maddux' first homework assignment

so i might have taken the lead on this one... he did help select all of the pictures and chose how to lay them out, mostly.  and you can see that he wrote his name under his picture in the middle with a little help on the "m".  he is very pleased with the outcome and can't wait to take it to school tomorrow.  love.

family sunday

our church had a "family" service today.  childcare/classes were only available for children 3 and under, everyone else was to join their families in the sanctuary together.  we volunteered to work as family greeters before the first service and the kids thought that it was pretty fun to hand out crayons and coloring cards to the children coming into the sanctuary - although, there weren't very many in this early service.  i had every intention to take a picture of them but, alas, i forgot - again.

since madelyn and mason didn't have sunday school, they had to come with matt and me to ours because we teach 2s and 3s and did not have the week off. madelyn loves getting to come and 'help' with the 'little' kids.  maddux isn't in our class (by design - we want him to hear about jesus from others too), but when we go to hear the bible story all together he is always happy to see us.  he was extra surprised to see madelyn and mason too!

after church they had a picnic hot dog lunch.  the line was very long and after about 20 minutes of waiting it was our turn.  and then they ran out of hot dogs.  it was already about an hour after when we would normally have had lunch so even though they went to get more hot dogs, we could not wait.  the kids did not handle that well.  to say they were disappointed would be an understatement.  two were crying.  but they were happy once we stopped to eat in a restaurant.  and we weren't even the only ones from church there!  i think they were a little overwhelmed by more business than they usually see on a sunday (judging by their expressions and the way they were racing around - not because we have ever eaten there before).

we will be looking forward to the next family sunday!  i think they are planning on doing them every five weeks or so.  love.

marathon day

today was literally and figuratively "marathon day"!  i got up with matt at 5:30am to see him off to the akron marathon and had the intention of taking a picture of him with his bib on, but i forgot.  he was running a leg of the relay portion of the marathon.  his leg was 5.5 miles.  we were a little worried that he wasn't going to be able to get out of there in time to make it to mason's 9:30am soccer game so i was going to have to try and coach with the other three sitting on the sideline.  we didn't want them to be unsupervised so one of my friends answered my plea for help and offered to bring her two kids up to watch the game with them.  just as we were leaving i got a call from matt that he was almost home and would make it for the game.  whew.  a quick text and my friend didn't have to make the trip over to the fields.

mason sitting out with some teammates (2 of 6 kids in their family).

mason saw a little more actin than normal in today's game.  i think he is getting a little more aggressive in that he will go after the ball instead of waiting for it to come to him.

mason and maddux playing a little one on one in an empty goal during madelyn's game.

madelyn got to play goalie again and was able to keep several goals out.  she is showing improvement too.  i think that having a practice each week where they go over rules and strategies for playing has really helped her understand what she should be doing and how to think about the game.

maddux is still a hard core fan of the color orange so we just had to get a picture next to this orange car in the parking lot after the games.  now that he points them out, it is amazing how many orange cars there are!

no rest for matthew.  he was able to take a quick shower though and eat some lunch before his next task!  net on the schedule was filling rice bags/meals at church for haiti.  maddux wasn't old enough so i thought it would be good for daddy to take the two bigs and i would stay home with the littles (i also had to prepare for our evening activity and clean after such a crazy busy week - not a lot of rest for me either).  the kids were super, super excited!  haiti was our mission for vbs over the summer and this was the last event before the medical bus leaves for haiti.

all ready for food packaging

madelyn and mason could not have been happier about their jobs - madelyn got to put in the "vitamins" and mason got to put in the vegetables.  matt said it went pretty well but that it was a little stressful making sure they both did their jobs correctly while keeping up the pace and doing his own job - actually, he didn't tell me what his job was...

and they got to sign the ceiling of the medical bus too.  madelyn has been able to sign it three times now!  and mason has signed it twice.  i thought that it was so sweet (and, yes, i even thought that it was romantic) that matt found my name from vbs and added his own.

when they were done they came home to pick up the rest of us so that we could go over to a local park for our mops family picnic.  the power went off at some point before we left so matt had to manually close the garage.  in fact the power was out most of our way to the park.  we talked about the power being out while we waited for our coordinator's husband to get there with the pizza for our dinner (everyone brought sides or desserts).  and, yet, it never occurred to us that the power was out.  the pizza shop couldn't bake our pizza!  ugh!  so we called places in a wider and wider radius until we found one with power so that we could order some new pizzas.  we were all a little hungrier than was ideal when the pizza finally got there, but we still had a nice time.

