Big Brother!

Yes, the excitement on Jack's face says it for all of us ... we will be welcoming a new little one into our family in early February.  Jack is going to be a big brother!

 

His big sisters totally understand that our family will be growing, and they are full of happiness over the news.  There isn't a day that goes by that they don't ask about the baby (how big it is, can I feel it moving, do I think that it has hair, etc.) and they never miss an opportunity to hug my growing belly and tell the baby that they love it already.

And as for Jack?  Well, he understands that there is a baby in momma's belly and that when it gets big enough, it will come out and come home to live with us.  He also knows that it is a baby brother!  It melts my heart every single time that I hear him say, "baby brother" and lift my shirt to give him a kiss.

With the other three kids, we chose to be surprised on the gender of each of them until they were born.  Really it was me that wanted that surprise and Steve went along with it.  (With Jack, Steve did have the option to find out and never opened the envelope!  When I went into labor two weeks before my scheduled c-section date, I was laying on the operating table when Steve looked at me and said ... "I never opened the envelope!).

But this time around, knowing that this will be our last little one, Steve announced that he wanted to find out the gender.  And, I agreed. 

So, we now know that we have a little boy on the way. 

Two girls and two boys.  Life is good.

Monster Cookies

Steve has been traveling a lot the last couple of weeks and it seems to have been harder than ever on the kids.  I suspect that it may have something to do with the fact that it is still summer (no school, no dance, etc.) and being home with me exclusively can be ... well, boring, sometimes.  I have tried to fill the days with play-dates, shopping trips, beach days, picnics, craft projects ... and everything else in between, but when you're under the age of 7, you have a lot of energy to expend.

Typically, Steve leaves for trips early in the morning (before the kids are even awake) and then to them, it mimics a typical workday for them.  However, on one of his recent travel trips, Steve had to leave a little later than normal -- mid-morning -- and this was difficult on everyone.  The kids all cried when he had to leave.  But, Samantha cried the hardest, which is not like her at all. 

I knew that I needed to try to distract her in order to overcome her sadness, which was then being projected onto the two younger kids.  I had planned to make Monster Cookies later that day, so I asked her to grab a pen and paper so that I could dictate the recipe to her.  I didn't bother to spell any of the words; rather, I let her sound them out on her own.  Some of them were correct, others were not.  But I didn't care.  And, this little distraction technique served yet another purpose: Samantha received her first lesson in fractions.

After naps (and after the stick of butter was softened), we set to work mixing all of the ingredients.  I purposely made Samantha use a 1/4 cup measuring cup for all of the increments ... teaching that two of them makes a 1/2 and so on ...

Jack and Sophia alternated adding in all of the ingredients.

And, like with every recipe, there *might* have been some sampling of ingredients (like, ahem, the M&Ms!).

Stirring in all of the ingredients:

The final products, cooling and waiting until after dinner to be consumed:

Sadly, it seems that only one of my three children liked the cookies.  Yes, Samantha gave her cookie to Jack after dinner that night and then Sophia followed suit.  Obviously, Jack didn't complain one bit!  (Sam was not a fan of the peanut butter -- is she even my child??? -- and Sophia did not care for the oatmeal).  Oh well.  I enjoyed them!

Sleepy Hollow Beach

This weekend, on a whim, I suggested that we take the kids to Sleepy Hollow -- a state park located about 15 minutes from our house.  We have a recreation sticker on our license plate, which gets us into the park for free ... and we just really haven't taken advantage of that like we should.

We sprang into action, getting the kids into their swimsuits, gathering the beach toys and towels (those things we keep ready to go at all times lately), packing a picnic lunch with water bottles and applying copious amounts of sunscreen.  With the van loaded, we made the quick trip over to the park and headed straight to the beach.  It wasn't too busy (a little windy) and we found a picnic table that would be perfect for our lunch after a little fun in the sun.

Both of the girls have really taken to swimming this summer.  Look at Samantha go in the background!

All smiles without a life jacket!

These girls love each other so much ...

