Finding our Routine

Things are still a little chaotic around here. We still have a handful of boxes in the first and second floors, but we are making progress. The unpacking has slowed down a bit because John had to go back to work and the boys all had school orientations yesterday.

Jonah and Sam are enrolled in preschool three days a week. We met their teacher yesterday and their classmates. It's hard to believe but they have 9 kids in their class and they are all boys! Plus there is another set of twins in their class as well! Their teacher wasn't scared off by all of that testosterone so that is positive!

I really liked their teacher at the orientation. She had a whole schedule for us parents and kids. Then when we got done she said "ok, now you have just taken your child through a shortened version of their everyday routine"! It was very well organized.

Today was their first day and it went very smoothly!





We met Wyatt's teacher at his orientation yesterday too! She was very organized and I got a good vibe from her as well. So far things are working out very nicely in terms of the school situation. Yipee!

We have also met some of the neighbor kids. There are three boys across the street. They have twin 6 year olds and a three year old. Across the street on the other side there is a 2 1/2 year old boy. Then next door there is a 4 year old girl. The kids have hit it off with all of them! I am so thrilled!

Tomorrow is the first day of kindergarten! I am thinking that there might be tears....from Wyatt... and maybe Mom too!

Camping out

We are in the new house. We have no furniture yet. The movers will l be delivering everything tomorrow. I can't believe that it is almost over with.....

Packing up

The truck is being loaded today. Honestly it will be a relief to have everything packed up and gone so that we can have our house back to ourselves even if it is completely empty! The boys have become so used to having strangers in the house that they have no fear of strangers at all anymore! They think that it is normal to have people going through your house every day without notice. If you waked up our driveway the boys would likely invite you in and tell you our entire life story before I even knew that anybody was there.

Yesterday the crew was supposed to be here at 10 am and they finally got here at 1 pm. Then the kids grilled them.... "why were you late? Why didn't you call and tell us you were going to be late? Are you always this late?" Nice!

Jonah called the driver "guy" as in "Guy, what are you doing?" Then they told everybody that we have mice and they are pooping on all of our stuff!

I don't know if they boys will remember this move when they are all grown up, but they seem to be taking it all in. I can't even express how excited we are to see daddy tomorrow and finally all live together again! What a summer we have had!

For real

What could my week even better? Yes of course, a trip to the emergency room!

Shane was lured off the front steps by his big brothers and fell onto his chin this morning. I took one look at it and realized that he needed stitches, so I put the movers in charge of the dog, meeting the cable people, and directing the third party packers to the deer head for crating and headed off with all 4 boys in tow!

Shane needed 2 stitches and when the doctor began to sew him up a nurse asked to take the kids out so that they didn't have to see. "no, no" I said. "they are going to watch because they had a big part in him being here in the first place!"

You should have seen Sam...he freaked out! "what are you DOING to my baby? Stop that right now! You are hurting him!" Then he plugged his ears so that he didn't have to hear Shane scream.

Good times I tell you!

Shane is such a trooper! He has hardly made a peep about the whole thing. I don't think that it bothers him so much. He is still his little smiley self.

Living In A Box

The packers came today. They are super fast packers and now we have the entire house in boxes except for Wyatt's bedroom and the island in the kitchen. At one point we came upstairs and when we went back downstairs today the packers had packed up the kids shoes! I had to have them open up some boxes so that the boys had shoes to wear to go to the park! They weren't supposed to have the truck loaded until Friday, so I think that somebody may have gone overboard with their estimating. In my opinion we will be completely empty by Thursday morning. It will be interesting since we are supposed to be here until Friday! Maybe we will get a chance to do some camping this month after all!

The sleeping arrangements have been a little strange lately.... Wyatt has taken to sleeping IN the pack n play with Shane. Jonah and Sam are into decorating their bed before they dose off!

