Father Daughter Dance 2015: Decades

Let me take you back to the 20's!

My husband took our daughters to the Father Daughter Dance with the theme being decades.  We chose the 20's and Brian happily obliged by purchasing himself a Fedora type hat.  I got the girls some cheap boa/headband sets to make the dresses they already had look more 20's like.

They definitely left an impression at the dance.  The hot pink feathers were everywhere!

Before the dance, some of the dads took the girls to IHOP for dinner.  That was the requested restaurant by the girls.

Ain't nobody got time for dat!

Judah's got the bronchitis.  Ain't nobody got time for dat!  Poor guys has been sick a lot the last couple of weeks, starting just after I weaned him.  Grrr.  I knew there was a reason I was still nursing that guy.  So the big boys got a cough and fever last Tuesday and the very next day, Judah wakes up with the same thing.  Problem is he couldn't shake his fever and started wheezing on Friday night.  The big boys were better that day and so I thought the next day he'd wake up fever free for sure, but instead he woke up with 103 fever.  So I dropped the kids off at German school and headed to the urgent care.  Drew stayed with Dad.  Judah got a breathing treatment and an x-ray that showed bronchitis, not pneumonia.  We were sent home with antibiotics and a nebulizer.

Judah got a hair cut recently.  He is 17 months old, and counting.

His fever went away by the end of the next day, but his cough and breathing trouble lasted until the next weekend.  Drew turned up Sunday night with an ear infection so we were back to the doctor first thing Monday morning.  I'm ready for spring!

Sick, unhappy, and not eating much

On a more positive note, Judah is turning out to be  much more like Genna than we thought.  His most favorite thing to ask for is, "Hug?" with big outstretched arms.  Unlike poor Drew he pronounces that /g/ sound perfectly.  He is moving from the repeating phase to the naming objects phase now.  He tells me what things are called all the time.  Sometimes he is wrong, like when he declares that the sun, stars, and the clouds in books are all a "Moon."  He will not give in on this one no matter how many times I correct him.  He also calls all superheros "Batman".  He likes to name the people in the family a lot, especially if he hears them from another part of the house or sees them in pictures.  He has also learned a couple of his friends' names.  He has a toy that names the shapes when he presses on them.  He was trying to name them the other day when all was quiet in the house.  He is putting two words together now too on a regular basis.  He also said his first (noticed!) 3 worded sentence to me the other day.  "Mommy, hug me."  Does it get any sweeter than that?

He has a book that his godparents gave him called The Saving Name of God the Son.  When we were reading it the other day, I pointed out Jesus, and he repeated it to me, then said "Mary" when he pointed to her.  He had trouble with the "r" sound a bit as all babies do, but it was so clear.  I am very proud of him.

I love when he does this!  The other day when I was scolding him, I told him to look at me.  That is the exact look he gave me, making his big eyes even bigger and leaning in with a head tilt.  I totally forgot what I was scolding him about and had to laugh.

He is sleeping with his three pacifiers still, but he has also become rather attached to his Grumpy Cat stuffed animal that he got from Christmas and always reaches out to tuck him under his arm when I lay him in his bed.  He is, majority of the time, happy as a clam to play quietly in his bed until I go get him at the end of nap time even if he wakes earlier.  This has made it hard for a certain husband when he looses track of the time and forgets to get him up.  Poor guy could be left in there half the day if you're not careful.

Judah's favorite book is My Puppy, A Little Golden Book.  He loves that puppy and asks for this book often at bed times.

My Little Basketball Star

I can't tell you how happy it makes me that Hannah loves basketball.  She's timid and not nearly aggressive enough yet, but she'll learn.  I truly enjoy watching her games every week.  I've been very impressed with this league.  She is playing for one of the private schools around here, and they are playing some real basketball.  The last game I got to go to, they won in the last second with a jump shot.

The new basement is virtually complete!

 Brian did a great job!

I love it!

A couple missing cabinet doors, but everything else is pretty much done.

Time to sew!  If I could just stop giving in to the afternoon nap.

Judah's Headboard

We have been working on this since this guy was born.  It's been a project of many steps for both Brian and I.  I did the lettering, and he did the hard part, all the woodwork.  We used the boards from the old play house that he tore down to make the new one.

Turned out great even if it ended up a little big for this room.  Judah's going to be kicked out of the nursery before long anyway.

A Mother's Dread

Stomach bugs!  It is especially awful for a mother of many since it slowly works it's way through all the children, doubles the laundry, makes you afraid to leave the house or have anyone over lest you pass on the dreaded disease.  It is especially awful for pregnant moms because, well, it's disgusting to clean up after, it increases the already present nausea, and it takes away your sleep.

That sounds bad, right?  Truthfully, this time it just wasn't quite so bad.  Last time I was pregnant (2 years ago) we had a stomach bug that knocked us down for a month.  It was long, almost leaving Genna unable to stay hydrated in the midst of it.  This time, it was quick.  The kids threw up what was in their stomach (that took one to three pukes depending on the kid) and then were done.  The best part was that no one soiled my carpet this time!  Beds were another story, but they are easier to clean than carpets.

