my memory card. Normally I don’t put the camera beside my desk until late at night when I am working on my computer and all the kids are in bed. Today I was working on pictures while the kids were in school and then didn’t think to pick the camera back up. At some point, Ben came to talk to me at my desk and had a run-in with my camera.
I have a protective lens for all of my lenses. Thank goodness that is what cracked and not the actual lens.
Ben absolutely loves the sword Kaitlyn brought him from Disney. It has been played with by every person in this house. Tonight I decided to introduce him to the movie behind “Jack Sparrow.” Kaitlyn assured me that she wouldn’t be bothered by the graphics (I did warn her about the skeletons). The littles loved the movie. They watched, danced, and fought swords. It was adorable.
The littles were awake and sitting in the living room just waiting when I came downstairs at 7 am. They quickly decided to build a fort and bring their stuffed animals to visit.
We continued with a lazy morning until lunchtime. Then I got everyone out the door and to the post office in time for our passport appointment. We finally decided to bite the bullet in terms of paperwork and get the kids their passports. For the most part everyone was pretty well behaved and things moved pretty quickly. Alex is the one that held us up. His picture had to be taken over and over and over to meet the requirements. Poor Alex and his issues with low light and flashes. They finally got a good one!
Then we headed back to the house for some time with Granny and Pop.
I can’t believe we now have two teenagers in the house! Teague turns 13 today. It’s probably the first child birthday where I barely saw the birthday child. Teague had his friends spend the night last night and those boys didn’t stop until almost 6 am this morning. (I know this because they were also very loud.) Traditionally, sleepovers happen on our third floor. Then the rest of the family lives on the other two floors. I woke up this morning, a little grumpy with little sleep, stumbled downstairs and found two boys asleep on my living room couches. I managed to keep everyone quiet until they woke up around 10, but it was not fun.
The boys left around 1 pm. I took Ben, Teague, and Alex out for a sushi lunch. Then Teague got home and went back to bed. I didn’t see him again till we woke him up for dinner, cake, and presents. I don’t think I have ever taken so few pictures on a birthday before!
Alex finally decided to make bread! He followed the directions, got frustrated with the measurements (grams instead of cups), but did a great job. I was gone tonight when the bread was finally finished. I did get a text telling me it was good.
Then I got home from running kids around and was told Alex got a piece, Dad got a piece, and Pepper helped herself to the rest of the bread. (Typical Pepper). Alex did find a small part that Pepper hadn’t been able to reach that I could try. It was yummy but I didn’t get any pictures of the finished bread.
Alex and Ben were having quite the epic battle tonight. I’m not quite sure how it began, but they were having an awesome sword fight – with wooden spoons. It was around the kitchen island, over the floor, over the kitchen island, and then involved wrestling (of course).
Ben thought I was taking a picture of his new fidget toy. I was actually taking a picture of his attempt to button his top. I tried to tell him his buttons weren’t quite right, but he checked them in the mirror and told me they were perfect.
School was cancelled last night when they were still predicting 14″ of snow. We woke up to the beginning of a snow but a new forecast of 4-6.” The kids were up early and cooked breakfast. Ben and Kaitlyn were out playing in the snow pretty quickly. We all had an early lunch and then a neighbor came to play with Kaitlyn. Other than completely forgetting to check if gymnastics was cancelled (it wasn’t) we had a wonderful day at home.
We were a few days later than we had planned, but today Ben and I went to the store. He picked out the sweetest Valentine. He wrote a note. Then we addressed it and drove to the post office so he could mail it to Miss Janet.
Alex woke up as a 15 year old!! Unfortunately for Alex, his birthday fell on a Sunday – a Sunday where both boys had bell concerts. That meant we had to get to church even earlier than normal, but it also meant we were all up and ready to go really early. That worked out well for Alex because we had extra time for donuts and he could open all his gifts before church.
The upside is that we celebrate SONSHINE Sunday today. Everyone wears bright clothes or Hawaiian shirts. The three boys got new shirts and Wade borrowed one of Alex’s.
(The picture of Ben above shows him doing his new favorite job at church – handing out bulletins. The guys say he does a great job and loves greeting everyone.)
Our church has community events every month or two. Tonight they had a hoe down. I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect but it sounded like fun so we dressed almost everyone up, took a few pictures, and headed to the church. (Note in the first picture Ben is wearing a gun and holster. He found it in the barn earlier today in B’s old toys. We agreed to let him wear the holster to the Hoe Down but he left the gun at home.) We ended up having a great time and did quite a bit of dancing – Ben and Kaitlyn loved it and danced with everybody!
