A Few More for Good Measure….

Here Toby is all suited up in his bug shirt to go for a walk with Daddy and Jaska.  The mosquitoes are bad on the trails behind our house now.  We don’t go back there without a bug shirt.  Doesn’t he look like he’s ready for adventure? 

Bone, Bone, and more Bone!  All nine volumes of Bone! Everyone is reading it.  Magali is reading it.  Zach is reading it.  Magali is reading it to Ben. Last night I picked up the volume Zach is on now.  I flipped it open somewhere in the middle and started reading.  I read until the end.  They’re catchy.  Now I find myself wondering, “Where did Bony Bone and Smiley Bone disappear to, anyway?”  I might have a better guess if I hadn’t started in the middle of volume four.  

For the last several days I’ve been thinking about spring rolls.  I’ve never made them before – until today.  They were very tasty and definitely took care of my craving.  With Magali’s help, the time in preparing them was cut in half.  I made a peanut sauce too.  It was all very good, but with room for improvement.  If you have a favourite spring roll recipe… pass it on!  

What else?  Hmmm….. every time the sky blackens Zach can’t stop looking for signs of tornadoes.  Not because he is scared, but he wants to see one.  He figures this is his big chance, living here, since they are less common up north.  We were joking about being storm chasers in our minivan with four kids and an au pair (who also really wants to see a tornado).  The kids are all for it.  Me… not so much… mainly because it would mean getting them all to bed so late….. again.

Though it may not be interesting to most, I will also say that last weekend we moved the boys’ beds to the basement.  We spent today moving dressers, books, etc. down.  All four of them are sleeping down there now and I must say, it is quite a nice bedroom.  The space is getting utilized so much more, space is freed up in other places (such as moving my sewing “station” from the living room to the now-spare bedroom), and the boys seem to be loving it.  The biggest challenge is getting Noah to go to sleep.  Stopping naps seems like the best solution, but by mid-afternoon I usually can’t tolerate him any longer and get him to nap.  Oh well, we had to face this eventually because whether upstairs or in the basement he was going to have to move out of our room and in with the brothers before the new baby arrives.  Might as well sort it out now.  Because little does he know, but after our road trip (and probably the big camping trip too) we’re going to sort out the using-the-toilet thing too.  One thing at a time.

Like a New Dad

 

I came home from my cello lesson to two boys on the street corner, very excitedly shouting and gesturing something. “Baby praying mantises. We found baby praying mantises!”
And ever since I have listened to Zach, sounding like a new father, “Look at him. He’s so smart. Whenever I hold something above his head he reaches up to it. Look how he turns his head to look at me.” Or, “When Skype rang he must have heard it because he turned his head in that direction.”
Very cute.

Fun… Still Fun… And… Someone’s Crying

Everyone and Their Dog

On Saturday we hit the beach.  The first time we visited this beach, I was struck by the beauty of it.  I envisioned summer days frolicking on its sands, camping, biking, dog enjoying some freedom. Ah – so peaceful. This time I was struck by the overabundance of people – and their dogs.  (Ok, we were on the designated dog beach.)  Jaska had to be leashed, obviously.  He couldn’t play with other dogs, he doesn’t like water.  Really, it wasn’t much fun for him.  As we left, we noticed that the other beaches weren’t as busy.  We won’t take the dog again until it’s cold and everyone else stops going.  Even if the dog didn’t have fun and even if there were too many other humans for my liking, we did have a fun day.   My illusion of passing peaceful weekends camping in the park has passed.  Admittedly, I’m just to much of a bush chick.  

Peeping

This is what we do for fun in the city. There was a sprinkler going in the next yard – watering the grass and a large portion of the fence – and the boys were getting a kick out of waiting until it hit them through the cracks.

Bee Farm

All week I was wishing I didn’t sign up for this bee farm tour today.  It was just too much.  I was ready for a break.  On top of that everyone has colds and this morning I woke up feeling it too.  Plus morning sickness seems to have resurfaced this week.  Probably from fatigue.  

