Baby Shower
June has been a hectic month. Paul's been practicing being a Model of a Modern Major General, work has continued to keep me busy, the boys keep growing and learning, I started Weight Watchers, we all traveled north to celebrate my sister and brother-in-law's impending child, then I ended up getting back in the car shortly after our return when a dear friend lost her father suddenly. Work got busier this past week, so thankfully Paul had the boys at VBS and I was able to go in on my day off and spend most of the day there without having to arrange child care! Yesterday was an unusually long day which included an early morning call to 911 (on behalf of our octogenarian neighbor, who probably broke her hip- it's safe to say her day was longer and worse than mine!)

In any case, here are the photos from our Ohio trip (previously posted on facebook).

Labels: babies, family, photos, summer

- posted by Lenise @ 7:57 AM |

 
Grandmother & Grandfather's House 2
My Dad's parents lived in that house for 40 years or more. There was a giant weeping mulberry tree in the front yard where that patch of dirt is now :( where we used to get snacks in the summer. Grandfather was an avid gardener, and grew grapes as well as vegetables. Grandmother canned jellies and probably vegetables as well (I remember the jellies!). They had a porch swing at the right hand end of the porch where my older brother and I spent a lot of time swinging. The concrete porch always seemed palatial when I was little.

Inside the house was a large living room with a brick fireplace which was painted in a greenish-white color. To the left was Grandfather's giant television and 4 stairs up to a landing from which you could descend 4 stairs into the kitchen or ascend the rest of the staircase to the upstairs. There was a bedroom in each of the 4 corners of the upstairs, with a full bath opposite the staircase and a large closet between two of the bedrooms (Grandmother's and Dad's).

There was a door from the kitchen down into the basement, another door to the large back porch where they had a chest freezer, and (my favorite) a swinging door to the dining room. Grandmother had a very large (it seemed big at the time, anyway!) round dining table and an organ in the dining room, and her collection of dark red glass.

Labels: family, history, Old Houses

- posted by Lenise @ 9:29 PM |

 
Grandmother & Grandfather's House

View Larger Map

Labels: family, historical landmarks, Old Houses

- posted by Lenise @ 9:09 PM |

 
Photos from Ohio

Labels: family, photos, Travel

- posted by Lenise @ 9:33 PM |

 
Home Again, Home Again (Jigetty Jog)
Wow, is Daniel a fan of Uncle Todd. We've all missed him, but Daniel's just plain devoted. Daniel's starting to form sentences ("I see cat!") and I'm pretty sure he even put a question together the day we left home (though I can't for the life of me remember it), but his pronunciation is age-appropriate, which is to say, not especially intelligible. Hopefully I've finally learned what "shasher" means now (Daniel gets very frustrated when he's telling me he wants to take his fork to the dishwasher and instead of releasing him from the high chair, I sit there like a fool saying, "What?"). Todd's name, though oft-repeated, does not start with a "T" sound (not out of Daniel's mouth, anyway!) I can't tell whether he's saying "Codd" or "Godd", but it's not quite right!

We ended up staying at a hotel for part of our visit, owing to the size of my family, and so when we arrived at my parents' house Sunday morning, my parents and Todd passed us in the driveway on their way to Sunday School. We got out of the car and went into the house, Daniel asking hopefully, "Codd?" After I had explained to him that Uncle Todd had gone to church and we'd see him there, he constructed a classic baby sentence: "See Godd church." :) When we came into the sanctuary, Todd was sitting with my parents and Daniel went up to their pew and hesitated just a second (he's been very shy recently) before proceeding to cling to Uncle Todd for the first half of the worship service. It was very sweet! The older boys did really well, too, having been not especially disruptive rght up until Communion, when Paul decided to take them out for a walk (we're not LCMS-approved, at least not yet). Daniel slept on my chest the second half of the service. It was little short of a miracle, how smoothly that all went!

We had a great time at the playground Saturday morning with some high school classmates of mine and their families as well. It was really nice catching up with Jen & Rita and meeting their small folks! We even had decent weather for playing outside (though Paul thought it necessary to buy a warm hat and gloves- he's clearly been living in the South too long to survive in his native habitat!)

Labels: boys, family, Travel

- posted by Lenise @ 8:46 PM |

 
Meet Horsey

One of Isaac's two favorite people. Number one? Uncle Todd. (Horsey is a piggy bank)

Labels: boys, family, photos

- posted by Lenise @ 11:04 AM |

 
The House My Grandpa built




From my Mom:
Hi!

I watched Grandma and Grandpa build this house when I was in first grade. I grew up in this house and left to get married from here. Unfortunately, after these pictures were posted, there was a fire in the living room. The windows are boarded up now. It was bittersweet to take the tour.

Grandpa dug the basement by hand with a shovel. Grandma mixed the concrete, and carried the 40 lb blocks for grandpa to set into place for the basement foundation. My bedroom was next to the kitchen.

mom

Labels: family, photos, real estate, reminiscing

- posted by Lenise @ 7:39 PM |

 
At Least They Behaved When it Mattered
The boys have had a rough re-entry period. I'm not sure the fireworks last night were the best plan, since they resulted in a very tired Isaac today, but apparently he was good as gold in Sunday school...