You can never have too many buckets at the beach.

Steve and "his shadow" taking in the beautiful lake:

This boy could scoop sand for hours.

Sophia (and Sam, too) usually choose to spend their time exclusively in the lake ... even if it means taking the buckets and shovels into the water to play with them.

And then, just before lunch, the girls finally opted to come dry off in the sun on the beach.

A bucket of water can be so heavy ...

Hard at work, getting ready to make sand castles:

It was the perfect little outing for us and a nice change in scenery from our usual neighborhood beach.  In fact, we had so much fun that we are planning to head back again this week with Aunt Minnie, Louie and Grammy!

Weekend Randoms

This weekend began the first few days of August.  This summer has just flown by for me, and in three short weeks, I will be back to teaching and getting the girls ready to start school after Labor Day.  That means that I am in full-on "check-list mode" as I begin lesson plans, school shopping (both clothes and supplies) and squeezing out the last few weeks of summer fun around here.

In the meantime, here are a few things that we have been up to:

Samantha received this dry erase board for Christmas last year (it was one of the top items on her "list"), and it has provided so many hours of fun for the kids.  They are always drawing pictures on it and Samantha's favorite thing to do right now is play "Hangman."  Even Jack has joined in the fun -- scribbling pictures for us.

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While cleaning out our game closet in the basement, Samantha came across a doodle book with many cut-out pictures loosely tucked inside.  This was something that she had done with Steve's mom a few years ago (and Sam remembered doing it with her!).  It was a nostalgic moment for me, as I quietly suggested that she get a glue-stick and arrange them carefully in the book.  This would be something that she could add to and then keep forever.

Sophia rounded the corner and wanted to join in the activity.  As they worked together, I heard Samantha explaining to Sophia about the pictures and how Grandma and her had picked those pictures out of magazines a long time ago ... before she went to Heaven. 

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One night after baths, the kids were unusually quiet.  When I went to check on them, I found them piled on top of one another on one end of the couch -- entranced by a movie that Sam had picked out for them on "her phone."  (We disabled my old phone and Samantha is allowed to use it to play games on if she asks permission first).

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We have an ongoing joke in our household about how Jack is never more than 5 feet away from Steve at any given time.  Jack was thrilled this particular morning, as Steve had asked him to help set up our deck umbrella.  Yup, Jack was surely in his element -- helping his daddy with a project that involved tools.  The only way that it could have been any better is if it had actually involved power tools.

Such a perfect assistant:

Using the socket wrench:

Pull ...!

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Every year, on the last Saturday in July, our town puts on a Pancake Breakfast downtown.  We have attended this event every year since we moved here (six years!), but this was the first year that we stayed downtown for a little longer after the breakfast.  Even though it was HOT, we stayed to watch Samantha do one of her dance routines that she had learned at dance camp a month ago.  We had a great time, and I think that Jack clapped the loudest of anyone there!

We stayed hydrated:

Putting on a show:

At the end, some of the dancers came up and grabbed some kids from the audience.  Our neighbor, Miss Hanna, danced with Jack:

And Miss Grace, danced with Sophia:

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When the kids were each born, I set up a bank account for them.  They understand the importance of saving money and when their piggy banks start to get heavy, we make a special trip to the bank to deposit that money.  They love watching the coin counter turn all of the their coins into dollars (it's amazing how soon it adds up!).

On this particular trip, the girls added between $22-34 to their accounts.  Jack didn't have quite as much, but he didn't seem to mind!

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Samantha has been BEGGING for corn on the cob.  It always seems to be such a long wait all summer until August, when Michigan corn is ready to be harvested.  At Meijer the other day, she caught sight of some and insisted that we buy it.  I warned her that it might not be very good (it is still a little early for Michigan corn), but we bought it anyway.  It wasn't too bad ...

Putting the kids to work shucking the ears of corn:

Jack started to get the hang of it:

 

Samantha is almost a professional now:

And Sophia is not far behind ...

Only a couple more weeks until the good stuff is ready to be picked!  We can't wait!

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