Thanksgiving 2011 in Ohio with the Butler family

Dave and I made the trip to Ohio this year to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family.  His Uncle Tim and Aunt Deb Butler hosted, as they have done many times in the past.

We drove out to Chicago Tuesday night of last week.  We picked up Violet from school and left right after that.  The morning on Tuesday was really quite stressful, even though Dave had the day off work.  We went shopping for appliances in the morning with Calvin and Vanessa, and arrived home with just enough time to get lunch, pack up stuff for 5 people quickly, and leave to get Violet at 2:40 pm.  Calvin and Vanessa did not nap, so while I packed up my stuff and the kid's stuff, they destroyed the house.  Not literally, of course....but they pulled out every single toy and puzzle we own and spread them all over the 1st floor of the house.  Everywhere.  The mess stressed me out knowing I didn't have time to pick it all up and realizing that the mess would welcome me the day we arrived home from Ohio.  I'm talking puzzle pieces by where the shoes are stored, lego blocks spread on the kitchen floor...etc. 
Oh well.  I successfully packed up stuff, got the car packed, etc, and in all the flury of me moving so fast, I forgot the kid's toothbrushes.  We ended up buying some at Walgreens in Chicago at the end of our trip when I realized I had forgotten them.  Dave picked them out and got the kind of toothbrushes that you can press the tip and it flashes a light for 60 seconds, the amount of time a kid should brush their teeth.  60 seconds felt like an eternity while we tried out the flashing while brushing, apparently we don't brush their teeth long enough.

We drove to Dave's mom's house that night, and arrived somewhere in the 8 pm range.  We let the kids run around and play for awhile, then settled them into bed.  Calvin and Violet shared a twin bed (heads on each end) in the basement, Vanessa slept in a crib and Dave and I shared the full size bed, all in the same little basement room.  Cozy and dark, everyone slept decent except Violet and daddy.  She woke him up a couple times saying she had nightmares and snuggled in bed with us for awhile.

We planned to spend most of Wednesday with Josh and Carrie, seeing their new house, and Dave planned on helping Josh install some things (ceiling fans, window blinds).  Carrie and I kept the kids entertained, put the little ones down for naps, and left to go take care of some house-related errands.  We stopped by Home Depot, Target, a grocery store, and some other place, I can't remember.  A stop at Starbucks between all the stores was a necessary detour.  While we were gone, the older 4 kids (Austin, Violet, Renee and Calvin) got along pretty well and found stuff to do, not getting into much trouble.  We realized it is so nice when they get older and can function more independently!

We ordered pizza for dinner that night from a local place called Macianos (or something like that), and left shortly after dinner to head back to Martha's house.  There is an hour's drive from J&C's to Martha's.

The night went better, I think, I can't really remember.  We did make a point to wake up early on Thursday morning so we could get on the road at a good time to make it to Tim and Deb's house by 2 pm (they are an hour ahead of us, with a 4 hour drive we made the goal to leave by 8 am but left by 9am).  Martha rode with us there.

This drive felt like an eternity.  We had to stop a lot, kids were tired, couldn't WAIT to get there and see all their cousins, they were even discontented with movies in the van.   I found out Vanessa does not sleep all that well in the van.

We arrived and the big meal was served shortly after we got there.  Uncle Tim had grilled 2 huge turkeys on his master grill, there was also stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes, green beans with roasted red peppers, onions and almonds, cranberries in three forms (relish, sweet whipped cream stuff, and cut out of the can aka: poor man's cranberries), water, wine, there might be something else missing, pumpkin pie, peanut butter pie, and chocolate fondue with lots of different things to dip in the chocolate (pineapple, strawberries, angel food cake, pretzels, and wafer cookies).

We all pitched in to clean up and got involved with a game of pictionary.  I forgot how hard that game can be.

Tim and Deb had set up a room for our whole family.  Violet and Calvin got bunk beds, Vanessa slept in Kala and Linette's old crib, and Dave and I slept on a queen size air mattress.  Both kids were too afraid to sleep on the top bunk the first night so they shared the full size bunk on the bottom. 

