little boys in the fort

About a month ago Evie was trying to make a blanket fort but it kept falling apart. I had pity on her and set up this much superior tent in the schoolroom's corner between the piano and couch. It's stayed there well over a month even though Ezra keeps pulling it apart. I just keep fixing it. It works really well to entertain the littles while I do school with the olders. 

What is Ezra doing, you may ask...?

He's playing peek-a-boo with a hidden Samuel! Usually the two blankets are connected, but since they had torn it down so many times that day, I just let it be.

 Ezra likes to climb up on the piano bench and drive cars on the piano. But here I think he's playing keep-away-from-Samuel. These two fight so much together that it just warms my heart when they play nice. 

Samuel's 4th birthday

When we enter into the new year, around here that means birthday season is right around the corner. Samuel is always the first up on February 1st (Evie in March, Noah in April and Ezra in May). But since the Superbowl was on his actual birthday, we thought we'd celebrate on Saturday the 31st. That didn't work out too well for having people over for a party since the weather turned. On the other hand it was all good since Samuel essentially got two parties. 

So the morning of Saturday, January 31st, Samuel was awoken by the rest of us singing Happy Birthday, even though it wasn't his actual birthday. Then we came upstairs where he found a monkey helium balloon and a small pile of presents for later in the day. I made waffles for the little punk and we got started having a relaxing day (er, the kids relaxed - I worked my butt off). 

Evie might have been looking forward to Samuel's birthday the most. Perhaps because she is the most social, I don't know. 

Samuel has been super into Curious George lately. Daddy has been reading it to him nearly every day. And since Noah's teacher told him he needs extra practice reading, he got to read to Samuel that morning. But he practically has it memorized from all the times we read it to him when he was Samuel's age. I thought it was quite adorable.

I was busy cleaning and cooking and baking all day long. Later Samuel got to watch his favorite show, Cars, which was also Noah's favorite at that age. 

Terry's dad stopped by mid-afternoon to hang out until dinner and the party afterwards. However, it started to rain freezing drizzle, the roads became super slippery and it snowed later. We heard on the news that they were closing the interstate and so Jerry decided he better drive home before it was too late. Then my folks and Nathan and Ana backed out as well. Shari and Jesse were going to try to come until they realized that since they live on a steep hill, they probably wouldn't be able to get back up it. And thus, our party went from sixteen to just the six of us.

Samuel was fine with it though - Evie was the one who was bummed. All Samuel wanted was some chocolate cake and presents.  

It's time! It's time! It's time! 

Daddy got the candle ready while Noah recorded with daddy's phone. 

Happy birthday to little Somuel (his nickname, pronounced S-ah-muel)! Four just seems so much bigger than three. He's been saying for weeks "My bird-day's comin!" and all about how he was going to be four. As soon as the day came, however, he said he was eight. 

His first gift was "from" his siblings. They're all obsessed with these little Switch and Go Dinos. So we got him another little one.  

Terry's folks got Samuel this light saber/blaster. It's super cool and Samuel loves it.  

Mommy and Daddy got Samuel some easy to transform Transformers. They've been watching the cartoons on Netflix and Samuel has been carting around Noah's more advanced Transformer toys. He sure loves these ones, especially Bumblebee - "Bum-bug-bee." He's his favorite. 

And then it was time for that glorious cake. That frosting is my favorite so I'm happy that Samuel at least prefers chocolate to rainbow cake.

Look how Samuel's entire face is stretching to get that bite in. HA!

Noah loved the Transformers so much he forgot to eat his cake. 

Evie and Ezra were ramming the Dinos together. 

 Because of the icy roads church had been cancelled that night. In the morning it was calm and beautiful, but perhaps a little slippery and dangerous under that dusting of snow. I love the view out our backyard. That's National Guard land so nobody is ever back there, except National Guardsmen. And they're fun to watch.

After being sang to again, Samuel came up ready to play with his new toys.  

Light saber. Oh yeah!

Two birthdays isn't so bad. We all got more waffles! Here's my big fuzzy headed four year old! 

After breakfast all the kids except Ezra went outside to shovel/sweep snow. Samuel looks so puffed up here in his coat that it's funny. "I'm here to pump...you up."

The boy is going to work. 

Sweep that snow son! 

My folks came over after lunch, gave Samuel his gift and we all had some more cake. Can you tell he's excited?

Oh yeah, he was very excited. They got him both Planes movies. He loves those movies because they're just like Cars. Happy birthday Samuel! We love you!

And for posterity, here's what I posted on facebook for his birthday: 

This morning at 4:58am Samuel officially turned 4 (though he keeps insisting he's 8). Our little caveman Somual (as we like to call him - S-ah-muel) is tall, skinny and loud, and is getting better at talking and sharing. He's athletic and can throw a ball pretty hard and accurate. He loves Cars, Planes, Transformers and Star Wars. So hard to believe he's 4, it seems so big! We love you Samuel!

why so serious?

Terry made the kids some hot chocolate last weekend and Samuel ended up with a pretty great chocolate mess on his face. It reminded Terry of the Joker from The Dark Knight and he posted this photo on his facebook page. 

"Why so serious?"

Han/Terry rug

How do I have love thee (this photo)? Let me count the ways...

Firstly, this Han Solo rug is awesome! Also, Terry cracks me up, pretending to be frozen just like Han. Samuel cracks me up laying on his daddy he loves so much. Evie cracks me up with her trademark goofy face. Noah doesn't really crack me up, but you can see how sweet he is. And Ezra just wants to be part of the action.

Some friends from church gave Terry and I this rug for Christmas. I LOVE IT! They know we are sci fi nerds and were so thoughtful as to buy accordingly. This is Han Solo, frozen in carbonite, from The Empire Strikes Back. Star Wars of course - I love those movies! Here's a clip for you who have zero idea what I'm even talking about.


