| Can you believe the Jonathan, Anna, and Lydia are now 4 years old?
We were unsure of which theme to use for their birthday cake. So we asked them. Jonathan and Anna both said they wanted Care Bears, while Lydia wanted Dora the Explorer. Since majority rules, Care Bears it was. We were glad that once Lydia saw the cake, she was happy with it and didn't remember she wanted the Dora one. As you can see in the April photos, they all did really well with eating the cake.
Several weeks ago we were really concerned about Anna. She threw up after eating dinner one night. She was fine until around 1:30 AM when she threw up again. Although it was all over her pillow, bed sheets, and floor, she was calling out to Daddy crying because a little bit got on "Yucky Bunny". She was fine most of the next day until later in the evening when she threw up again. Needless to say, she stopped eating completely except for yogurt and she would drink her milk. She stopped eating her cereal, cookies, and all of the other things she really likes. After the first day or two, we felt like most of the probably was really in her head more than anything. We didn't push the issue, and within the last two weeks she finally returned to normal eating habits.
The girls have been playing and pretending together a lot lately. But Lydia is the one that really comes up with cute ideas when she pretends. After Daddy took the kids to a local pizza joint they like, Lydia used her mermaid cell phone and called up her mermaid. She says: "I had pizza. Do you have pizza? Do you have pizza under water? No, you don't have pizza under water!".
Jonathan is certainly learning to use phrases properly now. When Anna had trouble opening up the Diaper Genie, Jonathan talked her through step-by-step how to open it up and work it properly. When we bought a dinosaur plush animal from Kohl's and the girls called it a dragon, he brought over his dragon robot and said "No, that's not a dragon; that's a dinosaur. This is a dragon." |
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| April photos including Easter, the triplets birthday, and Lauren are posted. A longer writeup on the triplets and Lauren will be posted soon. |
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| Everyone can thank Sue for buggy Daddy last night. He stayed up till 1 am to get the March photos posted. Enjoy! |
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| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
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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.
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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.
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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.
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| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
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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.
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| Posted by Jim and Lisa at | | | |
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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.
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