Quickly...

I just wanted to get some pictures up.
I know I haven't been really good about posting lately...there has been lots going on. I am very hopeful things will calm down soon.
As Melanie says, "Take a deep breath, re-center yourself. You're FINE."
I may be a wee bit crazy, though...

Calm

Before another storm?
Seriously? This will be five feet of snow in the past five weeks.
I feel like I'm in Rochester.
And I thought I lived somewhere nice...

We had a really productive day today. The kids behaved wonderfully. Nate took two 90 plus minute naps, Caroline put herself down for an hourlong nap and Sam and I had a great time playing trains. We also got caught up on all the laundry, finished the school assignment on whales for next week (I think a trip to New Bedford may be in order), wrote more Thank You notes, took down the Christmas tree (when the neighbor asked me if we planned on putting red lights on it for Valentine's Day I knew it was time) and shoveled the driveway in preparation for tomorrow. Add all that to making meals and just being with three kids around and it makes for a very, very full (though not frenetic) day.
It was lovely, actually.
We took some time to play outside before the next storm. The snow is up to Caroline's waist in some areas and Sam is pretty much confined to the pre-shoveled areas. Nate was quite content just plopped in a snowbank and watching while we were shoveling. Thank goodness. Our neighbors are wonderful and will watch him so I can get some outdoor work done, but I definitely don't want to take advantage of their hospitality. Now if it would just stop snowing I wouldn't have to worry about that! My next house will NOT have a driveway with a retaining wall that I have to throw snow over, let me tell you!
At least there's only three more weeks until Spring Training!

A Day of Rest

Even God got one, right?
So it's only fair that we get (at least) one...
Sabbath is such a wonderful concept. I wish we could go off the grid more. We're trying to figure out ways we can do this. My idea of moving to Montana, homeschooling the kids, residing in a green house and living off the land has already been vetoed. Anyone have any other ideas?

On a different note...have you seen the new pictures of my really cute kids? They like to play with trains, if you haven't noticed...

Really?

25,000 hits?
Really? People have checked here that many times to read about us?
So what if 24,900 of the hits are from people related to us!
Here's to the next 25,000!

I know posting has been sparse. I feel like we're still recovering from Christmas, New Years, Birthdays, Blizzards, illnesses. I've taken the brunt of the illnesses in the past couple weeks with another visit from the Noro-virus and a super-fun case of mastitis. But everyone is more or less healthy now and I'm praying we stay that way.
I'm committing to do a better job with eating more nutritious foods and exercising more. Things like that have really fallen to the wayside recently in my (seemingly never-ending quest) to catch up. For the first time since Nate has been here, I've been feeling really, really overwhelmed with everything that needs (I know that word is so subjective - but trust me on this one) to be done. I'm trying to handle it with a lot of re-centering myself, lots of deep breaths and lots of prayer. Because I know when I get overwhelmed, my anxiety gets out of control and I become not-so-nice to be around (imagine that). I think the biggest thing I have to get used to is life being a work in progress.
I am looking forward to enjoying the projected snow day for Friday, though! =-)

Here is a picture of Jim and Caroline before going to the Father / Daughter Dance this weekend...

Snow Day!

Our first snow day in a looong time.

I figured I would put these up while I had the chance. Jim is putting the kids in the tub and I'm hearing Sam say, "I don't go peepee in the potty. I stand up to pee in the tubby." Ugh. It's going to be awhile before this kid is potty trained. Not because he can't - but because he chooses not to. Just another instance of Sammy-being-Sammy.

We think we got about two feet of snow. The worst storm we've had in a while, even with the blizzard we had to race from Rochester at Christmas.
I was up at three this morning thinking of everything I could get done with everyone home for the extra day. I had big plans. However, I neglected to think out the fact that the plan had everybody at home. Three children age five and under can limit forward progress with projects at times. =-)
But we did get ourselves and the neighbors shoveled out. We worked on "Thank you" notes. We hoed out Caroline's room. We caught up on laundry. Caroline and I sat and she read a chapter of "Muggie Maggie" to me. I found some lesson plans to go with the book and I think we may start tackling those tomorrow. If you add meals, playing out in the snow, playing with Thomas and just general being - I think it was a pretty full day. =-)


The boys hanging out in the green room...

Here's Caroline with her "snowblower"
Jim had icicles hanging from his eyebrows when he got done shoveling!
We had to put them to work somehow!

And other than the drool that perpetually hangs from his chin, he's pretty cute, huh?

Pre-Gamin'

I finished this tonight for Caroline's birthday tomorrow.
It's supposed to be a ladybug.
I realize it looks like a deranged pink turtle with black starbursts on it.
and the back view...

Seriously, I think that cake decorating should be up there with the Lamaze, general infant care and breastfeeding classes that the hospital offers to expectant mothers.
This is hard work!
I hope she likes it.

And in other news...
Jim got a picture of the kids having a tea party this afternoon. It was nice to see all three of them having a good time with eachother.

