The Only Thing I Like About You

Tonight, as he was kissing me goodnight, Andrew said to me, "Mommy, the only thing I like about you is that you have soft cheeks."








Oh well.  At least I have one redeeming quality.

School Room

We've decided to convert our formal dining room into a school room for homeschooling.  I've been gradually moving furniture around for several months and it's still a work in progress (I need more bookshelves, because I'm a book-a-holic).  But here's what it looks like right now.

As you can see, big kids use it for their homework, too.

I know you can't see too much of the room from this perspective.  I'll try to post in more detail when I get everything the way I like it (but don't hold your breath, because I'm always fiddling with furniture arrangements).

September

Is it really October already? Where did last month go?? I guess time flies when you're not sleeping. :)

We started out the month with a visit from nearly everyone in the family for Katie's baby blessing (you may see us spelling her name either Katie or Katy. This is something we have yet to agree on. But don't worry, she's got another 4 or 5 years before she needs to start learning how to spell her name).

Here we are with my dad:

Since we had everyone out, we held Maggie's baptism the same weekend.  I can't believe I have an 8-year-old already!

Look, we can squeeze six people onto a loveseat!

It was a fun weekend.  We went to the beach one day and the kids loved playing with their cousins all weekend.

And here are some more recent pictures of Katie.  She started smiling about a week or two ago.  I tried to get a picture of her smiling, but with her, smiles equal wiggles and I took just one very blurry picture of her smile.  We'll just have settle for pictures of her trying to figure out what Mommy is doing with that big, black camera in front of her face.

More Baby Pictures

Here are some more pictures of baby Katie.  It took some doing to outsmart Blogger and get them to post properly.

Kathryn Violet Harper

We're all happy to welcome Kathryn Violet Harper into our family. She was born Sunday August 23, 2009 at 4:34 p.m. Her weight was 8 lbs. 8 oz. and she was 21 inches long. She is beautiful and already has her daddy wrapped around her little finger.


Bonnie was having a good string of contractions early on Sunday morning, so we went into the hospital. As soon as she laid down in the bed and they started monitoring her, the contractions stopped, so they ended up sending us back home at 8:30 a.m. As soon as we got in the car to come home, the contractions started up again. I made Bonnie a nice breakfast of blueberry muffins and scrambled eggs, and Grandma took the kids off to church. After the kitchen was cleaned up, we started timing contractions again. After about two hours we were pretty sure that this time, it was for real, so we headed back to the hospital again. Everyone was happy to see us again, and we even got the same room back, the big room with the jacuzzi tub. Of course, Bonnie didn't get to use the tub because she got her epidural soon after being admitted. Once the epidural kicked in, it wasn't much longer till the baby was ready to be born. She only took two pushes and little Kathryn was finally with us. It was love at first sight for me.


Grandma brought the rest of the family up later that evening to visit their new little sister. The kids were so excited and all got turns holding the baby. Mommy and baby are doing well, and we hope to have everyone home on Tuesday afternoon.

It's Soccer Season Again

Today was the first day of Soccer season. We have two little soccer players in the family this year. This is Andrew's first year playing and Matthew's third. Andrew was so excited to be playing soccer. He runs around with his tongue sticking out, which has drawn comments from other concerned parents that his tongue will be bitten off as soon as he takes a tumble. In Andrew's group most of the kids are playing for the first time so the focus is on not touching the ball with your hands. Andrew scored two goals in his game today and he was very proud of his accomplishment.


Matthew's game didn't start until 11:15. This time of year in Florida, 11:15 is pretty hot. Matthew had sat in the hot sun cheering on Andrew for an hour before, and hadn't been drinking much water. When his game started, he played very well for about ten minutes and scored a few goals before the dehydration and lack of snacks caught up to him. He said he was feeling sick and sat down in my fold-up chair. A few seconds later he said he felt like he was going to throw up after which he threw up in my chair. We packed him up and went home after that. Matthew got a cool bath and a sippy cup of Gatorade. My chair got a good washing, and soccer season was kicked off with a bang, or--to be more precise--kicked off with a barf.

