A Busy Week of Activities

Samantha: 94 Months, Week 4
Aedan: 60 Months, Week 2
Owen: 18 Months, Week 4

I can't remember what Sunday this picture was taken. It may have been last Sunday; however, Aedan whacked the side of his head on the corner of the counter when they were running to get to their classrooms at church. (They are so comfortable at church that sometimes I feel like they treat it as if it's their second home; hence, the runnng.) Well, as soon as he hit his head, he started crying and went right for the comfort of Samantha. I just love this picture that a friend took for me of this moment. Aedan just has his head buried in Samantha's chest, his arms wrapped tightly around her body, and her hand lovingly holding the part on his head that he hit. She is such a sweet, kind, and loving big sister. She watches out for her brothers so well, and she is still one of the most important people in Aedan's life. I just love this bond that they have. I know I say this a lot, but I hope they can always stay close, even as they grow older and their interests change. I pray that they will always find a way to stay close.

Sunday was an exciting day for Samantha and I because we had plans to go to an event on campus called Dolly and Me High Tea. We went to it last year, and she really enjoyed it, so she was excited to go again. Samantha dressed Kit up to bring along, and after putting our raffle tickets in, we found a table inside and enjoyed some sweet treats and tea (although Samantha doesn't like tea and says it tastes like corn). They had a group of dancers perform, and then we went across the hall to do some activities. Samantha got Kit's hair braided before then getting her own hair french braided.

Here are Samantha and Kit with their matching braids. I just love Samantha's expressions. She's so silly sometimes.

But she also has such a sweet smile. This girl is beautiful both inside and out, and it was so fun to be able to spend this time with her one-on-one.

Here is Samantha getting her nails painted a purple sparkly color.

We ended up cancelling small group because there were a few families attending the member's class, as well as spouses working. Ben had a meeting that afternoon for his outreach team, and we had already had a busy morning with teaching first service and attending second service, so we were okay with having a more restful Sunday evening to just hang out together.

Originally we had Samantha scheduled for a doctor's appointment after school to discuss her issues with going to the bathroom a lot, but we decided to cancel it because it seemed like she was doing a little better over the weekend. And to be honest, we didn't really know what the doctor would be able to tell us that we didn't already know, and we didn't want to take her out of school and spend money on going to the doctor for no reason.

Since Tuesday was a MOPS day, on Monday the boys and I went to church to get stuff set up, followed by a quick trip to Meijer to pick up more snack stuff for the kids at MOPS. The rest of the afternoon went on like normal with having lunch, taking Aedan to preschool, and putting Owen down for a nap.

That evening at 5:00 was a special Gifted and Talented dinner for Samantha. They had their work from this past quarter set up for the parents to see, and it was fun to see firsthand what Samantha talked to us about with designing their tiny houses. They made a floor plan for their tiny house using graph paper.

And then they came up with an invention. Samantha's was a new kind of composting toilet. Here is her picture and design.

Her group also worked on creating a solar powered robot that can roll along with the tiny house to carry things that they need.

Here she is holding Owen in front of her group's poster. It was fun to look around and see all the other things the various Gifted and Talented groups have been working on. I'm glad that she got into this program and has had this additional outlet to challenge her mind to think in different ways.

Tuesday was our Man Panel at MOPS, and Ben lovingly agreed to be one of the men on the panel. We all went to church together, and Jill came to this meeting and did a great job of leading the questions for the panel. There were four other husbands besides Ben, and all the moms found it very interesting to hear what the guys had to say about marriage, family life, and how to handle conflict. In fact, there were several moms that told me afterwards how much they appreciated Ben's answers. Nothing he said was untrue, and I was proud of him for being brave enough to speak in front of all those women.

MOPS mornings are always long with getting to church early and then staying late to clean up everything afterwards. We usually have to rush home to eat lunch before taking Aedan to preschool. However, that day he actually brought his backpack with him in the car, and he asked so kindly if we could go out for lunch, that I decided to let us do that. We went to Wendy's, and both boys ate really well. Even Owen ate most of his chicken nuggets, so we were able to eat and get Aedan to preschool on time. It was fun just going out with my two boys.

Even though I am no longer nursing Owen anymore, (I officially stopped when he was congested and had his last ear infection right before our trip to Madison.) I still read him a book or two and rock him before nap time and bed time. Pretty much every day at nap time he will fall asleep cuddled up on my shoulder, just as he always has since he was an infant. It's one of those things where who knows how much longer he will fall asleep with me like this, so most of the time, I just hold him for while, enjoying the quietness of his room, and the still weight of his sleeping body in my arms. After I laid him down that afternoon, I took a picture of him sleeping peacefully in his bed. Oh my little boy, how sweet and precious these moments are.