Here we are making Caroline's cake:

And here are the kids trying to stuff as much batter into their gullets as they possibly can before I can pour it into the cupcake pans...

Nate had his first rice cereal today. He was less than thrilled. Frustrated is the best word, I think. He kept trying to grab the spoon from Jim and shove it in his mouth.

But he did sleep well afterwards...

Quotes...

Not of the Day, but they're recent...

Sam is developing a very dry sense of humor. Somewhere between the Three Stooges and Monty Python, I think. And he delivers all his lines with a straight face, which makes it even funnier.
For instance - Sometimes when we're eating dinner, I'll nurse Nate - just so he doesn't get fussy. Jim was asking the kids, "Caroline, how is your sandwich?" and "Sam, how is your banana?" Before we even got an answer, we hear this piped in from across the table, "Nate, how's your milk?"
Too funny, I say.

Caroline continues to drop lines that make me either want to laugh out loud or run and hide. Caroline and I were at the home of someone we were interviewing about their homeschooling experiences when she told me she had to go to the bathroom. No problem, right? I just gently reminded her to go ask Miss Amy where her bathroom is and to use her manners in the bathroom. The next thing I hear is, "Please, Miss Amy, where is your bathroom? I'll be right back. I just need to take a little dump."
At least she was polite.

PS

Guess who is sitting up now?
He's even getting cocky and lifting up his arms.
We're so in for it...

Recovery

Ugh.
It's six thirty in the morning and Sam is hopping (read STOMPING with both feet) throughout the downstairs. When asked to tone it down a bit, we get the reply, "But I'm just a kangaroo."
How can I argue with that?

Remember when I said I had gotten through the recent illnesses relatively unscathed?
WRONG.
I had a fight with a Noro-virus yesterday.
I lost.
So now, I'm feeling a little more human - but certainly not 100%. I have to walk the fine line of what foods to eat knowing that my body still is not entirely thrilled with me yet. At least I'm hungry - that's a good sign.
We canceled Caroline's birthday get together with two of her friends today - just in case. No sense in making anyone else sick, right? She took the news okay. The fact that there wasn't crying makes me suspicious as to how she might be feeling, though.

One of the nurses at the pediatrician's said the other day, "Your house must be crazy." And it got me thinking. She has got to see families of kids all day...and we're the ones she calls crazy? Yikes. Yes - I'm sure it would be crazy to someone that doesn't live here. But I just don't notice it anymore. Insanity is our baseline.
Maybe "Controlled Chaos" sounds better.
Insanity is probably a more apt description, though.
Don't you think?!?!

2011

Wow.
We've been blogging since 2005.
And now it's 2011? When did that happen?
So 5 years and 25,000 hits later...

We did do some traveling over the holidays, but other than trips to Rochester and the Lake, we really tried to keep things to a minimum.
Unfortunately, the family that stays together also transmits infectious disease to each other - so over the past few weeks we've had two cases of the stomach flu, two cases of strep throat, two ear infections and one lower respiratory infection between the five of us. I seem to have escaped with the least damage (thus far). At the pediatrician's office on Thursday, Nate's ears were clear - but he still can't spend any extended period of time supine - so I'm not sold that we're totally okay there yet. Sam and Caroline have bounced back from their strep. Jim is recovering slowly.
I can hardly wait until Caroline goes back to school and shares germies with all the other utensil sharing, nose picking, doorknob-licking preschoolers and brings them all back this way.
Good times.
I'm beginning to feel like we carry the plague (some awful variation of a noro-virus) and take it everywhere we go. First Rochester, then the Lake. So if you see us and then try to run and hide, I totally understand.

It will be nice to try to get back into some sort of routine. But when I think about all there is to do in January, I get overwhelmed.
We're applying for charter schools and school choice with an adjacent school district and the paperwork for all of that is due at the end of the month. We're also contemplating homeschooling the kids for a few years, so we're also trying to get our ducks in a row there. Put that with the aftermath from the holidays, work (that we get paid for), work (around the house that we don't get paid for), Caroline's birthday, dance class and the craziness of everyday being - just thinking about it all makes me anxious.

Yikes.

But it's all good.
And how do I know that?
Well, I look at these pictures and how can it not be?

Here is Caroline reading "Madeline" to Sam:

Here is Nathanael (yet again) freaking out at the camera.
Nope. Still don't have a decent picture of him...

Here are the kids in their new towels for the Lake this summer...

And here they are doing what they do best...making us laugh...

We went to the Discovery Museum in Acton (thank you Pat & Erica)!
Even Nate got in at the action on the train table (and no, Sam did not move farther than 20 feet from the train table the whole time we were there. But thanks for asking)...

We were even able to get a picture of all three kids together. They look like they're related, don't they?

And here is everyone making cookies right before Auntie Chrissy came down with the stomach bug. So much for my theory that 8 minutes at 325 will kill just about anything...


And that will be it for tonight -we have lots more pictures to put up- my contacts are sticking to my eyeballs and I can barely see a thing. Makes typing just a tad difficult.

We wish you a New Year of much happiness and many blessings!