A Weekend in St. Louis

This past weekend we went up to Saint Louis for a family reunion/great uncle's 95th birthday celebration.

A good part of Friday was spent at the zoo. Last time we went to the zoo we stopped to see each animal we passed and consequently weren't able to see the elephants, hippos, or rhinos. This year I had the boys make a list of the animals they wanted to see and we were able to see everyone that was on the list.

It was a pretty hot day, so we really enjoyed getting to cool off while visiting the penguins and monkeys. We took both of our strollers (a double and a single) and I am glad we did.


Waiting to go into the penguin house. As I said, it was hot. Jeremiah was really flushed; he probably drank a gallon of water and iced tea that day.

Nathaniel.

The boys did really well wearing their hats the whole time.

Somehow I never took a picture of Edmund, so instead here is a funny elephant showering itself with water.

Our great uncle paid for everyone's lodgings for the weekend. We got to stay at the Ritz!

The whole Hall contingent at the big birthday dinner.

Left to right, Glenn (Pop), Justice, Kimberly, Mary (Mom), me, Jeremiah, Nathaniel, Jaired (oblivious to the picture taking), Ellie, and Chava. Edmund is sleeping on Chava's lap.

Our Summer in Pictures (So Far)

Mr. Toad (named after Mr. Toad in The Wind in the Willows). This fellow provided Edmund with amusement for a long time. As did a turtle Edmund found and carried around for quite some time, hoping it would come out of its shell.

Mr. Toad doing Jumping Jacks.

The three boys are finally starting to play well in the pool together. Nathaniel actually likes being splashed now (at least most of the time)!

Jeremiah bailing water for all he's worth. I don't think he ever made much progress. :)

Jeremiah seems to take the heat worse than the other two boys. This is how he sleeps pretty much day or night. (Though he usually does have a pillowcase on his pillow.)

Another way Jeremiah stays cool. This is also yet another example of Jeremiah being different from the other boys. Edmund and Nathaniel are terrified of showers, but this guy loves them!

Where's Jeremiah?

Peek-a-boo!

Cicadas

This year the Magicicadas emerged. The link will take you to Wikipedia's page about these interesting insects. A couple things I learned by reading the article: 1) the adults don't seem to eat anything, their sole intention being reproduction and 2) the adult life span is only a few weeks, so they will all be gone about mid-July.

I don't know how it is in other states, or even in the bigger cities compared to where we are, but there are so many cicadas everywhere the noise is terrific!

We first noticed the cicadas coming out about two weeks ago. It was a pretty much overnight thing, one day none, the next day they were everywhere. Then they kept coming for three of four days, I think. What seems really strange to me is that at our house, as I said, they are everywhere, but just about half a mile through the woods at the family's house there are very few. In fact, the family didn't realize until the second or third day that the cicadas where emerging.

The first day, Edmund was a little wary of these scary looking insects. He said they looked like red-nosed dragons. After a little science lesson, during which he learned that the brown skins where empty, he began to inspect the cicadas more closely. It started with collecting the skins and looking at them and how they where open on the backs for the adult to climb out. Then he started using leaves to pick up the cicadas (similar to how you would use a pot holder to pick up something hot). Now he is very free with them and likes to collect them in buckets, or even just care around one or two and let them crawl on him as he plays with them.

Nathaniel is not nearly so friendly with the cicadas. He likes to look at them (and squash them), but is almost paralyzed if one gets on him. He will pick them up now, but very gingerly, and he doesn't hold them long.

Jeremiah, on the other hand, has no fear whatsoever. One of the first things he does when he goes outside is pick up a cicada. He carries them all over the place. The poor things get somewhat tortured, but not on purpose. He has put one in his mouth before, but didn't eat it.

I like this little picture sequence from one of the first days:

Nathaniel watches nervously as Jeremiah touches a cicada.

Then, just as nervously, Nathaniel finally touches a cicada.

Finally, for whatever reason, Nathaniel feels it necessary to help Jeremiah touch the cicadas, though Jeremiah would rather do it by himself.

These Hobbits Love Strawberries

There is nothing quite so yummy as a freshly picked, homegrown strawberry.