I took this photo b/c Terry was going over to our friends (who gave us this rug) that night and I wanted them to see where we put it and how much we love it. It was the evening of my first day of work but I couldn't go since Ezra was pretty sick.

back to work

On Saturday, January 3rd, 2015, I went back to work for the first time in about two and a half years.

The last time I wrote a post like this was in 2009 when we were living in the parsonage in Gburg and I started my once a week nursing job at the clinic. It's fun to look back and see how much life has changed. Back then Evie was just a baby and we hadn't even bought our first home yet. And now we have been back in Rapid for about two and a half years and have two more kids! 

Since life was kind of crazy when we first moved (buying a house and having another baby), I wasn't ready to work. But when Ezra got to be over a year old, I often wondered if there was somewhere I could apply for part time nursing employment and even asked friends for ideas. When Samuel sliced his finger, I unexpectedly asked that urgent care doctor if they were hiring - he wasn't helpful.

Back in November I was extremely sick with what I thought was the flu. After two days of increasing misery I went to the Urgent Care clinic that a doctor from our church works at (we also took Noah there when he broke his arm). I was diagnosed with strep throat, prescribed life giving antibiotics and asked if there was anything else he could help me with. I asked if they were hiring on Saturdays at all. He kind of paused, thought about it and said that yes, perhaps they were. So after an interview a few weeks later, I was hired. It was just easier to wait until the holidays were over to begin training and so on that Saturday, January 3rd, I started a new nursing job at an Urgent Care clinic not too far from home. 

Since then I've trained three more days and worked on my own for a few hours. I'm ready to work independently now and will be filling in PRN (as needed). I very much enjoy it there and am so very thankful that it worked out.  

Terry ran out of the house that first Saturday and took my picture on my way to work.

snow ball jumps

On New Years day, Terry made the kids 3 huge snow balls in the back yard. I forgot Terry had taken a few action shots and slow-motion videos with his phone while they were out there, or else I would have added them to the post I already wrote about this day. They were fun though or else I would have just said forget it.

Noah tires of being outside rather quickly so I'm assuming he was already inside at this point. However, Evie loves playing outside. And Samuel mostly just likes playing with Evie. Here they are posing on their snow balls. Evie's so gangsta.

Evie is just the best. So goofy and silly and legitimately funny. She cracks me up. Look at her face!

And another silly face. I don't think I could coordinate jumping with funny faces, but she sure pulls it off.  

I'd look more like Samuel - smiling with my eyes closed. He didn't really jump. He just sort of stepped off the snow ball and fell. 

Evie's graceful jump...

Samuel's step and fall. 

Terry's phone does slow-motion video but apparently it doesn't translate onto our laptop. But here are two 5 second videos of Evie and Samuel jumping. 

Evie

Samuel

building shelves

Two weeks ago Terry was bored on his day off (he's a busy body). Since we'd always talked about adding some built-in shelving to the furnace room, he did a little shopping and got started. As way of reminder,  our house started out with an unfinished basement that we finished the summer of 2013. Wow, it's crazy that it used to look like this. Now we have students down there weekly!

The basement didn't originally have a room surrounding the furnace. Terry added that. This picture contains the old furnace, but you can see how there's space to the left and right of the furnace for storage. We used to have a large plastic Menards shelf on the foundation wall along with two cheap wooden shelves tucked up against it. You can see the plastic shelf next to the old furnace... It was pretty bulky.

The first thing Terry did was take out the old plastic shelf and move the wooden book shelves next to the door.

What lovely drywall right? Yeah, Terry did that too :) These two bare walls are where he constructed the new built-ins.

First he cut support boards and screwed them into the wall...

Then he started on the frame. Ezra was a big help = Eva puts the camera down to scurry over there and remove Ezra from the premises...

Then he screwed the actual shelves down. What was great about this project is that it was almost entirely paid for by Menards rebates :)

Once we had everything in there I made him stand in the picture for a size comparison. He was so pleased.

Look at those great shelves! It actually makes our pile of games look smaller than they ever have previously. We've also got the keyboard in there for when the kids need to practice during quiet nap time. Or Terry has been known to work in there when necessary since it's quiet (the furnace drowns out the kids' din) and hidden  (the kids nearly forget he's home).

Nice right?! It adds a lot more free space in here. 

Take no notice of our extra food stocks... HA! It's a work in progress okay? 

Noah is going to start keeping his large Star Wars Lego ships up there. Plenty of room for more storage.

We joke that the kids could sleep on those shelves. 

2014 Children's Christmas program

For this year's Christmas program, the little kids performed on Sunday and then the bigger kids program was on the following Wednesday. So this photo was from Evie and Samuel's Sunday performance. Nothing too crazy happened until Martha's little guy Micah, who was next to Samuel, started swinging his arms and dancing around. Near the end of their song Samuel got the idea that it was cool to go ahead and be silly. So he started yelling and jumped a couple times. Luckily they were done after that. It was pretty funny.

There's Evie! She was wearing my sister's old dress from when she was little. Actually, I forgot to buy her a new dress so she wore it for both performances (I'll try harder next year). She also performed a little Christmas solo song on the piano along with a whole bunch of others. We were so proud, especially since she just started in August.

There they all are. 

 Terry left us when he took the camera to take pictures of the kids but I got one shot of him before that. We had to try pretty hard to keep Ezra quiet though. I felt sorry for the custodian who had lots of Cheerios to clean up. 

About 10 of the girls did a little dance performance. Noah was pretty bored at that point. Ha! 

His face was actually pretty blank...until he spotted us. Then he'd grin and wave.  

Pretty girl.