Aaah, Visitors!

There is nothing that cheers my heart quite like the news that we have visitors coming our way!  I sometimes worry that with our small house and inadequate accommodations, nobody will want to come and visit.  So, I always feel grateful when someone is willing to overlook our weaknesses and come stay for a few days anyway!

We just enjoyed such a visit with Brook and Jake and their sweet girls.  It was perfect timing!  Glenn has started traveling more with work, and it can be lonely here sometimes.  Brook and Jake came and brought plenty of cheer along with them!  We had a lot of fun!  Alice and Isabelle are so well behaved and I loved eavesdropping when the two of them played with Adam all day.  I heard phrases that I am confident have never been uttered in this house before like Adam insisting while they were playing “Family” that he  “planned the wedding!”  I’m pretty sure Derek, Evan, and Adam have never pretended anything about a wedding.  I had to smile today when Adam asked me to play “Family” with him.  He misses his cousins!

I miss them too and can’t wait for their next visit.  Does anyone want to come and keep me company in the meantime?  I was too fascinated by having two adorable princesses in our house to remember to take many pictures, but I did get a few.  We sure love the Gotbergs!  Thanks for making the drive!

Simple Joys

There is nothing better than a winter day that turns out to be sunny and warm.  Well, nothing except maybe summer.  But there is something special about nice winter weather, and it is particularly lucky when it happens to land on a holiday from school.

The boys and I opted to take advantage of the beautiful blue skies and a day off by playing in the backyard.  It all started innocently enough with bringing out the magnifying glasses they got for Christmas to check out the dirt in the garden.

After mere seconds, we all made the exciting realization that the sun was shining brightly enough to allow us to burn through leaves.  And really, the idea of burning through anything is enough to get these boys thrilled to the bone.

It wasn’t long before the wheels started turning in those little heads of theirs.  They figured if they could roast leaves, marshmallows couldn’t be that much harder, right?  And once those wheels start turning, there is no stopping them.

I don’t know if you can tell on that grimy earth-flavored marshmallow, but Evan managed to heat it until little bumps started to form.

They discovered that they had more success if they put the marshmallows under a leaf and then roasted the leaf around the marshmallow.

Of course, roasting marshmallows naturally turned into making miniature s’mores using chocolate chips and graham cracker flavored energy bars (we didn’t have any crackers unfortunately).  Note: in case you’re wondering, they do have quite a smoky flavor to them!

The perfect afternoon!  I always consider a day to be particularly successful when it results in a face like this one (complete with a new lost tooth yesterday):
That’s how you know we really had fun!  Aaah, the simple joys of childhood!

Pinewood Derby #2

Another successful Pinewood Derby this year!  Glenn and Derek worked on the car together.  We decided that Derek’s success last year might have been beginner’s luck, because this year the wood for the car cracked and pieces split off twice during the car-making process.  The night before the race when Glenn was super-gluing a piece back on, we did not have high hopes for the success of the car.  We tried to prepare Derek that he should just be glad if the car made it down the track without any parts falling off in the process!

We arrived ready and excited with Derek’s 2014 Pinwood Derby entry: The Black Plague- unlucky #13 (on purpose).  I don’t know if you can see clearly, but that is a skull and cross wrenches artfully painted on the car.

Here is our racer, ready and waiting.

And they’re off!

More than anything, I loved to see the excitement of our boys as Derek’s car whizzed down the track.  The race was very competitive, and although Derek won several of his heats, we estimated that he would probably come in around 5th place overall.  We were all shocked and happy when he placed third- just like last year!

I can’t think of a better finish.  Derek was as pleased as could be, and we were just thrilled the car was still in one piece.  Two Derby years down, 7 to go!  So far, so good!

Doctors Visits and Adorable Children

I spent the last two days visiting with doctors, so I thought I would share the update on our kids.

Yesterday was Amelia’s 15 month checkup.  Here are her stats:

Weight: 20 lb. 8 oz.- 39th percentile
Height: 30 inches- 30th percentile
Head Circumference: 18 1/4 inches- 70th percentile
Cuteness: Off the charts

Amelia is finally growing some hair which is very exciting, but now we have the new problem of trying to figure out how to make it look a little bit less like bed head all the time.  For some reason the hair on the back of her head is always a little gnarly.  Luckily, it doesn’t seem to lessen her undeniable charm!

Amelia is just starting to communicate a little more.  She says just a few words- “Dada” is her favorite, and it is her fallback word.  She says it to be funny when we ask her to say a word and she doesn’t want to cooperate.  I enjoy seeing that funny little part of her personality starting to come out! 

Amelia can also say “Uh Oh,” “Hi,” “Ball,” “Ow,” and at least a couple of others that aren’t coming to me at the moment.  One of her favorite ways of communicating is to shake her head.  I think at this point she isn’t totally sure of what it means, but knows it answers a question.  Most of the time when she shakes her head she is actually trying to say “yes,” which I find especially entertaining.  She is so much fun to have around!

Today Adam had an appointment at The Children’s Hospital to discuss the pathology of the mole he just had removed.  It turned out to be a somewhat rare and confusing Pigmented Epithelioid Melanocytoma or Epithelioid Blue Nevus.  For some unknown reason, we had six doctors/interns/I don’t know who they all were who came to meet with us and tell us that the consensus is that it is benign and not something to worry about unless his lymph nodes start to swell, in which case it might not be benign and we’ll worry about it then.  In other words, it seems like they aren’t really sure, but we are happy to leave it at that for now and I figure that not worrying about it is always a good course of action if we can pull it off!

Dr. Delyeyiannis also said his scar should start to look a lot better within about 6 months.  Now if he could just tell us how to keep Adam’s face clean as well, I think we would be in great shape!