On Wednesday morning, Owen had a follow-up appointment with the ENT to check and see if his infection had cleared up. He still had fluid in his ears, but it was no longer infected. The doctor said we are still going to wait on the hearing test to see if he has any hearing loss, and meet for the next follow-up appointment, and then we will go from there as far as what treatment to pursue.

The rest of Wednesday was spent just hanging out with my boys. We put on some Moana music in the kitchen and the two of them had fun dancing around and singing to the music. It's so fun to watch Owen copying everything that Aedan does, just like Aedan copied everything Samantha did when he was this age. You can tell Owen is even trying to sing in this video below. :)

The other big event that happened on Wednesday was our garage door being replaced. We finally arranged it with a local company, and he came out that morning to take out the old, broken garage door, and put in a brand new one. The boys thought it was interesting hearing the noises of him working from the garage. He was done shortly after lunch time, and it was amazing how much nicer it looked with a nice, new, white garage door. It opened and closed easily without all the squeaking and shaking, and although we did not really want to spend money on this as well, it was a necessary thing to do before moving out of our house.

That evening before AWANA, we decided to go out to eat for dinner at Fuji. We had never taken the kids there before and thought they might like it. We wanted them to try out some sushi as well and see what they thought, but it wasn't really the best night to take the kids out. Aedan has been difficult with eating lately. Most of the time he doesn't eat very much, and if he does, he takes a very long time to eat his meal. Owen was also in a weird mood that night because he was tired and just wanted to feed himself, but it wasn't really food that he could eat himself without dumping it all over himself and the floor. Then Samantha kept trying to stare at the TV in the restaurant, so we had to move her to the other side of the table, which then meant Ben and I were sitting on the same side and I couldn't help him with Owen. Even though the kids were a little off that night, they enjoyed the food fairly well, and Samantha really liked the sushi roll that we got. After finishing with dinner, we stopped by the house to pick up their AWANA books and then I dropped them off at the church for AWANA before going back home.

Things with selling our house were moving slowly. We got confirmation from that family that was interested, but they were waiting on a few more financial things to fall into place before they could meet with their bank the following Tuesday to get the pre-approval. This whole process was testing my patience, but also just my trust in the Lord to work everything out. Sometimes I have a hard time believing that he is involved even in these intimate and somewhat minute details of our lives. Sometimes I forget that worrying and stressing over things like this doesn't help any at all, but I find myself going many steps down the road and being worried about moving costs and all the things we have to do between now and when we are finally in Pennsylvania, and I find my anxiety levels rising and I feel overwhelmed. However, throughout this whole process, I need to keep reminding myself that I only need to know the next step to take, and I need to trust that God will give me what I need for each day.

Even though we cancelled Samantha's appointment for after school on Monday, thinking she was maybe improving some, she had a rough night on Wednesday again. Ben and I finally put two and two together and realized that she has the worst nights on AWANA nights. We think it's just because AWANA goes until 8:00, and then we rush home and put them straight to bed, not reading books or anything, so it is really hard for Samantha to shut her brain down, calm down, and let herself fall asleep. She was up until almost 10:00 that night, coming out of her bedroom multiple times to go to the bathroom, and crying in her room saying that she couldn't fall asleep. Because of the rough night she had falling asleep, we decided to let her sleep in on Thursday morning. She was still up in plenty of time to get to school on time, and I'm sure she was tired throughout that day at school. I wish there was something we could do to help her sleep better. We are starting to get a little concerned about how it may be impacting her mood as well as her ability to concentrate and work at school.

Thursday was going to be a busy day for the family because I signed up to attend the Foster Parent Training that went from 8:30-4:00. I went back and forth about whether I should do it or not since I knew Ben would not be able to come since this is the busy time of the semester. However, since Ben and I would still like to be foster parents in Pennsylvania, I decided it would be important for me to get some of our training hours in when I had the chance. Plus, I was encouraged to attend because of how beneficial it would be in being trauma informed and learning how to become your child's expert. Ken and Linda accepted my request to watch the boys, which I felt bad about since it was going to be such a long day, but they were excited about spending that time with them. They arrived at our house about 8:00, Ben took Samantha to school, and then he picked me up and dropped me off at the training. The training was very good, and it was very informative. It made me think a lot about our first and only placement so far and how we handled things, how we really weren't prepared to handle the issues that he came into our home with, and how we can do things so much better next time. This was a video that the speaker, Kim Seidel, played for us pretty early on in the training that morning. I just found myself sitting at the table, trying to hold back my tears. Thinking of kids going through this because of their parents' decisions, the pain that so many kids are experiencing at a young age, the abuse, the neglect; these are the reasons I feel called to be a foster parent. I know it will be excruciatingly difficult, but I know this is a way Ben and I can make a difference, a practical difference in the life of another child and maybe even an entire family. If we can provide a place where a child feels loved, safe, and secure, while their family is given the chance to heal and recover, that is so important to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOzQMCyPc8o

The boys did well for Ken and Linda that day. They had a lot of fun playing at home together that morning. Linda dropped Aedan off at preschool, and Ken tried to get Owen to nap, but apparently he didn't want to nap and only took a little catnap, making him a pretty tired boy that evening. 

