In July, we celebrated Ace’s birthday in style as usual. He is definitely a lot like his daddy but has his own personality. I can’t believe that next year we’ll have two teenagers! 
Uncle and Aunt B always give cool presents. These socks were right up Ace’s alley.
Zoe, Ace, and Liam enjoyed gymnastics again this year. We enjoyed watching their end of year performance too!
Ace and Liam got to do the uneven bars this year. Zoe didn’t enjoy the beam as much as the bars though.
Liam is my little monkey!
Good intentions…I do have them. I fully intend to get the blog updated from May before the end of June so I can update with June even though there’s not much to report in June, except that we were visited by a host of Transueiness and we’re sick. Croup for the babe, colds, stomach issues, fevers, and a touch of laryngitis for the rest of crew…and we’ve only had three go through it. There’s still more to come!
However, before I start folding clothes, I thought I could do a post.
Our end of the year project fair with our homeschool care group was in May this year. The weekend of Mother’s day to be precise. Although it was a very busy day (and Aunt Yaya’s birthday) we had wonderful time. This year, the kids voted not to do handbells. They chose poem recitations instead. I have no clue where the video is. I think next year I’ll talk them in to doing a puppet show…or play. They do enjoy getting up and acting and such.
This year was the first year for them to do projects. I allowed them to choose their projects and have very, very little hands on work with them. I did some guidance on how to do the projects, use machines, and how not to cut yourself with a paper cutter or scissors (or glue yourself to a board).
And I have to say, I was greatly pleased with the effort they put into doing this. Because of that, we will be doing many more projects this year.
Zoe did her project on Bulgaria and the Bulgarian Lap Loom that she had received as a gift from us one Christmas.
They had to stand by their projects and actually talk to people who came by and asked about them (because they’re unsocialized). Zoe enjoyed demonstrating the loom.
We love to watch The Spangler Effect with Steve Spangler and one of the experiments he had was disappearing ink. That was Ace’s choice for a project. He also learned a bit about cryptography and steganography.
Before we left on vacation, the kids informed us that they had a show to do. We had Tracy and Kevin over with their kids and our bunch did not hesitate to perform for them. Zoe even made up a sign and programs. It was a blast to watch and they had fun putting it on.
It’s funny because this is what my sister and I did for our parents when we were little. Ge & Granddaddy please forgive me for all the times I made you “watch my feet” or listen to me sing.
No one should have to listen to me sing.
But my kids, well, that’s a different story. I could listen to their giggly singing voices all day…almost all day…especially if there is no whining or fighting involved.
No one should have to listen to me sing.
But my kids, well, that’s a different story. I could listen to their giggly singing voices all day…almost all day…especially if there is no whining or fighting involved.
We’re going on vacation really soon, so Mark and I decided that it wouldn’t be a bad idea for some of our non-swimmers to take some swim lessons and hopefully keep a few from drowning. Ace and Liam are so close to swimming so they were a must. What we weren’t sure of was Josiah. He had never had a swim lesson by himself before and I really don’t count the “mommy & me” class we took. Although, that was fun. So, we weren’t sure whether to put him in or not. We finally decided to give it a try.
Here’s how it went down (again, didn’t get pictures except the last night).
The first night, Josiah cried. The whole time. And did everything they said, while crying. We were really wondering if this was going to be worth the money.
The second lesson, Josiah cried but only when he had to do something. And he still did it. Hmm, this might work after all.
By the third lesson, he was smiling and informed us that he was having fun! He spent the rest of the lessons smiling and listening and doing all that was asked. He’s getting pretty good at floating and pretty good at swimming on his back! Not something any of our other 4 year olds have been able to do!
As for Ace & Liam, well, they had a wonderful teacher! Ace is at independent swimming status and Liam is so close but needs a bit more confidence. His teacher didn’t make it to the last class until the very end and Liam all but refused to do anything for his substitute teachers. He was really scared and just didn’t trust these total strangers. But, as soon as Mr. Eric walked in, he did everything that was asked. I talked with his instructor afterwards and it really all boils down to his confidence in being able to do things. Hopefully, when summer gets here (and at least our vacation), he’ll have that confidence.
