Our family is still alive and well, and I was contemplating starting a new blog to share what's going on with us. But why not just keep our history (the old blog) and jump in where we are. There is another blog out there, covering 2-3 years, that perhaps I can merge into this one.
Our kids are older now, and I'd like to give them nicknames like I've seen many other bloggers do. But what? My oldest son is 11 now, has red hair and loves baseball and any other competitive game. He enjoys reading, and playing with his baby sister.
My oldest daughter is 9 and is a creative genius. She loves to use our art materials to make 3D objects, lately she made us all Christmas presents. She also loves animals (horses!), sweets and comic books.
My middle daughter is 7 and is our oldest daughter's devoted fan. She too likes to make art, loves horses and sugar. She too reads comic books. But she is also her own little person. She has curly great hair and enjoys fixing it in different ways. She likes to run and be active. She fancies skirts and dresses, and accessories. And she loves to be with other people, not alone.
And we now have a baby! Slightly reddish hair, big blue eyes, 8 months old tomorrow. Girl. Just starting to crawl. Just had her first bath in the big tub a couple hours ago, because she pooped through her Christmas jammies and we were desperate.
I had been teaching preschool in a REAL school, the three big kids attended as well (private Montessori), and now we are home again (because of the baby, and because we wanted to!). The first few months have flown by (they always do), but come January we will really get back to business. And I'll try to share it. And to make it as interesting as when they were smaller. Many not as many funny stories and cute pictures...but then again, maybe I'll find some if I keep my eyes open!
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Monday, April 5, 2010
A beautiful day
Happy Easter Monday everyone! We had a great weekend of church services, visiting with family, and joyously celebrating Easter. Every holiday is made more interesting by the fact that our children are older, able to understand (and question) more, and participate more fully in the celebration. Gene was intent on going to the Easter vigil at our church, and excited when we let him go with his grandparents (Grandpa Ken drove him, then he spent the night at Grandma Hendricks' house). He's getting so big, and loves sleepovers:) He stayed awake through the whole vigil (8:30-12:30am) and then doesn't remember much after that. I'm sure he crashed hard in the car on the drive back. Brendan and I took the girls to the 8:45 Easter Sunday Mass, and while I enjoyed not staying up till all hours of the night, I think I missed the excitement of the Vigil. We've gone every year since we've been married, even all the years we had a baby, but finally decided to not deprive the girls of sleep this year. Last year NO ONE fell asleep through the whole service, and though it ended an hour earlier than this year (due to the time change) it still threw off the whole next day with tired kids. But, while the Sunday morning Mass was still a great celebration of Easter, it seemed like a regular church service to the girls (plus a lot of flowers on the altar!) and I think they were expecting something more. Especially since none of our family was there, and that's always disappointing to them. Next year we'll have Gene's First Communion (!!!) but then the year after I think we'll be back to the Vigil Mass.
So, here we are today, taking a rest day to get back to normal life. We didn't do any school, we didn't go anywhere, it's been great. We did have an "art hour", and Gene was inspired to have a store outside, like they did last year once selling lemonade and cookies. This time he wanted to sell "scraps" (i.e. pieces of paper that he had colored in about the size of bookmarks). He stared to talk all business-like and Lucy was a willing assistant for him. I'll write more about it and post a couple pictures sometime soon. They're still out there now:) I think they've had one or two customers...
So, here we are today, taking a rest day to get back to normal life. We didn't do any school, we didn't go anywhere, it's been great. We did have an "art hour", and Gene was inspired to have a store outside, like they did last year once selling lemonade and cookies. This time he wanted to sell "scraps" (i.e. pieces of paper that he had colored in about the size of bookmarks). He stared to talk all business-like and Lucy was a willing assistant for him. I'll write more about it and post a couple pictures sometime soon. They're still out there now:) I think they've had one or two customers...
Friday, April 2, 2010
Sandwiches
Lucy is a big fan of making "sandwiches" with anything she has to eat. Sometimes it is a cracker and peanut butter (or apples and peanut butter) sandwich. At a party last week, it was a fancy cheese spread and crackers. This morning...toast and crushed pineapple. Yum.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Easter Prep
We are preparing for Easter around here, little by little. I have a few decorations to pull out in the next couple days, and we'll make some craft or other with the VanderVeen cousins tomorrow.
Lucy surprised me today and spent close to an hour crafting...she painted pictures (of buttons that I could press and depending on the size of the button it would make different noises) and then she made Easter bags for everyone in our family to collect eggs in. She even went so far as to punch a hole in the top of each (brown paper lunch bags) and got a push pin and asked me where she could hang them up. It took me a while to comprehend that she was perhaps thinking the Easter bunny would come down our chimney and fill them with Easter candy.