The Edge

It took two days, 2 trips to Home Depot and a little bit of patience, but I finally caught the mouse that has been terrorizing us over the past few days! I am thankful that it was only a mouse bachelor and not an entire mouse family, but I have been dangerously close to jumping off the edge a few times this week. My cup overfloweth!

One of my favorite lines from my favorite movies is from "The Edge" at the end when Anthony Hopkins says....
"We're all put to the test... but it never comes in the form or at the point we would prefer, does it?"

So true Bob, so true!

The upside (if there is one) of having mice is how the kids enjoy telling EVERYONE, even perfect strangers, how we have "mice in our basement and they are pooping on everything"!

Since John has been living in Appleton the kids also enjoy telling people "we have a Daddy too, but he doesn't live with us anymore"! Nice!

You should see the looks that I get from perfect strangers thinking... oh, 4 kids all by herself and mice in her basement! Poor thing! Oh well, I'm just too busy to care right now!

In more pleasant news, Wyatt lost one of his top teeth today! So cute! I love the toothless look! All four boys wrote a note to the tooth fairy tonight. They are so excited. Jonah spent a good ten minutes sitting in front of the hall mirror wiggling his teeth to see if any were loose! They are really into the tooth fairy right now! Luckily she got her hands on some 1971 big silver dollars to leave behind. That tooth fairy... she thinks of everything!

Stephie The Exterminator

The movers are coming on Monday to start packing up our house. Since I have been so bored (you know taking care of 4 kids while preparing to move) I have started a series of extermination experiments.

I am trying to figure out exactly how many be hives can be attached to one house and its surrounding structures. So far we have burned through one bottle of bee spray and we are starting our second can. I can not tell you how stressful it is to think about movers packing up something that contains a bee hive and getting stung to death. Every evening after the kids are in bed I make my bee rounds and look for the latest work of art. It is amazing how fast a group of bees can build a nest!


Now I have moved on to rodent patrol. After removing the entire contents of our attic to our second floor I realized that we had a small rodent issue. It wasn't until I tackled the basement food storage area that I realized I have my work cut out for me! Tomorrow I am going to war. It's me or the mice and I am confident that I can win this battle! I got my assault gear ready to go and I am prepared to use it! I can't wait to hear the kids version of this story!

Strength Training

John came home this weekend and we both worked our tails off. We needed to get the attic unloaded because the movers will not go up into the attic and bring all of our stuff down. I am not quite sure how I got nominated, but I ended up being the one in the attic handing everything down to John. I am not even kidding when I say that our attic was at least 100 degrees and I spent about 4 hours up there sweating. We stacked all the stuff from the attic into Shane's room and the upstairs front hallway until you couldn't see over it! I ended up re-stacking stuff later so that we could get some clothes out of Shane's dresser!

Then we unloaded our pod that we rented a few months ago to store furniture when our house was on the market. That was not fun! I have so much sympathy for people that make their living by moving furniture! I can not even imagine how tiring that job would be!

So everything is in place for the movers who will be arriving next Monday!!!!!!

I took the kids to Costco this week and told them that we were stocking up on stuff since our new town doesn't have a Costco store in it. We got wipes, fruit snacks, pop tarts, and a few more essentials. Then we checked out and just as we were about to leave Wyatt said to our checkout lady "Well, we won't be coming back to THIS store ever again!"!!

You should have seen the look on her face! She looked like she got slapped!

She looked at me and I nodded my head and said "That's right, because we are moving and our new town doesn't have a Costco there. We are really going to miss Costco!"

It was too funny!

We're Home

We drove home from Michigan today. The kids did great and we only stopped one time in seven hours for lunch and a pee break! I wouldn't expect anything less from these seasoned travelers after the summer that we have had. Drummond Island,MI...Appleton, WI... Pittsburgh, PA...Grand Haven, MI We have covered the midwest pretty much all summer and we are like a well oiled machine now!

We are at our house now for 2 weeks until we move! We have a lot to get done in the next few weeks, but it will happen... hopefully. If this summer has taught John and I anything it is that there are always bumps in the road (a lot of them in our case), but everything works out just like is was supposed to in the end. We are still learning, but these cool cats don't have a worry in the world and I am grateful for that!

