Time for pie

It's unusual for me to post in the afternoon, but I'm enjoying a rare moment of peace and quiet. Isaiah has had a sore throat for about a week now so I took him to the doctor today to find out he has an ear infection and that his sore throat is just viral. So I put him in bed this afternoon to get some rest and put Sam in bed for his nap.

So I thought I would share a funny moment from our Thanksgiving dinner at my in-laws'.

The kids were playing upstairs after eating the meal while the adults sat around the table, just talking. My mother-in-law mentioned that she was going to get out the pies. Sam runs to the top of the stairs and yells, "IS IT TIME FOR PIE?!" It's amazing that he heard her all the way upstairs! Shortly, the three boys came tearing downstairs and found their places at the table again. Sam quickly found a clean plate and fork. The pies were on the other side of the table, slowly making their way around to him. The wait was too much for him, and he said, "Pass it to ME!" That kid has quite a sweet tooth.

It's raining, it's pouring

It's late and I should be getting ready for bed, but I haven't posted in a while, and a lot has been going on.
On Black Friday Dan, the boys, my mom, and I went to Greenville to see family. Grandma had been over to my aunt's the day before for Thanksgiving and wasn't doing well by the time the day was over. She was weak and not feeling well, so the home put her on oxygen. On Friday when we saw her, she was still on oxygen. We decorated her room for Christmas and took her down to the large room with the piano so Isaiah could play some of his piano songs for her. She seemed to enjoy herself even though she was tired. We went to my aunt's for a while, then drove home. When we were almost home, my cousin called to say they were taking Grandma to the ER with chest pains. Throughout the evening, it was obvious that she was headed downhill fast. So my dad drove through the night from CT to get there, and I left about 9 p.m. to drive up. She was largely nonresponsive, although she did squeeze my hand when we asked her to. She had a bypap helping her breathe and was wearing a DNR bracelet. We kept telling her my dad was on his way, to try to keep he with us until he could see her and say goodbye. The next morning, she was doing better, sitting up and wanting to talk. And four days later, she is supposed to be moving out of the ICU as soon as a room is available. Not the outcome any of us expected!
Then my cousin Jon's wife went into Magee today for an outpatient laproscopic surgery. It seems she aspirated some fluid during the surgery, had difficulty breathing, and ended up on a ventilator. Now she's in the ICU at Magee. Her doctors plan to wean her off the ventilator tomorrow.
I never thought I'd been in this many waiting rooms with the same family members in such a short period of time. And all during what I refer to affectionately as Christmas Concert Craziness. When it rains, it pours.

Cheating

The boys and I totally cheated late fall today by spending over an hour at the park on this beautiful 70 degree day. I indulged in an A&W root beer and sipped it in between helping kids on and off swings, coaxing Sam down from dangerously high places, and conversations with other moms. Never have you seen 15-20 happier kids or more elated moms.

American Violet

Dan and I just finished watching this movie. EXCELLENT movie. It reminds me alot of Erin Brokovich, but about the legal system. A young mom is unjustly accused of selling drugs and takes on a corrupt DA. I just heard about drug raids in Pittsburgh, and it makes me wonder if this stuff is happening in our own backyard. This movie also has some Child, Youth, and Family involvement, and would be interesting to anyone involved in social work. Highly recommend.

Sam's birthday

I can't believe my baby is three!! Nana's cake for Sam, the night before his birthday
He wanted to go to Chick-fil-A for his birthday. After all, it's his favorite place. =)

Sam and Isaiah put together Sam's new Toy Story puzzle. Trying out their new hooded towels. Grandma's cake for Sam on Sunday

Now that he's three, he:

