I just realized that I never published the last blog entry I started on (like two months ago!) Oops. So here is the last one PLUS some more recent stuff...
For Maddox Bucher's birthday, we went to an aquarium in Concord.
Abby having a tea party in her princess tent with her animals...
I love this picture. This is our friend Oliver. He's a lot like Caleb in that he is a STINKER but awfully cute. :)
The kids coloring in church one Sunday when I taught PreK
Caleb loves quizzing Abby on sight words. :)
Sled riding...
Florida!...
Cousins admiring the pink cowgirl boots...
Free ice cream cones at Dairy Queen
Glencairn Gardens
A little visit to the Charlotte Nature Museum..
Daddy started working for Carroll Financial and has to dress up like a big boy:
I can't get this video to be placed where I want it to, but I still want to include it. It's my favorite video from my trip to Haiti. (I'm not going to put all my photos on here, but I thought I'd at least put one video.)
Field trip to the Children's Museum in Columbia:
Being African dancers at the children's museum.
The exhibit that every boy wanted to go back to over and over... they got to operate a crane that lifted and transported plastic balls.
Caleb lost his first tooth. We were eating, and he just suddenly said, "Is this my tooth??" (Side note: he was totally different than Micah when it came to his teeth falling out. Micah wouldn't let anyone touch his loose tooth because he was so scared of it hurting. Caleb tried getting me to pull it several days in a row. I would pull on it and he'd be like, "ooooOOOOUCH! Okay, I guess it's not ready yet." Then five minutes later want to try again. :)
Checking it out in the mirror:
We forgot to put "tooth fairy" money under his pillow. The next morning, he came out and said, "Aww, man! The tooth fairy forgot to bring me money!" So Ben distracted him and I slipped $1 under his pillow with a note that said, "Sorry this is late. I thought you lived in Alaska, so I went there first. TF". He got a big kick out of that even though he knows there's not really a tooth fairy. A week or so later he lost his second tooth. We DID remember to put money under his pillow this time, but he came out crying in the morning because he thought the tooth fairy would surely leave him MORE money this time. We popped that "entitlement bubble" pretty quickly. :)
Abby dressed as Flash:
Micah hurt his ankle playing basketball. (It ended up that the ankle bone had just a slight chip in it.) So until we borrowed some crutches, he pushed himself around in the wheely chair all day.
Wacky day at CC:
Dying Easter eggs at the Ziebers:
Easter Sunday at church:
Abby would only wear her Easter dress if I let her wear the Hello Kitty boots too. :)
Caleb uses "The Force" (thanks to an app that Beth Zieber has on her phone)
Grandma and Grandpas galore!! Both sets ended up in Rock Hill at the same time for a day. Here Grandpa and Caleb are reading about Alaska:
Kites from Grandma and Grandpa Kaufman:
Our house is the place to be when it's nice out :)
We got a free trampoline!
I guess Abby wasn't so sure about getting her picture taken: :)
This is most of our Classical Conversations homeschool group:
My class, minus one kid who was missing that day:
Besides the lack of grass, I like my front yard in the spring. There's lots of bushes and trees that bloom. If you look closely, you'll see a little brown bunny right in the middle of our yard that shows up every few days. Our neighbor said we had a mama and baby deer in our yard one day, but we weren't home to see it.
One morning while we were eating breakfast I couldn't find Abby. I finally looked out the window and found this:
Abby loves the computer at the library: (or the "why-brary" as she calls it. She gets confused Sunday mornings when I say it's time to go to the Y for church. She says, "I want to go to the Y...brary!"
Sometimes my kids hide. At least it's quiet: :)
We had our first fun backyard party! The clothesline held our white lights.
Maddox teaching math to Abby and Zuri:
And Micah teaching math to Caleb. I think the older boys were competing to see who could get their pupils to understand first.
We went with friends to see the concert/fireworks at the Come See Me Festival in Rock Hill (dumb name for a festival, I know.) Ben didn't think we needed to take extra jackets, but I kept adding blankets to the bag of supplies. He ended up wrapped up in 3 of them.
