An Even Dozen

It is crazy to think that it has been 12 years already!  And then I look at these pictures and see how young we look and it feels more real (thanks a lot, metallic highlights and 10 extra pounds per kid). 

A quick catalog of those years (which doesn't seem to capture them at all) includes 6 moves, 3 states, 4 kids, 4 cars, 1 pet, 7 ER visits, 3 mud runs, and many, many episodes of Doctor Who.

These twelve years have often felt like a whirlwind.  Largely due to the children I imagine.  I would like to think that at some point things will slow down, but every year seems to slip by more quickly than the last.  We went from Josh being a miniature screaming machine to a responsible, intelligent, reading fanatic who is old enough to help out with his miniature screaming machine of a youngest brother.

I look at this last picture and I realize that those two young 'uns have no idea what is in store for them.  It's probably better that way.  More fun to be surprised.

Can't wait to see the surprises of the next 12 years.

Family Dinner

Everybody from the American Academy of Good Things for the Family to your great-Aunt Gertrude agrees that family dinner is important.

Bah humbug.

For some reason, I bought into the hype and decided that we should include Isaac at the table at dinnertime.

Yeah, I know.

I know.

So, dinner goes like this:  Jason at the table.  Big boys at the table.  Isaac in his chair. Me in a chair with wheels and armed with a little spoon and pouch of baby food.

Now for the good part.

Isaac loves watching his brothers.  Brothers love to make Isaac smile and laugh.

When Isaac smiles and laughs, food drops/drips/slides out of his mouth.  Brothers find this hysterical.

The more food falls out of his mouth, the harder they laugh.  The harder they laugh, the harder he laughs.

And repeat.

Soupy pea/pear/carrot mix all over the place.  The floor.  The table.  The chair.  My shirt.  My pants.  Isaac's hair.  Isaac's diaper.

And shockingly little in his itty bitty belly.

And, for the older brothers, it is dinner and a show.

7 Months

Well, it appears that Isaac has survived yet another month in our circus.  He doesn't seem any worse for wear.  

One could make the argument that being surrounded by people who are utterly entranced by him has been good for him.

Unless he is fussy.  Then we pass him around like "hot potato".

Some of the Isaac rules:

-If you bounce him after he eats and he throws up, you clean it up.

-If you wake him, you get him.

-Isaac is not your dolly.

-If we lose all the pacifiers, life comes to a screeching halt until we find one.

Isaac at 7 months lives up to his name and he is quick to laugh.  Sometimes we aren't even sure what he is laughing at.  Even so, the boys fall over each other trying to make him laugh.  

He has figured out how to roll over both ways, but doesn't seem very interested in exploring what that could mean in terms of getting around the floor.  He does manage to scoot around on his belly a little bit so it is not entirely safe to leave him unsupervised.  

He remains fascinated with cloth (a bib or burp cloth is a great toy) and his brothers' toys (why, yes, he would love to slobber on Optimus Prime's head).  You can tell I am a little bit rusty, because in our rush out the door on Sunday I only brought toys that make noise.

I've not be very consistent with solid foods, but he seems to like just about everything he's had.  Really he just looks at what is on his spoon and then at what the other boys are eating and then resigns himself to his food.

So, here are his 7 month pictures.  At some point, I will try to get some of him when he is actually happy and not right before a bottle.  Timing is everything.

The One Where

The one where Isaac experienced nature while relaxing in his posh ride.

The one where Josh fed a spider an inch worm and I managed to use the macro setting on my camera to catch it.

The one where I can see the proof that the insanity of the two year age gap pays off.

The one where the picture on the screen on my camera looked great and then I got to see it on my computer.

The one where Ben wore every vibrant piece of clothing he owns.

The one where Josh looks like he lost a leg.  Oops.

The one where Michael gave it his all.

The one where the boys stayed in the car (close by) because it was hot and mom wanted just one more picture.

Fishing Camp

The week before robotics camp there was fishing camp.  It was all part of my grand plan of getting a little break from having all four kids home while Jason was gone.  There was less enthusiasm going into fishing camp, but plenty of it coming out.  

It was a drop and run camp, so I didn't get to see any of the stuff they did.  The camp leaders, Mr. and Mrs. Catfish (not their real names), were fantastic and very dedicated to the kids having a good experience.  Mr. Catfish spent some one-on-one time with Michael to make sure that he had the experience of catching his first fish.  Which he did!  Hooray!  And it was a catch-and-release so he didn't bring it home! HOORAY!

Below are some pictures the 4-H intern took of their three days at Crockett Park. 

Cisco Family Day

Holy hot temperatures, Batman!  Today was Cisco Family Day.  Doug works for Cisco and we are family.  Hooray!  It was a lot of fun and very well organized, but you can't plan the weather and it was very hot.  Very hot.  Little cactus on the sun on my weather app hot.  But, we pushed through though, won prizes and had lots of fun.

First, however, we pouted.  I read a blog post recently by a lady with 5 kids and she said with that many kids, there is always someone crying.  We only have 4, but generally someone is always upset.  We started the day upset that mom wanted pictures with superheros.  Super lame, mom.

Then we got involved with activities.  Once everyone had won something, we were good to go.

Except for Josh who didn't need to win anything.  All he needed was a water gun and a maze and the thrill of competition.  By the time we dragged him away from this, he was drenched.  