We were really proud of all of them and how hard they worked!
Of course, I can’t type a birth story without a little background. Ace is our gift from God which is what his middle name means! When Zoe was eight months old, we found out we were expecting. However, just a few short weeks later, we learned that baby had died and was now in the arms of Jesus forever. We prayed and cried and sought God’s peace and amply provided it. We grew closer together as a couple and we grew even closer to God. At my two week check up after our miscarriage, we talked with Dr. J and then prayed and realized if it was God’s will, He would allow us to get pregnant again or He would have us wait. Two weeks later, we learned we were pregnant with Ace! While the first part of the pregnancy was full of uncertainty, we learned to rely on God to carry us through.
And a funny from the first part of the pregnancy: I was about six or so months pregnant when the lab nurses suddenly realized I wasn’t being seen for a miscarriage follow-up. Really. At each check up, they kept asking my the date of my LMP. And they kept marking up the check out sheet wrong. We giggled about that.
So, the day of the big birth arrived as planned. Yep, as planned. I was induced on my due date. I’m not sure what prompted us to want to be induced. Again, probably a lack of education, the convenience of scheduling a birth. Dr. J had been out of town the week before and his colleague was the one who left it up to me to schedule the induction. However, as before, I was a really good candidate for an induction (usually am…if you don’t know what makes a good candidate, I can feel you in privately.) I had dilated to a total of 3 whole centimeters but wasn’t really that close to labor. At least not like I was with Zoe.
After pitocin was started, I never really felt like the contractions were strong or regular. Dr. J came in around 9:30 in the morning and broke my water and I was still at 3 cm but could be stretched to 5. I kept getting stronger contractions but I never really felt like they were regular. Around lunch time, they were strong enough that I thought an epidural might feel pretty nice about that time. The nurse came in and checked me and I was at a 7. Of course, after now having three non-epidural births, I realize that I was transitioning and probably could have held off on the drugs, but at the time…well, the nurse asked if I wanted an epidural and when I said yes, she rushed out to find anesthesia and get them in quick. Epidural in place, we settled in to wait for the magic number 10.
However, as I got close to 10, Ace’s heart rate started to drop slightly. I had to get on oxygen and lay on my side to get complete enough to push. When I got to 10, the nurse let me push once and then quickly stopped me to wait on Dr. J. This was not going to be a two and half hour pushing marathon like Zoe’s birth. Dr. J came in, said he was going to change and to keep pushing and then stepped out. I pushed one more time and then the nurse quickly told me to stop. She searched out Dr. J and he (as quickly as he does) got ready. I pushed through three contractions and he was born. The umbilical cord was wrapped around Ace’s neck at least one time and tightly which explained the drop in the heartrate.
Ace weighed in a chunker compared to Zoe at 8 lbs 14 oz. But he was gorgeous and we were thrilled to have our second addition to our family. Our precious gift from God!
Welll, this was an issue we started discussing as soon as we found out Seven was really Malachi. So, I went to trusty Pinterest to gather my thoughts all in one place. We started with these ideas:
Fabric sample
Another fabric sample.
And an idea for beds to include this:
And this:
Our decorating and color ideas came from this bedding that we already had:
But before any of that could work in a room with five boys, we had to paint…and before we totally took the room apart, we remember pictures!
Sorry about the spots, not sure what was up with the camera.
Totally ignore that disheveled looking closet, the curtains for it will be coming later. Ugh, I cringe when I look at that. It does look much better now but still not fun to see every time you come in a room.
Before all the painting started, Mark and Granddaddy put their heads together to come up with bunk bed plans. Granddaddy got the wood and cut it and even pre-drilled the frame and delivered it on Piano Recital day (cause he rocks).
