Someone Earned His Bear

Completely off topic, but don't you just want to eat his adorable freckles?  Normally, I don't condone cannibalism; however, when it comes to Michael's sweet freckles I might be able to make an exception.

Back on topic, Michael received his Bear badge yesterday evening at our Pack Meeting.  After a rough start in NC, we were lucky to have an a-maz-ing den leader here and with her help, he pulled it off.  He actually completed the last requirement on his birthday.  Partly because that was the weekend of the Father/Son campout which allowed him to get the last requirements done.  Also, we like to cut it close here.

In case you are wondering, our pack has a fun tradition of painting the boys' faces when they earn a badge.  Michael was excited to get his face painted and made a point of making sure it was going to happen.  And then didn't want his picture taken.  That's not how things go with me, so here is our Bear selfie.

We are so proud of his achievement and happy to have him learn skills and have a good time in cub scouts.

The Challenge

Jason and I cooked up a scheme to help us get active this summer.  Because we are not at all competitive, we turned it into a competition.  And then Jason cooked up this neat poster to remind us of the rules, especially #6.

We happened to mention this to the boys and they got very excited.  Probably because they are not at all competitive.  We got them each a cheap pedometer and Jason attempted to convince them that in this challenge, they are actually competing with themselves and not with each other (ha! ha!).

We started on Sunday and it was a bit of a rough start.  Somehow Ben's pedometer set itself to track kilometers and Michael's reset itself a number of times.  Also, the pedometers are set to track a step as 30 inches so Ben, with his short little steps, is killing his brothers in distances.

In the meantime, Jason is having a lot of back pain so I am crushing him at the moment.  But none of that really matters, because we are not at all competitive.

An Army of Three

This is what is currently defending our house.  Pretty fierce, huh?

18 months

I am only a few days late on this post.  Which, for the 4th kid, I figure is pretty darn good.  Since using my nice camera around Isaac is a bit of a gamble these days, all of these pictures are from my phone.  He actually loves having his picture taken by the big camera, but he gets so excited and comes running at the lens at full speed and all I get is an image of a curly-headed blur.

Isaac continues to develop new skills even though he remains a man of few words.  He has figured out the TV remote and every once in a while manages to turn it off or on.  And, if we're very lucky, he might even change the settings for us.  Usually settings we didn't even know we had.

Climbing on the table is a great new trick that keeps us all on our toes.  He is ever so pleased with himself, but we fear for our cups and food.  We have definitely been learning how to keep the table cleaner.

He has stopped eating books quite as often and seems far more interested in his brothers' books than in Goodnight Moon and Moo Ba La La La.

If keeping him off of the table wasn't enough, moving the stool over to the counter to reach all the goodies up there will also get the heart pumping.  The counter is where we keep all the good stuff: glasses, knives, hot food, dirty dishes, etc. Believe it or not, this is our most resourceful kid for getting into stuff and I am just thankful that the other ones didn't pick up these skills this early.

Isaac is fascinated by every electronic device his brothers like to play with.  Often he likes to get the best view possible by climbing between his brother and the screen...a move which is not particularly popular with the older boys.

And not a new skill, but the kid loves dirt.  He still hasn't figured out the correlation between playing in the dirt (he loves) and getting a bath (not his favorite), so he digs away blissfully unaware of the tub that awaits him.  His older brothers like to help out by dumping dirt in his hair.  So very helpful, those older children of ours.

We are in full on toddler mode over here.  We have opinions and crazy preferences.  We throw tantrums anywhere and everywhere.  We still give sweet little toddler hugs and come over to get a reassuring kiss every once in a while when we're busy playing with toys.  We love our brothers sooo much that it often hurts because we show our love by throwing balls and cars in their faces.  Basically, we rule the world.

Michael's Birthday

This weekend, Michael went on a camp out and came home a decade older.  I tried to tell him that must have been an extraordinarily long camp out, but he didn't buy that.  He was, however, extremely excited to have entered the double digits and enjoyed pointing out that Ben and Isaac were now the only ones in our family who had lived less than a decade.  Thankfully, that didn't seem to bother Ben or Isaac.  

After all the camping stuff had been unpacked and a load of camping clothing was in the laundry, we let Michael open his presents.  His eyes lit right up when he saw the size of the box.   (Also, check out Josh's burned legs.  Ouch!)

And this is the face that I am always aiming for when shopping for the boys.  It wasn't on his list, but I knew he would be excited to get his own set of roller blades.

And as luck would have it (okay, maybe we planned it), Aunt Rachel got him knee and wrist guards so he could actually use them.  You can't say we didn't learn our lesson after Mom's skating incident.