New Piano

We got a new piano today! We're all pretty excited about it. Maggie has been asking permission to practice on it (as if she needs permission to practice!)


Andrew had to get in on the action too.


It's a pretty old piano, but it's in good condition. And it's a huge step up from our old "piano" that Maggie has been practicing on for the last year.

Assyria

Today we talked about Ancient Assyria in history. Then the kids built an Assyrian siege tower out of Legos (complete with a battering ram in the front and a door in the back):


The Assyrians weren't very nice people (they liked to go to war a lot). Here's how Maggie summarized the lesson:
"The Assyrians had a king who was as strong as a lion. He conquered everyone around them and they did everything they could to be mean."

Summertime

And it looks like it's time to start mowing the grass again. . .


We started getting rain again last week and the grass has been loving it. I love seeing green again (see here for what it looked like up until a couple of weeks ago). The kids love being able to hide just by laying down in the grass. My lawnmower/husband will not be loving it when he has to tackle knee-deep grass this weekend.

It looks like it's been a whole month since I last posted. Sigh. All I can say for myself is that I am Ti-i-errd. I just don't feel like doing much of anything other than taking naps these days.

For Memorial Day weekend, we took a quick trip up to SC. It was nice to see family, but the real reason that we went was so that Kevin could drive up to NC and scout out the Appalachian Trail. He will be taking his Varsity Boy Scouts on a High Adventure trip to the Appalachian Trail in July. They will try to hike 45 miles in 5 days. Kevin is practically eating, breathing, and sleeping backpacking plans.



It really does look beautiful up there, though. And I know I will be jealous when he is up in the mountains and I am 8 months pregnant in the middle of a Florida summer. But at least I will get to take naps while he's lugging a 50-lb pack up the side of a mountain.

It's a Girl?

We went in to get our ultrasound a couple of weeks ago and I finally got around to scanning them in today, so I have pictures below. This baby has been very active, just like Maggie was and how the boys were not. Everybody has their hearts set on having a little sister, but I have been trying not to read too much into these kind of things. While we were getting the ultrasound, this baby had her legs sticking straight out and crossed (and hands crossed in front of her face). So we didn't get a really clear view of the gender. But in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, the ultrasound tech declared that we are probably having a girl. How's that for an ambiguous announcement?





If it does turn out to be a boy, poor Maggie will be heartbroken, but at least I already have lots of boy's clothes. I've given away most of Maggie's baby clothes, so this will give me a good excuse to buy more little girl things once I convince myself that I really am going to have another baby.

21 Questions About Me Answered By My Kids.

Me, according to My Two Oldest. My wife interviewed them and wrote down their answers. They were asked at different times so they didn't influence each other
Girl #1 (Seven going on 14)
Boy #1 (Five, trying not to knock anymore of his own teeth out)

1. What is something dad always says to you?!
Girl # 1: He always says, "Eat Your Dinner"
Boy # 1: "Clean Up!"

2. What makes dad happy?
Girl # 1: When I clean up with out being asked
Boy # 1: Ice Cream

3. What makes dad sad?
Girl # 1: When we eat pizza without telling him
Boy # 1: A gorilla

4. How does your dad make you laugh?
Girl # 1: He says, "No! They're all going to laugh at you!"
Boy # 1: By making a face that looks sad

5. What was your dad like as a child?
Girl # 1: I dunno
Boy # 1: Like me

6. How old is your dad?
Girl # 1: Thirty
Boy # 1: Sixteen

7. How tall is your dad?
Girl # 1: Six feet tall. He needs four more feet so he can walk on six feet
Boy # 1: Five feet...I don't know how big he really is.

8. What is his favorite thing to do?
Girl # 1: Ride bikes
Boy # 1: Play Super Mario Galaxy

9. What does your dad do when you're not around?
Girl # 1: I dunno, I'm not around.
Boy # 1: Uh, I think watch TV.

10. If your dad becomes famous, what will it be for?
Girl # 1: Um...Living in Florida? or doing, good on his job.
Boy # 1: I don't know

11. What is your dad really good at?
Girl # 1: Playing Super Mario Galaxy
Boy # 1: He's really good at working

12. What is your dad not very good at?
Girl # 1: Um, I don't know. He's good at, like, everything.
Boy # 1: Uh, I don't know.