Judah started this and even fooled me into believing it wasn't a bug.  He didn't have fever and it was just twice in a row.  He seemed fine after that.  Three day later, Isaac gets sick.  He did have a fever, but only for a couple of hours.  The next day Drew got sick.  Then nothing...for a whole week, when Hannah gets sick.  Well, I shouldn't say nothing because we got a different bug during that week, but that's another story.  Genna has still been okay.  I'm saying lots of prayers that we are better now.

I blame this whole thing on Chuck E. Cheese.  Three days after I weaned Judah totally we had a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese, house of germs, in the middle of flu season.  I woke up that morning thinking, "Oh no, what am I thinking?"  Of course, you can't hide from germs all winter unless you are okay with having only 5 little people to talk to all. winter. long.  Three days later.  Bam!

"Yes, it was me who ate my grape after it fell on the ground at Chuck E. Cheese.  Yes, I may have licked a ski-ball too.  Hey, don't knock it till you've tried it."

Our Snowy Day

We had around 5 inches of snow, I think.  We got our school work done and went out right before lunch for a little over an hour.  The snow's still on the ground, but it is now way too cold to go out, plus we've been sick.  It was 4 degrees when we woke up yesterday. This was Judah's first time to go out in the snow and play ever.  I usually send Brian and stay in with him, but with his love for outdoors I figured it was time to take the plunge and go out with him.   I did not feel up to going in the snow myself since my nausea has not gone away yet.  The sacrifices we make for our cuties!

Judah did a lot of standing and tasting snow until we got the sleds out and his sisters pulled him around.

This was Isaac before his dad got home in the afternoon and took them to a sledding hill where he colored the snow with some puke.  And the stomach bug hit.  :)

So then it was time to come inside because poor Judah's hands were getting too red and cold.  And the real fun started...the "I don't want to come back in this house ever!" fit began...

He rolled over when he saw I was taking pictures of him.  :)

...and carried on for at least fifteen minutes once I wrestled his snowsuit off him and plopped him in the middle of the kitchen floor while I got his chicken noodle soup ready for lunch.  Pitiful!!!!

A Drew Update

We had an Advent Angel in our neighborhood who would leave secret gifts on our porch all Advent.  There were seven families who drew names and everyone was an Advent Angel to someone else.  The first gift that was left on our doorstep was in a bag.  Drew jumped out the door, picked it up, and before I could say anything, he tossed it into the house.  You guessed it.  It was breakable.  I heard the crack and reached into the bag to find a snow globe of the Holy Family totally busted open.  So sad, but a good lesson not to throw bags when you don't know what is inside them.

Drew covered his own arms in stickers.

One day after Drew disappeared to go potty, I realized he never came back.  We were doing school work and I just didn't notice how much time had passed.  I went to check on him to find him playing in the sink with hand soap bubbles and a couple toys.  He had plugged up the sink, so I explained that it could overflow if he kept the water on and that the water has to stay in the sink.  I figured it kept him happy and quiet, what's the harm if he knows the rules, right?  I had let other kids play in the kitchen sink before.   The next day the same thing happens, only before I could realize he had disappeared again, he runs out of the bathroom and we could hear the water was on full blast.  I sent one of the girls in to quickly turn off the water, only for them to discover that the sink was plugged up and overflowing at a high speed.  I ran to the basement to get our clean up towels and discovered a dripping sound in the shower while I was down there.  Yes, the water was leaking through the ceiling into the bathroom below!  Are you kidding me?  Do you remember when Brian caught the boys in the bath with water covering the floor?  Well, that was the second floor bathroom leaking into the first floor bathroom.  That still hasn't been fixed and we have all been exclusively using the shower in my room for almost a year.  So now the first floor bathroom is leaking into the basement bathroom too.  Lots of plumbing projects to work on now that the basement is complete.  Pictures to come soon, when we get it all cleaned up and camera ready.

You may also know that Drew is taking soccer this winter.  He improved in the fall and I thought we'd give it another try to see if he enjoyed it more since Isaac wanted to do indoor soccer and the practices were at the same time.  Well, he loves the first part of the practice, where they run and have races, but he doesn't like the part where they use the ball.  The first and second practices he would randomly run off the field and tell me he was done.  Usually, I could get him to go back and give it another try.  One day he ran off the field in the middle of the practice (I thought because he was discouraged about the game or something, but he runs straight into my lap and gives me a kiss, then ran right back out to play.  I don't think we'll be continuing soccer for him in the spring.

We gave him hot cocoa to keep him quiet one night during family prayers.  

Drew is going to be evaluated for his speech in January.  I had been giving him time to be normal and struggle with speech longer than the other children did.  I have even gotten used to his mispronunciations.  G and J sounds are D's.  K sounds are T's, Most blends are hard for him which I am less concerned about because that is more in the normal range.  The thing that brought my attention to it recently is that it is now frustrating him when people can't understand him.  He'll stay, "I tan't say it wight, Mom."  The other day he asked me what his name is in the middle of co-op.  I said, "Why are you asking me that?  You know your name."  He asks again in a different way, "What do you call me?"  I told him we call him Drew or Andrew.  He replies, "I told him that!"  Turns out another boy was asking his name, and he could not understand his answer.  I decided that it wouldn't hurt to have him evaluated just in case some early intervention is necessary.

Drew comes outside wearing the safety goggles that came with Hannah's rock kit.

Drew is reading books out of our Advent basket.

That's a pretzel stick in his mouth, not a cigarette, I swear!

Brothers are reading books under my teacher's desk together.