A Vow

I am vowing to post up to date information but in order to do that I need to get rid of all the old pictures so here goes....

Blogger is being difficult so I will do a couple of posts.


In March we attended Donkey Basketball to benefit one of the classes at Aaron's school.  It is hard to describe so I have included a video, but rest assured that the donkeys are treated kindly.  One of the penelty;s includes having to kiss the donkey on the lips...

A sweet donkey for a sweet boy

Jacob was not certain about getting on the donkey but in the end he enjoyed it.

Add caption

I guess I should explain that after the game they let all the kids ride the donkeys for free!

The Carpet

In March Aaron and I finally decided to just paint the stairs white.  For  A LONG time they have been painted with a coat of primer while we decided what color to paint them.  The problem is that primer holds dirt and the stairs were so difficult to clean.


So I bought a gallon of heavy duty paint and had one of the kids bring it inside.  They brought it to Aaron show him then put it on the couch.  I saw all this and thought, "I should take care of that right now before an accident happens."  When you think something like that, DO IT!!!!!

Moments later Jacob came to me with the can held over his head and asked, "Mama what is this?" And then proceeded to drop the can of paint onto the wool carpet.

The lid popped off and about 3/4 of a gallon spilled out onto the carpet.

Thanks to quick thinking and a $15 carpet cleaner I am SO glad we got at a yard sale, we were able to recover all but 1/4 gallon and things are as good as new.  Except the stairs which STILL need to be painted.

Pirate

Arrggg my Noah is a pirate!  Or at least he was for a few seconds when Jacob put his toy eye patch on him

3/19/11

Jacob got the patch at a birthday party.  It was really funny to watch all the kids who wanted to wear the patch but had such a hard time because they couldn't see right.  Ben on the other hand...well let's just say he was an expert.

You will notice that Noah wears this green striped suit a lot.  It is my favorite and I will be saving it as it is the outfit that will always remind me of Noah.

Wordless

Bad Mommy Moment

On March 17th I had a bad mommy moment.  Here's what went down...
Sophie was playing on my exercise ball while talking on the phone.  Somehow she fell off.  I remember her launching herself off of the ball, she remembers Ben pushing her off. 


Blaming aside, she fell off the ball and hit her head on the open drawer.  Since she was on the phone with a friend she went right on talking.


Hours later she came to me a said, "Mommy there is blood on my shirt and I don't know where it is from.  That is when we discovered that when she hit her head it split open.  As you may know head wounds bleed a lot.  Sophie's hair was matted with blood in a stream down from her cut.


I had her take a bath to clean it out and when she laid down in the water the water turned red with blood. 


In the end it was a minor cut that healed very nicely.  I guess sometimes neglect turns out o.k.

Learned Helplessness

Aaron's grandfather has a theory that if you do a task badly, enough times, you will not be asked to do it again.  I am trying to figure out if that was Aaron's goal when he processed a butternut squash for Noah.

We had recently emptied a #10 can and so as Aaron cubed the squash he put it in the can.  I guess it was handy or something.

When he was done he had the "brilliant" idea of cooking the squash in the #10 can.  I tried to think of reasons why it wasn't a good idea but he had a response for each one so off he went.

While the squash was cooking he went to help bathe the boys so I had the task of processing  the squash after it was cooked.  I dumped it out into colander (which was hard because a #10 can doesn't have handles...) and there on the top of the steaming mass of golden squash for our infant son, was the packet of oxygen absorber.

A few days later I awoke to this on the counter...

I sense a plot here....

Hold Onto Your Seats

I am putting as many of the videos as I can on here.  Sorry for the unload.  I just wanted to get it over with.
#1 Why do babies love dirt? 3/6/11

 #2Noah LOVES to harass Aaron while he is on the computer.  3/18/11

#3 A Sophie Original 3/25/11

#4 Jacob rolled himself up and was crawling like an inchworm and saying, "I'm a caterpillar!!!"  Of course when I grabbed the camera he stopped, but you can get the basic idea. 3/27/11


#5 I have stated this before, but why can't Noah's gut process milk protein, but when he eats a fly, there is no problem? 3/31/11


#6 I can't remember what this one is so it will have to be a surprise.4/7/11

#7 Pure Ridiculousness 4/9/11


That's it folks.  Now I can get back to my regular posting.

