Fun in Oxford and Our Bout with Sickness

Samantha: 59 Months, Week 3

Aedan: 24 Months, Week 1

This past Tuesday was a rough day for the kids, especially Samantha. With our time in Oxford slowly ticking away, I have felt a little more pressure to plan fun activities and take every opportunity we have to do something that we won't be able to do after we move. On Tuesday I had plans to take the kids to the Cincinnati Museum Center. However, as we were getting ready on Tuesday morning, Samantha would just not stop being disrespectful. She got a time out for talking back and then immediately freaked out because Aedan was playing with one of her toys. I kept giving her chance after chance to make the right decision, but she was just too tired to think about her actions. I really wanted to take them to the museum, but there was no way we were still going to go with how her behavior was. I ended up just sending her to her room for awhile for some alone time, and I think if I would have left her up there for very long she would have fallen asleep. Part of me wished that there was a way I could just take Aedan, to teach her a lesson that she can't be disrespectful and still get to do fun things. I decided to take away our opportunity to go anywhere fun, and we had a conversation about how, if her behavior is better, we can try to go to the museum again on Thursday. So instead, I stuck our packed lunch in the refrigerator, and they helped me clean the house. I felt like it was a productive day because by the time nap time was over, I had the whole house cleaned.

Both kids were so tried that afternoon, even Aedan, because he has been waking up super early in the morning, sometimes even before Ben's alarm goes off at 6:20. We have no idea why he's waking up so early because no one is up that early making noise and we have room darkening curtains on his windows to block out the early morning sun, but our kids just both seem to want to wake up with the sun, no matter what time it is. The good thing with Aedan is that we can just leave him in his crib when he wakes up that early. We don't go in and get him right away, and he is generally quiet in his crib just laying down and talking to himself quietly. He has his pacifier, so that keeps him happy for awhile. Samantha has a clock in her room and knows that we don't want her making noise until after 7:00, but she generally is awake before then, usually between 6:30 and 6:45, I think. Anyways, both kids took good naps that afternoon, which I was so glad for. Samantha slept for an hour and forty-five minutes, so clearly she needed the rest.

May 3rd was Teacher Appreciation Day, so Ben got buy one get one free at Chipotle for dinner. There is no Chipotle in Sault Ste. Marie, so we are trying to get our fill while we still live here. It was nice having Ben pick up dinner and bring it home because I didn't have to worry about making dinner and having it ready when Ben got home. As a result, the kids and I had more time to play together, and we decided to go outside to get some fresh air since we'd been cooped up in the house most of the day. They decided to be little gardeners, taking turns with the watering can. They were in much better moods that evening after good afternoon naps.

Nothing of much consequence happened on Wednesday, just a typical day of preschool, work, Bible study, lunch time, nap time, dinner with Daddy, bath time, and bed time. However, it's these "typical" days that are nice sometimes, to just go through the routines of your life, enjoying time together and the blessing it is that I get to stay home to take care of my kids, even though sometimes they are confusing and frustrating.

The kids knew that they had a second chance for the museum on Thursday, so Samantha was especially well-behaved that morning so that she wouldn't ruin our chance of going again. We decided to just buy lunch at the museum, and the kids did great getting ready. Aedan did wake up early again that morning and almost looked like he could fall asleep in the car on the way there, but he did pretty well once we got to the museum. He was excited about playing with the balls and kept talking in a very excited voice, saying "uzam" for museum.

There were quite a few school buses parked at the museum and the Children's Museum area was pretty busy. We normally go to the ball room first but it was so packed that we decided to come back to it later. Instead, we went to the Woods area to let the kids climb around and play. This area was a little better, but still had lots of elementary age kids running around. Samantha was good with keeping track of Aedan for me, helping him up the ladder, and making sure she always told me where she was so I didn't lose track of her as well.

We usually play in the children's museum longer before going to lunch, but it was just so crowded that we decided to just go to the science museum where there were less school groups. Samantha always likes to walk through the caves, so we did that first before playing in the sand for awhile before lunch.

I gave Samantha the choice of hot dogs or pizza for lunch, and she chose hot dogs, which sort of surprised me. However, she and Aedan ate really well for lunch that day. Our day was going well, the kids were listening still, so we decided to stay longer to play. Samantha likes to pretend to ride on the trolley car so we went to the history museum for awhile to do that before enjoying playing with a train table. This is the best place to play with a train table because there are usually no other kids around, so Samantha and Aedan have the area all to themselves. Aedan really likes to play with this train table because all the tracks are nailed down, meaning he can push his trains down as hard and fast as he would like without worrying about knocking over the train track.

Aedan was getting pretty tired as the afternoon went on, so we decided to head back the the children's museum to play for a little while longer. We spent most of our time in the little pretend town area with the bus, which is Aedan's particular favorite because he likes to sit in the driver's seat and turn the wheel. Samantha likes to play in the vet clinic area, but you could tell she was getting tired as well because she wasn't spending as much time in any one area. 

Aedan really had fun pretending to work at the pretend restaurant. I sat at one of the little stools, and he brought me food and gave me water to drink. I would pretend to drink it and ask for more, and he would pretend to fill it up at the faucet in the sink. Although, he started getting frustrated when he realized that no water actually came out of the faucet.

