Happy 3rd Birthday Weston!

Yes, another November birthday! Weston was our wonderful surprise. It was 2005, Jack was 5, Nick was 7 and Ben was 9 and we thought that our family was done growing. Yet God had another plan for us. After giving all of our baby stuff away (except for crib and changing table), and all of the maternity clothes, we found out we were expecting baby #4. Friends and family rallied around us and we were given back some of the items that were given away. Everyone was so very generous, even throwing us a couple of baby showers. We were blessed in so many ways.

Weston is a beautiful 3-year-old, complete little ball of energy, personality, and love. His brothers adore him, as do his parents!

Happy Birthday Weston, we love you!

Happy 10th Birthday Nick!

It was November 25, 1998, the day before Thanksgiving. The big dinner was going to be held in Kalamazoo at Jean and David's house, and we were planning on bringing a bunch of food down. We were also planning on hosting some of Scott's siblings at our home. I spent most of the day cleaning and shopping and getting ready. Nick wasn't due for another couple of weeks.

But then, around midnight, the pain started coming, and coming, and coming! A neighbor came over to stay with Ben and we went to the hospital. I was admitted around 2:00 a.m. and he came into this world at 5:08 a.m. Our beautiful Thanksgiving baby!

Scott's siblings drove up from Kalamazoo, grabbed all the food out of our fridge, ate the big dinner without us, but then came over on Saturday with leftovers. It certainly was a memorable Thankgiving!

Reasons I've Been Neglecting My Blog

1. I've joined the cult of Facebook.
2. Mom was here for the weekend and we tore up the town.
3. Been working on sending out fundraising letters for the Forest Hills Educational Foundation.
4. House projects: new entryway from garage, turning dining room into home office, and taking down cupboards in kitchen to make it more open.
5. Laundry, laundry, laundry
6. Ben has joined the cult of Facebook and World of Warcraft and I have to arm wrestle him for the computer.
7. Entertaining friends for coffee...which turns into lunch...which turns into "oh boy, the kids will be home from school soon!"
8. I guess there's just not much that's been blog-worthy.
9. I've caught the Twilight Fever.
10. Did I mention that I'm now on Facebook? It's a time vampire I tell you.

One More Flat Iron Story

So I'm in the bathroom straightening my hair (it's the straight look these days, my friends), and Nick comes in. He says to me, "Is your hair supposed to be steaming?"

Recent Pics to Share

Scott's sibs sent me some pictures of their cute kiddos.

Scott's brother Danny and Tina live in Chicago with their little ones Kai and Corina

Scott's sister Amanda and Joe live in St. Louis

Here are Louis, Tom, Norah and Hannah

Scott's sister Martha lives in Kansas City
Here are Tagen, Talen and Sean about to carve their pumpkins--look out for that knife!

Jack was a scary swamp monster


Weston was a very cute Elmo thanks to a hand-me-down from Tara


Benjamin did his own make-up, I sprayed his hair black

Nicholas loved his new Batman costume, the wings were pretty sweet

Scott and I were Romans at a Halloween party last weekend.

Meijer Gardens on a beautiful Fall day

Jack and his buddy Jacob

Their early Christmas present, Guitar Hero World Tour


View of the Thornapple River from my friend Sheryl's house


Her beautiful driveway, it's gorgeous this time of year


Wedding in Big Rapids with college friends



Our friends the Rasche family. Jon is wearing the shirt we got him from Dubrovnik, Croatia. Thanks for mowing our yard while we were gone!

What's That Smell?

The other day I'm in the bathroom flat ironing my hair with my wonderful new straightener. I hear Scott ask, "Weston, do you need a change or do I smell mommy's hair burning?"

Nice...

How Your Kids Know You Are Sneaking Their Halloween Candy

• They realize that you are putting them to bed way early so that you can rummage through their loot
• They've counted every piece
• They can hear the crackle of a wrapper being opened a mile away
• Their supply of chocolate is down, yet they still have lots of lollipops left
• You go to find their bag, but they've hidden it from you
• You think they won't miss it, but they do

Cousin Cuteness in St. Louis

Scott's sister Amanda sent some pictures of her cute brood of kiddos.
And hubby Joe too!

Hannah, Norah, Louis and Tom in front of their new tent.

They rented an excavator to plant some new trees in their yard.

How cool!

It's Our Anniversary!

Has it really been 17 years?

Go Green!

Scott and I both went to Michigan State University, so of course we'll be cheering on the Spartans today.

GO GREEN!

At Least He'll Eat an Apple

Last week Jack called from school to say that the hot lunch choices got messed up and I needed to bring him a cold lunch because the hot lunch choice was not to his liking. To appease my picky eater, I listed off what I was going to bring him, which included an apple (he barely eats any fruit or vegetables.) He then said to me, "Make it a Honey Crisp cut up with the skin taken off."

