| After not much snow earlier this winter, February really slammed our area with two back-to-back storms. Thank goodness for snow-blowers, or Daddy would have had a heart attack trying to shovel it all. The kids got to play in the snow this year (they never had a good snow to play in last year). They all seemed to like it. Unfortunately Jonathan was too heavy to climb on top of the snow pack like Anna was doing. He wanted to, but he would sink through the snow and was unable to get on top. Of course AFTER daddy put the camera away, THEN all three of the kids tried to make snow angels all at once. It would have made a great picture, but daddy put the camera away to just enjoy playing with the kids when they did it. Don't worry, there are still plenty of good pictures taken.
The biggest news this month is that Anna actually tried AND LIKED meatballs. After the kids were done eating their spaghetti, Anna came to sit with Daddy while he was eating his food. When asked if she wanted to try a meatball, she actually said "yeah". She ended up eating two of them!!! And it was not a one-time thing. She has eaten at least one meatball on two other occasions. Jonathan also likes the meatballs. Lydia tried one and ate the first piece she was given. But on the second piece she changed her mind and said "I don't like it". She waited for permission to spit it out. Jonathan has also taken bites of Daddy's hamburgers or sloppy joes, but has not yet eaten a full sandwich himself.
With our new little girl scheduled to arrive at the end of April, we're getting worried about getting everything ready at the house. Thus we will be living our own version of March Madness (with nothing about it having to do with basketball). It's hard to get things done when the kids are awake sometimes, and once they go to bed we're usually tired from the long day. Hopefully this weekend Daddy will get done as much as possible.
Last Sunday we took the kids to Mommy's work. The hospital was having a free event where they had employees dressed up as various Disney characters. We thought they'd be really interested to talk with the characters, but they were really shy/scared. Jonathan did the best. The girls shook some hands at first, but never wanted to go back after that. There were free snacks and gift bags for them too. When they got bored with the characters, we let them open the bags and they had fun.
The photos for February have been posted. There are a good number this time due to the many pictures of them playing in the snow.
|
|
|
|
| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
|
| SNOW!!! When Daddy went to snowblow the driveway and sidewalks yesterday morning, the yardstick showed there was approximately 17" of snow already and it was still snowing. We probably got another 2 inches after that. And of course the big storm would have to come on a weekend where Mommy had to work. But Daddy could see that the township was even making our neighborhood fairly passable while he was snowblowing, so we figured we could get Mommy there in the Explorer. We put Grandma in charge of the kids while Daddy drove Mommy in. We only had to take two detours to get Mommy there. One due to a tracker-trailor that slid off the road close to our house when he could not make his turn, and the other when one of the interstate off ramps was not cleared. Otherwise it was not that bad.
Daddy dressed the kids up to go outside and play in the snow once he got back home. They just loved it. Because of how high the snow was, they started "digging" at the snow at the top edge of the snow pack where the snowblower had made a path. Anna and Lydia liked crawling up on the snow pack and Anna tried to make several snow angels. Daddy took several pictures (you'll have to wait for the February set of pictures to seem them all). Of course after Daddy put the camera in the garage so he could just play with the kids was when all three of them tried to do snow angels all at once. It would have been a great picture, but they don't always time things for when the camera is around. Daddy tried to throw snowballs at them, but the snow was too dry to make actual balls.
Fuzzy is living on borrowed time now. Daddy and the kids took her for her annual checkup, and she had lost significant weight. She went from 13 pounds to 9 pounds. So they did blood tests and discovered that her kidneys are probably only functioning at about 10%. There really isn't much we can do for her without spending a ton of money. And given she is around 17 years old, she might not last long anyways. So at some point we may have to put Fuzzy to sleep.
Photos from January have been posted on the photos page. Midway through the month Daddy got a new camera. As some of the settings and capabilities are different from the one we had been using, it is taking a little time to perfect how to set it in different lighting situations.
|
|
|
|
| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
|
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone. Again this posting is late. But Mommy and Daddy have both been sick for over a month now. That was really hard for Mommy, since she could not take as many drugs to feel better since baby #4 is baking in her belly!