Jonah Learns Finally....

Jonah has been nervous about the idea of learning to swim without a lifejacket since last year. Wyatt and Samuel learned to swim without a lifejacket last year when we came to Grand Haven and have become really comfortable in the water. They throw stuff into the water and dive down to the bottom and get it. They jump off the diving board and slide down the slide without worrying about how they land in the water. They are working on perfecting the ultimate cannonball splash and falling into the pool backwards. Meanwhile, Jonah has been happy tooling around the pool in his lifejacket while carefully remaining in is comfort zone.
We told him that he was going to learn to swim without is lifejacket this week and he was ready sort of.....





Today we spent an hour at the pool and Jonah never put his lifejacket on one time. He swam back and forth to me and the steps, jumped off the diving board and really enjoyed himself. Jonah just needs a little push to get the confidence to try something new, but once he does there is no stopping that boy!

Fireworks

We took all four boys to the big Coast Guard Festival fireworks tonight. We took the small aluminum boat down the channel in front of grandma and grandpa's house all the way to downtown Grand Haven and anchored the boat. We actually ended up parking right in front of the hill where the fireworks get shot off. The only boat in front of us was the police boat guarding the channel. It was a prime front row seat with a perfect view. As soon as the fireworks started the kids went nuts! Jonah said "Mom, these are amazing". Sam hooted clapped and cheered the entire time. Shane was terrified and hid on the floor of the boat with a towel over his hear for the first few minutes, but then decided that he liked the fireworks and joined Sam clapping! The kids were so bummed when it ended and want to do it again tomorrow! When we told them that it only happens on the first Saturday in august every year they started crying and saying "we have to wait a whole year?"!
We had a great time together! It is so sad to think that Daddy will be flying back to Appleton tomorrow and we won't see him again for a while. Wyatt told us yesterday that he can't wait to move into our new house. When I asked him why he replied "because I want to live with daddy again so that we can see him every day"! Soon buddy soon!

Berry Fun

We took the kids blueberry picking yesterday and they ended up getting almost 50 pounds of blueberries! The boys are really good pickers. Shane even picked berries and put them in his bucket. Surprisingly the berries that he picked were mostly all blue with a few green ones here and there. When Shane got his bucket about half way full he came over to me, dumped his bucket on the ground, and proceeded to stomp on all of his berries. Then he went up to each of his brothers and tried to dump their buckets so that he could stomp on their berries too! When they wouldn't let him do that he resorted to picking berries, throwing them on the ground, and stomping on them! Crazy boy!

It Does What?

We are never at a loss for things to do when we are visiting Grandma Kathie and Grandpa Bill. Yesterday Bill's brother David came over to take us all on a boat ride on his pontoon boat. Even though the kids have been on a pontoon boat before they were too young to remember it, so they were thrilled to be on it for "the first time ever!!!". The boys took turns driving and everybody loved the ride. We even got to see the drawbridge go up to let a huge sailboat through. The kids apparently had no idea that the bridge that we drive over every time that we come into town was a drawbridge. "It does WHAT?" they said "It OPENS up?!?!?!" I guess that we never mentioned it before...


I don't think that I have ever been on the water when the drawbridge opened up either. I have always been on the road and its a totally different experience sitting in traffic waiting for the bridge to open and close than it is on the water side!

I haven't mentioned it yet, but our house sold last weekend! We were so excited and it turned out that John had come to Drummond for the weekend so we were together when we got the offer. It was great! In a perfect twist of fate that I like to call Divine Intervention, there was a house in Appleton that had just gone on the market the week before that we liked in pictures, so I followed John from Drummond to Appleton with all four boys to go to a showing. We loved the house and put an offer on it on Monday and now we have a house to move into before school starts! Yipee! The best feature: 1.65 acres of FLAT yard with a walk-out! Thank you Lord!