This is our strawberry patch the last couple of springs. Rather overwhelmed with weeds. Very hard for strawberry picking. Not to mention choking those poor strawberry plants.

This year, with the help of a proverbial kick out the door on Jaired's part, I buckled down and weeded the strawberry patch. I think it took me most of three weeks of at least fifteen minutes a day to get it all done. And it isn't really done yet. There are a few patches that don't have any strawberry plants growing where I went ahead and left the weeds, I'll go pull them eventually. Then, of course, the weeds are still coming up, so I have to weed more. BUT the bed is actually predominately strawberry plants now!

It sure is easier to pick the strawberries. For the first time since we moved into this house our strawberry patch looks more like it is supposed to look. I know the pictures may not make the patch look like much, but there is a big difference.

Back in March, when strawberries first came out in the the grocery stores, I fed some to Jeremiah. Considering that the rest of us all LOVE strawberries, it was a bit of a surprise that he actually spit them out! I predicted that he wouldn't be able to say no to the little lovelies that came out of our own patch, and I was correct.

He would eat all the strawberries if I let him.

Summer Activities

As with my other pregnancies I have hit that point where I feel the need to finish my half done projects before the baby comes. Sewing projects are the main thing on my list. But there are also a lot of things that still need to be done in the basement that I would like to do before Miss Cook comes. It would be nice to get the schoolroom completed and ready for the new school year, as well as getting the bathroom down there up and running.

For now, I have started on my sewing projects. There are many, ranging from mending to new projects and as I sat and looked at my boxes I started feeling overwhelmed. So I closed all but one box, and from that one box, pulled out the first thing and finished it. Now I have gone through an entire box, fixing what I could and making a list of necessaries for the other things. Some of the projects were so easy and quick that it is ridiculous that I took so long to do them.

One of these was Jeremiah's name sampler. I have made these for the other boys, always finishing them up while pregnant with the next child. After I finished Nathaniel's I started Jeremiah's and had it almost done before he was born. Then I never picked it up again. Well, I finished it the other day, and when I said it was almost done I meant it. It took me all of maybe four hours spread over a few days to finish it. Wouldn't it have been nice to have finished it back when Jeremiah was a newborn?

Here it is: finished, washed, and framed.

And a close-up.

It would be nice to get Miss Cook's done before she comes, but I do think I should finish all the other half done projects I have going first. We will see what happens.

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On another note. We have the pool out and the boys have been in it pretty much every day for the last week and a half. Some of the days were really too cold and they didn't last long, but Sunday and yesterday they were in it a lot.

They all love the water, but of the three fish this one is the fishiest:

Neither of the other boys liked the pool much at this age, but Jeremiah loves it! It doesn't matter how cold it is. In fact, last month when we went to the river for a picnic Jeremiah actually crawled right into the river. Not only is the river always rather cold, but below the spring (where we were) it is ICY!!! But Jeremiah didn't care. As you can see, he loves to splash!

While Jeremiah sat down right away, it took Edmund a little while to get acclimated.

But it didn't take him too long. Oh, the life jacket? I don't know, maybe he was afraid he would be out of his depth. :)

Nathaniel was sleeping when some of these pictures where taken, otherwise he would have been in there more, too.

On Narnia, Imitation, and Walking

Harper Collins has a great unabridged audio book set of The Chronicles of Narnia. Jaired and I discovered it at the library when we were back in Virgina Beach. Recently, Edmund has become really interested in listening to audio books. He started out with some Jaired made for him, just reading books into a voice recorder, then burning them onto CD's. A few months ago Jaired brought home The Magician's Nephew and Edmund has since listened to all the books several times. He loves them and can recite all his favorite parts.

Last night, the evening wrestling matched somehow evolved into a game of Narnian kings fighting giants on the western border. Then Edmund got his "magic U" (a plastic letter magnet U) and transported us to the little country train station where the book Prince Caspian begins. He proceeded to give us a blow by blow account of the story and what each of us, as the different characters, was doing. We were then transported to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, where we went from listening to his accounts to actually acting out the story. Particularly one of his favorite parts, where I, as Lucy, had to go read the magician's book, and act out all the events related with that.