The kids has good Christmas this year. They really understood that the holiday was coming and that they could be getting some presents. The girls each got a princess doll from Uncle Eric, and Jonathan a dinosaur. The big theme from Santa Claus was Thomas the Train this year. They got a big table to put the track and buildings, etc, on so they have a good place to play with that stuff. The girls also got a Barbie camper and a Barbie for each of them. Jonathan got a large boat that came with a submarine, submersible, divers, fish, and all kinds of stuff. Grandma Johnson gave the girls a Dora the Explorer doll, and Jonathan got a Diego helicopter from her. And thanks to everyone that sent the kids money. We typically save the money to use towards any trips or activities that cost money to do.
Jonathan was the one that decided to take the quick way of getting everything out of the stockings. He knew to just turn it upside down and dump everything out in one shot. Why take one thing at a time out when you can just get everything right now!
When we put the tree up and took it down, the kids were able to help some. As our artificial tree has color coding at the end of each branch, they could find the colors that Daddy needed. They also helped put ornaments on the lower part of the tree. We made sure we had plenty of Hallmark ornaments that they could play with down low.
On December 26th when it was time to get up, Jonathan asked Daddy "Is it Christmas, Daddy?" Even though it was not, he took it well.
Mommy is doing ok with baby #4 so far, other than the sickness we had in December (which didn't affect the baby, but made Mommy very tired and uncomfortable). The last time she went to Maternal Fetal Medicine, the doctor there said that they had no need to see her again unless the regular doctor felt there was some reason for them to be involved.
We're planning on being in Altoona the weekend of Valentine's Day. If someone there is available, we'd like to see if someone would be willing to babysit for a couple hours on Saturday so that Mommy and Daddy can have a much-needed date night. If you're interested, please let us know.
The December photos were loaded up earlier today.
|
|
|
|
| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
|
It is the end of an era. Last night we cleaned up and took apart the toddler table that the kids sat in the middle of. It has been getting increasingly harder to pick up Jonathan and Lydia to put into and out of the table. So we took it down, and they watched while Daddy took it apart. They were curious. It was somewhat surprising they were not more concerned about it. In its place we put the little plastic table and chair set we use for them to color on. As that table's legs fold up, it did not have a permanent home to be setup. The ate dinner at it last night and breakfast this morning. They seem to like it just the same.
173 Photos from October have been put on on the photos page.
|
|
|
|
| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
|
On the "Videos" page a new video was added. Daddy was able to get away from work to see the kids at preschool for their party, so Daddy shot the video while Mommy took pictures with the camera.
Halloween was a bust. It rained too much on Saturday, so they did not get to trick-or-treat this year. But at least they did get to go to the party at Daddy's workplace and had their party at the preschool. So they didn't totally miss out on Halloween fun.
We took over 400 pictures this month, so Daddy is a little slow getting them up. Hopefully this weekend they will be up. But hopefully the video will hold everyone over until then.
|
|
|
|
| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
|
40 days. According to the blog management panel, that is how long it has been since our last entry. And it is also how long it FEELS like it has been raining around here. We'd start building an ark, but Peta would probably take issue with how the animals are being crammed into the boat.
Daddy's job has been very consuming lately. Thus the long time between posts.
For those that look out for new photos, the September 2009 set is finally loaded. There are not that many in that set, as not that many photos were taken last month. Don't fret, we've already taken tons of photos this month.
Preschool: There is good new and bad news. The good news in the kids like it and it seems to be helping them with their verbal skills. They get to do a lot of creative projects that Mommy and Daddy are sometimes too tired to do at home. The bad news is that their lack of potty training is becoming an issue. Everytime one of them poops, Mommy is called to come back to change them (partly because Jonathan threw a fit when the teacher tried to change him the first time). Their policy is they are supposed to be trained to be in the class. We warned them they are not before class started. We're not sure how to just "instantly" get them trained. But there is a risk that the issue could cause them to not be able to continue on. We hope not, but we don't know what will happen.
Daddy was only able to take two half-days off work the week that Mommy was off. The first day we took them to the Strasburg Railroad to ride the train. It was only about 60 degrees and windy, but we still chose to ride the open-air car for better picture-taking and easier view of everything. Other than us, just one elderly couple joined us on the open car. For the ride out, the engine was attached to the front of our car. Jonathan was scared and did basically hid his face behind Lydia the whole way out. Lydia was a little scared, but sat on Daddy's lap and did still look around at the sights. Anna was not too scared and say besides Mommy and enjoyed herself. Once the engine switched to the other end of the train for the ride back, Jonathan then looked around and enjoyed the ride back.