As a side note, I have clearly wasted my life: I have absolutely no skill at carnival games.  I may need to rethink my life plan.

It was, as I mentioned, toasty today, so we headed indoors to eat lunch with Uncle Doug.  Here he is hiding behind Isaac.  I am not sure he realized that Isaac isn't really a great person to hide behind...

We got a tour of Doug's office area and then headed back out to do more games.  This kid had the gold touch today.  After crying that he thought he was too short for the first game, he actually won a huge, inflated sword.  He wasn't quite as lucky for the rest of the day, but he did better at most of the games than the rest of us.

Cisco Family Day loot.  Clearly we went home happy.  A little dehydrated perhaps, but happy.

Happy 4th!

Happy 4th of July!  Uncle Doug suggested that we come to Raleigh for the celebrations and we are very glad we did.  We are also very boring people, so we are home already.  But we had fun nonetheless and no baby meltdowns so I consider the day a success.

Oh, and the weather wasn't nearly as hot as I thought it would be.  

After eating our lunches in the clubhouse at Doug's apartment building (fancy pants, yes - Michael has decided that is where he is moving when he moves out), we walked two blocks to the festivities.  He is in a great location.  We went straight for the kid rides.  The boys rode the first one together.

And here is Josh pretending that if he tries to smile that he might be having fun.  This one was a little too young for him.

And a little too old for Isaac.

And as the boys dismounted the bench, it happened again.  The skies opened and it poured.  Think the 100 Acre Woods and Winnie the Pooh floating in an umbrella.  Luckily, we found an awning to share with 40 of our new closest friends and we waited out the worst of the storm.  It seems that the rain follows us.  I am thinking we should start charging for our presence - maybe California would be interested?

Weather Bug told us that it was unlikely to stop raining in the next hour, so we braved the rain and headed to the Museum of Natural Sciences.  It was a wet walk, but a fun and interesting place to wait out the storm.

When we saw blue skies, we returned to rides.  Josh climbed the rock wall.

And Michael met his nemesis.

His nemesis is the Boomerang.  The Boomerang spins and spins and spins and spins until, well, it wasn't pretty.  And they had to stop the ride until they cleaned it up.

After a few minutes on terra firma and some water, he was up and ready to tackle the big slide with Ben.

And so the day ended on a high note.  We didn't really want to risk anymore excitement in one day, so we bid adieu to Uncle Doug and headed home for some calming TV time.

When in Rome...

We decided that today was a good day to check out our outdoor entertainment options.  About 20 minutes from our house is a playground with a nature center next to a lovely 5 mile path.  That seemed like a good place to start our explorations.  When we arrived, my idea of taking a couple mile walk on the trail was voted down in favor of spending time on the playground.  There were several families there with their kids and a several pieces of fun equipment to play on.

Josh, who is a lot more cautious these days about crossing the street, is just as adventurous with heights.

Michael and Ben loved the swing...as long as I promised not to spin it too much.  (There was an incident a few years ago with a tire swing that almost ended up with multiple kids vomiting.)

And we found the amazing Spider-Baby!

Shortly after we arrived, all the other families left.  I wasn't really sure what was going on.  Was it something we did?  Did they know something we didn't?  We looked at the sky, then we looked at the weather apps on our phones, and then, well, then the heavens opened and it poured.  Free showers and laundry service for everyone!

Note to self: when the locals all leave, it's time to leave.  Or, as it were, when in Rome...

Robotics Camp

The week before the week before the move was STEM camp for Josh and Michael.  They both chose Robotics and had so much fun that I was sad Ben was too young to attend as well.  And while the robotics skills are cool to have, I really liked the fact that they also learned a lot about working hard to solve a problem even when it is very difficult.  I think that there is a great deal of failing and trying again and again and again in engineering and science and persistence is a skill not easily taught nor gained.

The middle school program used VEX IQ robotics kits and their robots had to accomplish several tasks.  At the last day of camp, Ben and I walked into the building to find Josh's class putting their robots through an obstacle course.

Afterwards, Josh gave his brothers a behind the scenes demonstration.

The elementary school class used Lego kits and their creations were connected to a laptop so they could do a little bit of programming.  They made a different creation each day and below is Michael's team's carousel.

Regardless, this all went down while Jason was away in SLC, so it was a win-win: they had fun and I had four mornings with only two kids.

6 months...finally

I really did take these pictures kind of close to when Isaac turned 6 months.  It's just that we've been a wee bit busy since then.  

Just a wee bit.

Six months has been a rough time for poor Isaac.  He may have teeth coming in at some point in the not too distant future.  He is sporting a nasty and persistent yeast infection.  And, as always, battling the good fight against our enemy eczema.  I now have an app on my phone to track his and Josh's medications.  We also need to try to get him off of dairy formula, but it is just something that will have to wait until we are settled.  At his last doctor's appointment, Dr. Amster said that we have another allergy kid and will have to watch him very carefully when we add new foods (apples already caused some issues).  And then I went home and tried not to cry.

June was not kind to me.

Otherwise, Isaac is crazy in love with and interested in everything about his brothers.  He is quick to smile and laugh.  Also quick to make himself heard.  I guess the latter shouldn't be too surprising for the fourth of four boys.  He has a lot to say and the lungs with which to say it all.  He has an infectious laugh and wonderful gummy smile.  Isaac loves to give ooey, gooey, slobbery kisses and he is pretty liberal with them.

We love our baby Isaac.