The kids had their first swim lessons over in Canada that night, so we ate a quick dinner before heading across the border. Luckily, there was no line at the border, so we were able to get across quickly and were at the pool with plenty of time to spare. The kids didn't know what to think about taking swim lessons at first. I think they were a little nervous, but after their lesson they were excited that I signed them up for them. Samantha is in Level 3, and she is one of the shortest in her group. They are in the big lap pool for their lessons, and she was doing a fantastic job keeping up with everyone in the group, practicing how to tread water, and learning basic strokes and breathing techniques for swimming. Aedan was also one of the smallest in his Sunfish group. In fact, they had to get a special table to put under the water for him to stand on since he couldn't touch the bottom in the middle pool yet. Ben said he was doing a great job following directions and listening to his teachers. Aedan liked a game where they got to pretend to be rockets. I went in the water with Owen for the parent-child class, and this was his first official swim lesson. I figured with how much he liked water and how well he did in the beachfront pool when we came swimming together, it would be good for him to get some experience with swimming lessons as well. We went into the pool at the end of the slide, and Owen had a little bit of a hard time because he just wanted to go into the other pool and play with the toys. They had us get their heads and arms wet, put their ears in the water, try to get the kids to blow bubbles, jump off the sides of the pool, and even practice floating on their front and back. The last five minutes of the lessons, we went to the beachfront pool where the kids were allowed to walk around and play with the toys. Owen enjoyed going down the slide several times, and he was not very happy when we had to get out of the water. The lessons are only 30 minutes, so the time goes by pretty quickly. However, it was a successful first lesson, and I'm glad we were getting these swim lessons done while we were here before moving.

On Friday I took this picture of the mess Owen made while I was going to the bathroom once. He was being really quiet, which is usually a bad sign for him being up to something. He pulled out almost all the wipes from the package in the diaper bag and the package in his room. Luckily, I was able to just fold them all back up and stuff them back in the package. Oh toddlers, they are so good at taking things apart and making messes, aren't they?

Samantha had a half day that Friday for parent-teacher conferences, but we decided we didn't really need to go in and talk to her teachers since she is doing fine. She had fun playing around the house, doing her own thing without any brothers to bother her since Aedan was a preschool and Owen was napping. I know she enjoys time by herself, and she doesn't get that very often when she has school all day and then has family obligations and brothers that want her attention at home.

After picking Aedan up from school, I made a new recipe of sausage with sweet potatoes, apples, and brussel sprouts all cooked on a sheet pan. I didn't know if the kids would like it, but Ben said they were big fans of it, so we will definitely have to make it again. I had to eat some in the car on the way to church because I volunteered to help with the Antiquities fundraiser that night. We had to check people in, help them find clothes to get dressed in, and make sure we were splitting people evenly between the two photographers. It wasn't very hard, and I enjoyed some time to talk to other moms on the leadership team while we waited in between people. Saturday was another fundraiser day, and I was signed up to help from 2:00 until it wrapped about about 8:00. It was a long day at church, but it went by fairly quickly. It was easy for Ben to be able to stay at home with the kids, so I figured I'd volunteer as much as I could. Ben brought the kids after dinner that night so they could get their pictures done as well. It was weird being gone for bedtime two nights in a row though.

We found out one item of bad news on Saturday night. There was one house that we really liked in Pennsylvania and were interested in seeing and probably even putting an offer on, but the house was listed as off-market on Saturday night.  I felt really disappointed and frustrated because we still have almost a month until we are planning to go out to Pennsylvania to look at houses, so now I'm afraid that there will be more houses coming on the market that we like, but will have an offer placed on them before we can even see them. I don't really like this whole process of buying a house. It would be nice to move in our own time and wait and look for a house we really like, or if we could have been closer and been able to see this house and move on it earlier. Again, my anxiety started creeping in, and I started feeling worried that we won't be able to find anything that we really like that is in our price range. Doing a house search long distance is definitely challenging.

(Blog about April 7-13, 2019)

Owen's Infatuation with the Camera & Ben and Aedan Getting Strep Throat

Samantha: 94 Months, Week 3
Aedan: 60 Months, Week 1
Owen: 18 Months, Week 3

After a fun weekend away seeing friends, we arrived back home a little after dinnertime, but luckily, we were able to bring food along with us in the car, so we didn't have to still eat when we got back home. While we were gone it was pretty warm outside, and the snow is slowly starting to melt. We can see a small patch of grass under the tree in our front yard, and the snow is receding in the back. Considering it was covering our table and grill, this is a great improvement, but we still have a long way to go, too. Spring in the U.P. is definitely different than most other places in the country.