I’m tempted to stop here and make ya’ll all wait until tomorrow to see what took place but then I think someone would come up with the cyber version of rotten tomatoes to throw at me so I won’t!
And this started…
Mark and I realized about an hour into bunk bed building night that two people, one of whom was in her third trimester were not really adequate enough to hold up these sturdy pieces of wood to build two levels. So, reinforcements were called in by way of a neighbor down the street (he always comes to help…we really are wondering why he hasn’t ran away far far from here now). So, thanks, S for helping with the project!
Not going to show the finished project yet…I had some art up my sleeve to do as well as a bit of refinishing. And while I worked on canvasses, three very sad looking male faces appeared and requested ever so sweetly to paint one. I couldn’t resist those big blue and brown eyes so an afternoon of painting commenced on their very own canvasses.
As you enter you can see that beat up dresser all done. Mark did add the knob to the door. We kept the solid wood sturdy big dresser we already had and got rid of (well, it’s sitting in the schoolroom right now) the beat up smaller dresser. We took the knobs off of that dresser and put them on here. I already had the fabric for the boys’ beds and we had plenty of paint leftover from painting the previous dressers. So, total cost was $35 for the dresser! That’s my spaceship canvas that I freehand drew from looking at the pattern on the boys’ crib.
Bryant helped with the photo tour and please ignore any toys, this was prior to clean up time. This is Josiah and Liam’s bunks.
And this is Bryant’s and Ace’s. See the sweet little head peeking out. Bryant got his mattress this past weekend and has transitioned pretty well to his big boy bed. (This is the part where I don’t admit that we tried to give up paci but Mark nor I could stand the screaming so he still has that and it’s probably a big part of the transitioning well. Yeah, it’s going bye bye before Malachi is born though.)
We put gutter bookshelves on the footboard of each bed and a push light (which is battery operated and they have to buy the batteries…some of them are already in need). At the headboard we put their name canvasses that I did with their life verses on them. Have I shown those yet?
My other canvas that I made…freehand…yay me.
This was the boys’ artwork. I thought it turned out really well. In an effort to control the art, I did sketch off the ship they wanted and outlined it and they did the rest. I resisted any desire to control how they did it but I did limit their color choices to what we were using in the room. Really, I did! The end of the legs of Liam’s ship is fire coming out. And my control of Bry’s hand was mainly to keep the paint on the canvas not on the house or me.
A sure fire way to get my kids to burn off excess energy is to go to gymnastics. There is a local gym that offers homeschool classes twice a month. The kids love it and usually rush to finish school on gymnastics days. This month, they had a “Snowflake Show-off” which meant we got to sit down front and center and watch the kids do their thing!
Ceili Rain, Bryant, and Josiah enjoyed the show. Josiah’s old enough to participate but gymnastics is not his thing.
Okay, so the Olympics is not in our future, but it sure is fun for them and they definitely sleep well after gymnastics.
In between travels, Zoe and Ace had their first official piano recital with their teacher Mrs. T. They’ve been taking for the past two years and have done really well. We just recently figured out that Ace can play a bit by ear. Zoe was teaching herself “The First Noel” and Ace heard her playing it and picked up on several different measures too. That thrills this non-musically talented mama to no end. This coming year we’ll add Liam to the lessons and Mark will start teaching Ace percussion as well. He’s wanted to learn to play drums for quite some time and we have a live-in instructor so my house will be full of endless musical noise!
Excuse the spots. I have no idea what was on our new camera lens.
Ge & Granddaddy made the trek up to hear them play (and deliver the wood for the boys’ beds…don’t worry, I’m getting there).
As stated previously, we went to Williamsburg in November. This was my first trip (and the kids too) and we were all so excited. We spent two days there and walked and walked and saw just about everything. It definitely was a good trip for us and a great learning experience for the kids. They only wore their costumes the first day. Which was good because the second day it was cloudy and rather cool.