Everyone was fading and we had small group that evening, so I knew it was time to start heading home around 2:30. Especially with our busy day, I knew it would be impossible to keep Aedan awake in the car, and I also encouraged Samantha to close her eyes on our drive home. She was pretty resistant to that idea and threw a little fit on our way out of the museum. However, it didn't take long for her to fall asleep in the car, sleeping most of the way home. It's such a peaceful ride in the car when both kids are fast asleep in the back seat.

Lately when Aedan falls asleep int he car, we haven't been able to lay him back down in his bed to continue his nap; however, I figured it was at least worth a try. And it worked! He went right back to sleep for me, sleeping until we had to wake him up for small group. I'm glad that they both got some rest that afternoon before going to small group that evening.

Friday was back to our normal routine as well with work, preschool, Aedan and I grocery shopping, and then dropping Aedan off with Ben so that I could go to Zumba and they could eat lunch together. It was a really nice day, so they decided to stay at the TRI playground to eat lunch and then play for awhile. Aedan was almost falling asleep on our way back to the house, and it was all we could do to keep him awake. He continues to wake up early in the morning, causing him to get really sleepy even before lunch time. A lot of times he will be asking to take a nap and get his paci before we've even eaten. This day was particularly bad because he did not sleep well on Thursday night. We heard him talking and making noise over the monitor at least four or five times between when we put him to bed and midnight. He doesn't normally wake up this often, and we didn't have to go into his room or anything, but he definitely wasn't getting as sound of sleep as usual. As I was getting him ready for nap time on Friday, he seemed pretty warm to me. I took his temperature and it was 100.9 so I gave him some medicine before laying him down, hoping that it would help him sleep better and have a good nap after the night he had. I actually had Samantha nap that afternoon as well because Daddy said he thought she needed one, and she didn't fight me about it which usually means she recognizes that she needs to nap as well. We still have been going back and forth so much with napping because some days it seems like she desperately needs the extra sleep and gets so sleepy by mid-afternoon.

Samantha always draws interesting pictures, and her drawings are becoming more and more detailed as she practices more. Well on Friday she came home from school with this picture of just Kung Fu Panda in the middle of the page, so later in the day she finished up the rest of the Furious Five. She is slightly obsessed with Kung Fu Panda right now, and I think she pretty accurately portrayed all of the characters. For those of you who have seen Kung Fu Panda, can you tell who's who? This is a picture I will be keeping for Samantha's art scrapbook, for I think she will get a kick out of looking back at her artistic ability when she was almost five and how much she liked Kung Fu Panda. (Also, when we talked so Samantha about her picture, I asked her what the black circle was in the middle of the panda, and she simply stated, "His private parts." Oh kids, they seriously don't realize how outrageously funny their comments can be! Ben and I cracked up for a long time thinking about that.) It's fun to see her like something different than princess things, and she actually requested a Kung Fu Panda birthday party rather than a mermaid party as we originally planned. She likes how Po is silly and is always making messes and getting into trouble. I think she really likes his goofy personality, and she will gladly show you her kung fu moves if you ask her. :)

Since both kids took such good naps on Friday afternoon, after dinner on Friday night Ben suggested that we take a family trip Uptown to get some ice cream at Orange Leaf, Samantha's favorite ice cream place. As I was in the house getting coffee for Ben and me, he recorded this video of the kids talking about mother's day. Aedan wasn't too interested in talking for the video, but it was sweet to hear Samantha's little voice answer Daddy's questions.

After enjoying our frozen yogurt, we walked across the street to listen to this a capella group giving a performance on the stage. We ran into Samantha's friend Felix from preschool, as well as his mom and brother, so the kids had fun dancing around in the grass together as they listened to music. It's fun being in a university town where we can just happen upon local, free events such as this. As we drove back home that night, Ben and I both commented that this is the biggest thing we are going to miss about Oxford, just the plethora of events offered by a university the size of Miami. It was fun to spend our evening Uptown, enjoying the nice weather and family time. :)

On Saturday we had plans to help our friends Stephanie, Jim, and Isaac move into their new house. However, I was surprised to wake up and find that I had slept in past 8:00. I came downstairs and immediately Samantha asked if they could take me out to breakfast at Bob Evans to celebrate Mother's Day a day early since we wouldn't have a chance to celebrate the next day. It was so sweet of Ben to let me sleep in and then to take me out to breakfast, because he knows that I enjoy breakfast. The kids did pretty well at the restaurant even though we ate breakfast much later than usual, and it was a nice treat.

From the restaurant we parted ways so that Ben could go help move while I took the kids over to the Kidd's house to hang out with the other moms and kids while the husbands from our small group helped move. We played at their house for awhile before heading Uptown for the Red Bricks and Roses parade. We took the kids last year and enjoyed it, so I figured they would find it interesting again this year. We were lucky to find a good parking spot and walked up to find a place to sit along the street. I packed a lunch for us to eat while we watched the parade, and Samantha and Aedan were both excited to sit in their little chairs near the edge of the road. There was some music performed before the parade started that Samantha and Aedan enjoyed listening to for awhile.