The wedding was fabulous. Well-planned, meaningful, and just all-around beautiful. The little attendants did a great job- both flower girls, and my boys. Isaac missed recessing with the wedding party since he fell asleep about 10 minutes into the ceremony, and my brother and sister-in-law wisely decided to let him sleep! Jay was a little thrown off by this, but eventually accepted that he would have to walk out alone. They were both loud and busy during the rehearsal, and I was very concerned that they would be disruptive, but even Jay (who was awake the whole time) was exceptionally quiet and still under my sister-in-law's watchful eyes.

I do not have photos of the boys (or much of anything), since I was in the wedding party and had handed off my camera in the hopes that my brother or SOMEONE would snap some photos. No such luck. I'll have to track them down from someone else. Paul was occupied as well, and was not able to hear or see much of anything, since Daniel is at the age of perpetual motion. My cousin, who was also in the wedding party, was also missing her husband, as he had jobs to do too. Hopefully we can get copies of the video from my older brother so Paul and Aaron can experience the lovely ceremony too!

KYP's custom-made necklaces were a hit with the bridal party, but also various attendees- Uncle Todd himself admired the little yellow butterfly-shaped crystals. My sister had GORGEOUS flowers- yellow roses and blue hydrangeas. Just lovely. I can not say enough good things about the whole event. It was just wonderful, which it would have been in any case, since my sister has truly found her Prince Charming. We couldn't be happier for them!!

Labels: boys, church, family

- posted by Lenise @ 7:53 PM |

 
Happy Easter!!

Labels: family, photos

- posted by Lenise @ 8:39 PM |

 
Not My Fault
It's not. I could name names, but let's just say that someone pointed me towards a fabulous book which has led to my whipping up FIVE batches of homemade bread in the last eight days. On top of that, someone else gave me leave to set up a blog for her wedding. Meantime, I've had oral surgery, spent an evening here and there working on my paying job, been hanging out with friends one weekend, family the next, and I gave in and joined facebook. I'm also contemplating starting a Mebane historic preservation community. 'Cuz I don't have enough to do...

One small warning: if you make babka, you have little choice but to proceed with meringues. I probably would have skipped the whole thing if I had known I'd end up getting out the mixer, but the meringues are fairly good, and I'm hopeful the babka will be even better. We'll find out tomorrow!! Homemade bread is changing my life (but not enhancing my sense of personal responsibility, obviously!)...

Labels: family, food, friends

- posted by Lenise @ 11:49 PM |

 
General Update
Well, things at work seem to refuse to settle down. I had another big deadline New Year's Eve (for which I had to do some work Christmas weekend, since I had to take a sick day for Daniel), and we're doing some follow-up on the earlier project, while the next huge project looms over our heads (we're not ahead of the game). Thankfully, since we did our extended family Christmas over Thanksgiving (except for the things we have to mail to family in Michigan STILL, and well, I am not sure what to do about family in Lebanon!), Christmas preparations were not bad. I wrapped a number of things as they came in (largely from others- I didn't buy much for us), and still others arrived in wrapping paper, so Christmas Eve here was low-stress EXCEPT for cranky baby on antibiotics. He's feeling much, much better.

We've been baking cookies every week or so, which was fun sometimes (I ended up doing quite a bit on my own, which is just fine). It's always fun to eat the cookies, and baking has gone much better with the oven repaired (Paul replaced the bake element a week ago). We even tried a chocolate gingerbread recipe I received via email from Lowe's Foods. It was fairly good, but I think it would have been better if our kitchen weren't quite so cold (butter never softened, even though it was out all day and all night, and the "room temperature" melted chocolate chips started to harden all on their own (and fairly quickly at that!).

Last Friday we did a family trip to a local science/ children's museum. The highlight for Daniel seemed to be watching a tortoise try and escape its enclosure (it was very easy for him to see from the stroller), though he also enjoyed the play areas. The rest of us were excited to pet an extraordinarily friendly wallaby, which was soft and fuzzy like a kitten. Not many families get the chance to pet a wallaby. Not around here, anyway!

We had a nice Christmas (we had Christmas dinner at the home of some friends with a number of other guests), and had a good New Year's Day (some friends came over and we had a quiche brunch), with some additional fun fit in here and there. Now that we know about the museum, we may go back a few times to visit the wallabies. There are also supposed to be meerkats, but they seemed to be trying to stay warm underground last Friday- we saw neither head nor tail. We'll definitely have to take Uncle Todd!

Labels: family, wallabies, where did the time go?, work

- posted by Gary @ 8:26 PM |

 
Improvements
Dad (aka Grandpa) and Uncle Todd swapped out
these















and installed these

out with the bland and in with the cool =] (OK, the compact fluorescents kinda ruin the effect, but they'll burn out soon, right? Maybe in the next 5 years?)

