He's 5

Ben got up yesterday and forgot it was his birthday! How does a 5year old forget its his birthday especially when thats all he's talked about for 2 weeks??? I guess if anyone could do that, its Ben! I'm trying to ignore the fact that my baby is becoming a big boy and focus on the fun he's been having the past few days. My parents were not able to make his party on Saturday, so they stopped over Sunday for presents and cup cakes. We had to keep the party going till Monday because aunt Corrie finally came home after her long summer in Idaho. We had more cake and more presents from her and Gram. I think Ben is starting to take after uncle A with his week long birthday celebrations!

Benjamin Scott August 2006

One of the things Ben mentioned he wanted to do was to go by the water and look for boats. The catch was he only wanted to go with dad. I swallowed my pride and told him I thought that was a good idea. They took binoculars and spent some quality time together checking out the view and walking by the lake. It looks like they had a lot of fun.

Benjamin Scott August 2011

Friend party

Since Bens birthday is on Monday, we celebrated with his friends this morning at one of his favorite play grounds. As requested, we had chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting and (optional) marshmallows. I think the kids had a good time. They played hard and got dirty. Ben couldn't decide on a theme. I should say he couldn't decide on one theme. We went from Spider man to Mario to Larry boy, back to Spider man and settled on Iron man plates with Thomas hats. We are grateful to all of our friends who were able to join us and were so generous.

We sang and blew out the candles on the bench so uncle gimp, I mean A, could be part of the singing!
I love it when they lick off the frosting and leave the cup cake.

Present time!

Corrie, I forgot to take a picture of the cupcakes, but most of them looked half way decent. Thanks for the tips and hopefully at least one will last till Monday!

Are you ready?

Its football time. Tonight was Lakewoods home opener and Tyler's first time marching in the high school band. The kids were excited to go to the game cause they have popcorn there. It also helped that Gram loaded them up on sugar. We stayed through half time and everyone had a great time. The band was entertaining and Ty did a great job. Here is some of our fun:

Pregame snack.
Ty is right in the middle of the top and bottom pictures.
Being cute.

Biker dude

Ben has been on a bike riding kick recently. He would ride all day and all night if we let him. He is insisting that when he turns 5 we are going to take off his training wheels and then he'll be able to get a "big bike with only two wheels" like his friend Tate has! He will need a bigger bike pretty soon, but the thought of him with no training wheels is pretty scary!

Of course if Ben is riding his bike, Sam wants to drive the car. Unfortunately, he gets stuck on the uneven side walks and hills on our street. He has a good big brother though. Ben is always willing to stop and help him out---after he asks nicely!

Not so wordless Wednesday

Ben is so excited to learn to read. Unfortunately, his brain and his excitement level are not on the same page. He is SLOWLY making progress though:

Good news?

We took Ellie to see an allergist today. Her reflux is not going away and the next step is to take her to a gastroenterologist who would most likely want to scope her. We were hoping that we would get lucky, find an allergy and avoid any more testing. Unfortunately (?) she came back completely normal. No allergies here. The allergist also recommended we not bother with any other last ditch efforts that will cost time and money. He thinks her best bet is a GI doctor also. So we'll hold out till October, pray that it resolves itself on its own, but prepare ourselves for some unpleasant testing.

Jam session

For your viewing/listening pleasure:

Sport

Here he is....a preview 9weeks early. He is 3.5lbs and measuring exactly where he needs to be. He is breech. Actually, he is frank breech so he is bent in half with his feet up in front of his head. He kicks 24hrs a day and I am ready to have him out.
We got the results of the blood work today. The infection that the doctors were so concerned about was actually in the past so it is not an issue for the baby. Obviously, that is great news, but we are no closer to finding out why I feel so crappy. I have a feeling this is something I'm just going to have to deal with until October. I've lasted this long, whats 9 more weeks??

Day 1

After a few years of going back and forth on the whole home school topic, I am happy to report that as of today, we are a home school family! After a lot of discussion, back and forth, research, chats with friends and some insights from Prasti (thank you for that), we have decided to not send Ben to preschool again this year. Instead, today was day 1 of kindergarten home schooling.

It actually went pretty well. I told Ben we were going to start school at home today and he was excited about it (although I haven't told him yet he wont be going back to his preschool). We are spending the first week reviewing writing his numbers and letters and we are getting serious about reading. His skill level hasn't caught up to his excitement level when it comes to reading so I'm hoping this will be the boost he needs to get him over the hump! I'm hoping the ease and excitement will be the trend and not just a short lived thing since its new and we are just reviewing. I've spent hours and hours looking at curriculum, work books, unit studies with and with out lap books, note books etc and I think I have found a nice mix to keep him excited and keep the stress level down.