We even got to watch the parade with our friends, Stephanie and Isaac as well as Kristyn, Jonas, and Micah. The parade didn't last for too long, but really it was the perfect length to hold a little kid's attention.

After the parade was over, one of the carriages gave rides to anyone that wanted a ride around the block. We got in line and only had to wait a few minutes for the next turn. Even though it doesn't look like it in this picture, Samantha and Aedan were very excited to ride on the carriage, pulled behind the horses as their hooves clopped down the street.

After getting off the carriage, the kids wanted to play on the animal statues and then of course noticed the fountains. Samantha asked if they could run around in the fountains and get wet, and at first I was going to say no since I didn't bring a change of clothes, but then I thought, "Hey, why not?" It was a warm, sunny day, and a perfect day to get wet in the fountains. At first Aedan was pretty unsure about getting all wet, but once he saw Sissy running straight through the water, splashing, and getting all wet, he knew it would be okay for him to do it as well. He still was a little more cautious, and he didn't like when the water would splash up into his face, but he got soaking wet and had a wonderful time running around and shrieking with delight. Here are some great pictures and videos of our time at the fountains that afternoon.

We got home much later than anticipated that afternoon since we stayed to play in the fountains, so I quickly got Aedan down for a nap (even though I had to put him in a swim diaper since we ran out of disposables and his cloth diapers were still wet in the washer) and I let Samantha just have quiet time in her room. On days we let Samantha nap, even though she naps at a normal time in the afternoon, she almost always has a hard time falling asleep at night. It took us awhile to get her to sleep on Friday night after napping Friday afternoon and then being out past her bedtime, so we didn't want to deal with her not going right to sleep again on Saturday night.

Aedan slept until close to dinnertime since I got him down later that afternoon, and when he woke up I noticed that he has this red rash all over his face and neck. It wasn't there when he went down for his nap, and I was slightly concerned about what could be causing the sudden rash and wondered if it could possibly contagious, wondering if it had any connection to the slight fever he had on Friday afternoon, even though he didn't have any fever after that one time. The rash didn't seem to be bothering him or itching him, and it wasn't anywhere on his body. He didn't have any other symptoms of being sick, so we thought that maybe it could just be an allergic reaction to something. My first thought was maybe a reaction to the water in the fountain because Aedan has pretty sensitive skin, and he didn't have bumps anywhere else maybe because he was wearing clothes that protected his skin. Here are some pictures of his rash.

Since Saturday was a busy day, Saturday night we just took it easy at home, playing, giving the kids a bath, and getting them to bed early. We gave Aedan allergy medicine and put hydrocortisone cream on his bumps to see if that would help any overnight. Ben and I put a movie on after the kids went to bed, and I packed while the movie played in the background.

Sunday was Mother's Day, and we didn't have any special plans since we'd already celebrated on Saturday morning. Ben volunteered to help out with the elementary kids since they were desperate for help, and I just brought the kids back home to play while Ben stayed for second service. However, on his way back he did buy me some beautiful purple tulips. In the picture below you can also see the project Samantha made for me for Mother's Day, she painted the pot, and the flowers are made of cut outs of her little hands. I told Samantha that I loved her flowers, and they were the best kind because they won't die so I can keep them forever. I felt very loved. :) It was a lovely reminder for me of how blessed I am with my thoughtful husband and two wonderful kids, especially after having a rough day on Saturday when I discovered our attempts at trying to conceive were unsuccessful yet again.

Again, Aedan was so tired that he had a hard time waiting to eat lunch and take a nap. He just wanted to go right up to his room and go to sleep, not understanding that it wasn't even lunch time yet. We let Samantha have quiet time in her room again that afternoon because we feel like it's better when she doesn't nap so that she can get to bed early and go right to sleep instead of making us fight with her to get her to calm down and go to sleep. Really, if she sleeps for an hour and a half in the afternoon, she will stay up an hour and a half past when we put her to bed, so really they just cancel each other out and there is not much benefit to her having napped. Plus, it's nice having the kids in bed at 7:30, giving Ben and I more time to work or spend time together in the evenings, and we don't have to fight to get Samantha to go to sleep because she's usually tired enough that she falls right asleep.

At the last minute, Ben's parents were nice enough to drive to Oxford to deliver all the rest of our boxes along with lot of our tubs of children's clothes that had accumulated at their house over the years. Now we have plenty of storage at our new house, so we can take our stuff out their house in Upland, making it easier to access when sending the next set of clothes for Christy to use for Brielle. Ben's parents are great at being hands-on and helpful, so they didn't just deliver the stuff and leave or sit and hang out, they offered to help me pack, and it was a huge help. My goal for the weekend was to pack up all the pictures and decorations, and they helped me accomplish that goal much faster than if I was doing it all on my own. They stayed through dinner, and the kids were excited to see them after nap time/quiet time. As soon as Aedan heard their voiced downstairs, he said, "Ema? Papa?" and a huge smile came across his face.