Take Three for the Team

Ok these videos contain something vile (as in snow when we are FINALLY free of it), but I have to post them for posterity's sake. 

Camera

Sorry for the lapse.  It all revolved around the fact that I had to get the pictures off the camera and I am a procrastinator. 


So I am back on track.  I have a bunch of videos that I can never seem to load.  I am going to figure it out so there will be "old" videos of Noah.

This one is from January!!  He has changed so much since then.  


Next we have Noah's first hair cut January 25th.  This is the earliest we have ever cut a babies hair, but Noah had so much of it and it was thin in some spots and long in others.


We have more in the future but first I have to see how this turned out.  Hopefully  I was successful!

Conquering Fears

When I was a kid I tried sewing a few things with limited success.  As an adult I thought I was ready to conquer sewing again.  I make a few things like curtains and proudly announced I had mastered the straight line.  But every time I tried sewing clothes I hated it (ok that is too strong.)  It wasn't fun or relaxing. 


Then one day I had an epiphany.  If I didn't like sewing clothes I didn't have to do it.  So I stopped trying.  Then as Sophie's 8th birthday approached I started looking for a baptism dress for her.  If I wanted to pay an arm and a leg I could get one.  Then I found an affordable site, but they were all way to poofy and fancy. 

So I got my mom to help me make Sophie a dress.  She bought the pattern and supplies.  She showed me how to do things step my step.  She did some of the harder parts for me and in the end we had a dress.

Then a friend asked me if I wanted to make an Easter dress with her.  I told her NO!  But some time went by and I am not sure why, I changed my mind.  I went to the store with Sophie.  She picked out fabric and a pattern. And then...I made a dress.  All by myself.  I tried to call my Mom several times and she wasn't home and I was forced to figure things out on my own.

Here is the end result.  It is full of imperfections, but I did it!!!!

The dress

At the same time Sophie caught the knitting bug and made this scarf

The ensemble

Ben

I am not sure if I have posted pictures of Ben in his new glasses.  They are SO cute!!! We got them at Dr. Bauman and Dr. Mitchell's office in Stowe (shameless plug for Dr. Mitchell who is a friend.)
http://www.drrobertbauman.com/

Here is Ben sporting his new glasses and a free tiki hat we got in the mail.  For some reason I can't find it anymore...

March Snow

Spring was coming.  The snow was melting.  And then it snowed and in one single snowstorm we had more snow on the ground than we ever did all winter.  3/7/11

The cars were literally buried.

The snow was too deep to use our wimpy but wonderful snow blower and so the dear sweet man that I am so lucky to have spent HOURS shoveling the snow.  First he had to bring it across the road since there was no place to dump it.  Finally we just moved his car and used that space to dump snow.  We lost a parking spot and created a mountain of snow.

The kids had no place to play because the snow was too deep for them to walk in.  Since the cars were buried, they were able to climb right on top.  Then they spent some time jumping off the car into the deep snow.

I am pretty sure eventually we will see grass.  When we do, I'll let you know.

Equality

I need to start with a disclaimer.  I love each and every one of my children equally.  However one of them is in a rapid rate of growth and change and as such he has a lot more pictures and posts on here.

There, now I can go on with another Noah unload.

I know Noah has a funny face here, but he is so cute in this sled.  He loves being outside and doesn't seem to mind the cold (so long as he is bundled in multiple layers.) 2/26/11

Noah and Jacob are pals.  Jacob takes pretty good care of Noah and Noah loves Jacob.  Here Jacob was watching a show and wanted Noah to watch too.3/3/11

Somebody is getting VERY mobile and discovered my plant.  Unlike Ben as a baby Noah just likes to play in the dirt rather than eat it.3/6/11

Do you think these two are brothers?

Ben 3/15/05

Jacob put his sunglasses on Noah.  I thought he would pull them off, but he loved them.  I even think he knew he looked cool. 3/7/11

 

3/14/11

3/15/11

And in case you think that Noah looks just like Ben...

