Today we cleaned the garage and I cleaned my van (pulled the seats out and everything), so now I can park my clean van in the clean garage!! Woo-hoo!!

The kids have spent the whole day playing with the neighbor's kids, and Tasha painted nails...hers and the boys'...purple and pink with silver dots. Mia also got hers painted, and I've never seen her sit still that long at one time.

Joe finally got a picture of her "pouty face" which is a new addition recently. When she gets mad, she crosses her arms and purses her lips up in what she thinks is a pout. We think it's adorable. Here it is:

Tooth news!

Zack lost his first tooth last week! Well, actually he removed it. We were having lunch and he didn't want to eat his sandwich because he said his tooth hurt. When I looked, one of his baby teeth was bleeding and loose. We figured it would be a couple days before it came out...should have known better with that kid! The next day, he said it was bleeding again. A few minutes later he came up to me yelping that "Part of my tooth came off!" Well, it was the whole thing, and I said, "Oh, it fell out already!" He says, "No, I chomped it with my other teeth because it had blood on it." Apparently he didn't like it in there and bleeding so he worked it out with his top teeth. I don't think we'll have any worries about him being freaked about losing teeth!

In other tooth news, Mia has another molar coming in. Unfortunately, she gets fevers with her teeth, so she's been pretty crabby the last couple of days.

We went camping with a group from church a couple weekends ago, and the kids had a blast. The weather wasn't the greatest...it rained from Friday night until Saturday morning, and then it was in the upper 80's and humid, but we had fun anyway. I had a couple of "camping revelations" while we were there.
#1. I will never attempt to use air mattresses for the kids again. We wound up borrowing some bunk bed cots, and they worked unbelievably well. The kids were excited to have their own beds, and everyone/everything was kept dry because it was off the floor. We're going to have to get some of our own!
#2. Packing everything in Rubbermaid totes was the best idea I've had in months, so I'll be doing that from now on.
#3. We need a bigger tent. Ours is pretty big (three rooms, sleeps six adults) but with 4 kids and gear it's a tight squeeze.

I'll get pictures posted soon!

This morning Dom informed me that he wanted to go to the pet store and get a raccoon. He didn't really understand why we can't have one for a pet, since the one outside "already lives here". Our neighbor is presently trying to trap it so he can relocate it.

Zack has started to show a real interest in learning to read and write. He'll ask us how to spell words so he can makes "signs" for around the house. Today he asked what the (Corn Pops) cereal box said, and proceeded to write a sign stating, "I LOVE POPS"...with the 'e' and the 's' backwards. I get "I LOVE MAMA" signs just about every day! He will also write a whole bunch of letters (with the word 'mama' thrown in), and then ask me to read them...he thinks it's hilarious when I speak gibberish.

We've decided to stay here at least another year...our concerns have been addressed, and since we really like the location, we don't feel like moving again. Happily, we've managed to sell, toss, and donate an entire garage space full of crap we've been moving around for the last five years. It feels really good to no longer be bogged down by "stuff." We had a garage sale a couple weeks ago, and it went really well. To help the kids get into the spirit of purging, we told them they could keep all the money made from selling off old toys. They made $50!

Bible camp last week was great. This was the second time they used the theme "Fishing for Faith." The first time was in 2002. I volunteered to help this year, but had no idea that I would wind up building a whale. They had the backround panels, the framework for the bottom, and a good portion of the PVC from the first time they made it. The old PVC was too brittle and old to use, so my job was to figure out the pieces that were missing, calculate all the materials needed, and assemble it. Thankfully I had great help getting it built and we knocked it out in about four hours. The purpose of the whale was so the kids could go inside to hear the story of Jonah. Here is a picture of the kids sitting in it:

Each age group was a different color, and since it was a fishing theme, they had fishing hats that they got to put pins on every day. They all had a great time!

Mia has added the words "yeah" and "no" to her vocabulary. Well, it actually comes out "nooooooo" and kind of sounds like a cross between an owl screeching and a cat getting stepped on. I'll have to see if I can get her doing it on video...

Lori got married this weekend, which meant a drive to Kentucky. We did the trip down in two days...thursday night to Loda, then friday to Kentucky. The return trip on Sundy required we do it all in one shot. We left the hotel parking lot at 10:08 a.m. and pulled into our driveway at 10:04 p.m. Yes, that means 12 hours of traveling with four kids. We set the timer in the van and discovered we were only driving for about 8 1/2 hours, so the other 3 1/2 were pit stops to let the kids decompress and a stop off at the in-laws to get the dog. I will never, ever, EVER go more than six hours in a car in a single day with the kids again. I don't care if it takes us three days to get somewhere.

On the way back we had an interesting experience on I-94. We got curious about the a driver when I was driving behind a car for a few miles. It crossed the center line multiple times, changed lanes without signaling, and cut off several other vehicles. I was uncomfortable driving near the car (figuring the driver had to be drunk), so I passed. When I did, Joe looked into her car to see a young woman texting on her phone with both hands and driving with her knees...I'd like to point out we were going 65 miles an hour. We decided to slow down to see if we could get a video of her stupidity via Joe's phone. We did get video of it, but the quality is not good, and with the glare from the window you can't see what we saw. We think she might have seen us because she floored it so she was several car lengths ahead of us. A little further down the road, the road split in a construction zone, and we went left. She went right. As it happens, we got next to her again, to realize she had added smoking a cigarette to her utterly moronic multitasking. I just cannot believe some people.

