The Reveal

Tuesday was the big 20 week ultrasound.  The medical professionals will have you believe that the purpose is to get measurements and check on the health of the baby, but we all know it is to find out if the baby is a GIRL or a BOY.  I scheduled the ultrasound for a day when the boys would be in school but Jason would be home so we could go together.  That meant that could watch the ultrasound in relative peace and quiet AND that we could come up with some creative way to break the news to the boys. 

This being the age of Pinterest, I found this cupcake idea when I did a search for "gender reveal ideas".  We made cupcakes (gluten free even - Betty Crocker has done a marvelous job) and then cut out a core to fill with either blue or pink icing.  Then we put the tops back on and covered them in white icing.  We bought pink and blue (yes, gender stereotyping at its finest) sprinkles and had a little party where we let the boys and some of their friends vote on whether they thought it was a boy or a girl by covering their cupcake in sprinkles.

Here is Team Blue.

And Team Pink (bless them for picking pink in the face of so much blue already in our house).

Then we let them all dig into the cupcakes.  This part was agony because all of our boys spent what felt like an inordinate amount of time just working through the icing on the top.

Michael finally made it to the cupcake itself and found the colored icing!

Four boys it is!

First Day

Happy Day!  Happy, happy, HAPPY day!  Today is the first day of school in our county and a day that has been looked towards with dread, anticipation, excitement and anxiety by various members of our family.  Today begins my 3.5 month childless for 8 hours a day phase.  So, as you can probably guess, I was the one feeling excitement.

It is also Ben's first day of school so I was also a bit anxious.  Probably not as anxious as him, but still.  Ben does not handle change or big crowds well, so we are concerned to see how the bus ride and a day in a classroom with 15+ kids goes.  However, we were thrilled to discover that he has the same kindergarten teacher that the other two boys had, so we know that he is in very loving and capable hands.

We celebrated the day with chocolate chip pancakes and my yearly photo shoot.  This is the only year that the kids will all go to school together, so I took A LOT of pictures.

Here are the boys on our side of the street.  Good looking bunch.  It will definitely be quieter here during the day without them out front playing bey blades, pokemon and war.

The bus was surprisingly prompt this morning.  We kept the kids up by our house until it arrived though as there was a circus of kids and parents at the bus stop.  Ben seemed anxious enough as it was, so we tried to keep things calm until the bus got here.  Right before he and Michael (he was holding Michael's hand and trying to keep as close as possible to him) got on the bus, he shot Jason this look that clearly said he didn't think this was a very good idea.  I guess time will tell.

But for now I am going to go take a nap because that is what I can do when I have no kids at home.  

Out of the Mouth of Babes OR Therapy?

I debated a looooooong time about what title to use for this post.  In the end, I had to use both because this particular event both amused and greatly disturbed me.  I am not sure which emotion I should let win.

The situation: Ben was asked to give a talk in Primary at church today.
The theme: Scripture study gives me and my family strength.

Okay, so this isn't our first rodeo.  Josh and Michael have already given talks in Primary, so we've some experience in helping the boys write talks.  I tried to prompt Ben by asking him questions about how we read the scriptures, which ones are his favorites and what was his favorite story from the scriptures.  We even got the Book of Mormon stories book down so he could find the pictures so he could show me his favorite story.  And this is what I got:

My mom and dad read the scriptures to me.  I like that people fight each other.  I like the Book of Mormon best.  My favorite part is about Alma and Amulek because they have to watch people get thrown in the fire.

I am not sure whether or not TV is to blame (as the scriptures themselves are pretty violent at times), but I am debating whether or not to put him on a strict diet of Blue's Clues and Bubble Guppies until his favorite scripture stories are Jesus blessing the children and healing the sick.

Just for the record: We didn't let him give that talk.  I made an alteration or two (or three or four) which led to him being slightly confused while giving the talk as he wasn't expecting to be prompted to say what he ended up saying.

Then and Now

As we were wandering around the Powhatan Village at Jamestown, Jason and I were reminded of our last trip to Jamestown in 2009.  We went down for the day to celebrate our 6th anniversary.  Ben was a wee babe at the time, so he got to come with us while Michael and Josh hung out with Oma and Opa for the day.

On Friday when we walked into the first house in the village, we realized it was the place where we had taken a picture of Jason and Ben 5 years ago.  Time to recreate the photo!  It isn't exact because we could remember precisely how Jason was holding Ben the first time and we also couldn't remember which goofy face Jason had made, but it still turned out pretty well.

Then:

Now:

Williamsburg

Last Saturday was day two of our adventure with Nana and the day we went to Williamsburg.  While I have pretty much only glowing reviews of Jamestown, we had a mixed experience at Williamsburg.  Some of it was fun, but admission cost 3x that of Jamestown and it was definitely not 3x as fun.  While I would be happy to go to Jamestown again soonish (like in a year or so), I think we'll wait a bit on Williamsburg.  There was a lot of history to learn and wonderful people working there who were very talkative and knowledgeable, but far fewer hands-on activities.  I thought that by going on a Saturday that everything would be open and going on, but it turns out the kid oriented hands-on activities run every day of the week except Saturdays and Tuesdays.  Boo.

It was still fun though and at the end of the day, we left happy (and hot and sweaty, but happy).

We started the morning with the storming of the governor's palace.  Mom and I envisioned torches and banging and yelling.  Turns out there was walking and arguing and diffusion of tensions.  A little disappointing, yes.  However, the events that precipitated the storming (the governor moving all the gun powder out of town in the middle of the night) was an example of how the fears of the British (would there be more uprisings after Boston?) fueled the fears of the colonists (are the British trampling our rights?) which fueled the fears of the British (are the people of Williamsburg really going to attack me and my family in the governor's palace?) and so on and so forth.

After we "stormed" the palace, we got in line to take a tour of the palace.  We were told by our guide (very much in character) that we were only going to get a tour because the governor's family had fled the night before and there was no knowing when they would return.  Inside we got to check out all the weapons.  Guns and swords on the walls.  Very impressive, but apparently none of the servants were trained to use them and the gun powder was kept on the other side of town so they were more for show.

There were many interesting rooms and things to see, so of course I am posting a picture of the predecessor of the modern toilet.

After a tour of the palace, Mom and I headed over to the kitchens to take a look at what was for dinner.  It didn't look too bad except for the fact that it was made a couple of days ago.  We were warned not to partake and if that warning wasn't enough, the number of flies enjoying the spread would have convinced us to move on.

We also visited the gardens where the boys discovered that wooden buckets are heavy even when empty.

On my Mom's side of the family, we are descendants of loyalists.  Here are Michael and Ben showing their pride.

I took the boys over to the weaver's where they all immediately got bored.  I thought it was interesting to see how they turned wool into thread and dyed it, but apparently the boys could care less.

The church where there are still services held today.  In that respect, Williamsburg leads a strange double life.  While many of the buildings are part of Colonial Williamsburg's historical park, some of the homes on the same street and in between exhibit stops are private homes where people still live today.  I don't envy them their location that regard.

Next stop, shoemaker.  Men's shoes only.  Ben was fascinated by this process for a much longer period of time than the rest of us could handle the non-air conditioned enclosed space.

Michael was just confused about the shoe molds.

At this point we took a break and just hung out on the green.  Although the day was not extremely hot by Virginia summer standards, it was still hot and muggy.  Our outdoor activities this time of year tend to be those in the shade or water, so none of us were used to standing and walking around in the sun for that long.  This turned out to be a great choice though, as a little while longer we were in a perfect position to watch the fife and drum bands come marching by.

 Regardless, we were running out of steam.  Taking a look at the map, we decided that the military encampment and armory were our best bets to keep the boys interested, but that we should just do those two and head on out.  Luckily, we found the stocks on our way to the encampment and locked up everyone who had been naughty.  Sadly, I forgot to pack rotten vegetables to throw at them.

We also saw the leader of all of the fife and drum corps on our way to the encampment and he was kind enough to let us take a picture with him.

The military encampment turned out to be a great choice.  There were four stations and two of those involved weapons - for the win!  We started out learning about soldiers' rations.  Sounds like they got plenty to eat while at camp, but the meat this soldier showed us was enough to make me reconsider vegetarianism (but not for long really, this baby LOVES meat).

Station two involved yet another musket demonstration.  Jason sacrificed his hearing to get this shot.

Station three involved being trained by a sergeant who continually called this ragtag group "Awkward Company".  He had them form two (somewhat) straight lines and then had all the shorter people come in the front.  This cut down on the chances of them being shot by someone behind them, but also significantly increased their chances of being shot by someone opposite of them.  Doesn't pay to be short, apparently.

This sergeant relished his roll and did a great job of yelling and belittling his troops (nothing horribly rude and never the littlest ones).

But Ben did not really appreciate being yelled at and was far too young to catch on to how funny it really was, so we extracted him and he was very content to watch the proceedings safely out of the line of sight of the sergeant.

Sadly, I put the camera away before he trained the "soldiers" on how to bayonet each other (from a safe distance), but I did get them ready to shoot the enemy.

The last station was two teenagers teaching us about the fife and drum and how they were used for communication in and out of battle.  Then we checked out the sleeping arrangements for the troops.  This tent housed six men.  It would appear that it also might not pay to be very tall either.

Lastly, we headed over to the armory where, much to the disappointment of three boys, there were no weapons.  It was all good though.  One air conditioned bus ride back to the visitor's center later and we were at the car and headed home.  We really had a fantastic weekend and hopefully the boys have some great memories.

Jamestown

 A few months ago, the boys had birthdays.  Around that time, Mom and I started talking about birthday present ideas.  We have a bunch of stuff and the boys were in a phase where they were likely to ask for only Pokemon cards.  We have HUNDREDS of those already.  Not to mention that that sort of thing comes and goes - if you were to ask them today they would all only want Bey Blades.  And we have LOTS of those already.

So, Mom and I discussed an activity rather than toy options.  First we came up with the idea of tubing on the Potomac (have I mentioned that my mother very much prefers water activities over mountain activities?).  However, two out of the three boys were not keen on that idea.  I really liked the idea at first, although now that I am further along in this pregnancy I question my ability to get in and out of a tube with any sort of grace.  Then we discussed Jamestown or Williamsburg.  Nice day trip.  Mom wanted to do both, however, so it turned into a nice 2-day trip.  Hooray!

This last Friday was Jamestown.  Nana came over Thursday night we could get an early start.  We woke the boys at 5:30am and piled into the car for the drive down.  We arrived just as it was opening.

We bypassed the museum, figuring that we should visit that air conditioned part of Jamestown in the afternoon when it was hot (and muggy, let us never forget muggy when we are talking about Virginia in the summer), and went straight to the Powhatan Village.  Jamestown is full of great hands-on experiences that are geared towards kids.

The boys worked on a dugout canoe.

Josh got to play the part of a deer during hunt training.  The Powhatan took archery pretty seriously.  The boys would get their first bow and arrow at about Ben's age and then were nagged by their mom's to practice.  Sound familiar?

Josh also worked on crushing corn.  Every house had this sort of set up outside and I think Josh used all of them.  He did have to wait his turn though, as there was a local squirrel who was partaking of the good stuff whenever there wasn't a tourist too close by.

Michael and Ben took a nice nap on some animal furs.  I think they touched every animal fur they could reach.  We were surprised to learn that the British settlers coveted skunk furs as there were no skunks in the Old World.

 And the boys scrapped the fur off of a hide (deer?).  It was great - there was nothing they couldn't touch.

Next we went to go see the boats.  I mean, ships.  The interpreters always gave me a vaguely irritated look when I called the Susan Constant, Discovery and Godspeed "boats".  Oops.

The boats, er ships, are really fun to climb around on.  We went below to check out the cannons.  By the way, in case you were wondering, this trip was all about guns and cannons as far as the boys were concerned.  Everywhere we went, they were looking for weapons.  Neither Jamestown nor Williamsburg disappointed.

The boys hung out in the captain's cabin.  The bed was just the right size for them, which made me feel bad for the poor captain.

On the pier two gentlemen shot off the swivel gun for their captivated audience.

After a lunch, ice cream and potty break, we all headed up to the Fort for more fun (ie guns).  The boys loved this musket demonstration and Jason honed his photography skills by working on good pictures of smoke. 

Another gun.

Jason became a pikeman for brief time.  Josh was, sadly, too short to participate.  We were informed for the first, but not last, time that being the guy in the front was not great for longevity (more about that at Williamsburg).

The boys tried on some armor and gave us their fiercest scowls.  We may need to work on our scowling, although you may have noticed that our tweenager did the best job.  That may have to do with already having the most practice....

 Then the soldiers made sure this young ruffian did his chores.

And lastly, we we hung out with the blacksmith who taught us that the temperatures of metal are black, red, orange, and white.  Black being the most dangerous as the metal could be room temperature or 200 degrees.

It was a fun day and to make it even more exciting, the hotel had a POOL.  After unpacking the car and watching a half an hour of cartoons that we don't have at home (thank you, hotel cable), Jason took the boys to the pool while my body took a few hours to recover from the heat.  The boys had a blast.  Life really couldn't get any better from their perspective.  And then we got BBQ for dinner that came with Oreos and they could have died happy.