Bay Beach - again!

It took us a year to return, but last week, we visited the famed Bay Beach again! Patrick and Joe are enjoying the train that takes you along the bay.

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Captain Luke waves to his adoring fans.
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Andrew looks mad because we haven't let him participate yet.
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Andrew's first ride alone! He wasn't sure how he felt about it, but the dinging bell was fascinating to him.
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Joe loved the shooting planes.
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Scott's not quite sure all four of them will fit in the seat made for two. They did and they all loved it. Except for maybe Scott who is a little afraid of heights.
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Luke enjoyed riding the dalmation. His favorite stuffed animal is his dalmation doggie.
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Andrew didn't enjoy his horse.
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Luke loved the shooting planes, too. They all learned how to get their brothers and other riders in their sights.

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About four minutes after we got in the car...

First Day of School

Today was Joe's first day of 4-year-old Kindergarten, or, Preschool, as most people call it. Since we had tried this class once before last year, he didn't have too much anxiety about the whole affair. He was very excited to be back with his buddies. Since his class last year had only little boys, we had to explain that he would have girls in his class this year. When he first saw one of his old friends, he told him, "We have girls!"

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Patrick, Joe, Luke and Andew were all excited for Joe's first day.

Technical Issues

Apparently, letting the kids use the computer causes viruses. Our computer is TOTALLY out. We can't even get it fixed remotely. Thank goodness I just backed up all of our pictures and Christmas list on an external hard drive. That was perfect timing.

So, I will try to update the blog without pictures whenever I have access to Scott's computer for a few minutes.

Two little stories:

Right before bathtime last night, I saw Joe checking himself out in the mirror. He was wearing Scott's sunglasses and nothing else. I heard him say (to his reflection), "You are SO handsome." and later, "Hey, Joe, what are you doing? Just being handsome."

Yesterday, all four boys and I went to the post office. I had bribed all of them to be good with the promise of a treat afterward since our last visit was me yelling at them as they ran circles around the folks in line and hollered. They were being fairly good this time standing by the cabinets with all of the order forms. They had a trash receptacle that was inside of the cabinet with a hole on the side and a swinging door to close it - kind of like what all of the fast food restaurants used to have. Patrick was playing in it, and I told him to "Keep your hands out of the trash!" Not one minute later, I hear one of the workers ask, "Are you looking for Oscar?" I turn around to see Patrick with his entire head in the tiny trash hole. I was mortified. Several little old ladies in line started chuckling and one commented, "To be fair, you did tell him to keep his hands out."

Great-Grandpa

My father's father died last Thursday. He had just turned 94. The funeral was beautiful. It was at the parish to which he belonged as a child and through most of his working years in Burlington, KS. Some of our ancestors even dug the foundation for that church. He was buried next to my grandmother seven years and few day since her death.

It was great to see all of the aunts, uncles and cousins again. Janelle was the only one that couldn't make it since she is serving her second deployment in Afghanistan. We thought it was a very appropriate way to honor grandpa for his military service.

Click on the title of the post for an obituary.

Hampton Inn Room 420

I am often asked, usually rhetorically, how I do it with four little ones. I usually make some small remark about the craziness of our house, but with new moms, I try to respond the same: No one is watching you be a mom. Sometimes it gets a little, shall we say, messy... you improvise, you lose your temper, you get pooped on, you do dumb stuff. But at the end of the day, no one really cares as long as you have happy and healthy children.

So, with that being said, I'm going to tattle on myself and give you a little peek into the messiness I'm talking about. We stopped in Waterloo, IA on our way home to Kansas City. Andrew does not sleep well in hotels AT ALL. Our best bet is to stick him in a seperate room by himself. We ordered up a "handicapped room" for extra space and low and behold, his little porta crib fit into the huge shower in the bathroom. Perfect!

All of the big boys brushed their teeth and went potty and I shut the door and turned off the light so Andrew could get a good nights sleep. Five minutes later, Patrick has to potty. Then Luke. No one else in the room was going to sleep if they had to go potty, but I couldn't let them back in the bathroom or they would wake up Andrew. (You sleep-protective moms out there know what I mean!) So, we improvised. Yes, my little boys peed in the ice bucket.

And, yes, you guessed it, that same bucket got knocked over sometime in the course of the stay.

To top it all off, I was sleeping with Luke when he woke me up at 5am to let me know he had some pee pee in his undies. I can't tell you how awesome it was to reach over and find a huge puddle of pee in bed with me. Of course, we couldn't go into the bathroom. I took off his pj's and sent him into the bed porky-pig style with Scott and Patrick. He settled down and went back to sleep. About an hour later, I hear him 'whisper yell' to Patrick: "Your hands are feeling my bottom" Seriously, how can you go back to sleep after that?

So, poor room 420 in Waterloo. Pee on the floor, on the bed, in the bucket. Beautiful. The lesson of this story is: when you're at a hotel and they give you a little plastic bag to line your ice bucket .... USE IT!

Practice Makes Perfect

After waking up from his nap, Andrew was in his crib babbling.   I was discussing with my mother how I heard that babies sometimes need alone time to practice talking.  Some documentary I saw emphasized that babies practice new sounds better when they're alone because they don't have to 'perform' for anxious parents.  They get to try out their vocalizations without an audience reaction.  So, we left him in his room.  A few minutes later, Joe (who had evidently heard our conversation) came to me to announce, "Now, Andrew is practicing crying."