I can't sleep

So I've been up since about 3:30...woke up and just couldn't get back to sleep. Talk about annoying!! Anyway, I've been putzing around and it occured to me I could update the blog.

Zack has decided that he is going to catch the rabbit that lives under a tree in the front yard...we're not sure what he intends to do with it if he catches it, however. Every time he sees it he grabs his "net" (a pop-up toy basket we use for stuffed animals), dashes outside and chases it around the front yard until it eventually makes it back under the tree. He never gets close, but the squeals of joy he makes the whole time are worth letting him try!

Dom has decided it would be better to shoot the rabbit, cook it, and eat it...then we're supposed to shoot a deer and eat that. Joe is so proud!

Mia is still the princess of the house. She's developing quite the attitude sometimes, but we've found that "thinking time" with the Parenting with Love and Logic method works quite well for stopping the tantrums.

We'll have Tasha for three weeks straight starting this weekend, so that will be nice. The weekends just aren't long enough to get really good visit time with her.

Bible camp is next week, and I'm really envolved with the planning this year. I'm reconstructing a giant whale (about 8 ft long and 4 ft high so the kids can sit in it and hear the Jonah story), and working with the activity planning and preparation for the preschool program. I'm also going to be a group leader for one of the preschooler groups. I'm really enjoying getting more active in the church, and feel lucky that we have such a great parish here.

The weather was a little better last week, so we took the kids to the beach, and went to a water-skiing show that the Pewaukee Lake water ski club puts on Thrusday nights. I give them props for the sole reason that the water was FREEZING!! There were kids as young as six skiing, so it's a very family orientated group...maybe something we'll get involved in when the kids are a teensy bit older. They're having a "learn to ski" day a couple times this summer, and I may try to get Joe to learn. My brothers tried a few years ago to teach him, but he couldn't never get up. I haven't skiied in...at least 10 years...probably closer to 15, so it might be nice to see if I still can. The village also has concerts on the beach every Weds. night, so we might take the kids down for one of those soon, too.

We got the stained glass shop set up in the garage last weekend, so now we have a place to work. Unfortunately somewhere in the last two moves we lost all of our stained glass patterns...can't find them anywhere. Fortunately, we found a fantastic glass shop about 20 minutes away...it's about three times the size of the one we went to in Champaign...I have a feeling we'll be spending a lot of time there.

Joe noticed something last week and that is the "follow blog" button on the top bar of this page. Since I update this blog so infrequently, that might be something you want to consider (if you haven't already done it). I have no idea how many people actually read my blog, but my understanding is that it will alert you when I post something new.

Well, it's about 5:30 now, so I'm going to go try to lay down for a bit before the kids get up in a half hour. As always, thanks for checking up on us!

Springtime fun

It's finally getting warm out!! The kids are thrilled to be able to spend time outside, and I'm thrilled to let them. Both boys have bikes and love zipping around the driveway and sidewalks of our cul-de-sac...Mia gets pushed on her toddler tricycle.

Sadly our neighbor has moved, so we'll be getting new ones at some point. I hope they are as good as our last ones.

We got the garden planted. We did some containers on the side of the house, and used the plot by the shed. We're hoping to get peppers (3 kinds), tomatoes (3 kinds), cucumber, zucchini, eggplant, onion, green beans, and strawberries.

Here are some recent pictures of the kids:

Things have been relatively tame as of late. Lexi had her tumor removed and did swimmingly. The gal that took the staples out couldn't believe how she didn't twitch the whole time she was removing them. The fur has almost grown completely back, but I think the scar will be pretty visible anyway.

The kids are all great. Mia is really liking the "Signing Time" DVD's, and is starting to sign more and more. The boys are remembering them better, but I think I need to work a bit more on signing to them during the day. Use or lose it, ya know?

We swapped bedrooms with the boys, which has made a big difference in the clutter downstairs. They kept bringing all of their toys down to the living room, and I guessed it was because they didn't have much floor space in their room to play. So we gave them the biggest bedroom, and we took theirs. So far, so good, they only bring toys downstairs occasionally, and are much better about cleaning their room up. Now I just have to figure out a way to declutter the basement...well...it's nothing a forklift and a dumpster couldn't fix in a jiff...

We've learned that our landlord intends to refinish the deck this summer...probably at the beginning of August. Which is a really good thing...except for the part where we can't set foot on it for a minimum of 7 days. Yeah, three kids, in the summer, and we're not supposed to go on the deck at all for at least a week. Anyone else see a problem with that? We're probably going to have to go on vacation or something...we're thinking camping for a few days, then maybe visit some friends or family. Eh, we've got time to figure it out I suppose.

We're still getting along just fine with the neighbors, and the kids are really chomping at the bit for the weather to warm up consistently. Just about every day they ask if we can go for a walk to the beach! They really enjoy the big deck, and we're very glad for the fully fenced yard since we can pretty much just kick them out the door and let them play.

Here are a few recent pictures from a train show we took the kids to...and one of Dom after he fell asleep at dinner...again.