Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Birthday Boy #2

Some quick pictures before our big trip to the Space Museum for Trevor's Birthday Vacation:

Birthday Donuts
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Birthday Plate
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Birthday Shirt from Mom and Dad
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Birthday Pillow from Grandma and Grandpa
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Birthday Lego Building
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Birthday Legos from Mom (and Dad too, though he thinks they are just from me...?)
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Birthday Legos from William
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Birthday Legos from Samuel
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Birthday Lose-a-Game-of-Chess-to-William Time (and smile doing it...wow.)
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We love you Trevor!!

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Valentine's Day and other Randomness

Aaahhh...Valentine's Day. I guess after almost a week, the fuzzy feeling has worn off. But, I didn't post my Valentine's Day pictures yet, so I'll have to drag the fuzzies on a little longer. Sorry.

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I used to get really worked up over Valentine's Day. One year I sort of had a Valentine's Day Melt Down. Granted...I had a 2 week old baby and raging hormones at the time...but, still. Good thing I have a patient husband. Even on the Valentine's Day from Hell, he hung in there with me.

But, Hallelujah, God did a work in my heart. I was able to let go of all my crazy expectations, and release Tim from the pressure of performing for me. What a relief! Now I can just be normal on Valentine's Day. Aaahhh...

So, this year I enjoyed the day! Samuel had a party at school...
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The kids in his class did a little singing for the parents, which Sam semi-participated in.
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The boys and I spent the day delivering flowers to some of our Valentines, and then Tim and I went out for dinner-with the kids.
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So, that was a fun day.

On Wednesday Tim added a few more mirrors to his collection.
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I put this one on our shelf to take a picture, and loved it so much, it was hard to take it down. Oh well...hopefully someone else loves it, too!!
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This week Samuel brought home a cute little classroom book, made by the kids. It was all about what they would look like when they are 100. Each page is a drawing by someone in the class. It's fun to see what all the kids draw, and of course to compare my precious kid with all the others.

As we flipped through the pages, Sam told me about each picture...
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A lot of them were little stick people with canes...
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Some were a little strange...
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The last page was Samuel's.
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WHAT - IN - THE - WORLD?

I mean...what in the world? What a crazy picture! Look at those teeth! Oh my goodness.

Earlier in the week, while we were reading "Little House on the Prairie" before bed, the kids were coloring. Afterwards, William and Samuel proudly showed us their pictures. William's was a very nice drawing of a house, with flowers and such.
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And then there was Samuel's.
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His is also a house with flowers...only it's a CRAZY house, and there's lightning striking the flowers... What a BOY! I'm sure I never had lightning striking my flowers in my pictures.

And while I'm on the subject of silly Samuel...one night this week (in particular, the night that Tim and William were in Bham-yet again) I whipped up some pancakes and eggs for dinner. I made myself a fried egg, and Samuel decided he wanted one, too. He stood on a stool next to me, watching, and when I served it up he took his plate in his two little hands, took a deep breath and said with a sigh, "Aahhh, my Gworious Egg!"

Too bad I couldn't have caught his expression.
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Later that night, while William made himself dinner...
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...Tim told me about their day. Happily, both Tim and William showed improvement in their visual fields! Hooray! Tim's have opened up significantly...and William's opened up so that they are maybe about the size that Trevor's were in the first place.

To illustrate...a couple weeks ago, when I was tucking William in, I thought to ask him if he could see my mouth when he was looking at my eyes. No. He had to look down from my eyes to see my mouth. When he was looking at my mouth, he could only see a little of my nose. I could see his whole face...but his vision was so limited, he couldn't see all of mine. What he wasn't looking directly at would blur out.

After he got back from Bham this week, I tried again. This time he could see better! He was excited that if he looked at my nose, he could see my whole face.

Can you imagine what life must be like for him? Anytime he is concentrating on something, everything around the edges blurs out! No wonder he can't find things that are right in front of him!

But, that was all the therapy we can do with the light for now. They said that his vision could continue to improve, though. Now we just have to decide if/when we are ready to take the next step.

Boy, this post is getting long...they almost always do. In shorter form...here's some pictures of a little art project we've been working on...
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That was a fun project. The boys loved it.

Now that I'm done with my post, maybe I can get something done while the kids are out enjoying our "gworious" weather. Hope you enjoy it, too!

Sunday, February 13, 2011

The Karate Kids

Man, were these boys excited to start Karate this week. They all made sure they wore BLACK...I guess they were thinking of Ninjas. It was cute. (Though "cute" probably wasn't what they were going for...)

We headed out on Thursday...William lost his first molar en route. That involved a fair amount of blood and tears...good way to get psyched up for Karate.

There were about 15 kids, and we didn't know any of them. That's okay. An older boy helped the teacher warm the kids up.
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It was pretty cute to hear all the grunting when they did sit ups and push ups. I'm glad I'm not the only one who grunts :)

I had fully expected there to be lots of sitting still and listening and talking...but no! Those boys got a workout! They did hits...
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Kicks... (look how high Trevor's foot is!)
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and everyone got to kick the "kick-thing"
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It was great. We are really excited to go back next week.