13. What does your dad do for his job?
Girl # 1: Plays on the computer
Boy # 1: Uh, work?

14. What is your dad's favorite food?
Girl # 1: Mmm, do you know? I don't know, I think it's hot sauce.
Boy # 1: I don't know.

15. What makes you proud of your dad?
Girl # 1: That he earns a lot of money so we're not poor.
Boy # 1: Going on bike rides with him

16. If your dad were a cartoon character, who would he be?
Girl # 1: Superman.
Boy # 1: I don't know. Maybe Superman.

17. What do you and your dad do together?
Girl # 1: Have daddy time.
Boy # 1: We... uh... we usually go to the store.

18. How are you and your dad the same?
Girl # 1: We have the same eyes and the same hair
Boy # 1: We both like to...ride our bikes.

19. How are you and your dad different?
Girl # 1: He's 30 and I'm 7
Boy # 1: He's bigger and I'm smaller

20. How do you know your dad loves you?
Girl # 1: Because sometimes he does what I want him to do.
Boy # 1: By he's giving me hugs every night.

21. Where is your Dad's favorite place to be?
Girl # 1: Disney World
Boy # 1: I think Boy Scouts

Old McDonald's Daddy

I was driving with the kids last Friday and they started getting restless, so to keep them occupied, I suggested that they play the alphabet game. You know, the game where you look for all the letters in the alphabet in the billboards you pass on the road. They got all the way to "Z" but by this time we had turned off onto a highway heading through a rural area where there were no more signs along the road. Not to give up, the girl decides to sing songs to pass the time. They broke into an extremely loud rendition of "This is the Song that Never Ends..." but before they got to the third line, I hushed them up and told them that they could sing any song they wanted as long as it was not that song. So they sang "Old McDonald" but this Old McDonald had lots of other things besides farm animals on his farm. Things like shoes, stinky socks, and even Mr. Potato Heads. Apparently he even had a Daddy on his farm. That verse went like this:

All Three Kids singing at the top of their lungs:

"Old McDonald Had a Farm, E I E I O
And On his farm he had a Daddy, E I E I O
With a "No, No" here and a "No, No" there
Here a "No", there a "No", everywhere a" No, No"
Old McDonald had a farm, E I E I O"

I guess my kids and Old McDonald have similar Dads.

Bikin' in the Street

Here's a video that Kevin made a few weeks ago when Maggie learned to ride her bike (and Andrew figured out how to pedal his trike).

Atlanta Braves

We have recently become Braves fans. Of course our team is a whole lot cuter than the one in Atlanta.

Knock Knock Jokes

Our kids are currently at that age where they love to tell jokes. Especially knock knock jokes. They even more especially love it when we are all in the car, because we are all strapped in and we have to listen. Here was a typical exchange today. (Sorry if it's a little long, but it was a long drive to the doctor's office).

Maggie (M) told a joke, then started to explain it to Andrew (A), and he interrupted her.

A: Knock knock
M: Who's there?
A: Orange
M: Orange who?
A:Knock knock
M:Who's there?
A: Oran--
Mommy: Andrew, you're supposed to say banana.
A: Oh. Knock knock
M: Who's there?
A: Banana
M: Banana who?
A: Knock knock
(Repeat 3 or 4 times--you know the joke)
A: Knock knock
M: Who's there?
Mommy (dreading hearing 20 more minutes of this): Andrew say orange this time.
A: Orange
M: Orange who?
A: Glad I didn't. . . .
Mommy prompts: (orange you glad I didn't say banana?)
A: Orange didn't. . . .Orange glad I didn't say banana?
(hysterical laughter)

This time even I laughed a little. Not at the dumb joke that I have heard ad nauseum, but at how much that little boy can laugh at something that he obviously doesn't understand. He just knows that it is funny. Don't you miss when you're biggest concern in life was coming up with a good knock knock joke?

Kite Flying

Yesterday, Matthew made a kite while he was at a friend's house. It has been the joy of his life for the last 24 hours.