for some reason, matt picked this weekend (when we are crazily over-scheduled) to have mulch delivered.  so when we got home from the picnic, he changed his clothes and got to work in the yard!  how 'lucky' for him, he had three 'helpers'.  

i brought the kids in for baths and put them to bed while matt continued to work outside.  and then he finally got to/had to come inside, take another shower and at long last, lay down!

he is amazing.  love.

more "cheese"

when we went to manning's 15 month check-up they asked if he is riding on toys yet.  um...  yeah, we haven't even tried.  so i, of course, ran home and got out all of the riding toys and let him have at it.  for the record, he can 'ride' toys.  i was trying to get some video of his scooting skills but he just kept saying "cheese"until i actually wanted a video of him saying "cheese".  and that is his lovey and his thumb.  i have to hide the lovey during the day to try and limit the thumb time.  love.

keeping boys out of trouble

manning is turning into a little tornado of destruction like maddux was, so i pulled out an old trick and sat him on the counter while i baked.  he exhibited some extreme self-control as i was adding bananas to the banana bread.  he would put a hand up, catch himself and put it back down.  he did not touch a single thing he wasn't supposed to the entire time.  i was pretty impressed.  

as his reward, i gave him the spoon and 'empty' bowl to do a little sampling.  when i gave it to him, he didn't know what to do so he questioningly stirred in the bowl and watched for my reaction.  i told him that he could eat it and put the spoon into his mouth for a taste.  with a big grin, he got down to business.  love.

a girl snack

like i mentioned in an earlier post, madelyn has been a little jealous that she doesn't get to be snack friend at school any more.  but when snacks came up as an option for chayil (a k-5 girls only mid-week bible study at church that she started this year), madelyn saw it as her chance.  i spoke with her teachers last week to make sure that bringing in a snack was really an option and then madelyn and i tried to decide what would be best.  we came up with these 'butterflies'.  i have seen them several times on pintrest and thought they were cute and easy.

but then i woke up sick today.  it took every ounce of energy i had to make the 15 for her class after school with her.  matt took the three bigs to church by himself.  he probably would have opted to stay home but madelyn looks forward to chayil all week and would have been devastated to miss - especially since she was finally getting to bring a snack.

thanks to daddy, she had a wonderful evening!  love.

soccer princess

madelyn did not feel like wearing athletic wear to soccer practice.  so instead she wore her tunic that she had worn to school which has a large satin bow and rhinestone, jean shorts, knee high heart socks, a bun and glitter tiara headband.  she loved wearing all her pink and sparkles for soccer.  our little soccer princess.

matt had a board meeting after work so i had to take all of the kids to soccer practice (usually he just takes mads to practice).  we were doing fine until maddux started begging to go to the bathroom in an urgent manner.  on the way there i realized that manning had a leaking poopie diaper (i realized this while i was carrying him - yuck) and that i only had two wipes left in the diaper bag.  extra yuck.  at least we were outside so no one else could smell it.  love.

"i love you"

after a lot of practice, maddux was pretty proud of getting at least the fingers right for signing "i love you".  love.

tuesday tip - think beyond pizza

the pizza wheel has become one of my multipurpose kitchen items.  i use it for cutting pizza (of course) but we use it for cutting dough for bread and pretzels, dicing some fruits and veggies and my favorite use - cutting peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at lunch time!

when i am making four to six pb&js at the same time, the cutting can be the most annoying part.  enter the pizza wheel.  zip, zip, zip, zip and four sandwiches are cut in half.  i find it particularly helpful for manning's sandwich because i often cut it into one inch squares for easier eating.  so much faster than a knife!  yes, it does make one more thing to clean up but i think it is worth it.

do you have something you use in the kitchen outside of its normal duties?

love.

letter "c" snack friend

maddux was snack friend last tuesday (i forgot to take a picture, but we made the peanut butter oatmeal 'bees' i have made before) and mason was snack friend today.  mason's class is doing the letter "c" this week so we tried to go with that theme.  and because i am me, i could not just do carrots, celery and cumbers or cheese and crackers.  after looking at a few options, mason selected these "apple cars".

they were easy enough to make - apple slices, toothpicks and grapes. but i always forget that apples brown and have to be cut the morning of... sigh.  i did think about throwing lemon juice on the apples but i never like that taste.  thankfully, the morning went relatively smoothly because i got up extra early and did not make breakfast.

