A New Addition

Surprise! No, I am not pregnant, but our household has grown by one and it's not an animal. It's a full-grown girl. :) She is a Future Leader through McLean Bible Church and will basically be working as an intern with one of the ministries for the next year. The church always provides free housing through members and this year Philip and I felt called to open up our home. So, at the end of June, Morgan G moved into our basement. We have hardly seen her yet as they have been kept extremely busy with training, we were gone for the second half of last week (and are leaving for 10 days on Friday!), but we're hoping that she will truly become a special part of our family.

School Has Begun

As most of you probably know, we are (planning on) homeschooling the boys. The law in Virginia is that children start school the year that they are 5 by September 30. Caleb "missed" the cut-off last year, turning 5 in November. This was fine with me as it gave me a year to really figure out what to do for school, and for Joshua to get older. And since Caleb was already reading, he was learning plenty on his own without "school." We are planning (at least for the foreseeable future) to use the Sonlight Curriculum, which is literature-based. We love to read books aloud anyway, so this curriculum is a perfect fit for us. We are adding language arts, math, Bible and Science to the read-aloud history/geography books. I ordered the "Core" for 4/5 year olds last year and we read through it over the course of the year. This year we are using the Sonlight "K" level, which is for kids between about 5 and 7. Joshua is a little on the young side, so I am not pushing his participation (since he doesn't need to be schooled until next year), but he is usually around for most of what Caleb and I do together. I know he is absorbing things because frequently he yells out the answers to questions before Caleb does. :) I want him to participate as much as possible because the plan is to keep the older boys on the same core since they are so close in age.

Anyway, all this was to say that a few weeks ago we observed we were having more than usual behavior problems with Caleb and that it seemed that he was bored. Even though the state of Virginia doesn't require homeschoolers to have school for a specific number of days, we are going to aim for 180 since that is the number that most public schools do. I figured we might as well get started in June, instead of waiting until September. And so, yesterday was our 15th day of school. Caleb is really enjoying it. Once we get started each day, he keeps pushing to keep going. I am loving watching him learn and use his mind.

This picture is from the other day. I had to order a bunch of books to complete what we needed for Core K, and the remainder of the science books arrived last week. Since we had seen thousands of tadpoles in the pond near our beach townhouse last month, I suggested to Caleb that he might wish to read the book "Tadpoles and Frogs" (in which we learned that some mama frogs grow the babies in their tummies and then the frogs hop out! Sounds like a good idea to me. :) ). The below is what happened. Even the littlest ears got in on the listening. :) I love homeschooling! :)

Beach Trip 2009!

Before we lost the baby, I was planning to log about our great trip to Ocean City, MD which had happened just the week prior. We hadn't been to the beach in almost two years and the boys were SO disappointed that we hadn't gone last year, so we knew we needed to make it happen. Fortunately we blessed with parents/in-laws that really enjoy spending time with us and our children, so Philip's parents joined us for the week. God blessed us with an amazing townhouse to rent which was just a block off the bay and a 3 minute drive to the ocean. It was the perfect location! We arrived on Sunday afternoon and by Sunday evening the boys had their toes in the water. The weather this year has been really strange, and this week at the beach was no exception. It was a little cool and we had a few days of rain, but we had such a great time!

Caleb's highlights were jumping the waves and building sandcastles.

Joshua enjoyed running in and out of the water and smashing the sandcastles. :)

Andrew really didn't like anything about the beach, except being outside. He didn't like the sand (wrong texture!). He didn't like the water (too cold!). Oh well. Maybe next year.

One of the rainy days, my in-laws took the older boys to Assateague Island, which is only about 30 minutes from Ocean City. They had a great time and saw lots of the wild ponies. We all went back on our way out of town. It was amazing to see that that day Assateague Island was it's own weather microcosism. It was sunny and warm on the mainland, but as soon as we crossed over the bridge and went out onto the beach, it was grey, foggy, windy and chilly! This didn't deter the boys from having a blast. They were instructed they could get their feet wet, but not to get wet above the knees. You can imagine how successful they were in following directions. Yeah...totally soaked by the time they were done. Oh well. You're only young once. :)

Some of the pretty ponies:

Here's the beautiful sunset from the first night. We could watch the sunset over the water from the front balcony of the townhouse, although this was taken down by the bay.