(Note Ben’s belt – that is a hand-me-down from Alex’s second Halloween costume. See here)
Now that the two littles have starting playing Fortnite we have multiple games going multiple times a day. The big boys use their electronics time to play. The littles have to have help to play – for lots of reasons (skill, account login, etc). What ends up happening is they beg Wade to play right before bedtime and he agrees. Because we don’t have enough computers with accounts, they each get to play one game on the Xbox with Wade, Teague, and Alex. It’s one of their favorite parts of the day.
Today was the 100th day of the school year. This is only celebrated in the lower grades, but they all celebrate different ways.
In kindergarten, the kids have to do a project using the number 100. Ben loved the idea of using googly eyes so he glued 100 googly eyes to a poster where we drew a monster and wrote “Eye” Survived 100 days of school.
In 3rd grade, the kids dress of like a 100 year old. Kaitlyn doesn’t always like to participate in dress up days, but she was all in one this one. We found a granny costume on Amazon and Kaitlyn loved it.
Ben heard me for calling for Alex to unload the dishwasher and jumped to start unloading it himself. I was impressed that he got everything unloaded and put up by himself. He was incredibly proud and kept telling me that he had now unloaded it and not broken a single item, unlike his brothers.
Kaitlyn has been making a habit of baking on the weekends. By the time I got up, she had already picked out a recipe and was ready to bake. Chocolate chip muffins coming right up.
Ben obviously felt like morning came a little too early today.
The kids had a half day today. Alex went up to the Common with some friends right after school. (They later appeared back at our house for snacks and an impromptu snowball fight.) I picked up Kaitlyn and her friend from school so they could start their play date with lunch. They made pigs in a blanket for lunch and a big cookie cake for dessert. Teague and Ben showed up right on time and enjoyed having the rest of the day at home. Teague made a cheesecake and Ben enjoyed everyone else’s cooking.
Knowing it was supposed to rain/sleet/snow all day, we decided to stay home from church. For the most part everyone was lazy. Kaitlyn took the day to try out three new recipes so she spent quite a bit of time in the kitchen.
Kaitlyn decided muffins were needed. She had her recipe ready to go this morning and started baking right after morning cartoons. The recipe of choice was Double Chocolate Love Muffins. I knew when they came out of the oven something wasn’t quite right. They looked delicious but more like a chocolate chip muffin and not a chocolate chocolate chip muffin. I asked Kaitlyn how much cocoa powder she put in, 1/2 cup or 1/2 teaspoon. She got a look on her face and verified she only put 1/2 teaspoon. That definitely explains the color of the muffins. They still tasted great.
When Ben and Kaitlyn were playing scientist this evening, they both kept refilling the water from the kitchen sink. Kaitlyn can reach the faucet. Ben always does a hop up onto the countertop so he can reach the faucet. I watched him do that. Then I watched him fall down to the ground. I didn’t see him hit anything but he started to cry. (Ben rarely cries and has a high pain tolerance.) It took me a few seconds to find where Ben was hurt. Then I saw a huge gaping wound on his chin. I’m still not sure how or on what he hit it, but we cleaned it, iced it, and put some butterfly bandages on it. Poor kiddo.
Alex has decided to modify a computer case. He has asked for all kinds of supplies to do this for his birthday. Today this means he is working to learn the ins and outs of our 3D printer. That also meant we were all hanging out in the basement. Ben used that time to race the cars he built with his dad and make a new video.
Wade is experimenting with other possible food options for his Sunday School class using easy to store and easy to cook methods. Wade’s current appliance of choice is the toaster oven. Tonight he tested out s’mores on the kiddos. They were all big fans.
There are a lot of games in this house. Ben’s current favorite is Zelda. Kaitlyn’s current favorite is Skip-Bo.
I went in the laundry room looking for a shirt and instead found that Ben had locked himself in Pepper’s kennel and was happily reading his books.
Today everyone wanted to bake. Most of the time the big boys don’t eat breakfast and the littles have a bagel or toast with their fruit. Today everyone wanted something a little fancier.
We celebrated Wade’s birthday today. We had his requested dinner of biscuits and gravy and then angel food cake (which Kaitlyn helped me make). The kids love breakfast for dinner (of any kind) and the littles enjoyed helping Wade open his presents.
I was walking by the bathroom when I did a double take. Ben was standing on the stool, holding a comb, and working on his hair. He informed me he could do it better. Then I noticed his shirt and told him it was on backwards (which he does sometimes). Ben told me it was on purpose. He wanted to be able to put the hood over his face and be a ninja. I laughed and agreed to let him wear it.
I had already tucked everyone in bed and said goodnight. Sometimes that means the littles go to sleep and sometimes they spend a little time reading. Tonight as I walked back by their bedrooms, both kids were reading and Ben was reading his first chapter book.