3 weeks left?

We are counting down the days until Kella makes her appearance. I had a scheduled drs visit today and that doctor (one of my favs) suggested that we go ahead and deliver @ 39 weeks. There is no medical reason to induce me earlier (apparently "big baby" is not a medical reason). The baby is measuring large anyway and I have an ultrasound scheduled for next week to get a clearer picture of the size-even though my dr said that the ultrasound can be +/- 1 pound-so an 8 pound baby could be sized from 7-9 pounds by ultrasound. This picture of me does look like I'm hiding a ball under my shirt. She is all to the front. So, I have a list of dates and the doctors who are on call to deliver those days. I've never gotten to actually pick the birthday of one of my kids before. Ewan was the closest-his induction was scheduled on the first available day. We're kind of leaning towards the 10th or 13th of June. When I go back next week, I'll try to schedule something. Anyway, that's all the exciting news. We'll know more next week. :-)

May 22, 1999

Happy anniversary to us! We have been married for 12 years now, and time seems to go by faster every day. For our anniversary this year, I finished working a 12 hour shift for the first part (since I had to work this weekend), came home and slept while Andy took the boys to church and slept some more while Andy took the older 3 boys to a graduation open house for one of his students. Then, we spent to evening outside, wondering sometimes where all our kids were even though there were kids in our back yard-neighbor children tend to drift to our yard. We got to have take-out from one of my favorite Mexican restaurtants and then I tried not to fall asleep to the the Bulls game. Exciting, I know. Andy even surprised me with a gift certificate for a mani/pedi. He knew I wanted to get one and figured now I have no excuse to go. It will be nice to have nice looking painted toes (since I can't reach them very well right now). What else can be said? Andy is a wonderful man and treats me awesomely (is that even a word?). He loves God, loves me and loves our kids. I love being married to him!

Ewan's preschool program

Ewan had his preschool program last night. This year's spring theme was the ocean. Since we've been doing preschool program long enough, I think I've figured out that there are three revolving themes: the ocean, the jungle and countries. I was able to leave Liam with our sitter and just take Marcus and Cale along. They promptly abandoned me and sat with their friends-mom is just not cool. I recorded highlights of the preformance that Ewan was in for Andy, who had to work. Ewan did great. He participated in the songs and he said his ocean fact lines well. He is excited for summer vacation and is also excited when he goes back to preschool, he will be in the "pickles" (pre-K) class. I am excited for no preschool run for a couple months. In the fall, Liam will go too!

Here is Ewan with his class. He is on the end, on the left. The microphone is blocking his face-oops.


Here he is standing in from of his class saying one of his ocean facts. Ewan's 2 facts were: "Tropical fish are very colorful" and "The whale is the largest animal on earth". He said them both without trouble.

Do you see Ewan in this picture? He is sitting on his teacher's lap, getting his preschool certificate. After this, he came to sit with me (not really, he went to sit by Marcus). We had some cookies, picked up a couple end-of-the-year projects and then came home.

karate class

I took the boys to watch/participate in a karate class yesterday. The older ones have been asking to take karate for a while and we have been searching for a place where I do not have to work just to pay for lessons for 3 boys. Well, we finally found a place to the north of us in a town called Tipton. I never thought of looking there, the price there is a third of the cost for three boys compared to other places we looked in the area. All the boys had a different reaction to the karate class. Let's see if you can guess who did what....

1. Which boy had a temper tantrum?

2. Which boy did not want to participate-just sit and watch?

3. Which boy jumped at the chance to participate and was eager (and a little aggressive)?

4. Which boy participated, played around a little, then settled down?

Answers: 1-Liam (did not want to sit, want to run around-raisins and crayons made him much happier), 2-Marcus (the oldest-cautious, would rather watch first, then do), 3-Cale (first one to try anything), 4-Ewan (likes to play, likes to learn)

The results: I guess we're signing up for karate. I brought home 3 registration forms to fill out and the boys were working on their kicks last night. Even Marcus said he would like to try it. The class is for 6yrs and up, but the teacher said that Ewan did fine and could be in that class. Being in gymnastics has really helped Ewan to listen and follow directions. We wanted to sign them up for karate this summer-mission accoplished.

Science experiment Sunday

What do you do when it's rainy and cold outside? Science experiements! Andy let the boys pick one out of a library book Marcus brought home. Did he pick the paper airplanes, the optical illusions? No. He picked the chemical reaction experiment-baking soda + vinegar = foamyness.

First, the boys drank some Koolaid drinks to get the bodies for their dinosaurs. Then they drew and cut out legs, arms, heads and tails and taped them on the body.

