Houseboat Trip 2007

We just got back from our annual vacation to my parents houseboat on Lake Mohave on Friday. Fortunatly we got the camera working before the trip so I have plenty of pictures to share! We all had a blast, as usual. This time, no stitches for Will, which was definatly a plus! Also no major storms to report, which thrilled me, but Brian was a bit dissappointed. His hope was to capture the perfect storm on his camcorder and send it in to the local news stations. Oh, well, maybe next time.

The weather cooperated with us for the most part. The first couple of days were a bit windy so we didn't do much boating out on the lake, but the kids got to play on the shore in the cove that the houseboat was in. The next two days were calmer and we made it all the way to the marina at Katherine's Landing one day, and to Willow Beach, which is right near the Hoover Dam, the next day. Both were full days of boating and swimming and we were all exhausted by the end of the day. The kids slept great and the adults relaxed under the stars on top of the boat.

It was another wonderful vacation and our time there just flew by! We're now counting down to our camping trip at Leo Carrillo.

Some cute kid speak

The kids were in full form yesterday so I just wanted to share a few gems.

We were going to do some watercolor painting yesterday, but Ben's preference was to go shoe shopping. I told him that we'd be waiting for dad to come home before we went out and he said, "When I'm a grown up and I am an artist, and I have a phone, and it's a reading phone (he means a phone will caller id, where you can see the person's name who is calling you) and it says "mom", I'm not going to answer it.

Later on, Ben, still thinking about what shoes he was going to get said, "I want those shoes. You know, the ones I cried and cried for when you bought Sam's Crocs but YOU wouldn't buy them for me". Those would be the $70 Geox shoes from Nordstroms. For the record, he did NOT get the $70 pair yesterday either, he settled on a "jazzy, snazzy" pair of Vans with flames on the sides.

Will, on the other hand, was more enthusiastic about the watercolor painting. He piped up with, "This is even better than getting into trouble!". Indeed.

Moving up the ranks!

Will is now officially a Wolf in cub scouts. We had a bridging ceremony at a local campground and some families camped out for the weekend while others (us included) just went out there for the evening festivities and then came back again the next day for more activities. The kids had a great time. Roasting marshmellows was the biggest hit of the evening, of course!

Last week, Will spend Mon.- Friday at Boyscout day camp. It was a really neat experience for him and he is eager to do it again next year. He got to do archery, push carts, make a tool box in woodworking and a wallet in leather crafts, have relay races where they did silly things like walk on stilts, they had water play, tug of war, and did just about everything that a group of 6-11 year old boys would want to do! He came home filthy every day so I know we got our money's worth!

This might be my last update for awhile, as sadly enough, our camera has given out on us. We are going to try to get a new one this summer so that we are able to take pictures of our upcoming vacations.

Will's 7th birthday!

Will standing in front of the decorated car
The kids on Will's actual birthday eating some homemade cupcakes (decorated by them)
Will's Patrick cupcake cake, made by Grandma Zukie
Pineapple house Sponge Bob cake, made by Aunt Laura
Will with his friends at Chuck E. Cheese

My oldest "baby" is 7 years old! I can't believe it. Having older school aged kids is really starting to make ME feel old! Am I really old enough to have a kid going into second grade? He's just such a happy, good natured kid (most of the time anyway!) and it seems like 7 is going to be a good age. Right now, for the first time in many months, I am happy to report, none of the kids are going through especially difficult stages. We are on pretty even keel around here lately. Will had a great birthday. On the day of his actual birthday, I surprised him by painting the van with window paint that said, "Happy birthday Will" along with other messages, on all of the windows. His teacher made him a crown at school. The next weekend was his Chuck E. Cheese party with all of his friends from school and cousins. Pizza and video games. What more could a 7 year old ask for?

Ben's a preschool Graduate!

Ben with teacher Nick, taking a little bit about Ben's experiences in preschool.
Ben with a few of his buddies from school
This picture is a picture of the picture that they gave us at the graduation. They asked the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up and Ben said he wanted to be a chef. The expression on his face is so funny!

Ben has officially graduated from preschool! He is so excited to be going on to Kindergarten in the fall. He will most likely have the same teacher that Will had, which we are really happy about. He looked like such a big boy standing up there while his preschool teacher talked a little bit about each child. They also sang a couple of songs, which was really cute. Benny was very antimated to say the least! I wish I could show video of it on here, pictures just don't do justice to his "performance". He is our little ham! We are all going to miss his preschool teachers very much. Sam is on the waiting list for preschool, but this time around we are going to send him to a closer school. The preschool Will and Ben both went to is a good 20 minute drive from where we live and next year we will have 3 different pick up times for preschool, Kindergarten, and 2nd grade, so we wanted to simplify as much as possible.