On Wednesday last week, I noticed that the water heater was leaking out the top, and it wasn't stopping. After talking to a few people, we realized that it just meant our water heater was going bad. It was an old water heater, the pipes were bad, and apparently when they start leaking from the top, that means it's gone bad. It wasn't necessarily something we wanted to spend almost $1000 on right now, but it obviously needed to be done, and we were glad it could be replaced while we were out of town for the weekend.

On Monday, I decided to take the boys over to Canada to open gym at the gymnastics center in the John Rhodes Community Centre. I heard about it from another mom who has taken her two boys there. It is $5 Canadian per kid to go, which translated to $7.50, so not a bad deal. They have all the equipment out and you basically can go play wherever you want. The boys really enjoyed running down the long trampoline, and Aedan and his friend, Owen, had so much fun running around and playing together. It was a great way for them to get some energy out by running and jumping. At 10:00 they had snacks laid out for the kids, and it was quite the spread of crackers, yogurt, fruit, and vegetables. Aedan was really excited about getting his plate of snacks. The open gym lasted until 11:00, which was perfect. The boys had a blast, and this is definitely something we will have to go back to again. I wish I would have known about it sooner! There are so few things to take the boys to do in the morning, but this kind of activity is perfect.

Here's a video of Owen running down the long trampoline, and then coming back to me because he wanted to see himself in the video. Isn't it cute how he says, "Cheese!" (I didn't get any pictures or videos of Aedan because he was off with his friend the whole time.)

That night as we were getting the kids ready for bed, Owen and Daddy were playing together, and it was making Owen laugh so hard. I just love his belly laugh, and this will be a great video to look back on when we want to remember what Owen sounded like at this age. 

This week really just went on like a normal week, getting back into the swing of things after the kids being off school for a week. We were looking into what we needed to do for moving to Pennsylvania, the first step which was selling our current house. We had that family of the lady I know from MOPS who was very interested and we were waiting to see if they were interested enough to move forward with an offer. I have trouble not worrying about things, especially big things like this because I knew we had to sell our house and know what we were going to get out of our house in order to really start looking for a new place to live, and sometimes patience is not my strong suit. Finally, on Tuesday she sent me a message saying her husband was on board with moving forward with the house, so now we just had to plan when to get together to talk over more details. I was relieved when I got that message, and I was pleased that things were coming together so easily. It was really exciting that we were going to most likely be selling our house on our own, to friends, saving everyone lots of money in realtor fees.

I'm not sure why I have all these pictures and videos of Owen in only a diaper and socks, but on Tuesday night I was trying to get a picture of him putting his hands up in the air like what he does when he doesn't know something. He puts both of his hands up in the air, usually right in front of him, like in the second picture, and bounces them up and down, as if he's saying, "I don't know!" It's pretty cute, but he's too fascinated at seeing himself in the camera right now.

In getting our house ready to sell, and just for our own sake, two other things on our list of things to do was to fix our leaky dishwasher and replace our garage door. We got the new gasket in the mail, and Ben installed it, but then it was still leaking, so I decided to look up a YouTube video on how to replace it. I took it back out, used a q-tip to clean the slot, and then pushed the gasket back in again, and then followed the recommendation to keep the dishwasher closed to help the seal form better. I hoped that my effort to fix it would work because if it didn't work than the gasket wasn't really the problem. As far as the garage door, I had a call and email out to a local guy to replace the garage door, but he isn't the best at replying to messages, so I figured I'd try to reach him again to get that process moving along.

I recently signed up for an online Pilates community called The Balanced Life with Robin Long. I have done a few of our free trials and really enjoyed the workouts that you get. I want to be more active, to get stronger and more flexible, and it's just too hard for me to find time to get out of the house to exercise, even though the Norris Center is just down the street. Sometimes I get stuck in not knowing what exercises to do and I don't particularly enjoy just running. I want something that I look forward to, and Robin's workouts are just that. They range anywhere from 10-30 minutes. She is extremely encouraging, and her mantra is "Grace over Guilt," which is totally what I need. She is trying to encourage consistency and for women to see the results you can get even from doing a 10 minute workout every day. I am trying my best to stay consistent, but I have to admit that I'm not doing as well as would like to. However, on Wednesday morning, since the boys and I didn't have any special plans to do anything, I decided to take a few moments for myself while Owen was still asleep, to do my workout for the day. Aedan even joined in with me. :) And apparently Daddy took a couple videos of us as he walked out the door on his way to work.