Friday morning, Kala and I had planned to get up early and do some Black Friday shopping.  If you know me at all, that is THE LAST place I want to be because I don't really love shopping all that much, and I hate crowds...but I agreed to go with her.  She invited me to stay at her house in Bowling Green that night, so I did.  We got to her place at midnight and both went to sleep right away.  Friday morning we woke up at 7 am (I know, pathetic for BF shopping), got some breakfast sandwiches and coffee, and hit the stores by 8 am. 

I found some maternity clothes at Old Navy and Kohls, some new shoes and a purse, she found some boots and other accessories. 

We returned to Tim and Deb's house in time for lunch, which was "create your own pizza" and Tim grilled them.  Everybody enjoyed that!

The weather was so nice (60 degrees and sunny!) that the kids enjoyed outside play, mostly on the trampoline and swing set outside.  We also spent a few hours at one of Tim and Deb's good friend's house, they have a little pond with a kayak, some 4 wheelers, and a barn with horses.  These activities kept all the kids involved and every one enjoyed a trip around the lake in the little boat.

I can't really remember specifically what we did that evening.  We played random board games (Blokus was the most popular!) and cards, sometimes spoons.  Tim grilled up (yes, he loves his grill) some marinated pork tenderloins for dinner along with leftover sweet potatoes and more veggies, and the evening event was watching the movie Tangled.

Saturday we spent a good portion of the day at the city park.  It was still really nice outside so that was a huge blessing.  We took a family picture outside too. 

Sunday morning we tried to get up and out as early as possible....but it turned out being closer to 10 am that we left.  Knowing that we had an entire day's worth of traveling ahead of us was a bit daunting.  540 miles in one day?  With 3 kids?  Are we crazy?

We broke up the trip in pieces, however, which is why it took us from 10 am to 10 pm to get back to our house in Cedar Falls. 

We dropped Martha off in Berwyn, IL (5 hr drive), and Dave spent an hour trying to repair her sliding deck door.  Then we had to go to J&C's house (1 hr drive) because we had left the kid's winter coats there from the Wednesday before, and they also gave us their baby crib.  We stopped there for an hour.  Then left for Iowa (4 more hours).  The kids watched tons of movies.  Vanessa barely slept, and fussed for a long time.  We stopped multiple times for bathroom breaks, and food breaks.  Calvin had to stop more than anybody to pee.  I drove the last 4 hour stretch, Dave drove the rest of it.

Violet and Calvin konked out and went to sleep about an hour before getting home, so getting them out of the van into their beds was a bit of a challenge.  Once all the kids were in bed Dave and I just stared at the disaster of our house, said forget it, and went to bed too.

The drive was worth it, however, seeing family and watching the cousins enjoy their time together was priceless.

Pics:

Serving up Thanksgiving meal to the kids:

 chocolate fondue:

 trampoline outside!

 kayaking with daddy:

 4 wheelin' with Uncle Tim:

 me tickling my little boy:

 Violet, Adalynn, Lynnea, Calvin

 me and Kala:

 almost a family pic, missing Vanessa, but still a good one!

the whole gang.  (Tim and Deb Butler, Sean and April LaMarche with their 7 kids, Emily, Alyssa, Corbin, Logan, Bowen, Lynnea and Adalynn, Dave and me, Violet, Calvin, Vanessa, Martha LaMarche, and Kala Butler)

Calvin has strange abilities to hurt himself

I have thought about posting something about this but never really knew what to say.  Fact is, Calvin has some type of amazing ability to hurt himself or get injured doing almost anything.  He isn't even clumsy, he just...somehow gets hurt doing the most simple things. 
For example:
-pulled out the wood cutting board to use as a ramp for his little race cars.  Drops the heavy corner on his foot, breaks several blood vessels and screams for 3 minutes.
-walks around the corner and somehow bonks a part of his hand on the corner creating a nice bruise, screams for awhile.
-jumps off the couch, landing nicely on 2 feet, and ends up walking away and stepping on a toy and hurting the bottom of his foot.
-sitting on a chair eating a meal and catches his foot on some common thing under the table, scraping his skin.
-fell out of bed after waking up from his nap.
-ran into the living room and somehow smacked his nose on the corner of the coffee table  (how??)
-there are so many more, I have a feeling I will be updating this post later.
- jammed his body into the container that holds the lincoln logs gets himself stuck and it hurt too much to try yank himself out, needed mommy's help to get out - was coloring while on a chair in the kitchen and lodged his foot between the slats on the back of the chair, screamed til I got up to help him free his foot. Is this just a little boy thing, or Calvin?