Self Portrait of a two year old

Well, I have solved the mystery of which boy had my camera today. I found it on the coffee table, out of its case, after I had gotton out of the shower this morning. I asked who did it and both Will and Ben blamed it on Sammy. I admit, I didn't quite believe them until I uploaded these pictures this afternoon. Not bad for a 2 yr old, eh?

About the pictures

Will and Ben have started baseball season. They are both enjoying it and have improved so much over last year. Brian is having fun playing with them and has decided he wants to coach next season.

A breif explanation of the picture of Ben in the tiger suit on the next post- he had drawn those stripes on himself at school with marker, complete with stripes on the tummy. As soon as we got home, he wanted to put the costume on. I thought it was hilarious and wanted to take a picture of him. He didn't want me to, so I had to bribe him with a dollar.

The Sponge Bob invitation is the invite we are using for Will's birthday party. I ordered it custom from someone on ebay.

Pictures

Updates on the kids

It's been so long since I've posted anything new that I thought I'd do a general kid update.

Sam is talking up a blue streak. The speech therapist is now coming to our house once a week for an hour to work with him and he's made incredible progress. Talking in four word sentences and learning new words everyday. He's very much your typical, into everything, 2 year old! When you ask him a question, he pauses, says, "ummmm", thinks about it, then answers you. Very cute. His newest saying is, "awww maaan" with perfect inflection in his voice. He is also learning his colors. He asked me for pink paint the other day and would not be tricked when I gave him orange. I had to go back into the closet and drag out the red and white and mix it up for him. He will be starting at Country Village preschool in the fall. It's closer to our house than the older boys preschool is so it will be more convienent for us. It's a great place with several huge playgrounds, a science room with lots of birds, reptiles, and even a chinchilla, and a "barn" area with a pig and chickens. It looks like a fun place to be if you are a 3 year old!

Ben is graduating from preschool next week. *sniff sniff* I can't believe my baby is going to Kindergarten! He's so excited to be going to the same school as his big brother. I have requested that he be put in Mrs. Shields class, the teacher that Will had for K. He introduced himself to her on Friday at the school carnival. He has been really interested in letters, numbers, and writing lately. He has workbooks that he will sit and do for over an hour. He asks me to spell out words for him and he writes them down and is even starting to sound out a few. He's really going to be ready for Kindergarten! There are several siblings of Will's friends from Kindergarten that will be in his class too, which will be fun.

Will is almost done with first grade. He can read just about anything now and has learned to tell time and add and subtract. We have been working on his very first science report, about Triceritops. He was instructed to write a couple of paragraphs on it and one of the sentences was supposed to be his favorite thing about the Triceritops. He said that his favorite thing was that if he lived in the time of the dinosaurs, he would be able to catch a Triceritops because they don't run very fast. We also made a paper mache model of it and he painted it and glued on wiggly eyes. Will has lost his two bottom teeth and the top ones are loose. It would be cute if they waited until December to come out but it will probably happen this summer.

My little artist!

He didn't want me to wash his face until I showed him what he looked like in the mirror. Thank goodness for washable marker. It all came off with a baby wipe. He is starting to try to draw people now. If you look closely at his picture, you can see that he's drawn circles for faces with dots for the eyes inside the circles. Every picture he draws now looks like that. We have one taped on the refridgerator along with things the older boys bring home from school.

Will's first missing tooth!

Will lost his very first tooth today before school. It was really loose and he wanted me to see, so I felt how wiggly it was and asked if he wanted me to pull it out for him. It came right out! He was soooo excited! He can't wait to put it under his pillow tonight for the tooth fairy.

Just had this conversation with Sammy...

Sam, walking into the room: "Poop. Poooop".

Mommy, excitedly: "Sammy, let's poop in the potty".

Sammy, wrinkling his nose: "No. Nooooo. Bapa. Poop bapa".

I so thought he was ready to potty train. He tells me and wants to be changed as soon as he goes. Apparently though, he would rather poop in his "bapa" than in the potty seat I have ready for him in the bathroom. Hopefully he will not follow in big brother Will's footsteps and not potty train until he's 4 and a half!

Winners at the Pinewood Derby!

Today was our very first pinewood derby race with boyscouts. Brian has been looking forward to this since I was pregnant with Will, I think. Something about those little cars really appeals to the dads.

Will is really into Sponge Bob right now, so Brian came up with a concept for a sponge bob car. Ben, not to be out done by his big brother, wanted to participate as well and wanted a car just like daddy's Mustang. They had a friends and family race for the siblings so he got to race his car too.