Labels: bathroom, family, kitchen

- posted by Lenise @ 9:19 PM |

 
By Popular Demand










Or at least at the birthday girl's request (that would be Heather), more photos of small fry below (including some larger fry).

Labels: boys, family, grandparents, photos

- posted by Lenise @ 7:51 PM |

 
Ancient History









At least, from the perspective of a 5-month-old. These photos are from our trip north at the end of June. Lots of fun was had by all, and the boys were tremendous travelers.

Labels: boys, family, photos

- posted by Lenise @ 8:55 AM |

 
Been There, Done That
We returned Tuesday night from our trip to Ohio. The boys, Uncle Todd and I went to Grandpa & Grandma G's while Paul stayed home and worked. Grandpa and Grandma B were gracious enough to spare us the additional travel to Michigan (which snow threatened to disrupt) by driving down on Easter Sunday. A good time was had by all, and my whole side of the family made it out to meet Daniel. Grandma G took us shopping and got the big boys their adorable Easter outfits (in photo below) and some fancy flashing Lightning McQueen shirts, among other things.

Jay found out that even sitting on the floor and calling the cat won't work if you're three and call the cat "Smelly" [He was trying to follow my instructions which went something like, "Sit on the floor and say, 'Come smell me'" There were a lot of repetitions of "Come, Smelly" whenever Pedro and Jay were in the same room].

Daniel got to sample a bunch of different holders and changers, but didn't express a special preference (though Aunt Mindy's holding him in the smiley photo below).

Isaac had a good time reacquainting himself with everyone. Aunt Jan has toddler magic, and he warmed up pretty quickly to the grandparents. Isaac and Cousin Beka ran a race (the four-year old was a few laps up on Isaac at the race's end). Uncle Ehren still has some work to do, though ;)

Labels: baby talk, boys, cats, family, Travel

- posted by Lenise @ 7:58 PM |

 
Livin' La Vida Baby
Daniel's settling in quite nicely. He does much better holding a pacifier in his mouth than either of the older boys did, and (if he's well fed and sleepy) I can wrap him up, pop a pacifier in his mouth, and put him down to sleep with NO DRAMA!! Granted, he's less than 2 weeks old, so this may not last, but it's been very nice so far!

The older boys have been adjusting really well. Grandma and Grandpa G were here to help them ease into it with lots of extra attention, and Jay and Isaac keep talking about them (e.g. Isaac said this morning, "Peese... ma'I... talk Ganma Papa?", holding the cordless phone out to me). Uncle Todd was able to spend several days with us this past weekend (he arrived Friday night and left Monday evening). The boys have loved roughhousing with him. Yesterday, I innocently held Daniel up above my head for a second and lowered him. I may have repeated it before Jay got the idea to ask ME to do "up and down" with him. Ha! As if! So he was directed to Uncle Todd (U' Todd in Isaac-speak). It didn't take Isaac long to join the clamoring, and Todd was once again the center of orbit for 60 pounds worth of rambunctious little boy projectiles.

Jay has gotten back on track with potty training, and is forging ahead into the self-directed part of the program (hooray!). The only rough spot is that he wants to wear underwear to bed, and he's just not ready yet. Hopefully he will be soon!!

Labels: boys, family, potty training

- posted by Gary @ 9:08 AM |

 
It's a Boy!!



Daniel Kent was born Friday morning, and all went according to plan, except they gave me morphine like they did with Jay, and so I was sick and incoherent all day Friday. He weighed in at 7 lbs, 15 oz and was 20.5 inches long. He's been a really good sleeper and a very cooperative baby. As of his 4-day appointment, he'd regained all but 1.5 oz of his birthweight, so he's doing great! His brothers think he's a lot of fun, even though he doesn't do much at this stage =] Isaac likes to "huck babby" ("babby" rhymes with cabby, more or less), which induces Jay to say "Me too!" and rush over to participate in the hugging. Isaac offered a piece of his graham cracker to "babby Dan'el" this morning, and I had to explain several times that babies don't eat graham crackers, just milk, finally offering the fact that babies don't have teeth and that the cracker could hurt him before Isaac relented and just "hucked" his brand-new brother.

Jay was definitely more interested in Grandma, Papa, and Uncle Todd, but he seems to like his new brother too =] Isaac, when not trying to bestow hugs on Daniel, likes to watch him and say "Wow! Wow!", excited (I suppose) that there's somebody in the house smaller than he is =]

Labels: baby 3, boys, family

- posted by Gary @ 2:19 PM |

 
"Yeah, He Loves it Too!"
Overheard in the kitchen:
Uncle T: Do you like green?
J: Yeah, it's one of my favorite colors!
Uncle T: Uncle E hates green.
J: Yeah, he loves it too!

Labels: boys, family

- posted by Gary @ 6:56 PM |

 
More Photos

Dapper Isaac in penny loafers


Send us back to Grandma's, please!!


Next up: Fox in Socks!

Labels: boys, family, photos

- posted by Lenise @ 10:35 PM |

 
Yes, I Do Still Take Pictures of My Children
And my brother

Labels: boys, family, photos

- posted by Gary @ 11:19 PM |