Rock Hill created a fountain park downtown. It supposedly has some sort of record-breaking fountain. It IS really pretty, but I can't believe they didn't add a splash pad for kids. It's going to be SCORCHING there in the summer.
Enjoying an ice cream cone by the fountain:
The next day Abby was sick. She had a fever and a bad cold. Everyone in the family eventually got it except for me. (Vitamin C pills are wonderful!) :) This is what Abby spent most of the next day doing. Lying in bed, watching a show on the ipad, and eating Pedialyte popsicles.
Micah started playing baseball. Ben is assistant coaching the team. Caleb plays in the dirt the whole time. Practices are Tuesday, games on Thursdays, just through the first week of June. Micah's a pretty decent player, but overall, their team is pretty bad. :) He still has fun though! He's such a sports nut like his father. :)
Micah on 1st base:
Our hammock is popular. The Ziebers and Buchers were over and two neighborhood boys (Elijah and Issac) showed up.
Playing together nicely (it happens sometimes!) Creating designs on the battleship boards (and pretending they are their computers.)
The following picture is only significant because it marks the day that Caleb seems to have overcome his fear of balloons. He prayed almost every day that God would help him not be afraid of balloons anymore... and then we went to an event at the library (a STAR WARS activity day). They made light sabers and had to hit a balloon back and forth with their sabers and he DID it! He was so excited that he didn't feel super scared of balloons any more!
One evening our community group met at Amelie's coffee shop downtown to play games and leave a big tip for the workers. The kids made cards for the workers too. Here Abby and her friend Sophia are coloring at Amelie's.
The Mother's Day tradition continues!! We went to Myrtle Beach, and this year, we had nine women. I reserved a 3 bedroom suite with an ocean view which was perfect! It only cost us each $66 for a two night stay! It rained a good bit Friday and Saturday morning, but we still had plenty of time in the sun Saturday afternoon and LOTS of fun the whole weekend.
I never got a group picture, but this is what we spent Saturday morning doing. Talking and drinking coffee and puzzles. :)
Ben has a job with perks! Carroll Financial gave him free tickets to watch the big PGA golf tournament in Charlotte, so he and Micah got to spend a day there watching some of the biggest golfers in the world play. They also hosted a night at the Charlotte Knights baseball stadium. They had the picnic section reserved so we got a free dinner and got to watch the game. Abby LOVED watching the dragon mascot (from a distance - she didn't like him close up) and she has talked about the dragon ever since. She said, "He dance like this!" and then she shakes her butt. :)
The view from the stadium was really pretty...
Potty-training is CREEEEEEPING along. Abby FINALLY pooped in the potty for the first time about a week ago. Here she is trying to hold up three fingers to say that she got THREE candies for going poop in the potty. :) She still prefers diapers and doesn't mind sitting in her own excrement. That strong will of her's has made her the hardest of my kids to potty train so far for sure!
Just cute:
I like capturing the moments when they are actually playing together well. Especially when it shows off Abby's cute little ponytail: :)
She wanted her picture taken in her dress one Sunday:
And she wanted her picture taken with her sippy cup :)
Playing hide and seek the other night. Ben hid in the bottom of the closet and put Abby in the top. She held perfectly still and the boys couldn't find her even for a bit after they found Ben.
Sunday night we went to the Bucher's house for a backyard birthday party for our friend Meagan. They had a pinata for the kids.
The kids lining up from youngest to oldest to swing at the Pinata:
Meagan got to bat first but couldn't find the pinata after she was blindfolded:
Aunt Carrie helping Abby take a swing:
Adoption update: We had our individual meetings with the social worker for the home study today. Of course, she had to come on the day that the boys had gone to bed late AND woke up at 6:20 in the morning. They weren't their best, but I guess they weren't their worst either. :) We have doctor's appointments next week, and after we get lab work back from that, we only have one more meeting to do (probably the week after the kids and I get back from Maryland), and our home study should be done! Yay!
Today, we had Pastor Leon at our house for a couple hours. He's the pastor of the churches in Haiti we visited (and the leader of Haiti Outreach Ministries). He was in the states to see his daughter graduate, and came to Rock Hill for just the afternoon. Talking to him made me look very forward to going back to Haiti again (hopefully many times over the years!)