I could just HEAR the secretaries' eyes rolling.

Recent Observations

My brake light comes on only when I'm turning left.

There is a huge difference between a $20 flat iron and a $100 flat iron.

It seems like I never sit down, except when I'm on the computer or driving or at church.

I really need to start going to sleep sooner.

I'm always putting something away: clothes, dishes, toys, clutter, groceries.

Sometimes it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

You Know You are Not Getting Enough Sleep When...

You fall asleep and keep nap-jerking awake while waiting in the driveway of your son's piano teacher's house.

That was me.
Today.
At 5:30.

The Batmen are Coming

Scott's sister Martha sent me these pictures of her two boys. Tagen is on the right, Talen on the left. What awesome Batmen! Martha lives in Kansas City with her husband Sean.

Goodbye Crib!

Weston at 8 months

After 12 years and 4 babies, and lots of teeth marks, it's time to take down the crib for good. Weston is now sleeping in the bottom bunk, Jack is on the top, and Nick has his own room. And yes, Weston's pillow has pink on it. It's his Dora pillow. About the only pink item the boys own.

The crib, changing table, and sheets were donated to a family who recently were called on to care for a family member's 4-month-old baby.

Weston is a big boy now!

Next up...potty training! Wooooo Hooooo, can't wait!

Jack's Track Meet

Jack with his track coaches, Mrs. Miller and Mr. Mainero

Jack is rounding the turn

Weston loved to cheer them on

Jack is quite proud of himself, and I am proud of him!

That gate could have kept them entertained all evening

Almost home, a beautiful full moon welcomed us to our street

BEWARE, PAINFUL POST AHEAD: Don't let the happy pictures fool you. After 2 1/2 hours of sitting on the hard bleachers I started to reach for anything sharp to stab in my eye because that would have been better than the agony I was going through.

Really.

I am so not cut out to be the sideline sports mom, for many reasons I won't go into. But any mom who has to drag younger siblings to the events can relate to my story.

When we arrived at the high school I first had the sheer joy of pulling a shoeless toddler through the parking lot. Weston refused to put on his sandals like I so politely asked him when we were in the van. I even attempted to put them on to no avail, he kicked them off. And then he refused to let me carry him. Jack was walking way ahead, obviously excited, and I had to ask him repeatedly to stick with us. The parking lot and driveway were both very crowded because all 8 elementary schools were competing. It was slow going, but when we got to the field Jack found his team and I found the bleachers.

I found a seat by a mom I knew, then Weston proceeded to climb all the way to the top, and then down again, and then up again, and then down again. I was cringing with each step, hoping that he wasn't going to bite it. I noticed some bees over to the side of our bench hovering over some leftover food in the stands. Mental note, bees in the stands, stay away from them. I got a phone call, and before I could reach for him Weston walked right over to the bees and like any curious toddler, stepped on them. He immediately screamed and cried. All eyes were now on me. I was certainly out of the running for Mom of the Year with this one. My shoeless son just stepped on a swarm of bees while I was talking on my cell phone. I was completely horrified. I scooped him up and asked another mom to keep an eye out for Jack on the field since I had to take care of Wes. I carried him sobbing back to the van. NOW he let me carry him. I used about 20 wipes to clean his feet to get a good view of the damage. Not too bad, not much swelling, and only one sting that I could see. He had stopped crying and was just whimpering. I then grabbed some band-aids and he let me put on his sandals. NOW he let me put on his sandals. A little lesson learned, huh? He kept saying, "Those mean bees." Darn right, my dear child.

I then walked with him to the concession stand to get some ice. We were the 5th bee sting patient that evening. We walked back over to the stands and Weston found us yet a different seat in the bleachers, far away from those mean bees. We took off his sandals, put on the ice, took off the ice, put on the ice, took off the ice, put on the ice, took off the ice, and then put on the band-aids for a little emotional healing. I also put his sandals back on. Ahhhhhhh. All better now. But the calm and quiet was short-lived. After a couple of events, Wes realized that the track meet was as brutal as I already knew it would be and whines, "I want to go. No more mommy. Let's go now." Imagine him repeating that over and over and over. Jack eventually ran two races total, each lasting for about 1 minute. See what I mean about that sharp object in the eye?

Then things started to get interesting. A mom had come up and sat by us. That did help a bit, someone to talk to and commiserate with. Here's her story. She had 2 girls with her and was watching her boy compete. She lamented to me that her husband was out of town or else she would have left the girls at home. I hear ya sista, Scott wasn't able to help me out either. Her troubles began when one of her daughters spilled juice into her purse right before coming to the meet. Nice. Then she held up an old video camera and declared that she was out of tape. Oh just wait, it gets even better. Then her little girl announced quite loudly that she had to go poop. Wearing underwear and not fully potty-trained yet, and mom not wanting to miss her boy run, she didn't blink an eye and whipped out a pull up. She quickly changed her daughter right there in the stands while I was thinking, "glad I only had to deal with a bee sting." Her daughter did her business, don't know where or when because I didn't dare look, her son ran his race, and she then went to the bathroom with her daughters and asked me to look after the camera with no film.