He is very clearly Jacob's brother too. 3/30/07

And finally (I think so I can claim equality...)

Sophie 3/29/03 There are some similarities, but I think she looks the most different.

A Visit

On February 23rd we went to visit Aaron's sister.  Good food, good conversation and best of all the cousins got to play.

 

 

On That Note

Speaking of imagination.... Here are some photos of Jacob's creative talents at work.

Flour dust makes great tracks

Up close

A somewhat ridiculous competition to build the biggest Duplo gun.

Space Shoes

On January 25th Jacob had a friend over.  We are doing a preschool share with her (and maybe someday we will actually have it.  We have had to cancel so many times for illness.  Has this been a hard winter for anyone else?)


Anyway...after preschool I was visiting with her mom and she came into the room.  Her mom asked her to take her boots off and she said, "I can't! They are my space shoes.  Then Jacob came in with his space shoes and they got in their rocket.  They were all decked out in space attire.  Isn't imagination wonderful?!

A second photo from a different angle so that you can see their space shoes.

Noah

1/20/11

1/21/11

Same, but up close you can see the bruise on his nose from falling out of the high chair.

Daddy likes to play and Noah doesn't seem to mind it at all 2/6/11

My favorite outfit.  My sister Kathryn has great taste! 2/21/11

Bo is such a patient dog.  He lets Noah play with his ears and tail and collar and Noah climbs all over him and he just takes it.

Bath is the sink 2/14/11

Prepping for his first hair cut. 1/25/11

It was so hard to make that cut, but he was bald in in some spots and long in others this just evened it all out.

Aaron gave him a dum dum and he took that thing down to the stick in a matter of seconds it seemed!

Clubs

Back in the beginning of the school year Sophie and her classmates made a club.  It turned out to be a great learning experience.  Lessons learned...


#1 Clubs must include everyone.  This was learned when Sophie told me the members of the club and it was every girl in the class except one.  Not cool!  Sophie was very mature and went to the other girls and advocated for the girl as did some of the other girls.


#2 Clubs including money are tricky.  This club was called Cookie N' Co.  Its purpose was to make and sell cookies to earn a pizza party.  Then one of the other parents suggested that the girls donate a portion of their profit to a charity.  It was a great idea and the girls did it, but it just wasn't anything a bunch of 8 and 9 year olds would have come up with on their own.  Then in the end they all had an argument because some of them wanted to donate all the money to a local farm that had a fire and some just wanted to do a portion.


#3 Decision making as a group is difficult.  The first meeting lasted hours as the girls discussed and tried to figure out how much to charge, where and how much to donate, what to call the club, what kind of cookies to make, who would advertise, where to sell the cookies (they never did decide on that one).  Plus 8-9 year old girls are fickle even when a decision was made it would change several times.

#4 In order for a business plan to work you need a venue to sell your wares.  The girls didn't have it for weeks so we just made dough and froze it until we could figure out how to sell the cookies.

#5 Clubs are short lived.  The girls lost interest in the club so I was doing everything.  I finally just baked all the cookies one night and said we were done and that if Sophie wanted to have her friends over to bake cookies for fun they were more than welcome.  Really I think that is all they ever really wanted to do.

#6 Fair weather friends...there were a couple of girls who never came to the Friday meetings to make cookie dough, but when it came time to sell the cookies for real money, they were right there like they had been part of the group all along.  When the money for the pizza party was collected Aaron and I encouraged Sophie to exclude those who didn't contribute (I know it contradicts # 1).  I am pleased to say that Sophie didn't care, she just wanted to have fun with her friends and all were invited.

#6 Earning money is fun!  After the cookies were baked I brought them to the school and the girls brought out a table and made a price list and those things sold like hot cakes.  With in a few minutes the girls had $40!

The girls that were able to make it for the pizza party

Same girls without a pizza box.  We had a chinese fire drill where I pulled over and the girls had 10 seconds to throw a snowball at the windshield since they couldn't all trade seats (one was in a booster seat, another was the only one tall enough to sit in the front...)