Well….. it was SO worth it.  What a great place!  Everyone had a good time and we stayed a lot longer than I had anticipated.  The presentation of the bees was great and there were so many other things for the kids to do.  I love their set up and got ideas for our farm that we’ll have one day!  I think we’ll be going back sometime.

Holding drones.

The pedal go carts were a hit.

Duck races.

Sand and lots of sand toys.

Hmmmm…..

He did know how to spell it. And then… I guess he forgot. For a long time he’s signed everything with “Gabe”, and just recently started signing his full name. Time for a review. Although, I do like this version.

Rambling

I’m just having my nightly snack – tonight a bowl of granola cereal with farm fresh goat milk – and I thought I’d do a little blogging…. a smattering of everything.  I’m having one of those weeks where the days are too full and I can barely keep up with food and laundry and getting us to where we need to go, but everyone is happy and having fun. I’m just hoping I can keep it up until the end of Friday!  The big boys are in a day camp doing stuff about ancient Egypt, medieval times, dinosaur fossils, and forensics.  They’re happy.  We’ve been keeping a steady incoming stream of new Spiderwick books, including the Notebook for Fantastical Observations for their own observations, and lots of Bone books.  They’re doing a lot of reading, even little bits in the car, trying to overcome their reading-induced carsickness before the big road trip.  After a long, often difficult transition, Noah is really warming up to Magali and spending lots of time playing with her outside.  Ben is enjoying the times that Magali reads the Bone books to him, as well as my reading of the Spiderwick Chronicles to him. Two evenings ago the boys and I all went biking.  Zach and Gabe on their own bikes, Ben on the trailer bike behind me, and Noah behind that in the jogger.  Zach returned home to work on a project and everyone else wanted to keep biking so we went over to a friend’s for a very quick hello, but mostly just to see how long it would take us.  It was 5.5km round trip and the boys all did very well. After the day camp today we spent the rest of the afternoon swimming in Graeme’s uncle and aunt’s pool.  What a great place to be on a hot day like today.  Tomorrow is supposed to be roasting, too, and we’ve been invited over to friends’ to swim after the day camp.  After that we’ll head to Ultimate Frisbee.  See what I mean?  The days this week are crammed and I’m really quite content to just stay at home.  

Yesterday evening I went out for supper.  It was a Mom’s night out with other homeschoolers.  I was the “guest speaker”.  They wanted to talk to a real, live adult who was home-schooled and turned out “normal”.  Wait until they get to know me!  Anyway…. it was fun….. and I enjoyed the tips, ideas, trials and errors, and thoughts of all the mom’s there.

I had my first cello lesson yesterday, which was great.  Just before my cereal (and blogging) I was practicing.  It feels like when I first started playing the violin.  Hopeless!  Well, not quite.  I did improve in one practice session and I know that, as with the violin, some consistent practice will work “wonders”.   

The book I’m trying to find time to read right now is Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual Spatial Learner (an acquisition from Mom’s bookshelf during our recent trip – thanks, Mom!). It applies to at least a couple of my children and I’m finding it very interesting/helpful.

I had a midwife appointment this afternoon and all is well.  Heart rate is good.  I’m measuring normal.  But I’m still holding out hope for twins!  Ultrasound is booked July 29th.  I’m going to try to find out the sex of the baby.  Do you want to know too?

Well, my cereal  is gone and my bed is calling.

Happy Dad’s Day!

Here are our wonderful, crazy boys with their wonderful, crazy dad!  Oh, how I love them all!  

And here is the freezer paper t-shirt “we” made as a Father’s Day gift.  

Here it is in the making.

And here is the part that the boys contributed – side profile shots.  I sized them down and flipped one around, traced them on the freezer paper, found a font I liked for “offspring”, and voila!  Magali is planning to re-use the stencil for a t-shirt for herself, except she will replace “offspring” with something like “au pair 2009″.  I would like one for myself too, and perhaps I’ll add a “?” on the belly.

Brotherly Love