Thanksgiving 2015

Nannie, Grandpa, Aunt Amy, Trey and Lily all joined us for Thanksgiving this year. As the top picture demonstrates nicely, Gabe feels he has become a turkey master and is proud of his work;)  James has been fixated, for months, about getting to eat an entire turkey leg.  I have no idea where it came from, but when the day came he happily ate that whole leg.  We made a Thanksgiving tree again this year, we didn't put as much time into it as we should have, but better than no tree.  My favorite highlights this year were: Ben- "a machine that can turn the weather to sunny" and James- "Migashun" (read: migration)... way to prioritize kids!

The day after Thanksgiving the kids and I stayed home for a resting day. That evening Grampy and Grammy came to visit for a few days. We spent Saturday morning helping to decorate our church for Christmas and doing a little local shopping. That afternoon Aunt Andrea was able to join us for a Thanksgiving leftovers dinner;)

The other excitement over the weekend was the discovery of the chicken's outdoor "nesting box".  Thoughtfully, they chose a spot off of our deck, close to the door so we wouldn't have to walk as far to collect them. James continues to be a bit of a chicken whisperer and will just go out, reach underneath the hen and pull out a hot egg... the hens throw a fit if anyone else even gets near them when laying eggs.  As it turns out they are laying lots of eggs...  

Field Trip Day to Portland- Body Worlds

Wednesday was a field trip day to Portland!  James and Noah went with Gabe and Nannie to the BodyWorlds exhibit at the Portland Science Center. Gabe and I had seen this exhibit when we were in college at the Museum of Science in Boston and we both remembered it as an amazing "must see" exhibit. The kids have all been learning anatomy for the past several weeks, in preparation. We spent the few days before they visited discussing at length that they are actual human bodies, why they were there, how/why they looked like they did, how this kind of thing is important to learning about the body, etc. I think that the leg work paid off because they both really loved it and couldn't wait to tell me about all of the "cool" things they had seen and "Did you know...?".  I truly was afraid that one of them would have terrible nightmare, but so far we are in the clear. Maybe we have brainwashed them to love science, maybe it's genetic, maybe we have marked them for life by never sparing the "real details" when it come to science, but anyway it is, we were proud parents;)  Here is the website, just in case anyone would like more info (we would obviously encourage a visit:)): http://www.bodyworlds.com/en.html

While the older boys were learning some anatomy, Grandpa and I took Ben and Audrey to the Portland Children's Museum.  We do love science, but even we knew it wasn't appropriate for the 2 & 4 year olds;) They spent lots of their time playing on the indoor playset, driving the fire engine and "camping" upstairs.  It was great to see the new exhibits they have placed within the last 12 months.  Both kids loved the new hospital set up complete with the Angel 1 ambulance.  The X-ray of the bear who swallowed a truck was a particular hit! Another successful outing to the "big city" in the books:)

Snow... Sort of...

It snowed 2 days ago... sort of.  This is all we got, but it froze just enough for the kids to spend the first 2 hours of the morning sledding, in their jammies, before breakfast.  It was gone by the end of the day... oh well, better than nothing! Hopefully our pond will freeze soon so we can get out and start enjoying winter.

Vermont Birthday Visit

Sunday we took a day trip to visit the Yukica family in Vermont for the twin's 9th birthday.  We have only missed 2 birthdays since we have known them and one was because they were in Washington, so it is a highly anticipated day in our household.  We had a great visit, despite the short duration!  I took Ben and Audrey to the Montshire Science Museum and to King Arthur for some Christmas shopping during the party.  They loved the museum and it was pretty neat to play at the same exhibits Noah used to play at when we lived there:)  Noah and James became Jedi masters at the birthday party and made some lightsabers to bring home.  Audrey enjoyed playing with baby Eli and it made us realize that Audrey is not a baby anymore!  Thanks for the fun visit Yukicas!!

Turkey Trot 2015

It is turkey trot time again!  All three boys have been working hard to prepare.  Ben did well in the second half of his kids run... In years past the UMF Men's basketball team comes out to run with the kids, but this year they did not, so we didn't plan to run with Ben... When he didn't come in for the first of two laps in a timely manner, Gabe went to look for him and found him wandering around the parking lot;)  Gabe ran the second half of the mile with him and he did a great job!