Proof that I was there. :)

Heartbreak...again

Many of you probably didn't even know I was pregnant. You know, baby #4...not as exciting as #1 or #2, right? So, we were waiting until we found out the gender at 18 weeks (which would have been on my birthday...what a great gift!) to make the big announcement. Well, yesterday I went in for a routine 13 week check and once again there was no heartbeat on the doppler, then on the ultrasounds. I could tell the midwife was trying not to freak me out with not finding the heartbeat on the doppler (And actually it was excusable because I have a tilited uterus, which makes finding it difficult for a while); however when she couldn't find it on the doppler...I knew. The ultrasound showed that the baby passed early last week.

The level of shock has diminished with each loss (13 weeks in 8/06 and 18 weeks in 2/07), but the lack of understanding and pain don't go away. I am really hoping to be able to have the baby tested this time to see if any reason is shown for the loss. We had extensive testing done on me after the second loss and no problem was found, so the "explainable" reasons don't apply. I'd also like to know the gender of the baby. I wish I'd been able to have to other two babies tested as well, but it didn't happen. And now I really wish I knew what the genders of those babies were too. There are some women who are unable to carry one gender baby, and until I am proven otherwise, I strongly feel at this point that I may be unable to carry girls.

I know there are many women out there who would do anything to have one baby, let alone the three beautiful and healthy ones that I have. I am so thankful for them and each loss makes me hug them a little tighter. Andrew is my little snuggler and yesterday after we returned from our appointment, I fed him and then rocked with him. He snuggled into my shoulder and rubbed and patted my back the way only a little 13 month old can. I guess God knew I needed a little extra love just then.

This loss makes 3 of the last 4 pregnancies ending in loss. And 50% overall. Those are hard numbers to look at. Half our children are not with us. Andrew was the surviving baby out of those four, and what an amazing blessing he is to us. But, I know our family is not complete. I suppose there is nothing to do but wait and see how God will bring the remaining children to us and in what timing. We know His plan is perfect.

In the meantime, please pray for peace and healing. I am still in "coping mode" and haven't yet really felt the emotional impact. And past experience shows that healing takes a long time. Also, last time in particular, I really didn't feel much until after the surgery, which will take place in the next few days.

This baby was to be our special Christmas gift, as he/she was to be born in mid-December. This will no doubt make Christmas a challenging time this year as we remember what might have been.

Adventures in Gardening

Philip's big dream for this year was to have a large, productive garden. So, starting last fall, he was out in our side yard hacking away with the pickax. He killed off all the grass that had been there and worked at flattening out the area. We had a colder than usual Spring, but caused some problems early on (read: a bunch of his plants died because we kept having frost...and he did plant a little early because he was so excited.) We then had a snafu called "hungry rabbit syndrome", which involves the local animals coming and eating our baby lettuce, strawberry plants and blueberry leaves. Out of the 18 or so lettuces that were planted, we have one full sized and two partial left. Yikes. 3 out 4 strawberry plants survived...and the blueberries, well we'll see what happens to those! Anyway, things are finally beginning to look like a real garden. Philip spends time out there everyday and the boys enjoy being out there with him, even Andrew.

Daddy's littlest helper

The other helpers. Love the boots...we've gotten our money's worth out of those this year!

The main part of the garden which has: broccoli (in front), romaine lettuce (with vertical wire around), the dark brown spots are pumpkin, watermelon and cantaloupe (L to R), back left corner is butternut squash, cucumbers, yellow squash and zucchini. Far Left, not in the picture, is the strawberries. On the far right is the start of the peppers (cayenne, habenero, jalapeno), and the beginning of the tomato section (12 total). We also have two each of cilantro and basil, and a few onions interspersed.

In the middle of the pic, you can see our first zucchini...it's doubling every day! Looks like this will probably be the next thing we can eat. We've already had broccoli twice...yum!

On the left is the right half of the tomotoes, the two balckberry bushes and the two blueberry bushes.