Things are shifting around here

Dave and I both feel like some pieces of our lives are starting to come together.  In the last few months, we have off-loaded (sold) a lot of stuff.  Sold the old ski boat towards the end of summer (just not working to be a "boating family" at this stage of our lives), sold off the pick up truck (that we mainly used to tow the boat), sold the river house, and replaced our old broken van with a newer one...and sold off the older van to someone who fixes up old cheap vehicles.  Glad to have all that off our books!

Our finances have been "in limbo" with categories of our budget constantly changing over the last few years since moving out of the river house, buying a new house, and finally selling off the river house.  We both are starting to see some stability and predictableness to that side of our lives and it is really nice.  We need to have one of our power 3 hour financial sessions together after the kids go to bed and rearrange everything so it fits our lives finally.

We both feel like we can now finally focus on "moving in" to our current house, even though we've lived here for 3 years.  We want to get some furniture and finish some rooms like we've wanted to, but were unable to do.  Excited to change some things around here!

Calvin's Prayer

Calvin composes amazing prayers.  The average listener might be tempted to reprimand him for being silly when he talks to God.  But if take to time to see things from his perspective, you'll understand his prayers are as sincere and serious as his little boy mind knows how to make them.  I delight in listening to him pray each night.

Tonight, one phrase in Calvin's prayer was, "...and help Violet not to touch crabs..."  I thought for sure he was just being silly.  After the prayer I asked him in a neutral way, why he prayed for Violet not to touch crabs.  He said, very seriously, that he prayed for that so Violet wouldn't get pinched by a crab.  Later I told Maria about this and she mentioned that they had watched a Milo and Otis movie today and a little cat was poking at a crab and the crab pinched the cats paw.  So, Calvin had learned something today - he had learned that crabs pinch.  So, naturally, he prayed for Violet, who he loves so much, that she wouldn't touch crabs so she'd be safe from being pinched.  Boy, am I glad I chose to enquire, rather than reprimand.

Tonight he also asked God to help Porcupines and thanked God for lamps.  It was right in-line with other nights when he has thanked God for boxes and prayed that bugs would not get killed and so on.  Calvin talks to God in sweet sincerity about his little sphere of understanding of the world, wrapped in his kind-heartedness.  I love that little boy.

Thank you, God, for the privilege of getting glimpses of life through the eyes of my children.

Dave

I gave Violet a hair cut

She was overdue for a haircut.  The best indicator she needs one is the frequent complaining about tangles...and she runs screaming if she sees me with a hairbrush coming at her to brush it out before school.  Her last haircut was in February of this year.

Before:

After:

 I cut close to 5 inches off.

She was super excited to show daddy, and ran around the house shaking her head all over the place.  Calvin thought her hair was so soft when he touched it, and seemed excited about her haircut too.  

This morning:

Sold the river house

The journey has ended!  We put the house on the market last month with the thought that we would give it a few weeks to sell before winter.  We got a full price offer with in a week!  Our realtor Gary sailed us right through it with no issues at all.  The buyers were solid, had an interest from the moment they saw it, and created no problems for us (unlike the person who previously had an interest 2 yrs ago).   But the Lord's hand was even in that previous person's interest because we had to jump through a lot of hoops and get things cleared (get an OK from the city that that property had a perfectly functioning septic system, which was an ordeal that stretched on for months), get a variance from the city council for permission to rebuild the property (took a long time for that too)....and all sorts of things.  But all of it set up the closing for these new buyers to be smooth as butter.  It was seamless, quick, almost felt TOO easy.  We are praising God for his provision.
Sooo happy to have that headache gone!

Bring back the chicken

Now that I am past the first trimester (YAY!) of this pregnancy, I am getting past some of my food aversions.  Cooking chicken and eating it felt like something I could handle last night, so we had some marinated chicken for super last night.  You would have thought it was some kind of prized dinner based on the kid's reactions.  They gobbled it up so fast.  That is rare for Calvin to eat chicken so quickly.  He said over and over "this is SO good mom! I love it!"  I guess its going back on the menu. :)

Calvin writing his name and the word "stop"

Calvin wrote his name on the dry erase board today.  I asked him if he could write his name, and he needed help knowing which letters to write in what order, but he didn't need help writing the actual letters.  He kept erasing his first efforts saying they weren't nice enough, and made each letter as best as he could. 