• Can say his name, thank God! Except now he gets so excited when he says it, that he blurts out his full name so fast (and loud!) that it leaves people (especially other kids) confused... Still working on that one.
• LOVES TOY STORY 3. Maybe obsessed is a better word. Ever since my aunt gave it to him for his birthday, it has hardly left our dvd player. He is in love with Jessie.
• Loves to put puzzles together. He can do a 24 piece or so without much help.
• Would eat mac n cheese for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if I would let him.
• Is very sensitive to other people's feelings. If he senses that someone is sad or needs something, he will do anything to make them feel better.
• Just loves babies and dogs and pretty much all animals. He thinks lions are nice and wants to hug one. In fact, just today in the car, the boys got in an argument over lions. Isaiah was trying to convince Sam that lions eat people. Sam insisted that they're nice. And on and on it went. Haha!
• Is just starting to want to be like his brother. The other day he chose a vanilla jr. frosty instead of chocolate, because Isaiah chose vanilla. This is SO unusual, because Sam has never been known to turn down anything chocolate!
• Still has no fear. He likes to hang from monkey bars and doesn't care if anyone is there to catch him. Little nut.
• Will decide for himself if he needs a nap. The other day, Mom and Isaiah were sitting at the table and realized they hadn't heard Sam in a while. They looked around and found him like this:
  Is a little ray of sunshine in our family. =)

Looking back: Sam at birth, Sam's first birthday, and Sam's second birthday.

Sponge balls

We made these quick and easy sponge balls yesterday. I picked up a pack of ten sponges (enough to make three sponge balls) for $1. They literally took five minutes to make. Both boys picked what color of sponges they wanted to use. Isaiah was able to cut his own sponges. We used tie wires around the middle instead of dental floss. Super fun. I guess they're meant for outdoor water play, but the boys and Dan just ran around the house beaning each other with them. Provided a good 30+ minutes of fun last night. Nerd alert: We combined the sponge balls with our preschool level study of the skeletal system. I had printed out a child-sized skeleton, and the boys (mostly Isaiah) were learning what the major bones in the body are called. Once we had our goofy sponge balls, I had the boys throw their sponges at the skeleton's skull, rib cage, femur, phalanges, etc. Then the education dissolved into nailing each other with the sponges. Fun time.

Halloween

Four cousins, Cinderella, Aurora, Transformer, and Buzz LightyearSquirting out the candles

Pumpkin bowling!

Yummy

I made these chocolate chip pumpkin muffins the other day. While they were cooling on the counter, I was upstairs on the phone, and Sam was upstairs crying to me about something. Meanwhile, Isaiah supposedly yelled upstairs to me, asking if he could have a muffin. He thought he heard me say yes. So Dan came home a few minutes later, right before dinner, to find my three-year-old niece and Isaiah sitting at the counter stuffing their faces with muffins. He asked them if they had permission to eat them, considering we would be eating dinner soon. They assured him they did. He came upstairs and double checked with me, who knew nothing of it! Oh well. They enjoyed them and didn't eat much dinner. =)

I just love happy endings...

Saturday afternoon, Dan and I had a few hours away from ALL the kids. After choosing new paint colors for the kitchen/dining room, a visit to Pittsburgh's Andy Warhol museum (with free admission for RADical days), and dinner at Olive Garden, we were driving home when we noticed a wallet in the middle of the road. We turned around and picked it up and looked for a phone number. We didn't find one, so we plugged the address on the driver's license into our GPS. The residence was right around the corner from the place we found it, so we drove over to the house. We assumed someone had placed the wallet on top of their car by mistake, drove out of their plan, then hit the gas on the main road, which made the wallet fly off the roof of the car. No one was home, so we left the wallet inside the front storm door. We assumed by the design of the house that they rarely used their front door and usually went into the garage. We were leery of leaving a note in a visible place, so we looked up the phone number when we got home. The owner of the wallet had an unlisted number, so after repeatedly using reverse address lookups, etc. I decided to try Facebook. Found the owner, and sent him a message. I could tell from his lack of a profile picture etc, that he rarely uses Facebook. I was a little worried that he wouldn't get the message. But I decided that I did all I could, and gave it to God, trusting that He would do the rest. Just tonight, I got a Facebook message back from the owner, saying how grateful he was that we returned his wallet! I was happy and relieved that the wallet was returned to its rightful owner. He asked for our address so he could send a token of thanks. I thought about this for a few minutes. We certainly didn't return the wallet in order to get any reward. But he should have an opportunity to show his gratitude if he wants to. So I told him he could make a donation to the Lighthouse. Don't you just love happy endings where everyone wins?

