Happy 2nd Birthday to my Whirling Dervish

See You Later...Part 2

We bid our good friend, Lindsey, 'farewell' back in January 2011 as she left for a 27-month stint in Thailand with the Peace Corps.  She came home last spring.  She instantly became one of the kids' favorite people again.  She always made them feel special and loved.  Tomorrow she is leaving for another 1.5 year stint to teach English in a rural village back in Thailand with the Churches of Christ in Thailand.  Once again, it was hard to say goodbye, as she is one of our favorite people, but we know she's doing what God wants her to be doing (despite all the hiccups in getting back to Thailand this fall).  It is funny to think that X is now about the same age as E was when she left the first time, and C is about the same age as X was.  We know that C won't really remember her when she returns, but we'll all remember how he always called her "Casey" (her younger sister's name) until the night before she left when finally he said, "Lindsey" when looking at her picture on the camera.  But, he'll know who she is...we'll pray for her daily and send her lots of letters...and get the fun of looking forward to seeing the elephant stamped letters delivered to our mailbox.

Lindsey, you fit right back into our life so seamlessly this spring.  We treasure all the memories that were made.  We look forward to hearing about all your new adventures in this next saga of life, but we also will be very excited for when you come back again!!  Shalom, friend.

G'pa's New Ride

Last fall at the end of harvest, Dad got a new combine.  The kids have been excited for harvest season ever since because they had their own seat in the new combine.  They have spent hours climbing in and out of the combine as it sat in the shed throughout the year waiting for a chance to ride on it with G'pa.

Finally, harvest season came around.  G'pa started with beans.  One Saturday night, we all ran over to the farm to help jockey vehicles between Dad and Ronnie.  G'pa was still running some beans.  I asked if the kids wanted to go and see if they could ride with G'pa.  Without missing a beat, X jumped on that suggestion.  So, I walked him and E to the edge of the field.  Dad was dumping in the bins and I walked X over.  He tensed up as I took him up the ladder, but as soon as G'pa had him inside the cab, he was grinning from ear-to-ear.  I walk back to the edge of the field and E was in tears because she wanted to go to.  G'pa noticed and waved her over.  She scampered up the ladder and jumped in right beside X in 'their' special seat.  Away they went down the field.

They came back just chattering as fast as they could.  They were so impressed.  They can't wait for corn harvest so that they can ride it again!

C loves the combine when it is off.  He loves playing with our toy combine.  He loves climbing around the cab and ladder of the real combine when it is not running.  But, with the engine running, he has no desire to be anywhere near that noisy piece of equipment.  So, he was very content to play on the tractor while the 'big 'ns' went for their ride.

Watching the combine come down the field

Just some life...

How is it that time passes so quickly?!  I look at C and think, "Wow.  X was this old when C was born."  I can't imagine having another one right now.  I can't keep up as it is.

C is coming up on birthday #2...just a few weeks.  Crazy.  He's crazy but so much fun.  I love this age despite all the boundary testing, gravity defying behaviors and general mayhem that 2 brings.  I love the exploding vocabulary.  He had his first bleeding incident a few weeks ago involving the 'monkey tree'.  So, he loves to tell you about it.  He says, "Tree hurt knee!" all the time.  Very cute...reminds me of E when she was about the same age and got her finger caught in the toybox.  Whenever he replies to me, he always ends it with "Mom"..."yes, Mom" or "danks, Mom".  He does the same with the kids too.  He loves calling out for E...or "Esbet" and he's just really starting to say X's name..."Dersh" or something or other.  Mainly he calls X, "Luke", "R2", or "Han".  Its funny.  Imaginative play is really picking up, too.  "Monsters coming!" is another phrase frequently expelled.  He is too cute and too funny for my sanity sometimes.

Birthday #4 is drawing neigh for X.  He's still my sweet, cuddly munchkin.  He loves school.  He loves his maze book to work on during school...I think it is his favorite thing to do right now, but that may be because it is the only thing that is just his that C or E don't get to play with.  I'm beginning to see how he's getting 'squished' as a middle child...C is more physically dominating...E is just 2.5 years cognitively older.  He gets bullied by both siblings in different ways.  It is interesting to watch and help him navigate this new territory.  But, he's generally a happy-go-lucky little man and makes the best out of his situation.  He's a great little brother and an awesome big brother on most days.

E is no longer a little girl.  Thankfully the attitude is settling down now that school is into a routine.  She loves learning...loves math, science and social studies.  She is so much fun to teach (the majority of the time).  She's loving dance this year.  She's in preballet and thinks it is great.  She's already all excited about the recital next spring.  I'm hoping she'll love her class all year.  Last year got rough but she's learning new things and I think she'll enjoy the more structure to class that she has this year as opposed to last year.

School is going well again.  It took us awhile to get into a rhythm and days that we have to do errands really mess up our schedule, but we are doing pretty well.  I like the curriculum.  E likes the curriculum.  So, that is good too.  I miss FIAR somedays...the freedom to choose activities and theme and sometimes worry about the rigor of what I chose but I'm certain that it will be fine in the end.

Deconstruction (by us) has started on our house.  Financing is getting worked out.  We joked last night that if the financing doesn't go through, we are going to have quite the mess to clean up!  The baseboards are coming out slowly but surely.  Mom has been a great help each night coming out too.  We are having fun and learning a thing or two already.  I think it gets more fun each time we go out.  It is interesting to start pulling things out and figuring out what is underneath.

Jut and the kids are having fun playing Xwing in the evenings or afternoons.  X would play it every day if he could.  StarWars Wii or Xwing are his favorite things to play.  Jut loves having the kids involved.  They have a great time.