We decided to go out to eat at Fiesta Charra that evening, and even though Samantha was running around the house being silly with Papa most of the afternoon, she quickly faded at the restaurant. We felt her forehead and she was burning up, so at some point between home and the restaurant she had developed a fever. She wasn't too interested in eating her food or talking with Ema and Papa because she just didn't feel well and we had no medicine with us to give her, making her feel miserable in the meantime. We had thought about letting the kids play in the park across the street and then getting ice cream at Graeter's, but with Samantha getting sick, we knew it would be best to just get the kids back home.

We put a show on when we got home so that Samantha could relax and let the medicine begin to work. I am so thankful for medicine like acetaminophen and ibuprofen that can bring fevers down and make people so much more comfortable. We hoped that she would have a good sleep and break her fever overnight, although we were already making plans for her to miss preschool the next day because of her fever. I told Samantha to call out to us in the middle of the night if she woke up hot because it meant her medicine wore off, and we could come in and give her more. It was a bit of a rough night because we stayed up later than we should have since Ben was grading, so he woke me up when he came to bed, then about an hour later Samantha woke up crying for more medicine. She had a fever of 102.5 still, so she went to the bathroom and I gave her more medicine before tucking her back into bed. Then, about an hour after that, Ben woke me up because he had the chills and every time he would shake, the whole bed would shake. I was concerned about my family with Aedan's rash, Samantha's fever, and Ben's chills, it seemed like everyone was coming down with something. I knew this week was going to be busy for Ben, too, and I knew he didn't have time to be sick, so I prayed he wasn't coming down with anything.

Samantha slept in past 8:00 on Monday morning, which is pretty unheard of for her. We were so glad that her body was doing what it should do, getting extra rest to help her recover from whatever her body was trying to fight off. I had plans for Aedan to go with Andrea, but just kept him with me since I was staying home with Samantha anyways. She woke up in a pretty good mood and seemed to be mostly back to normal. In fact, Aedan and her were doing a really good job of getting along and playing with each other. They were playing explorers upstairs while I was able to get some work done downstairs. However, as the morning wore on, I was still concerned that they might have something going on because Aedan's rash was still there and went in waves of fading slightly and then becoming more pronounced. Samantha's fever also returned, so I decided to take them into the pediatrician's office. We saw a different doctor than normal, and I wasn't as pleased with his bedside manner. He basically said that it looked look they both had a virus that would pass with time, and that Aedan's rash wasn't contagious since he no longer had a fever. However, he didn't give me any particulars about what the rash was or what may have caused it. I felt a little silly taking the kids in when they said there was pretty much nothing I could do, but at least I had reassurance that the rash was nothing to be concerned about.

Both kids were pretty tired and cranky by lunchtime and needed good naps. Even though Samantha slept past 8:00 that morning, she was acting really tired and since she was sick, I figured that was an exception to our transition to quiet time. We did a joint nap time, reading books and singing together, and Samantha went to sleep pretty easily. In fact, she was still asleep at 4:30! I didn't know whether to wake her up or let her keep sleeping since she was sick and her body was still trying to recover. She ended up sleeping two and half hours that afternoon, and we had to wake her up because we didn't want to impact her sleep too much that evening.

Luckily, after nap time her fever seemed to be gone and she was acting a lot more like herself. We took it easy that night at home as well so that way she could get all better and be able to go back to preschool on Wednesday. However, the two and a half hour nap that afternoon came back to bite us when she was still awake at almost 10:00. I was glad it seemed like all she had was this fever for about twenty-four hours and no other symptoms popped up, especially with her birthday celebration coming up this weekend. It's no fun when your kids are sick, but I was glad that they both seemed to be on the mend and that their symptoms didn't turn into anything worse. Hopefully our bout with sickness is over now and we can continue to stay healthy over the next month with our move to Michigan and our family vacation.

(Blog about May 3-9, 2016)

The Weekend of Birthday Celebrations (Aedan Turns 2!)

Samantha: 59 Months, Week 2
Aedan: 23 Months, Week 5 (Week 105)

In our last month before moving out of Oxford and up to Sault Ste. Marie, I decided to take advantage of days that Samantha doesn't have preschool to go on fun outings with the kids. On Tuesday we planned to go to Jump and Jack's with Stephanie and Isaac. The weather was supposed to get rainy as the day went on, but it was pretty nice in the morning, so we decided to stop by a park near Jump and Jack's first. It was a pretty fun playground with lots of different climbing structures and the kids had a lot of fun playing together. Both Samantha and Aedan love playing with Isaac for different reasons. Samantha likes to play imaginary games with him, and Aedan likes to make funny noises and be silly with him. While on the playground, Aedan was trying to be very brave and climb up right behind the big kids, not realizing that he was too little to tag along. Samantha and Aedan both had a great time on the swings as well. Samantha always wants me to push her super high, and Aedan always wants me to do under dogs with him.