Audrey was a bit upset when we were at registration that she was the only one without a number... Luckily, one of her care providers at the gym was there and made her a number tag. Audrey insisted on the 0.5, I have no idea why, I guess next year we will have two runners in the kids fun run:)  Noah ran with Gabe and finished in 52nd place with a time of 27:53. James finished in 71st place with a time of 31:25!  That was just a crazy fast time for James, he was working so hard... I tried to prepare him to go slow up a huge hill, instead he sped up and ran past a whole slew of people and I had a hard time keeping up. He says that his biggest accomplishment was that this was his first time running a 5K without water (no water stations in this race)... his post race plan was to go and drink "one hundred thousand gallons of water." Although they had fun, both boys were pretty tired and have decided to "retire" with 5Ks until next spring... :)

Chicken Update...

... Because I know everyone is dying to hear about our birds;)  The chickens have finally started to lay eggs!  And when I say this, I mean we have gotten one egg in the last few days.  The kids were all so excited that they each requested their picture be taken with the first egg.  Since the chickens are free ranging around our yard we should probably get out there and make sure there aren't others hiding in the bushes somewhere...

This top picture is of our new foster/adopted rooster... his name is Stonewall and he is one of the most gorgeous chickens I have seen. Since we have been rid of Grandpa Joe, (who was the meanest rooster I had met) all of the hens have been happier, friendlier and our kids spend lots of their time playing with them again.  But, about a week ago, this guy started coming into our yard from next door.  We spent 3 days chasing him away.  On the 4th day, on his 4th or 5th trip to our yard, we finally gave in and decided to allow him to stay and see what would happen, since he seemed nice (and we were tired of running outside over and over again). For a few days he would wait for the girls to go inside their coop before heading back to his barn (our neighbors are not super close). It was all working fine until one night I went out, it was dark and pouring rain, and there sat Stonewall perched on our metal fence.  I left him there for a few hours to see if he would make his way back after I closed up the coop.  When I went back out, around 8pm, he was still there so I scooped him up (he didn't even put up a fight or try to peck at me... nicest rooster ever!) and trudged over to our neighbor's house.  Thankfully, they didn't call the police as I searched for a way around to the front of their house.  Instead, when I finally reached their front door, the lady was just laughing. After a short conversation about her rooster's clear desire to be part of our brood,  reassurance from me that I wasn't trying to steal her rooster and from her that she wasn't abandoning him, we agreed that (as long as he continued to be nice) he would be the communal rooster.  She actually had another rooster who was the dominant male and was being mean to Stonewall, so I think that it worked out best for everyone.  It has been about a week, he hasn't been back "home" and everyone seems to like him (other than the frequent "piggy backs" he tries to get from the hens)...  We will see how this goes:)

The Really DO Love Each Other;)

I was helping James and Noah with school the other day when Ben and Audrey were quiet for a little too long.  When I went into the front room to check on them, this is what I found.  Audrey was pretending to Ben's baby and he was reading her many different books:)  The last picture was one Ben requested I take when I picked him up from the nursery after church last week.  He had made a big ark and gave each animal their own room... they all had elaborate back stories.

I think that it is safe to say that we have all fallen into a nice routine being at home together most of the day.  Ben and Audrey have started playing really well together (most of the time).  Audrey cries every time we drop Noah or James off for speech or music at school and screams, "Where is my Noah?" or "Where is my James?" She has taken to referring to them in a possessive tone and whenever she refers to them collectively she calls them "my boys". Noah and James have both been enjoying school and the extra free time they get. They both have finished up basketball and are looking forward to skiing next. Ben has loved having his brothers home to play with and is working really hard at learning numbers and practicing writing letters.

Veterans' Day 2015

Once again we had a wonderful Veterans' Day celebrating with my dad at the parade in Brewer.  The weather held out from being cold and blustery until the end of the parade:)  My dad got lots of handshakes and hugs thanking him for serving and our kids continue to learn about gratefulness and respect for those who choose to serve and protect our country.  The highlight for the kids was the enormous model air craft carrier that they wished lived in our back yard;)  After the parade the kids got all of their energy out at the Bounce Zone in Brewer (I am quite sure that is not what it is actually called, but you get the general idea).  There were way too many kids to take many pictures, but I did get this one of Ben jumping off the cliff!