Our Winter in Pictures

Winter in Pictures:

A date night with her dad.

We celebrated Pi day with chicken pot pie.

Hijacking dad's winter boots. They are serious about boots here in Maine.

Our annual candle lit dinner for Valentine's day. This year was Chicken Parmesan. 

With Tuxedo strawberries for dessert. These were so fun to make!

When temperatures dip close to or below zero, the sea releases gases that hover over the water. They call it sea smoke. It's pretty spectacular in person. 

We had a flu-like virus pass through our home this winter and Nater got it twice. Falling asleep on the couch is not like him AT ALL. He looks so sweet and sickly in this photo. 

Davis @ 6 Years Old

At 6 years old:

• Davis is the most affectionate child I know. He loves giving hugs and snuggling. Sometimes we have to put a limit on how much he hugs people in public because it can get a little bit out of control. At church yesterday he hugged our branch president 8 different times during the 3-hour block. I promise I don't limit this boy's hugs at home but from the way he acts it might seem like he's not getting any TLC from his parents!
• He loves to read. So much, in fact, that he has been known to get in trouble for reading instead of doing other things he's been asked to do--like brush his teeth and get ready for school.
• He loves playing the wiiu more than just about anything.
• Davis is my biggest cheerleader. He tells me multiple times a week that I'm "the best mom ever!" or that we have "the best family ever!" or this is "the best dinner ever!" Everyone needs a Davis in their life cheering them on.
• He is a pretty good eater but hates tomatoes, avocado, beans, and squash. He loves pizza, cucumbers, green apples (he eats at least on every single day after school), chicken, and hot dogs. 
• I get to volunteer every Tuesday in his classroom and I love it. Kindergarteners are so special. There is a great energy in his classroom and I love watching him at work. He is an excellent student and his teacher told us that he does a really good job helping his peers without just giving them the answer (not an easy feat for a 6-year-old). 
• We are so proud of Davis and the big kid he is becoming!

My handsome boy on his birthday. 

Davis with Maddie on the Boston temple grounds. These two are pretty chummy most of the time. 

If Davis ever gets ahold of my phone I almost always get a memo that my icloud is dangerously full and I suddenly have 45 pictures of the bathtub with his thumb in the top right hand corner. 

Easter-egg coloring during Davy's birthday week. He thought it was pretty spectacular that he got to celebrate his birthday and Easter on the same day. 

Isaac @ 9 Years Old

A few snippets of what Isaac is like as a nine-year-old boy:

• This boy is highly (highly!) motivated by money. He loves earning money and spending it even more. Right now his pursuits usually involve some sort of wii game he's saving up to buy.
• Isaac is very patient with his little brother, Nathan. Right now their favorite game is what they like to call "Yoshi-back rides." Thanks Super Mario Bros. It is essentially a piggy-back ride with Nathan clinging to Isaac's back all while Isaac runs rampant through the house. 
• The other morning I was finishing up exercising when Isaac came down for breakfast. He caught me griping as I was finishing my last round of jump squats. "Mom?" he asked, "Are these exercises really that hard for everyone or is it just because you are so old?"
• I can get him to do any chore under the sun for a little bit of video game time. Incidentally, since buying the Wii for Christmas, I fold MUCH less laundry than I used to. It's glorious.
• I walked in on him taking a bath the other day and he immediately asked me to leave, exclaiming that it was "humiliating" for me to see him that way. 
• Isaac is a good friend to the underdog. He seems to often seek out the child without many other friends, or the kid who just moved from a different country and doesn't speak English yet. His teacher told us recently that he is always polite and always kind to everyone. This makes me very happy.
• He teases Davis and Maddie to no end. Especially Davis. He convinced Maddie some time ago that there was a new Ivy and Bean book that just came out (a series of early-reader chapter books about two best friends). "Really?" she exclaimed, since she had finished what she thought was the entire series. "Yes," he assured her, "It's called, Ivy and Bean: Friendship Ends."
• He played on a community basketball team this past winter and now he wants to play basketball all the time. 
• Isaac is a thinker. He plans and processes things and considers outcomes of situations before they take place. He lays out his clothes every night so that he can wake up and quickly get dressed and be the first one down to breakfast. He is never ever late. 
• Ike will eat anything. Anything. You'll hear murmurs of complaint with a short list of foods: sweet potatoes, zucchini, and any other type of squash. He still loves pizza, orange chicken, hot dogs, blackberries, avocados, and Cesar salad. 
• He loves spending time outside exploring, playing basketball, and running.
• We love you so much Isaac. Our family wouldn't be complete without you. 

Yoshi-Back riding.

Outside adventuring.

Blowing out his trick candles. 

Church in Bangor. I learned that I should double-check my kids' bags when I let them pack for themselves. Maddie forgot dress shoes, Isaac had only warm-up pants, and Davis only brought T-shirts. 

So that I Remember...

Every night, as part of his bedtime routine, Nathan asks me (or Ryan) the following question: "Will you hold me like a baby and sing me 'Twinkle, Twinkle' (with Ryan he always chooses 'Take me out to the Ball Game')?" How can I refuse that request? After the song he always asks us to tell him a story about dinosaurs. He oohs and ahhs with every detail. The dinosaurs in my stories are always nice to their siblings and they LOVE vegetables. I have to get a moral in there somewhere, right?