Wyatt's favorite feature: his bright pink bedroom! I can't wait to take pictures of him in it to blackmail him with someday! Watch out boy... Mommy's got a file on you!

Endless vacation

Our endless summer vacation is still in full swing. We drove back to Pittsburgh on Wednesday to switch gears and repack. I did about 8 loads of laundry on wednesday and thursday, cleaned out the van, gave the dog a bath, collected our accumulated mail from the post office, went to the bank, returned wyatt's rental violin, bought 4 new movies for the van and left again on Friday morning to go to grand haven for a week.

We got up bright and early this morning because the kiddos were ready to hit the town with grandma and grandpa. Grandpa took Samuel salmon fishing in Lake Michigan and grandma, Wyatt, Jonah, Shane and I hit the farmers market in town. We also got bike helmets for the kids and got Samuel a new bike. Then everybody napped and went swimming at Aunt Mari's pool. All of the kids went down the slide and jumped off the diving board this year.... even Shane. The kids loved the warm water and had so much fun together, but they were exhausted after dinner and went to bed early tonight. We are hoping that the kids will sleep in a little tomorrow so that they are fully rested, but somehow I have a feeling that tomorrow morning will come pretty early again!

Tubing Fun

We lost our internet access for a few days and it was like living in the dark ages again! I can't blog... OMG!

The water in our bay has heated up so much since we first got here in June (it seems like yesterday.......) and it is now 81 degrees! Everybody LOVES the water now! Wyatt and Jackie both tried water skiing, but didn't quite have it together to get up yet. They got lessons from some experts though.....


Tubing was also a big hit. I seriously don't know if Jackie or Shane liked it more! Jackie laughed so hard that you could hear her all the way from shore! She wanted to ride with me and kept giving the thumbs up sign (which is tube sign for faster)! I, on the other hand enjoyed a more lesiourly pace and tried to hold her hands down, but she managed to escape over and over again and so we went faster and faster until my butt was numb. It was worth it though to hear her having so much fun.


Shane has become a little fish. He wades into the water all the way up to his shoulders and puts his face in the water and blows bubbles. He also lays on his belly in the water and uses his hands to crawl around.... and if you were not looking closely you would think that he was swimming! I love that he is so comfortable in the water now!


We are heading home tomorrow. The kids are REALLY sad. We have spent our whole summer here so far and they don't want summer ever to end! And that's good because next week we head over to Grandma Kathie and Grandpa Bill's house for more summer excitement. Can you imagine how fun it would be to be a kid and spend your entire going from one vacation to another? Holy cow these kids are going to be spoiled! But they are building so many fun memories and living life to the fullest and I am happy to see them enjoy their family so much!

On My Own

I have been up here on Drummond Island with the kids by myself all week. My parents left last Wednesday and John left on Sunday to go start a new job in Appleton Wisconsin. I was supposed to go home on Sunday but I changed my mind. Our house has been for sale since May and it still has not sold. I decided that it was easier to stay here by myself than go home and keep the house nice and clean for showings.

Even with all of the entertainment opportunities here it was tough to keep the kids occupied and on schedule by myself all week. So we tried some new stuff.

Yesterday we checked out a new beach at the state park. It is on a shallow bay and the kids could walk out really far by themselves without being in water that was too deep. They walked around and checked out the boats that were moored there.


There was even a little island that they could walk out to and explore. It is fairly remote and we got to spend the morning there all by ourselves which was great because all three of my big kids had to poop as soon as we got there. So
I had to whip out the travel potty and dump it in the woods three times which I love to do especially when we had only left home 15 minutes ago!


I also packed up the kids bikes in the red truck a few times and drove over to a nearby church that has a huge paved parking lot so that the kids could practice bike riding without me having to yell "Car! Move over!" thousands of times. They really enjoyed that and I brought along a book and lounged!

Today Grandma and Grandpa came back up and they brought my sister and her kids along as well! It was fun watching all of the cousins run all over the place together and have a blast! Tomorrow's agenda includes raspberry picking and some beach time!