That is improvement!  He did NOT want his picture taken with his name...can you tell?

He wrote it right through Violet's drawing of the rain on some flowers.

Sometime last week he also wrote the word "stop" all by himself on the little magnadoodle.  Maybe he was subliminally telling me to stop taking pictures.  He hid behind the magnadoodle for the pic on purpose.

Halloween 2011

Last year we somehow totally skipped Halloween.  We didn't tell the kids it was coming, we weren't around the night of trick or treating, and were pretty happy to just not deal with it.  This year was a bit different.  Since "The Western Town" indoor trick or treating event (the cardboard constructed town) was happening at the chapel this year (Sunday evening), we figured out some costumes for each kid (Vanessa did not get one) and took them there.  Violet wore a sparkly princess dress with wings and Calvin was a bumble bee.  My mom was able to come, and we trick or treated indoors.  The "Western Town" was really amazing, I didn't take any pictures myself, but maybe I'll snag a few from others.  We waited in a long line to get a cool balloon made for each kid by Mr. Nick the balloon guy, too.  Calvin asked for an orange bunny and Violet wanted a pink flower with a green stem.

Monday evening turned into the real trick or treating event.  Kim and Randy Costello and Katie asked if the kids could get together and trick or treat in our neighborhood.  They were excited to get together so we made plans.  They came over at 5:45, kids were dressed and ready to go again.  Katie was Piglet from Winnie the Pooh (and had a super cute creative costume, wearing a pink dress with bright pink duct tape across it in stripes).  I realized this was Calvin's first "real" outside trick or treating event he would remember, and didn't really know what to do.  He followed the girls to each house, and quickly caught on.  As soon as he found out people were handing out candy, he was in an all out sprint from house to house, keep catching up with the girls easily.  I forget the kid is just 3 yrs old.  He is very fast!  I guess he'll be 4 pretty soon, but still.  They went down the block on Briarwood to Orchard Hill hitting every house that had lights on, and came back up the other side til we got back to our house.  Their bags were heavy, and Calvin was sweating in his bee costume.  Kim, Randy and I walked along the sidewalk, enjoying their excitement.  I marveled at the fact that I didn't have to hold anyone's hand so they wouldn't trip down stairs walking up and down people's driveways and porches.  Some people handed out puzzles and pencils, which was fun.  Dave ran to get pizza then stayed at the house with Vanessa and handed out candy to those trick or treating at our house.

We all got back to our house and we all had pizza, and the girls and Calvin happily hopped out of their chairs excitedly to hand out candy to other trick or treaters.  We found out quickly how the bowl of candy by our front door disappeared so quickly.  Violet, Calvin and Katie EACH took a turn giving a HANDFUL of candy out to each kid.  Wow!  With in 30 minutes of arriving home, our stash of candy was gone, so we turned off our house lights.  The kids barely finished a slice of pizza and ate some candy, then bounced around the house and went crazy.  We put a video on so they would settle down a bit, but it only worked for 20 minutes or so.  The craziness continued, but we put an end to all of it since we had to get the kids down to bed at a decent time.  I think they crashed by 9pm.

Vanessa is sick

What got me to take Vanessa to the doctor was a persistent weird diaper rash I could not get rid of.  Antifungal cream didn't help it (thought it was yeasty), desitin didn't help it.....so I made an appointment for Monday morning.  The doc said she needed an antibacterial so prescribed a stronger cream.  It zapped the rash gone in 2 days.  She also looked in her ears and discovered infected fluid in both ears.  No wonder.  She was crabby and clingly for days...I feel bad I didn't discover it earlier.  I figured it was teething or something (she has 2 top molars coming in) because she has had a runny nose for a long time.  She was also prescribed an oral antibiotic to take once a day for 10 days, which seems to already be helping a lot by day 3.  However, it causes her to poop what seems like every 60 minutes.  I could do with out that, but other than that, she seems to be much happier.  She was running around and laughing with the other kids today, something she hadn't done in a few days.  Calvin is getting quite good at making her laugh.  He crawls up to her fast and stops right at her belly and bonks her with his head, she laughs hard!  Then she runs away, watches to see if he will follow her, and when he does, she squeals again.  I'm glad she is on the mend.