He might need therapy when he's older because I won't let him grow up, but in the meantime I am really enjoying my last little one being little for a while longer.

Winter Update

I have a love/hate relationship with Instagram. I love it because it helps me stay connected to faraway friends and family, and it has even helped me meet a few "instie friends" that I really admire and would have otherwise never gotten the chance to "know." But the truth is it is also the number one reason why this blog has been pushed to the back burner. Instagram is easy! It's fast! Friends comment right away! But it's also a time sucker, a distraction, and can occasionally bring out FOMO (fear of missing out) feelings if I let it. I feel like I really have to make a conscious effort to balance my social media intake and make it worthwhile and not a waste of precious time. And hopefully I can give a little more time to this blog as I work that all out. Because really and truly, at the risk of sounding dramatic, this little piece of internet is one of my most prized possessions. It does in fact hold the memories of my time with those that mean the most to me. 

January has been an interesting month. The very beginning of it brought some stress and a little bit of heartache as the home purchase that we were so close to making fell through. It was our decision--we backed out at the last minute because we found out about a slew of undisclosed problems and it scared the pants off of us. I am SO very glad we found this information out in the nick of time. And I'm just a little bit (ok a lot bit) disappointed that the home didn't end up being all we hoped it would be. I'm certain everything will work out--it always does, but I would be lying if I said I don't get a little bit anxious when I think about where we will be living when our lease is up in a couple of months. Rentals aren't exactly plentiful in our neck of the woods, and I don't want to buy a home that I don't love just because there aren't any other good options. I do realize that in the grand scheme of things, this is a peanut-sized problem, and I try to remind myself of that on the daily. So does God. I have dear friends both near and far dealing with much bigger trials: Sick babies that haven't even been born yet, marital problems, health problems, and cancer scares to name a few. Writing down just those few things makes me realize how hard life can be and how we just need to do our very best to be kind, and to teach our children to be kind. How is that for stream of consciousness? 

So here is a little picture update of some of our most recent happenings:

Spending my days with this little guy is just the best. Except when it's not, but we'll focus on all the times when it is, because that's what I want to remember. He wants to help me with everything (EVERYTHING!) from washing dishes to making dinner to flushing the toilet (no privacy. NONE). In fact, when I do one of these activities without him and he finds out, feelings of resentment usually result. He says the best one-liners, like, "Oops! wooks wike I'm poopy!" or "How 'bout we snuggle and watch Wild Kratts?", or my personal favorite that he announced to a stranger in the grocery store yesterday morning, "My mom wuvs me SOOOOOO much!" It's true. I do. SOOOO MUCH!

I was sitting across from him, watching him build with these tiles right before this picture was taken. All of a sudden I realized he was mimicking how I was resting my head in my hands. And I had to document it. 

Maine shines brightest in the summer and fall, but even in the dead of winter she is still pretty beautiful. 

My older kids go through waves in regard to how well they get along. To be honest, Summer break usually brings out the worst in them, Can you really blame them? They spend all day every day together, so of course they are going to get irritated with one another often. But Nathan always seems to be in good favor with every single one of them. He rarely does anything less than adorable in their eyes, and they are far more patient with him then they are with each other. I willingly admit that I baby my baby, but if he needs therapy when he's older because he's been doted on too much, I won't be the only one at fault. 

When Maddie sees windows like this she says, "Look Mom! It's Jack Frost!" This winter has been cold, but nothing in comparison to some of our winters in Iowa and even Connecticut. I've been told countless times that this is a very very mild winter for Maine, but I'll take it. So mild, in fact, that our little area is experiencing mild panic--there is a huge yearly Toboggan Festival (happening next weekend) that attracts visitors from all over the country and even the world. Apparently they are making snow like crazy because almost all of it has melted, and the Toboggans, which usually slide out onto the big lake, have nowhere to go after they exit the track because it has't been cold enough to freeze the lake! 

Twinning. 

Sometimes I'm a complainer and I like to talk about how I just can't wait to be settled in a house of our own and paint our walls whatever color we want and not move again for a really long time. But when I looked at our door this past December, littered with Christmas cards, and I couldn't help but feel overwhelming gratitude for all the wonderful people I get to call friends. Ryan counted, and we were sent Christmas cards from 15 different states this year. I think that's pretty cool. We never would have had the opportunity to meet many of these people if we hadn't lived in so many places. The past 10 years have been really good to us. 

We spent last Saturday afternoon sledding with some friends at their farm. They had a small plastic snowboard and Maddie really go into it. I love how she looks in this picture, so confident and happy. It was such a fun day for all of our kids. 

These are the faces of pure joy. Every time Nathan rode down the hill, he would holler "Wooo-hoooo!" as he flew by. It might have been one of the greatest days of his young life. 

Ryan has officially been indoctrinated into the Maine culture. Look at those boots!

My friend Michelle was so good to all of my kids while we sledded down her hill and popped her tubes and cracked her sleds. She is a great example to me of how to love other people's children. She really has a gift for bringing out the best in them.