Here's a few pictures I took during school. They are random, but I thought I'd stick em in.
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Boy, I have really been enjoying school lately. Of course it has its ups and downs, and every day has its challenges...but so much of it is so good!

We just finished reading 2 Chronicles. I love reading the Bible with the kids. And without homeschool, I have a hard time imagining where I would fit that in. We are memorizing lots of verses, and working on their catechism questions from church. Also, I have been working on getting the boys to sing. They WILL NOT sing. Isn't that weird? We started with the doxology. I know...strange place to start. But, it's short, they've heard it a hundred times, and I really, really love it. Trevor ventured to try it with me, and now he sings it through with me every day. William? Nope. No Way Jose. But, guess what? Now, don't "smile and clap" (that's a Trevor-ism)... and don't make a big deal about it to the boys, BUT, this last Friday Trevor and William sang with me, for the first time in YEARS. Y-E-A-R-S. It was really hard to not start jumping up and down, I was so excited. We'll see if it happens again this week. (And I'm serious about not making a big deal of it. In fact, PLEASE don't even mention it to the kids...I would probably have to wait another 5 years before it happened again. Playing it cool is CRITICAL.)

We are also enjoying Geography. We are learning about Europe, and memorizing a number of the countries. We've already got Central America and South America under our belts, and now we're tackling Europe. I think I get more excited about learning the names of the countries than the boys do. But, today in church, Belarus was mentioned and William leaned over and whispered, "Hey, that's in Europe!" Having never learned my geography before this year, I feel William's excitement.

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Sunday, February 6, 2011

I may be getting Spring Fever...

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A friend asked me to pick up some flowers this week to take to a little get-together. I thought I would check out our new Publix, since it was on the way, and the flower prices were so great (6.99 for tulips) I grabbed two bouquets. I was happy to bring some home with me, and so were the boys. We have all been loving our pretty flowers. They may have been the brightest thing in our week.

I am so ready for Spring to get here. I bought some seeds last week...some that I can plant inside. And even though it has been cold, I have quit wearing my Cuddl Duds...I'm just tired of feeling wintery. I keep trying to remind myself that at least it's not sticky summer time, and that Laura Ingalls Wilder had it WAAAYYY rougher than I do, but, still... (sidenote...I just googled "cuddl duds" to make sure I spelled it right, and, you know how google will give you suggestions as you type? Well, it popped up "cuddl duds for men." Um... Is it just me, or does it just seem WRONG for someone to buy their man some cuddle duds?) ANYway...

Here's a random picture that i don't know how to fit in:

Samuel helped me make cookies this afternoon, to feed all the little kids playing in the yard. (Well, actually, it was just our 3, plus 2 more, but it seemed like a lot.)
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The rest of Samuel's birthday gift from Wonderwoman and Grandpa finally came. So we dragged the birthday partying out a little longer...
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"A Quilt!"
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He got a new quilt for his bed, and a fun decorative pillow. He loves it. We told him the pillow is really not to sleep on, that it is to make his bed look nice...but he likes to use it. Cute. (Too bad...when we got the quilt out and laid it on his bed, we saw that there were several places that the stitching had come undone. But, I called Pottery Barn, where it came from, and they were great about it. Someone is coming to pick it up in the morning, and they have already sent out a new one. Yay for good customer service.)

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Now the other boys are saying that they want their beds to look nice, too. I'm glad the gift was such a hit.

While I'm on the subject of the boys...

All 3 boys are going to start Karate Lessons this week! We are all SO excited. Karate is something that Trevor's doctors have recommended, and it just sounds FUN! A new homeschool Karate class is starting up, so the classes will be in the afternoon, once a week, and all 3 boys can take TOGETHER! YES! I just keep picturing sitting there watching them in their little uniforms. I can't wait.

In Other News...

...Tim's making some good progress in this new adventure we started.

He's been working here:
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It's not much to look at, and it's no better on the inside, but it'll do! Tim's renting space here from a friend. He's been doing woodworking, and is getting ready to take some of his pieces out to sell!

We rented a booth at a local antique mall that has a good reputation. The booth used to look like this:
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It is still in progress...but it's looking better:
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Some of the booths look like your typical antique shop...old and crowded. But there's a few really nice looking ones...like this one:
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You can click HERE to see the mall.

We are wanting to use both reclaimed wood and new wood to make some nice things. Here's a few of our items:

Framed bulletin boards...
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Framed mirrors...
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And a bookcase...
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I'm excited to get some help taking some nice pictures of all the things...tomorrow a friend of mine is going to help me out.

We also want to get a website going, so excellent photos are a must. We're excited about that, too.

I'll keep ya posted on how the booth looks once we get a few things in it.

Lastly...
Thanks Grandpa!

Tim used the grinder you gave him while he was working on our house yesterday. He got some of the fixtures on our tub replaced, and also got our powder room sink functional. That feels good.