As I mentioned before we went to Madison, Samantha started getting up multiple times at night to go to the bathroom, and even though she did fine while we were there, she has had trouble sleeping every night since we got back home. After the trouble we had on Wednesday night, Ben wanted me to make an appointment for her at the doctor to talk about her issues and how they are related to her anxieties or worries about the move and the change that is coming. Even though it is extremely frustrating, it more just makes me worried for my little girl. I don't want her to be struggling like this, and I want to be able to help her, but I don't know how I can. I don't know what it was about Wednesday night, but it was by far the worse night he has had. She was up for two hours in the middle of the night. She kept getting up to go to the bathroom and even came down to our room and stood outside our door calling for me. Ben and I both took turns going into her room, trying to get her to calm down, and eventually I was able to calm her down by sitting with her, holding her hands, and praying for her. (Oh, my poor little Samantha, I wish there was something I could do to help you, to take this burden from your mind, and to ease whatever worries or anxiety is pressing on your heart. I pray for you every day. I pray for your sleep, and I pray that the Holy Spirit would comfort you while you sleep and help calm your heart and mind so you can rest.)

On Thursday Aedan started to feel pretty crummy. He said his throat hurt, and he had a slight fever after lunch. He voluntarily told me he wanted to stay home and take a nap rather than go to preschool, so that definitely meant he wasn't feeling very well. (Ben also wasn't feeling well and was very congested himself.) Aedan took a long nap, and we actually had to wake him up so he wouldn't sleep for too long and then have trouble falling asleep at night. After the Proulx family left that evening after coming over to talk to us more about buying our house, I encouraged Ben to take Aedan to the doctor to have him checked out. The whole time the Proulx kids were here, Aedan just stayed in his room. He definitely was not acting like himself, and he kept complaining about his throat hurting. I didn't want to ignore it like last time and make him suffer through it if there was something we could do to help him feel better. Since he took a nap, I knew it would be okay if he stayed awake a little longer so he could go to the walk-in clinic. Even though the rapid test came back negative, the doctor said he was showing all the signs of strep throat and prescribed antibiotics for him.

After having such a rough night on Wednesday, Thursday night Samantha was extremely tired, and she slept all through the night, not getting up to go to the bathroom, and waking up happy and like herself on Friday morning.

Even though Samantha had a better night, Ben's night was worse. He felt much worse, and he decided to stay home from work that day and take himself to the walk-in clinic. They said that he had strep as well, so now Ben and Aedan were both on antibiotics. I hoped that the strep would not spread to everyone else, especially little Owen, because that would be so hard for him to deal with.

Even though it was April 5th, and you would think the weather would be getting better, it snowed overnight into April 5th and then more throughout the day. No one was happy about seeing snow that day.

A lot of times we take Owen's clothes off while he eats so that way he can feed himself and get as messy as he wants without us having to then get tons of stains out of his clothes. So that's why he's only in a diaper again in these videos. I kept asking him where his clothes were because I was, again, trying to get him to do his "I don't know!" hand motion. You can kind of see it around 18 seconds into the video, but again, he thinks watching himself in the screen is just too funny. What a silly little boy!

Ben had to go to a special awards banquet that evening (At which he won Adviser of the Year, by the way. He would be too modest to say anything about that himself, but he will be dearly missed at LSSU. He is a wonderful, dedicated, hard-working professor. He is an excellent teacher, and he truly cares about his students. I am so proud of him for winning this wonderful award. He was actually nominated for Professor of the Year and Adviser of the Year, but they decided he couldn't win both awards.)

Anyways, while he was gone at the banquet, I gave the kids baths and put them to bed. Aedan was in the bath tub at this point, but Owen can't resist being near the water when someone is taking a bath. He loves baths and is often upset when he can't get in with whoever goes first. I got some water on his hair and made it spiky, which is what you see in these pictures.

I love this picture of Owen! It truly captures his personality, and that is a true smile right there. I know I'm partial, but I think he is just the cutest little boy (who sometimes is looking too big, and not so much like a baby anymore).

So in all these videos that I have been trying to get Owen to do his motion for "I don't know," well, I finally captured it at the beginning of this video. You have to look carefully to see it though. :)

And here is my other boy, who is definitely looking older lately, enjoying his time playing in the bath tub by himself, without his little brother crawling all over him. Even though he had strep, he was in good spirits. He was spraying water all over the bathtub with his little squirt gun. I love his silly personality and his great smile. 