Philip also decided to build a compost bin to make some more nutritious soil to add to the garden. The boys have had a blast with this and love being the ones to dump the scraps into the bin. He just added a lid yesterday, so now they have made it a two person job; one person opens and the other dumps.

Melon rinds heading south

Doesn't that sight just make you hungry?

We're excited to start reaping a harvest as summer passes...although I think we may be inundated with squash and tomatoes! We're hoping all of our different plants will produce...we'll see!

Birthday Time!!

As you may remember, Joshua and Andrew have birthdays only two days apart, so this week was Birthday Week! It was fun to celebrate the boys! On Andrew's birthday, we didn't do much special, but we did take a walk to a different park we found a little ways from our house. The boys all had a blast and the weather was perfect for walking and playing that evening.

Look....proof I was there!
And the Birthday Boy with his Daddy:

On Joshua's birthday, he got to choose anything he wanted for lunch and dinner. His favorite meal is tacos, so we ate that for dinner. Seems familiar...we had that for Caleb's birthday too. It's also one of my very favorite meals. Maybe we should just declare Tacos the official "Birthday Dinner"? :) Anyway, after dinner on Joshua's birthday, Philip took all the boys back down to the park, while I decorated birthday cakes!








Saturday morning, I was out yard saleing and found a great little Power Wheels type bike for a steal of a deal. Joshua has been reticent to ride the tricycle, so I thought maybe this would be more his speed. He loved it and he and Caleb both have been zooming all over the cul-de-sac! Philip's parents came down and took Joshua out to lunch by himself and then we had a little party with cake and ice cream when they came back. Low key...but fun.

Andrew and his cake:

He looks like he's really enjoying it, but I don't think he actually really liked it. He did have fun smearing it around though. :)

Joshua wanted a Percy cake this year, so that's what he got:
And he was SOO excited to receive the new VeggieTales Worship CD, as well as the Rescue Building for the boys' Thomas set!

It's been a great year with many fun milestones. It is a blessing to watch them all learn and grow!

Dreadfully Behind Again

Heavens...how does it keep happening? I always tell myself I won't let a month go without blogging and then it happens! I guess we're busy. Well, it's been a good month for the most part. Anyone who keeps up with us on Facebook knows that I am currently on round 5 of strep throst since January. This time Philip and the older boys are being medicated too, so we're really hoping that whichever of them is the carrier is being taken care of! *fingers crossed!* No one should have strep this often. So not good.

Easter was a very enjoyable time. We went to Pennsylvania on Good Friday, in time to attend the GF service at the Hineses church. It was a great service and really helped put the weekend in perspective. Saturday the boys had a blast dyeing eggs, decorating cookies and having an Easter egg hunt. Caleb's favorite way to dye the eggs was the dip each of them in all five of the colors. Then they discovered the stickers. Joshua randomly applied them. Caleb made sure every egg had 2. They had to all be the same.

Next was the cookie making with Grandma and Grandpa. The boys are still learning about cutter placement to ensure maximum cookies from each piece of dough. LOL.

They had a great time decorating. Grandpa made some wild colors and some of the cookies had all the colors on them. Very fun and festive.Off on the hunt! Both boys had the same amount of eggs. We were all stumped when one of Caleb's remained hidden despite all of us looking for it. Grandpa spotted it on the window sill the next day when we were eating lunch!

The boys with their loot...which even several weeks later they still haven't eaten much of! Too many days of losing their treat privilege!

And here is a cute picture of all three boys from last Sunday.

Andrew and Joshua will be celebrating their birthdays in about 2 weeks. Andrew is finally crawling...sort of. He keeps one leg tucked under him, instead of behind him. However, he moves pretty quickly and seems fine with his method. He can move from tummy to sitting as well finally. He is trying to pull up, but isn't quite there yet. However, the poor kid still doesn't realize he could roll over! He says "mama" and "dada" and it seems to makes some other sounds in attempts to comunicate, but nothing we can understand. He does sign "finished" when he is done eating though, and clearly understands many words including nap, go, eat, Caleb, Joshua, headrub. He really loves to play with peek-a-blocks. He loves to crawl after towers his brothers make for him with them and knock them down or take them apart. He is now trying to build towers with the as well, which we don't remember either of the other boys trying at this age. He is sometimes successful, too.