Ben's Spring Break & Visitors from Indiana

Samantha: 69 Months, Week 3

Aedan: 34 Months, Week 1

Even though it was only the end of February, this week was the week of Ben's Spring Break. Since their semester at LSSU ends so early, their Spring Break falls earlier as well, a full month before our Spring Break at Bahweting. He didn't have many exciting plans for his Spring Break other than trying to get some work done on the days he didn't have Aedan.

On Tuesday Ben had Aedan, so they went out together that morning to the library to check out books and let him play for awhile, and then they went to McDonald's for lunch. Apparently Aedan had a lot of energy that he needed to burn off, and they were having a good morning together.

Other than that, the week went by like normal, we were waiting to hear back from the family at church about the foster baby, I was still thinking through and talking to Ben about homeschooling options, and we even were invited over to someone's house for dinner that homeschool since I had a lot of questions for them that would be better answered in person.

Then, on Wednesday, March we had another snowstorm come through. It snowed pretty hard most of the morning, and there was still a lot of snow projected that afternoon, so school closed early so that everyone could get home safely. It was kind of nice to have an unexpected afternoon off from school. However, I was not too happy that it was still snowing so much. I am definitely tired of being cold all the time and surrounded by snow. I'm ready for sunshine and for things to start warming up some.

When we got home we discovered we had caught another mouse in a trap up in the hole in the ceiling of our bathroom, the same place we caught the last one. Since we were out late the night before, both kids took a nap that afternoon. Samantha for only about an hour, but that's all she really needs. Then, we let her watch the movie "Meet Kit" that Ben checked out from the library for her. I tried to work some on my blog while she watched the movie, but I just could not keep my eyes open, so I decided to stop fighting it and just let myself take a little nap while Samantha sat next to me on the couch. It was a nice, quiet, relaxing afternoon, just what I needed in the middle of the week.

And here's a cute video of Aedan dancing to Super Why. He has all four felt Super Why characters in his left hand as well as his wooden plane in his right hand. I tried to start recording earlier, but didn't catch him until the very end. He just can't help but get up and dance with the Super Why guys at the end of the show. This is definitely his favorite show right now, and I can't believe we haven't lost those little Super Why people yet. Ben and I always need to keep our eyes open for where he put them so when he asks where they are, we at least have an idea to tell him where to look.

On Thursday Aedan went to Miss Lisa's again, so Ben ran some errands that morning. One being checking out a minivan at a local car dealership. We have been considering a minivan for a while now to accommodate our family plus any additional foster child(ren) we may have. We are more interested in Honda Odyssey's overall, but there was a Toyota Sienna that Ben just wanted to check out. He sent this picture of him sitting in the driver's seat. He was able to test drive it and found out that they would offer about $3000 if we traded in the Santa Fe. This van was okay, but had more miles and was more expensive that we would like. We just figured it would be good to rule it out as an option since it's the only minivan for sale in Sault Ste. Marie. To look at more minivans we will have to make a weekend trip to a bigger city like Detroit where there will be more options. Ben has been great about researching them online and keeping tabs on prices and when certain ones become available that are models we are interested in. Sometime in the next month we will probably be looking more seriously into buying one, which the kids will be super excited about. We are excited about having more space to accommodate our family, but I know I'm not too excited about having a car payment again.

Ben also surprised Samantha by coming by for lunch on Thursday afternoon, to share one of her favorite meals with her at school. She was so surprised to see him waiting outside her classroom for her, and she loved having her daddy sitting next to her in the cafeteria. Ben usually has class from 11-12 so he can never come eat lunch with her, so I know that Samantha really appreciated that and felt special.

For all the times that I doubt keeping Samantha in the traditional school setting, she then has certain opportunities that I wouldn't be able to give her at home. For example, they were learning about electricity in science, so Mr. McBride had this fun experiment where they got to touch this object and get a small shock of electricity. Samantha was so excited to tell us all about it when she got home from school. Mr. McBride seems to be a really neat teacher, is well-organized, and plans thoughtful and kid-friendly activities to keep the children involved throughout their school day. Samantha really likes him and enjoys being in his class. I'm glad that the switch to another class worked out well and that Samantha is so flexible and adaptable.

On Friday, since Ben usually keeps Aedan on those days anyways, he kept Aedan home with him for their typical Daddy-Aedan day. Ben was being a great help to me around the house, as he always is, and lovingly agreed to clean the house before our company came that weekend. Ben said that Aedan was a little bored that morning, so he decided to have an early lunch and then take him to McDonald's for a small ice cream cone and time for him to play. In this picture Ben said they were watching the macaroni cook together. He sent this picture to me while I was at school and it made me smile, I like seeing how my little man is doing during the day.