Samantha had a half day on Friday, so when it was time to put Owen down for his nap, she offered to put him down for me. She was really excited about doing it. She helped me change his diaper, put him in his sleep sack, read him a book, and even rocked him to sleep. She sang him a song while she cuddled him in her lap and patted him on the back, and he actually fell asleep in her arms. She tried to lift him up into his crib, but she wasn't strong enough to lift him over the railing, so she just laid him down on the rocking chair, and rocked the chair back and forth until he fell back asleep again. Then, just as she was coming out to tell me he had fallen asleep, I was going in the room to check on her. She was SO excited and proud to tell everyone about how she was able to put him down for his nap all by herself. She is such a sweet and caring big sister. In fact, she wanted to put him down for his nap on Saturday as well, so I took a picture of her cuddling him in her lap. :) Owen has a special place in his heart for his big sister.

(Blog about March 31-April 6, 2019)

Spring Break for the Kids and Our Trip to Madison

Samantha: 94 Months, Week 2
Aedan: 59 Months, Week 4
Owen: 18 Months, Week 2

We decided to take it a little easy on Sunday morning. Ben covered for someone who couldn't make it to teach 4th and 5th grade at 9:00, so the rest of us stayed home and went to the 10:45 service instead. While we were waiting to go to church, I had the kids go through some of the toys and stuff on the shelves in the basement. We added more to the giveaway box, more to the try to sell box, and more to the trash. Especially if we have to move into a smaller house where two of the kids will share a room, we just have way too many toys that it's ridiculous sometimes. I want to pare down what we have to what the kids will really play with or things they really enjoy, not just junk that takes up space, so that will be our mission in the next month or so, to go through one area of the house at a time, getting rid of anything we don't want to actually pack and move with us. It's amazing how much can build up after living somewhere for a few years.

Here is one of Aedan's preschool projects. It's cute to see him writing and drawing more, even if he did forget to write Mommy above my picture. I like his portrait of our family.

Monday was the start of Spring Break for the kids, and they were excited to not have to get up and get dressed right away. I let them play in their pajamas for awhile because, why not?

I thought about taking the kids over to Canada to swim at the John Rhodes pool, but I discovered that we didn't meet their swim ratio of parent to child unless Samantha passed the swim test. I wasn't confident that she could pass, and I didn't want to make the trip over there and find out we had to go back home because of that. Instead, the kids just played at home and then we ran a couple of errands and ate lunch at McDonald's with a little bit of time to play afterwards. (That's about as exciting as it gets in Sault Ste. Marie in the winter sometimes.)

Throughout the day on Monday, Ben was talking to me about breaking the news of taking the job at Wilkes to some people at Lake State. Some people were taking it harder than he expected, and it was making him feel bad. However, even with all that, he had no second thoughts that we are making the right decision, both for him and for our family. It's sad to leave the house we love, the church that has meant so much to us, and the friends we have started to get to know, but we have to trust that this is where the Lord is leading us. Even though it is unknown and scary, even though the thought of starting all over again in a place where we know no one feels very overwhelming to me at times, even in all the transitions that will have to take place; we have to trust and have faith that this decision has been surrounded by prayer by us and others, that the Lord has something there for us, and that he will take care of us and provide for us, just as he has done in every step of our journey so far. I have been reminded of this verse from Mark 9:24 because it accurately sums up how I feel in my heart these days: "I believe; help my unbelief!"

That night I heard of a free community event at Big Bear with free open skating, free pizza, and a chance to win prizes. Ben decided that sounded like a fun idea, so when he got home from campus, we went over there for some fun with the kids. When we first got there we took our raffle tickets and had the kids drop them in the bags for prizes that looked interesting to them, and then we went over to eat some pizza before going to skate. We brought Samantha's and Aedan's skates with us, but we didn't bring any of Aedan's hockey gear because that would have been silly. However, as soon as he went out on the ice, he slipped and fell, getting his bottom wet and hurting his elbow. (Both of these areas are usually pretty protected by his hockey gear.) He didn't want to skate anymore, and it took some convincing by Ben to get him back on the ice. Once he caught up with Samantha and they started skating around and having fun together, he forgot about what happened at the beginning. I would like to have them keep skating every once in awhile so they don't forget how to skate. Owen had fun walking back and forth in the bleachers and watching for Samantha and Aedan skating back and forth. After skating for awhile, we went back into the room with prizes, and our number actually got picked for a Big Wheel type tricycle. We were pretty excited that we actually won something.

On Tuesday morning we had to stay home because someone from Sears was supposed to be coming to look at our dishwasher to try and figure out why it was leaking. They gave us the range of 8-12 as when they would arrive, so we invited our neighbor girls and their grandma over to play. It was fun for the kids to just run around and play together, and I enjoyed talking to Patty. However, throughout the morning, Owen started to get more and more clingy with me. He was crying every time I put him down, and he just constantly wanted me to hold him. I was a little suspicious of his behavior, but I didn't think anything of it until I took his temperature before lunchtime and it was 102.5. I gave him some Tylenol and hoped that he would take a good nap that afternoon because he was yawning all morning. He fell asleep in my arms and woke up screaming as soon as I laid him down. However, he ended up falling back to sleep on his own, so I was glad for that.