After getting our fill at the park, we went to Jump and Jack's and Stephanie was able to get us in on her punch pass. It's always fun to come here every few months with Aedan to see how much he has grown, developed, and changed since the previous time. For example, the last time we were there, he was pretty unsure about climbing and sliding by himself. However, this time he had absolutely no fear at all. He could climb up on platforms that he couldn't reach before, and he was much more comfortable just taking off on his own. In fact, there were a few times that I had to have Samantha and Isaac find Aedan to make sure he was doing okay and didn't need me. Aedan loves slides and will go down them over and over again. Well, these three slides in the picture below drew his attention right away, so he climbed all the way up the steps to go down the slide. I followed him so that I could ride with him down the slide since I didn't think he was big enough to go by himself. Sometimes kids get going pretty fast on these slides, and I didn't want him to fall back and hit his head. We went down the slide several times together, and he smiled and laughed the whole time. However, later in the morning I noticed that Aedan made it all the way to the top of the slides without me noticing and he was almost ready to slide down. I called up to him to tell him to wait for me, but then I figured I'd let him try it out on his own. He discovered how to drag his hands along the sides of the slide to slow himself down, and I was so proud that he did it all by himself. Aedan immediately went back up to slide again and this time went down with Isaac. Isaac was going down the slide next to him by sliding on his tummy, so Aedan copied him and went down most of the way on his tummy, squeaking all the way down.

Another fun area was this section with three smaller slides right next to each other. Samantha, Aedan, and Isaac went down these slides over and over again, having a wonderful time with each other. I think Aedan really enjoyed feeling like he could have fun doing everything just like the big kids. I tried to take a video of how much fun they were having on the slides, but when I got my phone out, Aedan's arm got stuck backwards on the slide which is why he's making this squawking sound. He was fine once I helped him off.

Aedan particularly likes Stephanie, and after awhile he grabbed her hand, said, "Come on," and pulled her by the hand so that she could go down the slide with him as well. It's cute to see him interact with other people. He loved these slides  because they were easy to climb up and slide down over and over again.

Here are Aedan and Isaac playing with the giant balls together. They are both so silly and goofy together. They've grown to be pretty good buddies. It was nice that Aedan was able to climb around mostly by himself because it gave Stephanie and me more a chance to talk and catch up with one another. There was only one time when Aedan tried to walk across a section with ropes and his foot fell through, causing his leg to get stuck and much crying to ensue. However, he was just fine after I came up and helped him out.

We had a great morning playing with friends and actually ordered pizza to eat at Jump and Jack's so that way we could stay and play longer. It was a bit of a struggle to keep Aedan awake on the way home since it was past 1:00; however, we succeeded and were able to put him down for a nap while Samantha just had quiet time. Instead of having small group that evening like normal, we just had a family night at home and it was kind of nice. Ben was supposed to have a softball game but strong thunderstorms came through Oxford making it a smart decision to just reschedule the games. We had fun just playing together in the house and watching the storm roll in from the west.

Wednesday was a typical day with Ben going to campus, Samantha going to preschool, and Aedan and me going to Bible study. However, both kids were extremely tired that morning, were fighting with each other constantly, and were not listening well at all. It made for a frustrating morning, and I always hate those kinds of mornings where we all rush around and leave in bad moods. I told Samantha that she was going to nap that afternoon, and she said that was fine with her because she wanted to nap. She napped for almost two hours, sleeping until 4:15. In fact, I put them both kids to bed at the same time, reading books, singing, and praying together in Aedan's room before Aedan and I tucked Samantha into bed in her room so that I could then go back and rock Aedan to sleep in his room. I figured that would be the best solution because then she could get a head start on napping rather than waiting until I was done with Aedan. By the time I was done with Aedan and laid his sleepy body in his crib for his nap, Samantha was already asleep and snoring. She was clearly tired which is why she had such a bad attitude that morning, and I was glad she was getting the rest her body needed.

We had a pretty rainy week, meaning we had to find indoor activities to keep us busy. On Thursday morning we went to the Art Explorers program at the Miami art museum. It was the last one we would be able to participate in, and Samantha loves them so much. Stephanie and Isaac were there as well as some preschool friends, so it was a fun little group. Miss Connie does such a great job coming up with songs, stories, rhymes, and interactive, engaging activities. This week's topic was on bugs and Aedan loved holding his little ants, bringing them up when it was his turn. He still was not overly interested in the stories and would wander around during that part which was somewhat distracting to Isaac who just wanted to follow Aedan around and copy what he was doing. I tend to just let Aedan wander as long as he's not being loud or going places he shouldn't. If I were to make him sit and listen, he would just scream and wiggle away, which is much more distracting than him just wandering around. It's interesting that these story times don't catch his attention better because he will sit and listen to books just fine at home. I think he just likes the one-on-one attention better and likes to be able to sit close up to the book to see the pictures and to talk to and interact with the person reading. However, what is even more interesting is how focused Samantha can be even in a group of kids that is moving and making noise. She is great at blocking out distractions and is entranced with the story, follows right along with the songs, and is extremely attentive. I love to see this part of her personality because she will be such a wonderful student for her kindergarten teacher. I love to see how much she has grown and learned through her time in preschool at the TRI.