He thought he had lost it today and spent nearly half an hour crying over it. But then his little brother found it in a corner and all is right in the world again. Aren't brothers great?

P.S. After looking closely at this picture, I have decided that my next post should be about dandelions that grow taller than small children.

Strep Throat

So here's our adventure of the week:

Maggie woke up on Sunday complaining of a sore throat. I always get sore throats before every little cold, so I didn't think too much of it. By Monday afternoon, I decided to take her to the doctor, because she was pretty whiny about the pain. The receptionist said, "We're all booked up today, try back in the morning. We open at 8 am." When did they adopt that policy? After she hung up, I stuck my tongue out at the phone and asked why she couldn't just schedule me for tomorrow right away. Well by the next morning, Maggie was starting to feel better, so I never did take her in.

But today, Matthew woke up with a severe sore throat. I made sure to call the doctor soon after 8 am, so we could all trek over to her office before lunchtime. Matthew came back positive for Strep. I mentioned that Maggie had had a sore throat earlier in the week. So she got a throat swab, too. Then, we decided to test Andrew for good measure, even though he said he felt fine. Well, all 3 of them came back positive.

And that got me thinking. Hey, my throat is kind of scratchy. Hmmm. Maybe I should go to the doctor. Amazingly, I got an appointment right away. The doctor looked at my three little kids with Strep and he said, "I'm not going to stick anything down your throat. There's no way you won't catch it too. Here's your prescription." I figured if I was going to pay him $15, I should at least get to have a test, but at least I got my very own medicine.

Looks Like They May Need Braces

This is what happens when little boys are having too much fun with fake teeth.

TeeBall Practice

I think we may have a future baseball star in the family. This video is from Matthew's practice this Saturday. He's still getting the fundamentals down since this is only his third practice. We need to work on throwing and catching some more, but it's fun to see his enthusiasm. I also had a little too much fun with the movie editor. I discovered how easy it is to add a soundtrack. Hope you Enjoy!

Girl Scout Cookies Anyone?

Somehow, I managed to become the cookie chair for Maggie's Brownie Troop this year. So today I got to go pick up 107 cases of Girl Scout cookies. That's 1284 boxes of cookies. Sitting in my garage. Calling to me to come and sample them. Mmmm.










Ok, I wouldn't really eat those cookies. We'll just have to be content with the 5 boxes that we did buy. But they are taking over my garage. I know these pictures don't do them justice, but you can't fit all these cookies in a minivan without taking out all the seats. Since it's nearly impossible to take out all the seats when you have 3 kids to chauffeur around, we had to make a couple of trips to get them all home (the cookies, not the kids--I let the kids stay with me the whole time). Whew! Maggie want's to spend the rest of the evening sorting them. But I would really rather take a nap. By the way, if you're in the area and want some cookies, you know where to find me. . .

Andrew's Best Friend

Here's a conversation that just occurred after Andrew came in from playing outside.

Andrew: "I have a friend rock. And I talk to him."
Mommy: "Is there something wrong with you?"
Andrew: "Nope. I have a new friend rock. And he's my best friend in the whole world. And I play with him."

At this point he wanders into another room and I hear a "clunck".
Daddy: "Don't throw rocks in the house! Put your rock outside."
Andrew: "Okay."

He wasn't particularly upset about losing his best friend. I guess there's some comfort in knowing that the rock will still be right where he left it when Andrew needs to play with it again.

A couple months ago, he would routinely bring me his "new friend leaf". At least he's branching out and making new friends, right?

Homeschooling

I feel like our blog is just one announcement after another. That's because I'm just too darn tired to post all the fun, little, random things that happen every day. If I have free time, I'd rather just take a nap, or lie on the couch staring at the ceiling wishing I could take a nap.

With that introduction, for some inexplicable reason, we have started homeschooling. I will start with a quote from my friend Nikki, "Yes, yes, I want my kids to be socially backward. Thank you for asking. And yes, I'm well aware I'll be tremendously busy, and finally yes, I also think I'm a little bit (maybe a lot) crazy to be doing this (so you can just stop thinking it yourself)."