Extreme Home Makeover Daron Edition...And so it begins

After months of waiting, we are finally beginning to remodel our house.  It is hard to believe that we hatched this idea a year ago and are just beginning to move forward with our plans.  We've met with our contractor numerous times since May discussing the possibilities and budget.  He gave us the go ahead two weeks ago to start demolition.  Hopefully he'll start in a couple more weeks.

Thursday night we started the demolition process...Mom came out to help and we pulled the majority of the kitchen cabinets off the wall.

Today was a not great weather day...so Dad decided to take down the cedars that needed to come down in front of the house.  I'd never seen the front prior to today...I really liked it.

This is what the house looked like on Thursday night when we were there...

This was the view when I got out there this evening...Dad, Mom and Jut worked all afternoon but got it all taken out.

Part of me would love to keep the three stone pillars in place...I love the look from the outside...However, I'm not in love with them on the inside of the house...so they'll probably go...but I love the character that they give the outside.

So, our next goal is to take out the trim...without damaging it...that will be next week's project.

Starting First Grade...

 We started our second year of school at home the day after Labor Day with the rest of the public school students in Michigan.  This year we are using the Heart of Dakota Publishing curriculum of Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory.  It is a history-based curriculum that follows American history until the Civil War.  Pilgrims, colonists, pioneers...goes right along with all the traditional Am*erican Girl books that E loves.

E loves reading...not writing...but loves reading.  Her wonderful reading level made picking a curriculum difficult for me because her reading level is far beyond the typical first grade curriculum...and she's not really ready to do reading activities for older grades.  So, we are figuring that out as we go.  My goal for her this year is to get her to write more.  Her math skills are right on target.  She loves science experiments...I can't get her to stop reading.  So, writing is my personal goal for her this year.
 

The Lighthouse Visit

For our vacation this summer, we spent a week with our good friends at their home.  They have five kids and our littlest ones are 6-weeks apart in age.  Our families mesh together so well.  We have a great time.

Well, one of the things that we wanted to do was visit the lighthouse in Ludington where our good friend was a lighthouse keeper for the week.  When we decided to do it, I didn't realized that it was going to take us 1.5 hours to get there.  I did know that it was a two mile week along the beach to get to the lighthouse, but the logical part of my brain didn't really analyze the logistics of trekking 8 kids down the beach for two miles.

So, we all climbed into our vehicles 'right' after lunch to start our journey (We started about 1 hour later than we intended b/c it takes a long time to get 12 people moving in the same direction!).  The trip went smoothly.  We parked.  A park ranger had just finished a demonstration somewhere and came walking by with a wagon full of stuffed animals.  Kids thought that those were pretty cool.  She stayed and chatted with us for quite a while.  Then, we started walking.  The kids were excited to see the water.  They wanted to play in the water.  We were in a time crunch to get to the lighthouse by 5...so we had to keep pushing them along.  That was fairly easy for the first half mile...then we started getting stragglers.  We saw some shipwreck ruins which the kids enjoyed investigating.  When we were about a half-mile out, we could finally see the lighthouse and that put some pep back into the kids steps.

We got there right about 5.  They were closing down the lighthouse for the night.  Thankfully, we knew someone on the 'inside' and they were all waiting for us despite our tardy appearance.  Just as we reached the lighthouse, I looked up and waved to our friend and consequently stubbed the bottom of my big toe on a huge rock and almost lost C out of the backpack carrier as I almost fell to the ground.  I tore a huge chunk out of the bottom of my toe and it started bleeding nicely.  It was a great way to start our visit to the lighthouse.

So, we all go inside the lighthouse.  I head to the bathroom to wash all the sand our of my toe to properly assess the damage.  Lindsey starts the video about the lighthouse for the rest of our group and gives a little presentation.  I bandage up my toe.  We prepare to climb the 120 steps to the top.  It quickly became apparent who would make the assent and who would be staying at the bottom.  C charged right up those winding, see-through steps.  I don't think E even attempted one.  X made about 20, but thankfully he's so light that I just carried him up (but don't tell anyone official that because it is against the rules).  Our friends' twin 4 year-olds also made the climb.  Our friends couldn't.  So, Jut, myself, and 4 kids (plus Lindsey) went to the top.

C loved it at the top.  That boy tried to run around the top like it was a racetrack.  He made me so nervous.  I think he tried climbing the railing too, but we foiled all of those attempts quickly.  It was beautiful at the top.  It would have been really nice to sit and relax up there for a bit, but with C running around like a crazed maniac, that wasn't an option.  

Lindsey took the kids up to the very top where the light was too.  They thought that was awesome.

When we got back down the steps, (just a side note:  C trouped right down them as well as he went up them.) Lindsey's aunt and friend had made us all dinner.  So, we even got to eat at the lighthouse!  That was awesome!  I still can't believe that they had enough food to feed our small army of 12.  It was such a blessing.  I really don't know how we would have gotten everyone back down the beach and then to a restaurant to eat before numerous meltdowns would have occurred.  Dinner was an amazing blessing.  So, that was cool.  Then, Lindsey had popsicles for dessert, too.  Kids thought that it was perfect.

Then, to make life even easier for us, they bent another rule and went and got our vans to save us the trek back down the beach.  So, while the guys went for the vans, we went out to the water to play.  It was perfect.  The kids had a great time.  They finally got to just play like they wanted to do when we arrived.  C loved the water and the gentle waves.  

It was a great day.  I'm so glad we had the opportunity to do it and that we got such VIP treatment once we arrived.  It was fun!!

Picnic at the lighthouse

Popsicle dessert