Even though for awhile we were cutting out Samantha's nap and just allowing her to have quiet time in her room, ever since getting an ear infection, it seemed to have thrown her off a bit and she has been acting a lot more tired out. Because of that, I had her take another nap on Thursday afternoon, and again, she didn't fight it at all. We did the joint nap time routine again, as both Samantha and Aedan seem to enjoy it. And to be honest, I really enjoy it, too. It's not too often that I get to have both kids sitting still and quiet on my lap while I read stories. They each get to pick out a book and sit on my lap in the rocking chair while I read it to them. Then, I turn off the light, and they both lay their little heads back against my chest while I sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and "Jesus Loves Me" to them. Then, I pray over them. It was so cute to see them cuddled up into me together. They were looking directly at each other's faces, Aedan reached out and touched Samantha's face, and then Samantha reached out and caressed Aedan's little cheek. It was such a sweet moment that I was blessed to witness, and I didn't want it to end. Aedan will always adore his big sister, and Samantha will always be willing to drop everything to help out her little brother. Wow, what love!

Since both kids took good naps on Thursday afternoon, Ben and I decided to go forth with our plans to run some errands with the kids that evening. I needed to stop by JoAnn Fabrics to order the new fabric for the curtains for Samantha's new room in our new house. Samantha was a big fan of the store and stood looking at some of the magazines of doll clothes for quite awhile. This is the fabric that Samantha chose. I think it looks very pretty and will go well with the color of her walls as well as her existing comforter and decorations. She made a good decision, and I'm glad that I let her choose what she liked.

After ordering the fabric, we decided to go out to eat at Olive Garden since we haven't been there in a really long time. Italian food was sounding good to me, and the kids did a pretty good job of waiting patiently for our food. Samantha is an easy person to go out to eat with now because she loves to color and will sit there quietly for a long time. Aedan, on the other hand, prefers to just throw things on the ground right now, whether it be paper, crayons, napkins, silverware, or food. Luckily, there was a baby sitting at a table behind us that helped entertain him for awhile as we waited. Overall, things went well with the kids and they ate their food pretty well. We don't often go out to sit down restaurants with the kids, but we were pleased by their behavior and enjoyed our food.

We had one more errand to run that evening, so we went over to Sears in the mall to look at dishwashers. Our new house has a dishwasher that leaks and the seller offered to either replace it or give us $300 towards buying a new one. We decided to take the $300 so we could choose one that we liked. There is a small Sears Home Store up in Sault Ste. Marie, so we figured that would be the easiest way to order the dishwasher and have it ready to pick up when we move in on June 3rd. The salesman was pretty helpful in showing us the differences in the different models and what makes the price increase by $100. We settled on one that was pretty nice, met our needs, and only cost us $90 more than the $300 we will be getting from the seller. It was getting close to 8:00 at this point and our kids were getting tired, but they were enjoying walking around the store while we made our purchase. We even found an area of furniture on our way back from the restrooms, so Samantha and Aedan enjoyed climbing on the bunk bed together. Again, Samantha mentioned how she can't wait until Aedan turns 4 and they can share a room and have bunk beds with her sleeping on the top and him sleeping on the bottom. We'll see what she thinks about that idea when she is 7 years old. :)

Friday was a busy day for us because it was Aedan's birthday. He was turning 2 years old! It was such an exciting day, and we were ready to celebrate our little man. He is certainly a two year old now, for he doesn't do anything halfway, he throws his whole self into anything he does and is full speed and full energy from the moment he wakes up until the moment he goes to sleep. He is sweet and cuddly, while also being silly and wild. He loves to wrestle with you, but he also loves to share kisses and hugs. His favorite person in the world is Samantha, and he can't wait to see her and play with her every morning. He is learning and growing more and more each day, from climbing and jumping with greater ease and confidence, to speaking in multi-word sentences and babbling very intently to anyone who will listen, to screaming (or crying) at the top of his lungs. He makes us laugh and smile daily, and it is a joy to be his mom and to be entrusted with his care.

After dropping Samantha off at preschool on Friday morning, Aedan and I stopped by the Dollar Tree to buy plates, napkins, party favors, and balloons for his party that evening. He helped me pick out the balloons and was excited to hold them as we walked out of the store together. However, even though they were tied to a weight, he kept saying, "Blow away, blow away," because he was scared that the wind would make his balloons blow away.

From there, we went to the pediatrician's office for Aedan's two year check-up. Even though we haven't been in this office since his check-up last year, he remembered that he gets a sucker at the end of the visit and was pretty fixated on that for most of the time there. Even though they were pretty quick in attending to us, there is only so much to entertain a two year old in a small office room. Plus, Aedan would rather play with the stirrups on the exam table, the pipes under the sink, the paper covering the top of the table, and the drawers on the table, than look at the many books provided for the kids to look at while waiting. He got to stand on the big boy scale to get his weight and came in at 30 pounds which is in the 84th percentile. His height was 36 inches which is in the 88nd percentile, and his head circumference was 20 which was in the 97th percentile. When Dr. Buerk came in to talk to me, she said with those numbers as they are, Aedan could grow up to be 6'2" or 6'3". That would be so interesting if he were so tall because we don't have very many tall people on either side of our family.