The dishwasher guy finally came about 12:30 that afternoon, and luckily he wasn't here for too long so I could get Owen down for a nap. He said we needed to replace the gasket, which he said is an easy fix. He actually gave me the part number so I could just order it myself and install it, saving us a ton of money by not having him come up again.

After I got Owen down for his nap, the two oldest neighbor girls from around the corner came over to play outside with Samantha and Aedan in our back yard. They spent all afternoon playing in the snow together. I have no idea what all they were play, and I checked on them a few times through the window, but they were having a blast together and played until almost 5:00 when it was time for them to go back home. It's so fun having neighbors nearby that get along so well with the kids, and it's fun to have this time off of school and activities for the kids to play together.

Tuesday night was another rough night with Owen. He woke up crying many times, with Ben and I both going up there to hold him and get him back to sleep. In fact, Ben even had to stay in the room with him for about an hour and a half when it was almost time for a normal wake-up because he was just crying every time we put him down. Between the fussy day he had that day, the fever that he eventually developed midday, and then the bad night he had, Ben and I decided that he was showing all his signs for a typical ear infection. Because of that, on Wednesday morning, I decided to take Owen to the walk-in clinic, with the other kids in tow as well. They weren't too thrilled about having to wait in the waiting room for a long time, but I was glad I took him because he had an ear infection in his right ear, and a little in his left ear, so was put on antibiotics again. I felt so bad for the guy. He hadn't had an ear infection since the end of December, so we were thinking that maybe he was leaving his ear infection phase, but now with him getting one again, we knew we were going to continue having the conversation with the ENT about possibly getting tubes put in his ears.  Ben and I just hoped he would have a better night so we could all sleep better because we sure were tired that day.

With Owen being sick and me being tired, we didn't do anything special that day, even though it was Spring Break. However, Samantha and Aedan are happy just having extra time to play together at home with nothing on the agenda. I had to get laundry done in preparation for our trip to see our friends in Madison for the weekend.

Our kids have some sets of matching pajamas, and they love to wear them on the same night so they can all be the same. Here they all are after bath time wearing their matching Batman pajamas. Aren't they just the cutest?!

As we put the kids to bed that night, there was actually a little bit of a thunderstorm, which is so unusual up here, and a certain sign of spring coming! However, it threw Samantha off and she was nervous going to sleep that night. Because of that, she had a rough night and wasn't able to fall asleep. She was up until 9:30, coming in and out of her room to go to the bathroom, crying in her room, and needing Ben and I to talk to her over and over again. It was frustrating to us, but the only thing that keeps us calm is the fact that we most likely know what is causing it. She has gone through periods like this before like after Owen was born, when she started kindergarten, and before we moved to Sault Ste. Marie. It's basically frequent urination that seems to be caused by huge life changes and transitions, so we were wondering if something like that was starting again with Samantha. She just gets it in her mind that she has to go to the bathroom, and she gets herself more and more anxious about it. I finally went in to her room to pray with her and asked the Lord to help calm her mind and body and rid her of her anxiety. Finally, after that, at 9:30, almost two hours since she got in bed, she was able to fall asleep.

After Samantha's rough start to the night, and with Owen getting an ear infection, Ben and I were unsure if we should even go to Madison that weekend. Our plan was to have Samantha, Aedan, and their daughter Madeline share a room, but that wouldn't work if Samantha is constantly getting up to go to the bathroom and waking everyone up in the meantime. However, I really wanted to make the trip there, and Ben and I were hoping that maybe it was just a fluke and that she was acting weird because of the thunderstorm. We decided to see how the night would go.

Surprisingly, with how it started out, the rest of the night went pretty well. Owen cried a couple times at the beginning of the night but was able to put himself back to sleep, and then he slept through the night. Aedan woke up crying in the middle of the night saying he was hot, which was annoying but an easy fix, but overall, it wasn't a bad night, not nearly as bad as it could have been. So Ben and I decided we were going to try and ignore what happened with Samantha on Wednesday night and continue with our plans to go to Madison.

I was glad Owen got some antibiotics and his ears would start feeling better, but he was still super congested. He was having trouble eating because he couldn't chew and breathe at the same time. The same was true with nursing because he would try to nurse, but then he couldn't breathe, so he would stop, and he would do this over and over again. It was more frustrating to him and me than it was worth, so I was thinking this might be the end of our nursing time together. It made me a little sad to think about that, but I have also found it a little more annoying lately. He hasn't been as interested, it's more difficult to find a comfortable position to hold him now that he is getting so big, and he doesn't fall asleep nursing like he used to, so it really was only a matter of time, I suppose. We have already made it farther than I made it with Samantha or Aedan, and we have had a successful nursing journey, so even if this is the end, I count it as a success.