The other half-day off we went to Gettysburg to the Boyd's Bear Country store. They really liked looking at all of the stuffed animals there. After the store, we ate at the Pizza Hut in town. Jonathan did well eating his Pizza. Lydia didn't eat much (she's usually better with pizza), and Anna just scraps off and eats the cheese from it.
For the first time since the kids were born, the kids and Daddy were able to join Mommy for the Apple Harvest Festival. For walking around there for close to five hours, they did pretty good. There was a petting zoo there, and an area with lots of hay for them to play in. Daddy jumped in with them, and they tried to cover Daddy with Hay.
|
|
|
|
| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
|
It seems like so much has happened in just a single month's time. Early in the month we took the kids to get their hair cut. Every time before, Anna would not immediately cooperate when it was her time to be done. For whatever reason this time, she decided she wanted to be first to get done. Anna was happy and smiling the whole time.
Due to Daddy being in a new job and working on some critical projects, we haven't been able to take a normal full week vacation. But we did take two days in August. On the first day off, we took the kids to Indian Echo Caverns in Hummelstown (between Harrisburg and Hershey). We purposely kept ourselves at the back of the tour group in case the kids were slow so we wouldn't hold up the entire group. For the most part, they did pretty good on the tour. They were probably a little young yet to fully enjoy it, and sometimes we hoped they were not too loud that the other people were bothered. They only bad time on the tour was the part when they shut off all the lights to show you absolute darkness. Anna was very concerned and cried a little bit. Thankfully someone right next to us has a small flashlight they turned on, but put their thumb over so it wasn't real bright but still enough to calm her down. Once the tour was over, we let them play in the playground they had there. In the gift shop, Anna and Jonathan put on the toy miner's hats. We tried to get Lydia to put one on, but she wanted nothing to do with it. From there, we continued on to the outlets in Hershey to shop a little bit.
The kids probably enjoyed the next day a little bit better. Someone Mommy works with told her about Cherry Crest Adventure Farm near Strasburg, PA. The farm is the original farm to start the corn maze trend. They have a lot of activities for kids of all ages. There was a small maze made of hay bales the kids really liked. Lydia really enjoyed the small wagons pulled by a small tractor that we rode on. Jonathan liked feeding the sheep there. Anna liked all the animals. Lydia, however, was scared of the goats and the sheep. The only scary part of the day was when we thought Jonathan was going to get run over by the train from the Strasburg Rail Road. The rail line runs right through the farm. They had the crossing closed for the train to come through. As the train got closer and blew the horn, Jonathan ran along the fence to a corner, where if he ducked around one side and then went back the other way could have ended up near the train! We had planned to try the train ride that day too. But by the time we were ready to leave the farm, we could tell the kids were wore out. So it wasn't worth doing the train since they wouldn't have enjoyed it by that point.
Daddy is now happy to say "Hello, I'm a Mac!". But he's been too busy with work and everything else to completely transition everything from our older PC over. Of course getting the photos over was the top priority. But there are some other documents and music that need to be transferred. Our old laptop was slow at working with some of the photos we take depending on what camera we used. The new Mac is much faster at working with the photos, which is why we wanted the Mac.
Unfortunately our water heater has decided to start leaking last week. We had been talking about getting one of the new tankless heaters anyways, so the leak is forcing us to get it a little sooner than we planned. Nothing in the basement got wet other than the platform the water heater is sitting on, which is good. Since the current one still generates hot water is not completely broken, we did not have to have a rush installation done. So it will be replaced this coming Wednesday.
This coming Thursday the kids will start preschool! As there is a toy bag that can be worn like a backpack the the kids have been fighting over it, we think they'll love their backpacks we got them for school. They like them in the store the day we got them. So hopefully they like everything else about going. We'll take them to an "orientation" the night before, so maybe that will help too.
Oh, we also had Portrait Innovations take pictures of the kids earlier in the month too. You'll see pictures from that and some of the other stuff mentioned above in the August photos on the photos page.
That's it for this month.
|
|
|
|
| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
|
241 photos for August are available on the Photos page. Hopefully the blog for this month will be posted later today or tomorrow.
|
|
|
|
| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
|
Just a few random thoughts I forgot to post a few days ago:
Lately Anna has been pretending to be a doggy. She goes around on all fours and barks. We tell her "good doggy" and pet her head. Sometimes when she doesn't want to do something we ask her to, we ask the doggy to do it and sometimes she'll pull out of whatever bad mood she was in and do what we wanted.