Then, she discussed the answers we gave for the Ages & Stages Questionnaire, saying that he was at the highest level in Communication and Gross Motor and was slightly below average in Problem Solving, but the questionnaire assessed through 25 months 15 days, so she said to look back at the questions at that time to see if he has any more mastery of these skills by that point. She did give us a special paper to help us help him increase his problem solving skills, so that will be something we can be more intentional about with him. Dr. Buerk also talked about how two year olds get more opinionated and say no more often, so to give them a choice between two equally good choices, which we already do quite a bit. She did have a couple ideas for helping to clean up that I thought were good because we often have trouble getting Aedan to agree to helping us pick up toys. She said he will be more likely to do anything if it is turned into a game, like getting baskets, putting toys in them, and pretending they are a train taking the toys back to where they belong. Or, playing 1-2-3 where we tell Aedan to put away one thing, then two things, then three things, which also teaches him counting skills. We talked a little about eating and drinking, how he can now drink 1% or 2% milk and should have 16 ounces a day and then water after that. I asked about how he doesn't care much for vegetables, and she suggested putting cheese on them or giving dip with them, which we already do with Aedan and doesn't seem to always help. It seems like it's a texture thing to him and he chews them up but then spits them back out. Who knows, I imagine this phase will pass, and in the meantime, we will continue to offer him whatever vegetable the rest of the family is eating. I also asked the doctor about the dry skin on back of Aedan's legs and she said it was just dry skin, not eczema, and she said that we can put hydrocortisone cream on it three times a day to help it go away, but that we should be using a lotion to help keep his skin better moisturized as well. It was a good check-up, and the last thing they had to do was prick his finger to draw blood for a lead test. Aedan bleeds slowly, so it seems like it takes forever for them to get the amount of blood needed. He was getting a little impatient with us holding him, holding his arm, and squeezing his finger. However, he enjoyed interacting with the nurse, playing with her hair, and making her laugh. I was glad that he didn't have to get any shots on his birthday and that his check-up went so well.

On Friday night we had plans to celebrate Aedan's birthday with friends from our small group at Hanover Park. Ben got home early that afternoon to help me decorate Cookie Monster cupcakes, and we had grapes, pretzels, hummus, and juice boxes for snacks. Several families weren't able to come due to sickness or being out of town, but Aedan still had a great time playing with Evie, and Samantha had fun playing with Daniel and Olivia. It was a pretty nice night, a little chilly, but at least it wasn't raining as it was most of the week. Here are some pictures of our little party to celebrate Aedan turning two. :)

I tried to get some cute pictures of my little two year old, but he wasn't wanting to smile for the camera, so instead, I just got a few serious pictures, which are still cute in their own way.

When we tried to light the candles, the wind was blowing a little too hard, causing them to blow out, but Aedan didn't care too much. He was just excited about everyone singing "Happy Birthday" to him and eating his Cookie cupcake. We had a little trouble making the frosting the right consistency, I think due to a problem with our icing recipe, but they still tasted good and really that's all that matters.

After all the kids got some snacks and a cupcake, they all ran back out to play. Samantha and Aedan both really enjoy the merry-go-round and the tire swing at this park. However, at one point, even though Daddy told him not to, Aedan was trying to push the merry-go-round along with an older girl. However, he is not strong enough or fast enough to do this, so he tripped and fell down on the ground. The little girl didn't notice that he had fallen and basically trampled him, shoving his little face down into the dirt and mulch. He just laid in shock, crying, until I went over to help him up, tried to dust him off a little, and then led him over to the picnic table where I could get a wipe to properly clean him off. He was fine after that and went right back to playing, although we didn't stay for too much longer because it was already close to everyone's bedtime. It was a fun, simple celebration, just perfect for a two year old.

Saturday morning was one of those mornings where the kids were playing together very cutely. Lately, Aedan was been slightly obsessed with purses, and you will often find him carrying one around the house. Well, on Saturday morning Samantha and Aedan were explorers together, which apparently meant that she had to wear a hat and a purse, and Aedan had to have two purses and a blanket. It was cute to see them pretending together, even though it was a bit hard for Aedan to carry everything up the stairs to the next area they were exploring. I love to see their relationship grow and change, especially as Aedan grows up and becomes more interactive and more verbal.

After getting ready, we headed out for Samantha's art show, the culmination of her Saturday art classes. We made it a family affair, and I was excited to see all the different work she did. Here are some pictures of the artwork from the Preschool and Kindergarten class. In this first picture, Samantha's sculpture is in the middle row, second from the right.

In one lesson they read the story of the Three Little Pigs, and then they were each given a side of a cardboard house to decorate. This was Samantha's side.

Here'a a painting where they painted with flowers and then did a blue wash over the top of it.

The theme of the Saturday art classes was Fact or Fiction, and on this particular week, they were talking about stained glass. They were to use the stained glass to tell the story of a dream they've had. Well apparently Samantha had just dreamed about Peter Pan the night before, so this is Samantha's stained glass window telling the story of Peter Pan.

I'm not exactly sure what these are called, but Samantha did a good job explaining to me how they made it with a coffee filter, a jar, and a rubber band. It was great to talk to her about each project for she was able to remember a lot of detail about how she made it and was so proud to point hers out to us.