Now I need a little audience participation. Whose story is more brutal?

That Royal Clipper sailboat is looking very nice right now...

On a brighter note, it was a beautiful afternoon and evening, complete with a gorgeous full moon, and Jack had a great time. That's all that matters, huh?

A Promise to Myself

I WILL get all of my pictures printed off and put into albums.

There, I've said it out loud.

Need to make it happen
soon
seriously

We're talkin' back to 2006, people.

Pathetic

Can I Do This? Well, I Just Did!

Jack and his buddy Jacob before the parade

Since Laurie already wrote a post about something we did together, can I just give you all a link to her blog? There, I just did. I know, I'm totally lame, but why re-create the wheel?

Click on her link to read about the really cool Forest Hills Central Homecoming parade float which she spearheaded and tons of moms and dads helped out with. The theme this year was Celebrations Around the World so our float was the Running of the Bulls. It was so incredibly fun, especially seeing the kids on the float so happy to be throwing candy and eating their fair share too.

And yes, we know that in Spain they don't actually ride the bull, and the matador wears a different outfit. But this costume was colorful and cool so we went with it.

Thanks to Laurie, our wonderful PTO President, for having us join the parade!

The Black Banana

Still chuckling about this one...

Tara and I have lamented to eachother about fruit flies. They are gross, we can't stand them, and we wish we didn't have to deal with them. Why can't we have our fruit sitting out on the counter without these pesky insects multiplying and flying around? (I know, I know, if that's the worst of our problems we are pretty lucky. This is just a blog after all, so I'm blogging...)

Two days ago the diaper bag smelled like banana. It happened to be in the van at the time, we quite often leave it there. I looked in and low and behold there was a banana in there, right on top. Still yellow in some spots but clearly past its prime. Tossed the banana, problem solved.

Yesterday I got into the van and noticed fruit flies buzzing around, well, they don't actually buzz but you know what I mean. Took out the trash bag that was in the van because more than likely there was an apple core or a banana peel in there. Problem solved.

I got in the van today, it smelled like banana and the fruit flies were still flying. Hmmmmm, I thought can't even deal with that right now because I'm on my way to take Weston over to Tara's and then I was off to a meeting.

While I was gone, Tara was wondering if I had left Little Guy a sippie cup. So she opened the diaper bag and a swarm (not sure if it was a swarm but makes for a good story) of fruit flies came raging out of the diaper bag. She looked in and rustled around a bit (in much better light, mind you) and found a BLACK, yes BLACK banana in there from who knows when! She immediately zipped it back up and looked forward to telling me about how I almost infested her house. Just kidding...but it did make for a funny story since we both hate fruit flies, really, who doesn't! I thoroughly cleaned out the diaper bag when I got home, problem solved!

Our Little Trip

Scott and I spent two glorious weeks without the boys on a beautiful 5-masted sailboat called the Royal Clipper. Can you believe that we actually came home? My favorite part was the food...I didn't have to create a shopping list and buy it, I didn't have to prepare it, and I didn't have to clean up after it. We were treated to a buffet for breakfast and lunch. Each dinner was a 5-course sit down affair served by a waiter named Jun, who I had a little crush on. The crush was innocent, mind you! Although he was cute as a button, he was probably half my age. I just wanted to bring him home so that I could get a 5-course meal served to me every night, complete with sorbet! As you can imagine, I could certainly get used to first class treatment like that!

We started in Venice and ended in Rome and stopped in some amazing ports in between. My dad and Peggy were with us along with my step-sister Lucia and her boyfriend Brian, who we really enjoyed getting to know more. There were a total of 17 of us in our little group. The tour was put together by Linda, a travel agent and friend of Dad and Peggy, who also traveled with us. My sister and her family, who live in Belgium, joined us in Rome toward the end of our trip. We spent an afternoon and evening with them, walking around the city and having a wonderful dinner. This trip was a very generous gift from my father and step-mother. Thanks, Dad and Peggy. What a fabulous vacation!

We also want to thank our team (yes, a team) of babysitters who were awesome: Our neighbor and primary babysitter Tonni Adamson, my mother, my Aunt Joan, and Rich and Patty (Scott's dad and step-mom.) We are so lucky you were able to take care of our boys. Would you even consider doing it again? We might have to make something like this an annual event! Our trip couldn't have happened without you. Thank you!

Here is just a sample of the pictures. More later. You'll see that I attempted to be a little "arty" with my photos because really, how many landscape pictures and photos of cool buildings can one take?