Master scientist Andy helped mix all the ingredients, and viola! green foam erupted from the mouths of the dinosaurs (or they might have been dragons)

Here's Cale's

and Ewan's. His dinosaur had a larger mouth/different size bottle. They all had fun seeing the foam and we did try and educate them about why the foam was being formed. I'm not too sure if they'll remember that part. :-)

art fair/young author book

On Tuesday, I took all the boys to Marcus and Cale's school for their art fair and for Marcus's young author showcase. First stop was to see Marcus's young author book. I guess all the second graders picked a topic to research, write about and then have the book made into a hardback form. Marcus picked walruses. The book looked pretty cool and I hope that he brings it home so we can get a better look at it. Unfortunately, I had to cut my look short and run after Liam who would not stand still and wait. Imagine that.


Next stop, the art fair exhibit. The art teacher had each grade level paint a specific sceen. The kindergarten painted butterflies and the 2nd grade did bridges over water. She framed the pictures of the students that said they were coming to the fair-as part of a fundraiser. The pictures looked very nice framed but I was not going to pay $50 for their framed art. I tried to explain to Cale that he will get his picture back and we could probably frame it for less. He wasn't very happy with that answer. But, a few days have gone by and he has seemed to forgotten the whole thing. Ewan and Liam had fun running around the stage in that room. Liam did not want to leave-he really like "singing" on the stage. Here are the boys' paintings...

Cale and his butterfly painting

Marcus and his bridge painting

Spring school photos

The boys' school knows how to rope me in. In the spring, the photographer comes back and takes different photos of the kids with fun poses instead of the traditional fall head shot. I can't resist getting these, but what I do is just get the photo CD and order my own prints online (so glad I do not have to order a package of photo prints from the company). So, enjoy Marcus and Cale's photos. Andy tried to get the boys to wear clothes that looked relatively nice and matched since I was not home that morning before they got on the bus. What they are wearing is a pretty good representation of what they like to wear: wind pants/sports pants and some kind of cotton shirt. Hopefully, I can get these ordered and in the mail for everyone soon.

Marcus went on a field trip

Time for the 2nd graders field trip to the zoo. Andy went as a chaperone since he was able to go straight to work after the kids got loaded back onto the bus. Apparently, lots of schools decided to go to the zoo on Friday, because there were rows of school buses in the parking lot and it took the teachers an extra easy 30 minutes to unload the students. There were enough chaperones that each adult was able to have 2 students attached to them. Andy, Marcus and another boy walked around, saw the animals and wandered into a closed exhibit area. (The zookeepers told them to leave. I guess they should have stayed on the main paths and not tried to take a short cut.) Marcus said his favorite part was seeing the seals. He said they were making their barking sounds. Maybe it was time for them to eat. Sounds like they had fun. No other picture of Marcus to show you. Andy followed the teacher's directions of taking pictures of the animals and did not take any of Marcus except for this one at the little shark tank. I was angry and bitter about having a bunch of animal pictures on the camera and only one of Marcus that was the back of his head, but am slowly getting over it :-). I'm glad they had fun and our schedules let us be able to be involved.

decorations are finally up in Liam's room

He may have just turned 2, but we finally finished hanging up wall decorations in Liam's room. I picked hot air balloons, because I think they are cool and we see a fair amount of hot air balloons floating around Cicero. I'd like to thank the artists-Andy and Grammy Pammy. Andy did the paintings and Grammy did the cool, big cloth balloons. It makes the room look nicer to have something on the walls. I even found hot air balloon fan pulls for the fan. I think Liam likes having some colorful things to look at.

Andy painted 4 watercolors of hot air ballons that we framed.

I found some hot air balloon wall stickers, too.

Here are the cloth hangings that Grammy made-very cool.

We're done with Liam's room for now. We still don't have a door on the closet, but, honestly, Liam would probably just get himself stuck in the closet anyway if we had one. This way he's free to go in and out on his own.

we got a "D"

The boys had dentist appointments on Thursday. They do great at the dentist and like going. It does take up basically our whole morning. It's also nice, because Marcus and Cale can usually go first and then one of us runs them over to their school while the dentist sees the other ones. No cavities this time, but, the dentist said she was very disappointed with the boys' oral hygiene. She said she would give them a "D" for brushing. Oops! I guess we need to start monitoring toothbrushing time more closely. I think the boys should have at least gotten a "C". I mean, they had no cavities. That has to count for something. Guess I'll be putting a little timer on my shopping list to help the boys know how long to brush.

that's a good looking family!

A new family photo for your viewing pleasure. You can see how tall the boys are getting (and maybe how big I am getting).

newest member of the bike gang

While Grammy Pammy came to visit last week, she talked herself into getting a bike! The boys were excited to ride with Grammy and it was such a nice day to be outside-I think it was the only dry day last week. The bigger boys each got to take an exclusive ride with Grammy. Andy got to finally mow our lawn. It looked like a green ocean waving in the wind. Of course, now it looks like a newly mown hay field. It was so nice, we made the boys play outside as much as possible.

Some of them decided to wrestle.

Liam played with his bubble bucket (and refused to share with others)

Before she left, we got a new picture of Grammy with the boys. Lookin good.