Lucy surprised me today and spent close to an hour crafting...she painted pictures (of buttons that I could press and depending on the size of the button it would make different noises) and then she made Easter bags for everyone in our family to collect eggs in. She even went so far as to punch a hole in the top of each (brown paper lunch bags) and got a push pin and asked me where she could hang them up. It took me a while to comprehend that she was perhaps thinking the Easter bunny would come down our chimney and fill them with Easter candy.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Update
Not much time to write, but a quick update on things around our house...
We have been outside a lot more now that the weather is nice(r), and Gene has been getting better at 2-wheeling around the neighborhood. The only problem is he can't start by himself yet, so he gets stuck LONG ways from home (at least, a long way for me to walk before I can start him again). But he's really close to doing it himself.
Lucy is riding her training wheel bike now, and loving it. She has grown independent enough to take it or her scooter out by herself and ride around on the sidewalk (the safe one right by our house, that doesn't cross any driveways).
Jane has learned how to run, and loves it. When it is too cold to go outside, she generally hides all her energy until after her pajamas are on, and then she runs laps back and forth in the upstairs hallway. Seriously, she will announce beforehand that she'll run 20 times, and she'll count each one and do them all. Now that the weather's been warmer, she can run probably a quarter mile without really stopping, but it's all back and forth on the sidewalk. And she rarely falls, but she did a couple days ago and she only noticed the pain of her scraped knee once she got in the bath last night. I had forgotten how much scrapes can hurt if put in warm water...she was howling from the moment she got in, then was ok when she realized she could just bend her knee and keep it out of the water. We cut the bath short, however, when I had run down to get some first aid cream and came back to find her howling again, because the water was getting too deep and she had balanced her leg up on the side of the tub. Poor girlie!
Brendan and I are in the middle of triathlon training central. It's going fairly well, but we'll both be glad when it's warm enough to train outside ALL the time. Right now we split our time indoors and out.
We haven't started the garden yet, but I'm beginning to plan for it. I'm actually excited this year, but that's because I left it in great condition last year. All we have to do is go out there and remove some straw from the plots, and start planting. No digging involved. We'll see if that really is all there is...it sounds way too easy!
Other randomness...
Lucy is already counting down the days till November (her birthday month) and planning to have chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. And Jane just wants a doughnut for her birthday. I think she is ready for Lent to be over, when Brendan will take the kids to Benny's Bakery again for the weekly doughnut-fest on Saturday mornings.
Gene will start baseball soon, and is getting excited. But he still is playing an awful lot of basketball- it is March Madness, after all.
Jane is super excited to wear her Easter dress. Every time she sees it she talks about it. Thanks Grandma H!
Gene is approaching a milestone in swim lessons- maybe by the end of this session he'll be able to swim (freestyle) across the entire width of the pool!
Ok, that's long enough for now. Happy Spring, everyone!
We have been outside a lot more now that the weather is nice(r), and Gene has been getting better at 2-wheeling around the neighborhood. The only problem is he can't start by himself yet, so he gets stuck LONG ways from home (at least, a long way for me to walk before I can start him again). But he's really close to doing it himself.
Lucy is riding her training wheel bike now, and loving it. She has grown independent enough to take it or her scooter out by herself and ride around on the sidewalk (the safe one right by our house, that doesn't cross any driveways).
Jane has learned how to run, and loves it. When it is too cold to go outside, she generally hides all her energy until after her pajamas are on, and then she runs laps back and forth in the upstairs hallway. Seriously, she will announce beforehand that she'll run 20 times, and she'll count each one and do them all. Now that the weather's been warmer, she can run probably a quarter mile without really stopping, but it's all back and forth on the sidewalk. And she rarely falls, but she did a couple days ago and she only noticed the pain of her scraped knee once she got in the bath last night. I had forgotten how much scrapes can hurt if put in warm water...she was howling from the moment she got in, then was ok when she realized she could just bend her knee and keep it out of the water. We cut the bath short, however, when I had run down to get some first aid cream and came back to find her howling again, because the water was getting too deep and she had balanced her leg up on the side of the tub. Poor girlie!
Brendan and I are in the middle of triathlon training central. It's going fairly well, but we'll both be glad when it's warm enough to train outside ALL the time. Right now we split our time indoors and out.
We haven't started the garden yet, but I'm beginning to plan for it. I'm actually excited this year, but that's because I left it in great condition last year. All we have to do is go out there and remove some straw from the plots, and start planting. No digging involved. We'll see if that really is all there is...it sounds way too easy!
Other randomness...