Will's race was the first of the day and he ended up placing 3rd. Not bad for our first attempt at this! I admit I did not have much faith in the car because of the boxy shape, but it turned out to be the little sponge that could! It also got voted best paint job by the kids.

Ben's race was later in the day and I stayed home with Sam while he napped, but Brian took video. Ben's car took home first place in the friends and family division! He was so thrilled!

My latest knitting projects

I just finished the 2 sweaters I have been working on for the past couple of months, a sweater vest for Brian and a sweater jacket for me. Here we are modeling them. I'm now working on another sweater for myself and some fingerless gloves for the boys.

Sam is talking!!

We recently found out that Sam had fluid in his ears that was preventing him from hearing clearly. He was sent for a hearing test since he is language delayed. We noticed the language delay around 18 months age or even sooner, but decided to wait until age 2, based on the Dr.'s advice to do testing because he may have just been a late talker. Even after age 2 when we started going through the process of having a full evaluation, most people told us that he was probably fine, that the evaluation probably wasn't necessary and that they knew lots of later talkers. Something was setting right with me about it though, so we forged ahead.

I never would have guessed that it would have been his hearing that was the problem. I did note that he screeched a lot, but thought that was due to frustration over not being able to talk. We ended up seeing a specialist for him who told us that he needed tubes in his ears. It has been a little over a week since he's had the tubes in and what a difference!! The first couple of days I didn't notice a change, but about the third or the fourth day, it was like night and day.

He is having a language explosion. He picks up new words everyday and is even stringing two and even three words together. We couldn't be happier with his progress. It's amazing what a little modern medicine can do! The operation took all of 10 mintues, maybe less, and I was back with him.

His new word for today was snow. We all went to Pittsford park because yesterday they had dumped a huge truckload of snow there for Snow Fest. They had games and sled rides down the hill that they put snow on. We had a birthday party to go to yesterday, so we didn't make it, but today was even better because it was FREE! We didn't have anything for them to use to slide, but a bunch of kids had brought sleds and boogy boards and were kind enough to share with the kids who didn't have one. It was great. There was an older boy there who was really great with the younger kids, taking him down the hill on his boogy board. Sam grabbed daddy by the hand and took him off to the play area of the park while mom watched the older two in the snow. They slid down that hill for over an hour and didn't want to leave for lunch.

We are planning to take them to see real snow next month since daddy has a friend who owns a cabin in the mountains where we can stay. That should be a lot of fun for the boys, as they have never been to the snow before. If today was any indication of how much they'll enjoy it, I'd say it will be well worth the trip!! I just wish I had brought my camera.

Ben's 5th birthday!

Last weekend was Ben's 5th birthday party. I have never seen anyone so excited over thier birthday. He wanted a big party with all of his friends at Pump it Up, this party place that has huge inflatible slides and bounce houses for the kids to jump in and run around on. We all had a blast, even the adults. When you saw that big slide, you just couldn't *not* want to try it out! He picked Power Rangers as the theme so we went to the party store together and picked out all of the trappings- cake plates, goody bags, table clothes, etc. and of course the number 5 candle that he blew out.

It's hard to believe he is already five! It doesn't seem like it's been that long since we moved to Orange County and we were only here a few months before celebrating his 2nd birthday. I remember that he was into dogs when he was 2 and had a dog cake and we gave out dog bone shaped cookies with the kids names written on them as the party favor. And now he is five! He's smart and articulate and has us laughing on a daily basis. He came into this world an "old soul" and still very much seems that way. I really don't believe in reincarnation, but some days he has me wondering where he gets the things he comes up with. He's a great kid and growing up so fast.

Just when I think they hate each other...

they do something really sweet. First I'll say that I'm really glad that we chose (uh, okay, well not exactly chose but I will spare the details) the child spacing that we did. Having Will and Ben so close in age has mostly been a blessing. They enjoy a lot of the same things and play together a lot. They also spend a not insignificant amount of thier time together beating each other up. They have been doing a lot of this lately, so I was really happy to hear this exchange this morning.

Me: Will, Matt has invited you to spend the night at his house Friday night. Did you want to go?

Will: Spend the night?! Yay!

He then runs off to find Ben and says, "Benny we're spending the night at Matt's house on Friday!"

Me: Well, actually honey just you are invited to spend the night at Matt's house. He's your friend from school so his mom just invited you.

Will: Awwwww. If Benny doesn't come I will miss him. I miss Ben.

See, they do love each other!

Pictures

Just a few more pictures!

Yet more Christmas pictures!