The last time we tried the bicycles in the driveway, Jonathan started to learn how to make it go on his own. Lydia didn't want to try. Anna tried, but just hasn't realized if she keeps pushing her legs she'll keep going. She only pushes a 1/2 turn of the pedal and then stops.
Anyways, around 200+ photos have been posted for July. Enjoy.
|
|
|
|
| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
|
It seems like in the last month or so there is a big difference in the learning and comprehension skills of all the trio. Now when something happens to one of the kids, they or their siblings can recall the event and talk about it later in the day or the next day. One day Mommy took the kids for a walk around the neighborhood and since Jonathan and Anna cannot seem to agree on the same pace when walking while holding hands, Anna inevitably tripped and fell on her knees. Her knees were scrapped up a bit. Later that day Daddy asked Anna what happened. Anna didn't respond, buy Lydia points out the front window and says "street. Anna fall down." When we asked again the next day, they still remembered.
When we stopped by Aunt Bobbi's house on July 4th, Aunt Debbie was asking Jonathan what he had been up to. He was excited to tell her about jumping on the trampoline (which he was still laying on). All three of the kids had a good time jumping on the trampoline. Anna buddied up with Alex, and Jonathan and Lydia played with Amber. Of course all they would eat from the food that was available was potato chips. We tried to make some Mac-n-Cheese that we brought along just to get them to eat something, and they didn't really want that either. After Bobbi's house, we stopped over to Bryan, Theresa, and Noah's house since they're only a couple blocks away. Bryan had to work on the 5th, so we knew we'd have to see him the night of the 4th.
On the 5th, Theresa and Noah joined us at Delgroso Park. We think the kids enjoyed the rides a little more this year than they did last fall. Of course some of the photos of Lydia don't always look like she is having fun. Sometimes she keeps a poker-face on. But she really does enjoy herself too. After we were done at the park, we stopped up at Grandma and Pappy's place for awhile before heading home.
This month Daddy tried to take the kids to some of the county parks that are close by himself in the evenings. Jonh Rudy park had a nice playset for them. The unfortunate thing is that the playset is completely out in the open, with no shade anywhere close. So once the kids had played for about 40 minutes, Daddy had them walk up to the pavillions that were not too far to get into the shade and drink some water we brought. Daddy was concerned whether they would get back in the van and leave willinging. To Daddy's surprise, once we reach the parking lot Lydia (who is usually the most resistant to leaving) starts happily saying "bye slide, bye slide". Once the kids were buckled into their seats, Jonathan says "Go see Grandma". He knew we were going home and that Grandma Johnson was there.
Today (August 1) we went to the free picnic for all Wellspan employee families. Thanks to some of Mommies coworkers, we knew to bring a box lid to help carry our food for everyone from the tent to whereever we would eat. And were also instructed to bring a blanket to put down for eating. We have a blanket we keep in the van, and Mommy got a box lid from work so we were prepared. What we were not prepared for was the heat. It was around 87 degrees and very high humidity. The food was ok, but of course all the kids would eat were the potato chips. Even Jonathan, who likes hot dogs at home, didn't like the hot dogs they had there. Lydia sat down at the face painting area and let the lady paint balloons on her wrist. Jonathan sat down at the next station and let them paint an Elmo on his arm. Anna wanted nothing to do with that even after seeing Lydia and Jonathans paintings. There were a few games we had them try. One game you were supposed to toss a softball into these square wooden boxes. Well, Anna and Lydia walked up to the boxes and threw them in from about 2 inches away. Needless to say, they try to give everyone something so they each got these stuffed lions with long arms and legs. Then we tried a ring toss game, and they didn't really understand that one either. But they gave all of them a big yellow stuffed duck. We went into the hall where a DJ was playing, and depending on the song Lydia or Anna would dance a litle bit. We were surprised that the kids did fairly well in the next building for the wellness fair. It was really crowded. But they stayed close to us and didn't complain. We then tried the Bingo hall. But after several games where we kept getting down to one number left and they would announce to clear the cards, we gave up and left for the day.
For those of you looking for the July pictures, you will need to wait a little longer. We took over 400 pictures in July and Daddy hasn't begun processing and organizing them yet. So it may be a few days until they are put up.
|
|
|
|
| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