Swimming and Soo

John and I helped the kids get acclimated to swimming in the lake. We stopped the boat in the middle of the bay in front of our cabin and told them all that they had to swim home. There was some crabbing, but they all made it home safely. Now, they are much more comfortable playing in the water and swimming all over the place.



Jonah and Shane have traditionally been the most afraid of swimming, but they have improved 110%! Shane has learned to put his face in the water and blow bubbles. Jonah will jump off the rafts and go completly underwater and come up smiling instead of crying. It is so much fun to see them all enjoying the lake now!

Mission accomplished!

Yesterday I took the kids to Sault St Marie to do some grocery shopping since our grocery stores here leave much to be desired. We decided to check out the Soo Locks and the kids and I were lucky enough to watch two freighters get lowered in the locks! They were full of questions and were so excited to see some really big boats. It was a great morning activity and we all had a good time!


We are battling some serious heat and humidity and have been loving our ability to cool off in the lake in the blink of en eye. We are still in vacation mode and don't have any plans to switch off any time soon!

Love Letters

The kids love the big red truck. They ask to take a ride in it at least 900 times a day. It is super fun because it does not have any seat belts in it. I USED to love the big red truck too, until I had to ride in it with 4 boys who are not fastened into car seats. There is a reason that there are car seat law these days... and it isn't for safety reasons!


Shane loves corn. It is almost in the league of a fetish! He steals everyone's corn at the table to add to his corn stockpile. I am inclined to teach that boy how to use the potty if his corn obsession continues one more day!


Everyone loves the beach at Big Shoal. The kids call it the 'hot and cold beach" because there is a natural spring that feeds into the lake that is super cold. It is like mountain spring water almost as cold as ice. The sand is soft and the big rocks are perfect for building stuff. We could stay there all day with the boys and they would never get bored!



Sam loves catching Cisco. He caught the first Cisco yesterday and can't wait to get some more! We are looking forward to some fresh fish dinners this week!

Staying Busy

We drove the golfcart and tried out a new beach at the big resort down the road the other day. We got there at about 9:00 am and were the only ones there. We were there so early that they hadn't had time to grade the beach yet! The tractor pulling the grader turned out to be even more fun than the beach itself! The kids liked making tracks in the perfect new sand with their feet and trucks. It might become our new Friday tradition!


Sam and Jonah have both been introduced to leeches. Sam got done frog hunting the other day and walked up to me COVERED in leeches! I had to conceal my fear and repulsion and act really calm so that he didn't get scared, but I was FREAKING OUT! We got them all off him and I had to hold towels on his legs for at least 15 minutes to get the bleeding to stop! He had one HUGE fat leech right on the top of his foot feeding off that big vein that sticks up! It was so gross! But, Sam didn't care a bit. He wasn't worried or grossed out at all! He just kept saying "Mom, can I go back in the water now?"


We have been spending every afternoon after naps down at the water. We head down around 3pm and usually don't come up until 6pm. The water temperature has warmed up so much since we first got here and now the kids swim all over the place. They jump off their tubes and rafts and swim underwater like it is no big deal. Wyatt asked me why I didn't bring his goggles because he wants to see under the lake. Next year buddy! Even Shane has become really comfortable walking in the water all by himself!


We are still searching for the elusive Cisco fish. We have been out fishing almost every day with the boys. We keep finding packs of boats, but nobody seems to be catching them! Hopefully tomorrow!

DI Zoo

The boys are obsessed with catching "creatures". They catch at least 2 frogs and a turtle every day. We have designated frog and turtle buckets. The frog bucket has a little water in the bottom and a clear top on it so that the frogs cant jump out. The turtle bucket is a big dish pan with some water in the bottom and a rock for sunning. Then every morning we have to release our "creatures". I am not entirely convinced that we are not re-catching the same "creatures", but the kids are having so much fun so I haven't started a tagging system yet....