One of the first projects they did was making the primary and secondary color mice. I remember her telling me that she accidentally made two purple mice instead of one purple and one green. I'm so glad that we signed her up for these classes because she really enjoyed them. She loves painting, drawing, and all forms of art, and I think she enjoyed having this creative outlet every week. I hope that she can do creative projects like these during art at school as well. It was wonderful to see her so excited and interested in something like this.

Mornings are almost always pleasant with the kids. Even though they wake up too early for our liking sometimes (between 6:30-6:45), they usually wake up in good moods and that is the best time for them to get along with each other and play happily together. On Sunday morning, they were both sitting in Samantha's room looking at books and reading together. Aedan sat there flipping page after page, babbling away, and I tried to get a video of it, but like usual, he stopped pretty quickly after I got my phone out to record. He didn't want to perform for me.

However, Samantha was more than happy to perform for me. We have been trying to encourage her to practice reading more, to practice her popcorn words so she doesn't forget all that she has learned between now and when she goes to kindergarten in the fall. We practiced reading this Sofia book the night before, so she decided to show me how well she could read the book on her own. As she was reading, she had such an expression of accomplishment, and I love how she asked for me to send it to Miss Betsy, her preschool teacher. Ben and I often tell her how much she will like it when she can read on her own, and we hope that as she gets more into learning how to read in kindergarten, her interest for it will take off even more and she will pick up on it quickly. She certainly loves to look at books and have stories read to her, so I'm sure it will come more naturally than she thinks.

We started and ended our weekend with a celebration of birthdays. On Saturday Samantha helped me bake Daddy's cake, then I filled it with ice cream on Saturday night, and on Sunday after church Samantha picked purple for the color of his icing, and after I got the icing done and the words written, she decorated the cake with sprinkles. I think this is the best birthday cake Ben has ever had. Definitely the most colorful. :)

We decided to take Daddy out to dinner for his birthday and decided on Texas Roadhouse because he could get a steak and the kids enjoy the rolls and peanuts. We were doing pretty well at our table, waiting for our food, when the fire alarm was tripped in the restaurant. It was extremely loud in the room we were sitting in, and it didn't bother the kids too much the first time, but then by the second and third time, Samantha started to freak out. Our food arrived, and she knew we wanted her to eat, but she couldn't eat because she was covering up her ears with her hands. She just began to cry, and luckily a manager came around asking us if we would like to move to a different area of the restaurant, which we were glad to do. After we moved the kids were able to eat in peace and we ended up having a good birthday dinner together, plus we got a discount for having to deal with the fire alarm going off.

Once back home, we got Daddy's ice cream cake out of the freezer and sat around the table to sing him "Happy Birthday." I love this sweet picture of Daddy holding hands with his two kids. Everyone's smiles are so great. :) I love my family.

And here is our best attempt at a family selfie. :)

I'm so glad that Ben had his camera going while we sang "Happy Birthday" because I love Aedan's reactions. He is so excited about the candles being lit that he shakes and shrieks with delight. Oh, the joy of little kids. Birthdays aren't as exciting when you are turning 32. He is more excited about singing than Samantha, I think. Plus, I love how Samantha accidentally says Aedan instead of Daddy during the song.

The kids had fun picking presents out for Daddy, and Samantha even helped me wrap them all on Saturday, but I think they had even more fun opening the presents, I mean watching him open them (wink, wink). Samantha had mentioned several times that she wanted to buy Daddy new white undershirts since a lot of his have holes in them, so that was the first present he opened.

We were also trying to find something fun for Daddy as a present, and I noticed these game sets with a bean bag toss game and ladderball combined. I know Ben likes to play corn hole, so I figured he would enjoy a game set like this. Plus, it's another way he can interact with the kids outside in our new backyard in Michigan.

His final present was from me, and it was three books that were on a list he had sent me a while back of books that he would like to read in his free time this summer. When we got the books in the mail, Samantha asked, "Is Daddy going to like these books? They don't look very interesting." Ha ha, at least she's being honest, but I assured her that he would find them very interesting. It was a great birthday celebrating Daddy. :)

On Monday morning, Samantha went off to preschool and Aedan went over to a friend's house to play, so Ben and I were able to go to Menards together to get paint and all the supplies needed for painting the downstairs bedroom and office in our new house. I thought it would be much easier to get what we needed without having to drag the kids along, and Ben lovingly rearranged his schedule and got work done earlier in the weekend so that he could go out with me that morning. It was fun going shopping on our own and not feeling rushed or frazzled because of dealing with two whiny, wiggly kids in the cart. I felt like we had a productive morning and slowly but surely, things are getting checked off my to do list.

Monday evenings always go quickly because Ben gets home later from class, we eat dinner right away, and then it's pretty much time for bath time and bed time. However, that doesn't mean we can't play a little bit. On this particular evening, Samantha wanted to dress Aedan up for a ball. She was wearing the Elsa dress, so of course Aedan had to wear the Anna dress. He liked it for about two minutes and then wanted it off. Daddy was able to get a few pictures first, though. I'm sure he will love these pictures when he grows up. :)

(Blog about April 26-May 2, 2016)