Thanks for saying that so well for me Nikki. So how did I come to this decision? I have always been a little against homeschooling. When I tell people that know my views on the subject, that I have pulled Maggie out of school, they stare at me in disbelief. I have a good friend who loaned me a couple of books. "A Thomas Jefferson Education" was the first that got me thinking about the possibility of homeschooling.


The second was "The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home". When I read this, I thought, "Wow, this is something I could do, and I think our family would be better off for it." It's a great resource for teaching your kids to love learning, and taking advantage of their natural, developmental abilities. I'm not going to try to go into the details of it all because I will just get bogged down.

So how is it going for us? Actually, pretty well, considering that I found out I was pregnant the same week that I sent in my Letter of Intent to homeschool. I think it would be going a lot better if I didn't spend every morning laying on the couch, hoping that my breakfast will stay put. But I must say that my relationship with Maggie has improved sooo much. I don't have to drag her out of bed at the crack of dawn to do the morning drill sergeant routine. And she doesn't come home 7 hours later exhausted and grumpy and ready to fight with everyone. We are only doing the basics of Math, Language Arts and History right now. As I start to fell better, I expect to add in a little more school work, as well as some more time with other kids her age. We'll do school through the summer, then take our break in August and Sept, when the new baby comes. I love the flexibility.

Big Events in Matthew's Life

This last week was a big week for Matthew. Remember that tooth he knocked loose? It just kept getting darker and darker. Finally, I couldn't stand to see it any longer, or to listen to the groans of pain every time Matthew tried to eat things that weren't oatmeal or applesauce. So we made another trip out to the dentist. We're getting to know our dentist pretty well. It's a good thing we like him so much. He agreed to pull the tooth. And I've gotta say, he is a good pediatric dentist. I was so impressed with how slick he was. He numbed Matthew's gums with a topical anesthetic, then had Matthew look up while the dentist "wiggled" the tooth. In the next 5 minutes, he managed to get out a needle, give him a shot, get out some pliers, and pull the tooth. Matthew had no clue that anything was going on other than some painful "wiggling" of his tooth. And, by the way, Maggie and Andrew were happily playing arcade games in the lobby, so they had no idea what happened, either. So here's our toothless little boy:


He says he can whistle through his tooth. And he brags about how he's the only one in his pre-k class who's lost a tooth. He's pretty impressed with himself, and he even got a visit from the Tooth Fairy out of it.

Another big event in our 5-year-old's life is that he has learned how to ride a "two-wheeler".


He had managed to mangle both of his training wheels. Don't ask me how, but they weren't staying on anymore. So on Saturday, I told Kevin that if Matthew was going to go on a bike ride, he'd have to do it without training wheels. Kevin spent about 2 minutes running behind while Matthew rode on the grass in the front yard. And then he was off! I couldn't believe how easy it was for him. I had tired to get him to ride without the training wheels earlier, but I couldn't bring myself to let go of the bike, and I couldn't run fast enough to keep up with him. That's what dads are for--to help you let go of your kids.

At one point during our bike ride, Matthew fell down in front of some teenage boys in the neighborhood. He didn't cry, just struggled to get himself back on and get going again. Kevin said the boys were saying, "Man, that kid is strong." After we got home, we told Matthew what the big boys said about him, and his response was, "Actually, I am really tough. Even Spencer (his best friend) can't ride a two-wheeler."

Well no post is complete without Andrew making demands to have his picture taken:


Here he was trying to convince me to give him some of his beloved juice. Then when he saw the camera, he realized that getting his picture taken was even more important than getting juice.

Growing Season

Right now it is growing season in our neck of the woods. But, even in Florida, there are some problems with gardening in the winter. This morning we woke up to a frost. Actually I had seen some frost starting to form outside before I went to bed. But by morning everything had taken on a whitish hue. Our papaya tree did not take too kindly to the cold. It's poor little leaves just shriveled right up.


And for some reason our mango and one of our orange trees thought that it was spring last week, so they had both put out flowers.



I'll guess we'll see what happens to them in the next few weeks.

And in other growing news. . .


It even sort of looks like a baby. I'm due August 21. Everything seems to be going well and I am appropriately exhausted and queasy. Thanks for asking. :)