Aedan is such a cute kid all the time, but especially when he's sleeping. Ben got this cute picture of him all cuddled up in his bed during nap time to Friday afternoon. He does a terrific job of staying in his bed and keeping his blanket covering him to stay warm. He always sleeps with his blankie and his teddy, and he always sleeps with his head pushed way up on his pillow, almost so that his head is touching the bars. He seems to like it that way because he has plenty of room to stretch out toward the bottom of his bed, but he chooses not to. All I know is that I am super happy that Aedan is still napping so well pretty much every day. Also, we have just recently stopped rocking him to sleep at nap time. He goes right to sleep like a big boy at Miss Lisa's house, and more often than not, if he falls asleep in our arms at nap time, he will wake up as soon as we lay him down and then not go back to sleep. We were tired of this being an issue, so we decided to transition him to going to sleep without us rocking him to sleep. We still do our normal routine and then cuddle for a few minutes, but we put him in his bed and let him fall asleep on his own. It seems to be working much better, and we are glad that he continues to nap so well. Especially when he's at home, he will nap close to three hours quite often. We will take it while we can!

Friday night was a night every one was looking forward to. We were going to have visitors from Indiana coming to spend some time with us that weekend. Ema, Papa, Jeni, and Alaina were on their way but wouldn't arrive until close to midnight. We told the kids they needed to sleep well since they wouldn't be able to see anyone until the morning, but it was hard to contain their excitement.

On Saturday morning, our guests tried to get some extra sleep, but our kids were up at their normal time. I tried to keep the kids occupied doing puzzles quietly in the living room until everyone else was ready to wake up. When Alaina came down the hallway, the look on Samantha's face was priceless. Those two girls love each other and are each other's best friends. From that moment on, they didn't need the rest of us, they just went off to play together. God knew what He was doing when He planned for Jeni and I to be pregnant at the same time, and for them both to be girls. :)

Aedan was also very excited to see our visitors. When Aunt Jeni walked down the hallway he ran into her arms and gave her a huge hug. But after awhile he had to ask the obvious question. "Where is Ema?" She was downstairs taking a shower, and he couldn't wait until she came upstairs to play with him. It was so fun having everyone there for the day. We had donuts and eggs for breakfast, and then we just spent the morning hanging out. Ben, Aedan, and I took a small break to visit a preschool open house, but then we were back home to hang out with family.

When making lunch that afternoon, Ben accidentally cut off the very tip of his thumb on his left hand and ended up going to a walk-in clinic and then was sent to the ER so they could help stop the bleeding and decide whether or not it needed stitches. They ended up using something called Surgicel on it instead, and wrapped it with gauze and a bandage. He felt silly, even though he shouldn't have. Luckily, it was something easy to take care of, and then Ben was back home with everyone.

We decided it would be fun for our guests to experience going tubing, so I stayed back with Aedan as he napped while everyone else went to the tubing hill for the afternoon. Alaina and Samantha LOVED going down the hill together, and you could hear their squeals coming halfway down the hill. I have a video that Ema took of the girls coming down the hill, and you could tell they were having a blast. (I couldn't figure out how to upload it, so hopefully you can follow the link.) Alaina didn't have any fear of trying tubing, and even though it was a bit chilly, it was at least sunny and everyone had so much fun. I was sad to miss it, but I was okay with taking one for the team and hanging out at home with Aedan.

Snow Tubing

And for all our friends in the lower Midwest that have not had much of a winter and very little snow, here's what it looked like outside our house that afternoon. We are so used to seeing these gigantic piles of snow that we don't even think about it anymore, but it doesn't change the fact that we will be excited when it all finally goes away.

The rest of the evening went by all too quickly for everyone's liking. These cousins love spending time together, and we always enjoy having visitors to our house. We hadn't had anyone come visit us since November when these same Indiana visitors came to watch our kids so that we could go to our foster parent training, so we were definitely missing our family. Like I've said before, we are definitely feeling the distance of living far away after living a couple hours away from Upland for the last six years. As the night wore on, the kids were getting tired. The girls had a busy, active day of playing and tubing, and Aedan took a shorter nap than usual, so here are the kids doing some relaxing by taking turns playing a game on Ema's iPad before it was time to get ready for bed.

Samantha and Alaina wanted to have another sleepover that night, so we moved the air mattress into Samantha's room for Alaina, and they actually chose me to put them to bed. Normally Ben is the person of choice, so I was honored to put them to bed, since Aedan will always choose Ema when given the choice of who puts him to bed. I let the girls talk for a few minutes on the air mattress together before going back in and telling Samantha it was time to get back in her bed and go to sleep. They took a little longer to fall asleep being in the same room, but it wasn't bad. They are getting older and better able to handle things like that.

When Sunday morning came, everyone found themselves in more somber moods. Our visitors had to leave to drive back home for work the next day, and Samantha was extremely sad knowing they all had to go home so soon. She misses family and is having a hard time with us living farther away where it is more difficult to see people as often. Just thinking about it made her cry, so for much of the rest of the day, she was in a very sad mood. However, I'm glad that we have family that she loves so much, and we will take a trip down to Upland in a few weeks, so there won't be as much time between visits this time.

The rest of our Sunday went by like normal with church, nap time, doing laundry, cleaning up the house, and getting ready for another week to begin. Weekends are always so fun, but always go by way too fast.

(Blog about February 28-March 6, 2017)