Surprise #5

Well for those who don't know, we are planning on a new adventure in parenting as we are currently expecting our special surprise baby #5. We will say that the arrival is sometime during the beginning of September, at first they said my birthday (Sept 2) then after the ultra-sound on Monday they said Aug 26th. I say later, because I seem to like to bake them a little longer; who is to say really, as everything has been completely different this time around.

I have been in denial for some time now, perhaps even 4 months, but we are all warming up to the idea. I thought Eli would take it the hardest, but in fact he has been the most delighted and has certainly prayed the hardest to get a little brother (everyone else was hoping for a girl). He is thrilled that he will not be the baby of the family anymore, and that he will have someone to teach all the important things to, like playing Legos and other such great things. Hopefully he will be able to deal with the inevitable noises that said small child will most certainly make- he has been known to make fairly direct comments to our friends who have babies, like: "Where is that thing you can put in their mouth that will make them be quiet?" He is obviously my child- I don't know where I get my hyper sense of hearing from, but my over zealous use of the "please be quiet" type phrases has rubbed off on him for sure!

So it sure is a good thing we got rid of everything a few years ago! Where would the fun be if we were actually prepared for such an event, right? I am still trying to brace myself for the long hot, muggy summer and the prospect of having Joe out of town for July, August and part of September. We are hoping he can at least come home to be present at the blessed event! What can we say, we have just impeccable timing!

Spring Flings

Well this spring has been quite wonderful, we have a little robin that has built her nest right on our back porch railing. We have watched her from our kitchen window as she built her nest from the ground up, she started on April 5th and took a few days to finish that process.

Eli has been completely enamored by the whole process. When she first laid her eggs around the 11th or 12th there were only 3, then as a surprise for Eli's birthday on the 14th, she laid another one. He just had to call Joe at work to tell him the news!

So along with all of the beautiful spring blossoms (and there is nothing more lovely than the smell of apple blossoms and lilacs permeating the air), and nesting robins, we have been overly occupied with pruning trees, preparing the garden areas, planting 20 new fruit trees and 35 blackberry and raspberry plants/canes. We are preparing for another shipment of berries and other lovelies to go into the yard- we decided an edible landscape was the best way to spend our money- hopefully we can figure out how to care for everything along the way!

Eli loves that he turned 5- he tries to rub it in to any of his friends that are younger than him. He has just been longing for a Darth Vader Lego set- so that was his special gift this year; as I type he is humming Vader's theme song!

He is an exceptionally funny kid, and is always trying to get me to let him do anything that involves electronics, for example every morning he says to me, "Mom, can I go on the playstation? (NO). Can I go on the Wii? (NO). Can I go on the computer? (NO). Can I watch a movie? (NO)!!!!". This is a daily conversation, even a few times a day we might go through this, then he will find my phone, duck into the other room and play something on there.

He has a love of Lego's, just like his dad, and has found that Bella is a great comrade in the Lego realm- they took some time to come into this relationship, but finally they are solid friends and play well at most anything! He likes to play checkers, ride scooters and is working hard on the bike riding. And to his father's happiness, he likes to dig in the dirt!

Joe had his final Organ Concert on Friday the 16th and we were lucky enough to have our sisters and their families come up for the event. What a great weekend, and what a relief to have all of the concerts over with for a while!!

The kids were so delighted to have some time with cousins, they had tents set up in the backyard and we had a great surprise from our friends who found a trampoline for us that their neighbors were getting rid of- oh what joy has returned for our children, they had really missed having one. Uncle Mark took the troops out on a Geocaching expedition which they enjoyed. We loved having extra help in the yard on Saturday, the guys cut down some trees and did some mowing and gathering of branches, while the gals went shopping!! There is just nothing better than having great times with family and friends- we consider ourselves so fortunate!