After finishing packing up that morning, once Ben got home from teaching his last class, we hit the road on our 7 hour drive to Madison, Wisconsin. We dropped Izzy off at the boarders and then hoped Owen would take a good nap in the car as he was tired and still recovering from his ear infection. However, he only slept half an hour, and we couldn't get him back to sleep, so that wasn't ideal. (The drive seems much longer when going west through the U.P. and then down into Wisconsin than when we just go south on 75, maybe because we can drive faster. I don't know.) We stopped for dinner at a Culver's on the way there, and even though the kids weren't the most patient in being in the car most of the day, we made good time and got there about 8:00.

Owen is wearing his orange basketball shirt, and I was trying to get him to make his hand movement for basketball, that looks like him bouncing his hand up and down, but instead you can see him squealing because he wants to see himself in the camera. Silly boy. :)

Sleeping arrangements worked out really well at their house. Madeline had a trundle bed and generously gave up her bed for Samantha, the trundle bed for Aedan, and she slept on the floor in her sleeping bag. Matthew slept in the pack and play in the closet in Brad and Melissa's room, while Owen slept in Matthew's crib, and Ben and I slept on an air mattress in his room. After letting the kids play for awhile that Thursday night, we got all the bedrooms situated, and tucked all the kids into bed. Everyone went to sleep so well. We had no issues with Samantha coming out of the room or crying, and even though I still could not nurse Owen again due to his congestion, he went to sleep like a champ. It didn't seem to bother him at all when we came in the room, and he slept all through the night. I felt bad for him though because he was breathing so loudly that I wondered sometimes if he was getting enough air. He did make a few whimpering cries during the night, but nothing that we needed to do anything about.

Friday morning we just relaxed around the house together, letting the kids play and have fun, while Ben and I got a chance to talk and catch up with Melissa. After awhile when it seemed like the kids were getting stir crazy, we decided to go across the street for some time to play outdoors. Since we came down from the U.P., our kids hadn't had a chance to play on a playground yet. Ours are still covered in snow, so the kids loved seeing the grass and sunshine. Here is a video of everyone on the swings.

After going back to the house for lunch and nap time, we decided to go over to Brad's work because it is a huge campus with all these really cool themed buildings. There are fairy tale themes buildings, themes from different movies, and lots of interactive things on the inside. I didn't take too many pictures, but their favorite areas were definitely the castle with the dungeon, the slide like the rabbit hole from Alice in Wonderland that actually took you down from one floor to another, and the real carousel. It was really fun to explore the campus, and we still only saw less than half of all there was to see.

We then went back to the house for dinner, bed time for the kids, and then Melissa and I actually went out for ice cream together to give us time to talk and catch up more. It was so wonderful. She is one of those friends who will always understand me, one who you can always pick up in exactly the same place even if months have passed, and one who will remain a forever friend. It's so easy to talk to her, and it was so good for my soul to reconnect again.

On Saturday we decided to get the kids out of the house and go to a local children's museum. It was about half an hour away, and Owen took a little nap in the car on the way there. The museum was small, but just the right size for the kids where we could keep an eye on everyone at the same time, even if they were in different areas. There was a treehouse they could climb, a fishing area, and this stage with instruments and dress-up clothes. Here are the kids performing for us.

We spent a couple hours at the museum before deciding it was time to head back so we could eat lunch before getting back to the house for nap time. We ate at Culver's again (because why not, right?), and all the kids did a great job eating and being respectful at the restaurant.

During nap time you could tell the adults were tired, while Owen and Matthew napped, Samantha, Madeline, and Aedan played quietly in the basement (where a few adults were sleeping on the couches) and Madeline's room. It was very relaxing, the perfect break for us away from home. All the kids played well together and enjoyed each other's company. It really was a wonderful weekend, and I'm so glad we decided to visit them. They were hospitable hosts, and we had a wonderful visit.

Here are the kids on Sunday morning before we left to head back home. Aedan was not wanting to participate in the picture, and I had to force him, which is why he is giving such a grumpy look in this picture, but hey, at least I got him in it, right?

(Here is how Aedan was at the beginning of us trying to take pictures, so you can see the above two are actual improvements.)

We were all very sad to leave that Sunday morning and say good-bye to our friends. However, Spring Break was now over for Samantha and Aedan, so we needed to get back home get ready for a new week. It was a wonderful couple days with our dear friends, and we will definitely be sure to visit them again, even though we will be living farther away in Pennsylvania.

(Blog about March 24-30, 2019)