And if you'd like to make a donation to the Lighthouse, you can do just that, here. =)

Four kids

Things I want to remember about this week:

• Abbie and Isaiah (aka Cinderella and Roethlisberger) dancing around in the kitchen. Sam and Karis joining in, of course.
• Isaiah sitting on the big toy dump truck and Karis pushing him around the house, both of them laughing their heads off.
• Karis wrestling right along with the boys.
• Isaiah going upstairs with me and saying, "Phew! I needed some time away from that S-A-M. He was going to get me like a chicken pot pie!"
• Playing tag then hide and seek at the North Park playground until it got too dark to see each other. Dan wiping out twice when we were chasing him. The one time, he crashed right in front of Isaiah, but instead of tagging him, Isaiah just watched in amazement at Dan's wild antics, rolling on the ground and crawling. We got some good, fun exercise anyway.

Just for the fun of it

If you've ever watched the Duggar's show on TLC, you might know that they make their own liquid laundry detergent. We used their recipe, and had a lot of fun making it. I figured if I can make 10 gallons of laundry detergent for $2, why not? Here are the boys helping to mix. I haven't used it yet, because I'm still finishing my regular laundry detergent. I'll let you know how it works when I do.

Goofing around afterwards. I'm not sure what was so funny! We had to get pictures of the chocolate shirts...

And the Reese's shirts...

Buffalo Creek 1/2 Marathon

Waiting for Daddy... It was chilly, but perfect running weather.

Crossing the finish line

After it was all over, the boys were running the course.

Sam shoved bagels in his mouth as he ran.

At Riverside Park

Dan's birthday and playing with baking soda

The boys were so excited about Dan's birthday. The loved the iced brownie (although very uncreative!).
The other day, I put some baking soda in a cookie sheet. The idea was that the boys would practice writing letters, etc. Isaiah wrote a letter or two, but they seemed happier just to play in it. Sam was hiding pennies and then finding them again. Isaiah was using the basting brush and making designs. It didn't quite serve the purpose I thought it would, but kids are very tactile, so it seemed to give them an outlet to experiment with a powder.

Liquids

Another fun idea from Family Fun magazine to experiment with liquids:

The boys mixed several drops of green food coloring with corn syrup in the bottom of a clear glass.
Then they mixed blue food coloring with water in a separate glass and dumped the water slowly on top of the corn syrup.

Last we poured vegetable oil on top.

They dropped various objects to see which layer they stayed in. We used a plastic bottle cap, paper clip, penny, and a marble.

They were interested and amazed at how the objects acted in each liquid. I held off on teaching the word viscosity. Maybe in a few years. =)

Popcorn words and Counting game

Several months ago, I wrote some sight words on little popcorn shaped pieces of construction paper. We've been gradually adding words and now use those words to make sentences. Isaiah has to memorize verses for Awana, so we've been adding those words too. I'll put all the words of the verse in front of him, then take words away until he has the verse memorized. Sam is usually content to color while Isaiah does his school work. He also has Sesame Street flash cards that he likes to use.

I think I got this idea from Family Fun magazine. First Isaiah numbered paper plates from 1-10. Sam helped with #7, as you can see.

Then he had to place the correct number of items on each plate. He could use anything he wanted. He had a lot of fun!

Rain gutter bookshelves

Problem: So many books to read, and limited space in the living room. We end up with books (ours and the library's) stacked on the end of the couch. During our afternoon book time, the boys have to spread the books all over the living room floor to see the covers. We usually read for 45 minutes to an hour, so the boys need a lot of books to choose from.

Solution: I saw this practical and space-saving book display idea on one of my favorite blogs, raisingolives.com. Made from vinyl rain gutters, they are easily built in about an hour. If you're interested in making your own, you can find the tutorial here. Here's how ours turned out:

Kid adventures

The boys have had so much fun playing with these two sweet darlings... Bundling up on a cool day to go outside and play

Enjoying lunch outside

And working on a fall collageIn August we visited some close friends from college. We have seven kids between us, and they had a great time playing together. So many things wrong with the above picture!!

The boys wrestling aroundThe girls and our kids... minus the two babies who were napping

Spiky-haired Sam after his bath