It was very amusing and fun to be able to participate in and encourage his imagination. He was so serious about it and was so pleased every time I was able to insert the correct Lucy quotes for each event. The evening ended with him asking me to read him a story from "the magician's book". When he climbed into my lap I asked him how is was that the magician (for that's who he was playing at the time) was able to sit on Lucy's lap. He said that he was a small magician. :)

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"Me, too!" For everything. Nathaniel wants to be like Edmund and do what Edmund is doing. Even when he doesn't know what we are talking about, if he thinks it sounds good, "me, too!" Even if Edmund is excused from the table and Nathaniel is still eating he wants to be excused too, though he ends up being hungry and wanting to come back to eat more.

Nathaniel is definitely in the unenviable position of middle child. He tries so hard to do all the things Edmund does, and at the same time is trying to stay ahead of Jeremiah. It's not fun. But that little, "me, too!" sure makes me smile.

And after saying hello to the baby, he always point to his own tummy and says, "me, too. Baby!"

Oh, and he has started volunteering kisses. He has the cutest little pucker.

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Jeremiah has finally started walking. He is so funny. Sometime last week, he started by walking up to something with his walker and stopping a couple of steps away, and then taking those last steps alone. He would hold his hands up above his head and as he reached his target bring them down onto it with a triumphant crash. Yesterday, we again had a fire going in the fireplace, so we spent most of the late afternoon and evening in there. Jeremiah walked back and forth between the couches or people, trying further distances as he went along. Today, he got up to halfway across the room.

He is so proud of himself. Of course we are proud of him, too.

(No pictures, I know. I'll try to get some in the next post.)

Jeremiah -- One Year

This year has gone by so fast. In some ways I still want to be snuggling my little, tiny baby Jeremiah, but here he is, one year old already!

Jeremiah may look like his older brothers, but he definitely has his own personality. He is so much more serious than the two older boys. He doesn't laugh much, so when he does it is so delightful and you can really tell how much fun he is having. The great thing about it is that his brothers are some of the people who make him laugh most often.

He also knows how to hold his own with his brothers. Laughing and letting them tumble him around to their hearts content, but letting them know in no uncertain terms when he has had enough. He sure can yell to let you know how mad he is! It is hard not to laugh when he gets that mischievous glint in his eye as he edges towards his brothers' toys, then gleefully knocks over whatever it was that they just built.

While the other two boys started walking before they turned one, but didn't say their first words until sometime after; Jeremiah has shown no interest in walking alone, but has already said a few words. His favorite word is "ball," but he also can say "bye" and "quack."

Jeremiah learned how to clap in time for his birthday.

He is very excited about his new walking toy, and plays with it a lot.

His brothers like playing with it, too. :)

The birthday shirt Aunt Kimberly made.

A Chocolate cupcake. Hmm, is this stuff any good?

Oh, yes, definitely!

Hey, look at the icing on my tray.

I wonder how much more mess I can make?

Wow, look at the icing on my hand. That's cool!

Man, that cupcake sure was good. And I know I am so cute with all this icing on my face.

(This picture was taken the day after his birthday party. At the party, he wasn't so happy about how messy he got and started crying as soon as he was done eating because he was so tired and just wanted to get cleaned up!)

Jeremiah is such a fun little baby. We all love him so much, and he loves us all right back.

Random Pictures

From a few months ago:

Edmund and his buddies having some hands-on experience during a Tower of Babel during children's church.

Edmund and his finished product.

Apparently, he didn't want to stand still for the picture.

(The building materials? Marshmallows and peanut butter.)

My budding musician.

Hmm, is he playing Bach? Or, wait, maybe it's Grieg. It is pretty hard to tell at this stage.

The Bite of the Sewing Bug

It seems like I end up sewing more during the winter than the rest of the year. At least that is how last winter was. Before Christmas I was making gifts, then afterwards I had several things that I wanted to get out of the way before Jeremiah was born.

I just got my first "load" of fabric for this winter's sewing delights. Be prepared for pictures of sewing projects over the next few months.

For now I will show off my babies and see if you can tell the three apart.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Exhibit C:

These pictures are the boys in order, as you may have guessed. Jeremiah is 7 months and the other two are about 5 months. He kicked his feet when I was taking the picture, which adds to how much bigger he looks than the others.