mason's 24 'cars' for his friends

mason stuck with the theme and picked a car to bring for show-and-tell too.  they really love getting to be the snack friend.  i think madelyn gets a little sad that she doesn't get to any more.

the boys were very excited that there were a few left for them to eat when we got home!  see how manning is saying "cheese" for the camera.

it was also picture day for the boys (madelyn had hers several weeks ago) but i failed to take a picture of them before we left this morning.  they were already in their coats so i just went without a nice one.

i did try to take a picture before mason went into his room but it is literally right next to the front door in a very narrow hallway - it was impossible to get a good one.

over breakfast i had asked the boys how they were going to smile for their pictures and without a second thought maddux put his fingers in his mouth and pulled back his cheeks to make a silly face.  i was very happy to hear from his teacher that he smiled nicely come picture time.  i asked them again after school to show me their smiles.

another full day of preschool!  love.

15 month check-up

i had to take manning in for his 15-month check-up this morning.  he fell asleep on the ride over - at 9am!  seriously, this kid needs to not wake up so early.  he wasn't his chatty and friendly self for the doctor and nurse but he did hold still really, really well.

here are his stats...

length: 35 inches (99th percentile)
weight: 29 lbs. 6 oz. (98th percentile)
head: 19-1/2 inches (97th percentile)

yep.  still a beast.  she said that his weight is right on track with his same growth curve (we - matt and i - have been asking about this since we excluded meat and dairy; the doctor has no concerns about the change).  she asked me if he had his molars yet and i initially said, no, but then i remembered him getting some back teeth before the eye teeth.  yep.  he already has them it has just been so long that i had forgotten!

manning is walking all over and starting to think that he can run.  he loves waving and saying "hi" to everyone he sees and often waves and says "bye" after we or they have long since left.  he has learned that madelyn's bus is the second one and will 'run' towards the bus stop (aka the end of our driveway) calling "sissy" with a big smile.  he is starting to really try to form new words that i repeat for him (which the doctor told me was a little ahead of schedule).  today he said, "ball" for the first time.

manning enjoys 'running' just a little too much and his naps seem to be getting shorter so i think he is really going to keep me on my toes fairly soon.  i better rest up!  love.

stop talking sissy, it's early

manning (and the other boys) calls madelyn "sissy" (mason is the only one who really calls her "madelyn" on a regular basis). and he has started to tell her to stop talking.  he just covers her mouth with his open hand.  he isn't hitting her or anything.  but he gets his point across.  he just needed a little more time to wake up this morning before listening to madelyn tell him everything.

madelyn was running through her spelling words at the table again before her first ever test today!  it wasn't all that hard since the list mainly had three letter words and she already knew them all when they took the pre-test last monday.

madelyn was looking extra grown-up this morning in her sweater and socks so i had to take a "first test" picture before school.

i am sure that there will be good news about her test when she gets home this afternoon.  love.

up too late, but...

the down-side to having the long ride home from the chalk festival is that the boys all napped for an hour after 5pm.  sigh.  mason and maddux would not go to sleep, but it is hard to get mad when this is what they are doing...

yes, mason is 'reading' bible stories to maddux at 9:30pm.  love.

chalk festival at the cleveland museum of art

i heard about this chalk festival at the cleveland museum of art on thursday or friday, but it was forecast to rain all day on saturday (remember our soccer day?) and matt had a golf tournament on sunday after church for work.  i was really tempted to go on sunday because i thought that the kids would really like it.

matt wasn't too sure about me driving so far for something that might have all washed away in the rain yesterday, but on the ride home from church we decided that i would go for it.

and it was a wonderful time!  i only wish we had had longer to see the museum (we only had three hours before the museum closed).  the down side was that this event was not stroller friendly at all.  i thought an outside festival would be safe for strollers, but with the sidewalks covered with chalk art and/or people laying all over drawing, it was impossible to cross to the open grassy sections.  let's just say that it is a good thing that i am strong and self-controlled because no one was going to make any effort to make room for me to move the stroller or not separate me from the other three on foot that i was trying to keep from getting too far from me.  it would have been really stressful if it was much more crowded.

there was everything from truly talented artists to children drawing in 'purchased' squares of cement in varying sizes.  

mason was really taken with this work in progress of fire.

before heading back into the museum, we stopped for a brief snack and to dance to the fun, live swing music.

manning was overjoyed to be free of the stroller for a little bit.