Michael had requested pizza and cheesecake for his birthday dinner.  After searching unsuccessfully high and low (okay, maybe at only three grocery stores) for ingredients to make a gluten free one, I threw in the towel and bought a Sara Lee cheesecake.  She really does make a decent cheesecake.  But they come frozen and this one refused to thaw.  I ended up zapping a couple of slices in the microwave and Michael ended up with a rather large piece since I had to fit 10 candles on it.  As you can see, he was not at all disappointed.

He was concerned that our resident photo bomber had designs on his cake.  Not an irrational fear.  Especially now that Isaac can climb up on the table.

Keeping Issac at bay, he made a wish and blew out the candles so he could get down to the business of eating the cheesecake.

Thank you, Sara Lee,

The next morning, I swept out the garage so he could take the blades for a first spin on a flat surface.

I am so glad that he loves them and so glad he is a part of our crazy family.

Father/Son Campout

This last weekend was the Father/Son camp out.  I tried really, really hard to convince Jason that since he has four sons, he should take four sons on this camp out.  Yeah, that was a no go.  

Weird? Right? Because who doesn't want to take a manic toddler with them camping overnight?  

Maybe next year.  (If you listen very carefully, you can hear Jason snort when he reads this.)

So those who were old enough to tie their shoes and use the bathroom on their own AND don't try to eat wood chips got to go camping with Jason.  They all had a wonderful time.  Our church has recreational land in Washington State and the ward reserved a night at Camp Zion.  Gorgeous.  Breathtaking.  I didn't want to go camping with Isaac either, but the pictures almost changed my mind.  

Camping in WA is a completely different experience than in VA.  Honestly, they had me at fewer mosquitoes, but other benefits include lower humidity, cooler temps at night, and no Lyme disease.  Probably the only drawback is that the nights are so short right now that I think that Jason and the boys didn't get to sleep until 11ish and were up at 4:30am.  

Jason was impressed with the camp and said there were many areas where the boys could have spent all day.  However, the bulk of their time on Saturday was spent on the water and all the boys agreed that it was their favorite part.  Below are the pictures Jason took on Saturday.

They came home exhausted, smelly and sunburned.  I guess that means it was a success.  Well, except for that last one which mainly means Jason forgot the sunblock.  Hopefully when our little terror calms down (or slows down), we can go as a family.

McLane Creek Trail

This has been a week where every day feels like a Monday...except the actual Monday which had the grace to feel like a Saturday.  Mondays aren't necessarily horrible.  They just have the habit of being out of kilter.

Tuesday was a mess.  The house was a mess.  Bags of dirty laundry camped out in the kitchen waiting to be washed.  Stacks of dishes crying out for help. A floor that looked eerily like that of a forest.  A fridge that resembled a large gaping hole in the fabric of the universe.  And then Isaac's speech therapist shows up to witness it all.  That evening I took Michael to cub scouts half an hour late because I was convinced I had the right time (please note that the time has not changed in the 5 months we've been here).  On top of which, I misspelled his wonderful scout leader's name 4 times in an email sent out to her and several parents.  For. the. win.

Wednesday was a little bit better.  Just a little.  I planned on hiking with a friend...only I thought we were going to meet at the trailhead at 9a and she thought 9:30a.  I did a little hike while waiting for her thinking Isaac and I would be done by the time she arrived.  I missed her by a few minutes and then I didn't recognize her van in the parking lot and assumed she had still not arrived.  Once I figured that it probably was her van, Isaac and I headed out to try to catch up with her and her kids.  Only to get lost and then on an entirely different trail that was 1/2 a mile longer and ended at the park entrance rather than the parking lot.  It was a lovely hike and Isaac did really well; I was just disappointed that my map reading skills (or lack thereof) robbed me of the chance to have an adult conversation.  As a bonus, even though Isaac was in the carrier for most of the time, he still managed to get covered in dirt.  And then his brothers added another layer on him while we were working at the garden plot later in the afternoon.

I can only imagine what Thursday will bring.

Anyway, here are some pictures from today's hike.  It was the kind of hike where I wished I had brought Jason and the boys as well as the nice camera.  This was Jason's kind of hike.  I could hear that there was a lot of wildlife around, but Jason has the knack for actually finding it.  So this will definitely need to be repeated.

I didn't see much wildlife, but I did take a moment to feed this little animal.  Being carried for 2 1/2 miles can really help you work up a good hunger.

Washington still manages to impress.  I love finding new places to take Jason and the boys.  But I may wait until next week and hope the days will stay right when they should.