Lucy is already counting down the days till November (her birthday month) and planning to have chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. And Jane just wants a doughnut for her birthday. I think she is ready for Lent to be over, when Brendan will take the kids to Benny's Bakery again for the weekly doughnut-fest on Saturday mornings.
Gene will start baseball soon, and is getting excited. But he still is playing an awful lot of basketball- it is March Madness, after all.
Jane is super excited to wear her Easter dress. Every time she sees it she talks about it. Thanks Grandma H!
Gene is approaching a milestone in swim lessons- maybe by the end of this session he'll be able to swim (freestyle) across the entire width of the pool!
Ok, that's long enough for now. Happy Spring, everyone!
Thursday, March 18, 2010
St. Patrick's Day addendum
While Lucy was getting ready for bed last night, she asked, "What green foods are we going to eat tomorrow?"
St Patrick's Day
We had a wonderful day yesterday, made especially nice by the weather- warm and sunny! A rundown of the events of the day:
-forgot it was St Pat's day until Gene came down fully dressed in green (that boy never forgets what's on the calendar!) so I ran back up to change and helped the girls find green shirts.
-had a regular, non-green breakfast since I had already started making it before I realized the special occasion
-helped Jane find different pants to wear when she wet her first pair. By the way, she is really doing well with potty training. She only peed a little bit in her pants, and since I was actually playing with her in the kitchen at the moment, she looked at me in total awareness, and then started taking off her pants. Anyway, it was very hard to find another pair of pants that matched her green plaid shirt- pink and purple just don't. Finally found a pair.
-went to Atrium, where most other kids were wearing green. Jane was delighted to see Aunt Reenie and a woman with a green cast on her leg. She said Aunt Reenie's shirt and the cast matched her shirt, and each time she opened up her sweatshirt (a zip kind) a little to show her green shirt underneath. She sat with the cast-lady for a while (in the nursery at Atrium)...she is generally really comfortable around friendly strangers...!
-went to the Mitzel's house after Atrium to play outside for awhile and bask in the sunshine. Nice to catch up with them, as we haven't seen them in a while
-took the two oldest Mitzel kids back to my house for a while so Karen could run an errand. They hadn't been over in so long that they were delighted with all the new things we had out on our shelves. Norah used to come to preschool here last year, and she still goes to the school shelves in the hopes of finding new "works". They did every new work that was out, and really enjoyed the art supplies. It was so peaceful!
-Karen came back and took Gene and Lucy back to her house. They played outside again for about 2 hours.
-we had dinner when Brendan came home- oven-baked chicken, sweet potatoes, salad, and Irish brown bread. Green jello with whipped cream for dessert. A feast!
-Gene and Brendan played the Wii afterwards, Lucy got ready for bed, Jane tried to fit her underwear on her dolls before succumbing to bed herself.
A really nice day. Hope everyone else out there had the same!
-forgot it was St Pat's day until Gene came down fully dressed in green (that boy never forgets what's on the calendar!) so I ran back up to change and helped the girls find green shirts.
-had a regular, non-green breakfast since I had already started making it before I realized the special occasion
-helped Jane find different pants to wear when she wet her first pair. By the way, she is really doing well with potty training. She only peed a little bit in her pants, and since I was actually playing with her in the kitchen at the moment, she looked at me in total awareness, and then started taking off her pants. Anyway, it was very hard to find another pair of pants that matched her green plaid shirt- pink and purple just don't. Finally found a pair.
-went to Atrium, where most other kids were wearing green. Jane was delighted to see Aunt Reenie and a woman with a green cast on her leg. She said Aunt Reenie's shirt and the cast matched her shirt, and each time she opened up her sweatshirt (a zip kind) a little to show her green shirt underneath. She sat with the cast-lady for a while (in the nursery at Atrium)...she is generally really comfortable around friendly strangers...!
-went to the Mitzel's house after Atrium to play outside for awhile and bask in the sunshine. Nice to catch up with them, as we haven't seen them in a while
-took the two oldest Mitzel kids back to my house for a while so Karen could run an errand. They hadn't been over in so long that they were delighted with all the new things we had out on our shelves. Norah used to come to preschool here last year, and she still goes to the school shelves in the hopes of finding new "works". They did every new work that was out, and really enjoyed the art supplies. It was so peaceful!
-Karen came back and took Gene and Lucy back to her house. They played outside again for about 2 hours.
-we had dinner when Brendan came home- oven-baked chicken, sweet potatoes, salad, and Irish brown bread. Green jello with whipped cream for dessert. A feast!
-Gene and Brendan played the Wii afterwards, Lucy got ready for bed, Jane tried to fit her underwear on her dolls before succumbing to bed herself.
A really nice day. Hope everyone else out there had the same!
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