the event was really impressive in size and the grounds were so beautiful.  i thought it was worth the drive and while there were some that had clearly washed away from the rain the day before, there were some folks there touching them up. i don't think we were even able to see all of the works.  madelyn wants to participate next year and i think that we will.  it would make for a really fun day to draw and then take in the museum exhibits.

our first stop in the museum was a play gallery.  there were lots of hands on activities for the kids - blocks, mobiles, felt shapes, puppets, books, a stage, touch screens and more.

i could not use a flash in the museum so i didn't take a ton of pictures but trying to get a clear one of mason and manning playing i realized that manning kept saying "cheese" for me!  here is one quick video of his version of "cheese".

mason liked counting on this abacus. 

so i think that this is something that just opened this year - it is two huge touch screens that show their entire collection!  it is interactive and you can just click on any item and it will expand with more information about the piece.  all of the small stands in front of the screens are ipad docks to download the info from the screens to reference as you work around the museum.  we will bring the ipad next time for sure.

this art museum was quite large and extremely child friendly!  they had photo scavenger hunts that the kids (or adults) could use to hunt for pieces (madelyn is holding a floral themed one in the pictures below). the staff throughout the museum could not have been nicer either (not that we didn't have a few follow us through some of the exhibits - but i did have three smallish kids in tow that were very excited to be there).  it was so refreshing and helped the kids to really enjoy their time there.

the main atrium (shown in the pictures below) was so beautiful.  we all enjoyed this open space filled with natural light.  i think that these bronze busts were of the chinese zodiac (i never did find a sign).

all three kids were very into the museum but it was madelyn and maddux who were the most interested in reading all of the signs.

maddux said that this tile work was his favorite piece and asked for a picture. 

i overheard someone mention "armor" in the play gallery so we went to the information desk to find out where to find it because mason was pretty excited to hear that there were knights.  the room was amazing and filled with armor and weapons.  he was just overwhelmed with awe.

over the summer we did an "around the world" bible study and when we covered russia we looked at faberge eggs (because i just love them) and we were pretty excited to see on in person - even it if wasn't as ornate as some others i have seen.

we did have one 'crazy mom with four kids' moment when manning started loosing it (he was just so tired) and wanted his "wa-wa" (aka "water").  since there is not food or drink in the exhibits, we had to try and race out so that he could have a drink and calm down.  so i was pushing an empty stroller, carrying a screaming 'baby' under my arm (he did not want to be held) and trying to hurry the three others along with us through a crowd that was leisurely exploring the exhibits.  once manning was calm and we were headed back into the exhibit, one of the security personnel (or are they curators - i am not sure) stopped me to ask how our visit was going since he had seen us pass a few times.  we had seriously passed him about six times by this point and had asked him for help when we were trying to find our way to the chalk festival.  he seemed very sincere about how our visit was going.

it was such a great experience overall and each of the kids brought up how they want to come back with daddy some time.  and we will.  love.

rain, rain go away...

mason has a verse to this rhyme that i have never heard before, "rain, rain go away.   the children want to play today."  but today the kids had to play soccer in the rain.  while there was a lot of rain, there was no lightning so games were played as scheduled.  and we had the earliest ones - madelyn at 8:30 and mason at 9:30am.

matt was "encouraged" (aka told) that he needed to be at the heart walk today so he left around 6:30 to do the early shift and would meet us at the field before mason's game.

it was pouring when we woke up but had tapered down to only drizzle when we got there.  so i decided to put manning in the stroller after all.  when it was pouring, i thought that i would just hold him the whole time so that he could be under the umbrella with me.  everyone was pretty excited about using their umbrellas.

although the keeping dry with the umbrellas was very sort lived as they all decided that opening and closing them or twirling them around was much, much more fun.

the rain steadily increased during madelyn's game and the boys were getting wetter so i ended up holding manning to try and keep him dry - and warm, it was around 60 out.

madelyn was totally soaked (the picture doesn't really show how wet she was) and the boys were starting to fade into sadness at being wet and cold for so long by the time we were ready to move to mason's field.

as soon as mason's game started it was raining pretty hard and it occurred to me that i could get everyone else out of the rain and into the van where we would still be able to watch mason play.  so off we went.  i had dry clothes for madelyn and blankets for everyone else.  much better.

mason on the other hand was done before the game was.  he and maddux had stayed up pretty late last night (they just wouldn't go to sleep) and he was very cold.  but it wasn't anything that a team snack couldn't fix!

today is going to be a snuggly indoor day.  at least we will be dry.  love.