Of course, once school was mentioned, Sam wanted to be right next to Ben. He was happy just to spend some time coloring, but I think I'm going to need to find some "school" things for Sam to do, or we're going to have some issues!

Wish us luck. 1 day down, only 179 more to go!

Catching up

I know, its been ages since I've updated the blog and to top it off, I don't have any new pictures to put up. I just thought I'd fill everyone in on whats up with us.

Ben: He is actually the only one with out any major drama happening right now. His biggest issue is he doesn't want to move his bedroom into the play room when the baby comes. How can a kid not want his room to be in the same room with 1,001 toys and a tv......and video games??? I don't get it. I've been preparing for a huge battle to get him to go to bed and not play. Apparently I've been worried about the wrong battle!

Sam: You might have heard that Sam had croup last week. He had a couple days where he had a high fever, a barking cough and was just not himself. He was on antibiotics and steroids and is pretty much back to normal.

Ellie: Its now been a month and a week since her herpes outbreak. She is 99% cleared up, but you can still see some spots. It should have been gone by now so I'm not sure what is up with her immune system. She also got a cold. It moved through pretty quick. We have a little bit of left over snot, but she is getting better each day. Her reflux is a constant source of stress. She will have a couple great days and we think the medications are working, then the next day she is practically vomiting her food ALL DAY LONG! We scheduled an appointment with a gastroenterologist, but that isn't until October. She also has an appointment with an allergist to see if she might have a milk and/or soy allergy. I almost hope thats what it is. At least she can outgrow that and wont have to endure being scoped. In the mean time, she has helped to make the Giant Eagle pharmacy our second home. In the past 2 months, we have had to fill 13 prescriptions. 9 of those have been for Ellie! On the plus side, she is sitting up like a pro. She can get herself up and down and sits straight up for longer than I would have thought she could last.

Jon: My hubby is kicking bank butt and just got a raise! We still wont be paying off our medical bills any time soon, but its nice to know they value him. Jon has a consultation with a surgeon coming up to look at his hernia. Its slowly been getting worse over the last few months so I'd like him to have it taken care of before I need to rush him to the hospital with our 4 kids!

Me: We had a small scare yesterday. I've been feeling awful for a few months now so my doctor ordered extra blood work for me. I found out yesterday that I tested positive for a virus that can harm the baby. The only problem is that only half of the 2 part test was done so we don't know if this is something I was exposed to in the past or something that is happening now. I had an ultrasound this morning with the head of the fetal care department for the Clinic. So far the baby looks great. He ordered a ton more blood work and now we have to wait to see what it says. If part two of this test is positive, I'll be considered high risk and will have a bunch more ultrasounds for the next 9.5 weeks to make sure he is ok. If it comes back negative, I will probably be referred to an endocrinologist for possible adrenal issues. The only good thing in all of this is we got a 3D shot of the baby this morning. He looks exactly like Sam in the picture and you can even see some hair. I'll see if Jon can scan it next week and post it.

On top of all the illnesses, we spent the past week saying good bye to some great friends, who headed out of state yesterday. The boys don't quite understand the moving away process, but for everyone else, it absolutely sucks! Daily texts/chats just wont make up for the runs, picnics, ice cream dates and Chick Fil A play time!

We miss you guys already!

On the move

Here she goes:

Already?

When I left the living room Ellie was on her back looking at toys. When I walked back in, literally a minute later, this is how I found her:

I think she used the mat to help her up, but isn't this a bit early to be sitting up almost completely on her own?? I think we're in trouble! Oh, and she started crawling a week ago. I'm working on getting video up of that.

Camp out

Cross Point had their first annual father-son camp out last Friday. Unfortunately, bad timing left some dads at home, but it sounds like the group that got to go had a blast. Jon didn't tell the boys what was happening until the night before they left. I only had to endure a few hours of hearing over and over and over again how daddy was taking them camping and I had to stay home with Ellie. It was only 1 night, but it was packed with camp fires, stories, hot dogs, smores, hiking, fishing, swimming and probably some stuff I don't want to know about! Luckily, everyone came back in one piece and they all had a good time. Here are some of the highlights and a few shots Ben snuck in of himself: