Long time...

It's been a long time since I've posted! We have been busy with WB's classes and all the boys being in school on top of my work schedule, Bible studies, etc. There is just very little down time these days. That siad, I am totally loving my Bible studies right now. My Tuesday morning Bible study is called "Because He Loves Us" and is so uplifting. The theme of it is that we need to focus on God's love for us and not so much on our faults and our failures. I'm working very hard to place God as the focus of my life. Then we have our small group Bible study. We are studying what it means to go into the city and serve without losing your identity as a Christian. In addition, it helps us meet other Christian couples our age. Unfortunately, that one is meeting on Tuesday nights and WB has class. I'm not sure if we will be able to continue doing a Tuesday night Bible study because it's likely WB will continue to have Tuesday classes. Anyways, Doc was invited to his first classmate birthday party! Mr. X was also invited to a birthday party but it didn't work out for him to go this time. We are enjoying this season in our lives. As promised, I have the pictures from the last time we went to the pool. We haven't made it back lately. I'm not sure when the pool closes for the year so we will need to check that out.

This is the baby/toddler pool. It is only 8 inches deep and stays very warm.

GQ loved it because it was just his size!

He would have stayed there all day if we let him. He doesn't even like the shallow end of the big pool unless you hold him even though his feet can touch.

Doc and Mr. X swim all over the pool but they insist that they need the life vests on. It's a good safety measure but it doesn't teach them to swim.

Doc discovered that he enjoyed jumping in the pool.

He likes it under water so he says.

 

Mr. X is learning the mechanics of swimming well so we are hoping we can teach him how to swim without the life vest next summer. He just needs to try and trust in his abilities.

The kids like the water slide too. Mr. X will take off his life vest for that. It's not very big but they like it just the same.

We are thrilled to have access to a pool that we can go to whenever we want. It helps beat the summer (spring and fall too if I want to be totally honest) heat and it gives us a good family outing.

This and That

There are bugs everywhere, I get that. What I didn't realize was the different sizes in bugs. We have the humongous looking grasshopper things. Thankfully they have stayed outside so far.

Isn't that huge?! Gross!

I love that my kids are becoming more independent. Doc likes to do everything himself. For Christmas last year, my parents got Mr. X a weather station. It tells you the indoor temp and outdoor temp as well as a few other tidbits of information. There is also a guy on it that dresses weather appropriate so you know how to dress for the weather outside. Doc has started looking at it in the morning when it's around 70*. The weather guy dresses in pants and t-shirt. Naturally, Doc insists that he must wear pants for the day too. What he doesn't understand, no matter how much we try to explain it to him, is that it will be 90*+ by lunch time or shortly there after.

 See the weather guys dressed in swim trunks?

And this is Doc wearing jeans because at the beginning of the day, the weather guy was in pants.

We had another fun afternoon at the pool. It was cloudy though and the water was a bit chilly this time. We didn't stay super long but long enough for the kids to have fun and tire out good for bedtime. I took pictures on my phone but of course can't get them to upload now. I will try to fix that and get the pictures posted. Anyways, the kiddos are all getting more comfortable in the water which is good. We can get each of them to happily take of the life vests a little bit. GQ started inching along the wall. Doc started jumping off the edge of the pool (more like walking off but he was trying to jump). He would go under water briefly and the life vest would bring him up pretty quickly. Then he would smile huge and tell us, "I like being under water!" He did that a few times. Mr. X will take his life vest on and off when he chooses but will only stay in the shallow end with his feet touching bottom. He refuses to try to swim. We'll get there. He is at least getting comfortable enough to take off the life vest and he tries to swim while wearing the life vest. Baby steps I suppose.

In other news, we are suspecting that GQ doesn't like his bed. Right now, it's just the converted crib. He loves our bed and his brothers' beds. However, we find him regularly sleeping on the floor in his room. I'm not sure what the deal is. Tonight, when I put him to bed, he beat me to his room. I found him lying on the floor with his blanket pulled up to his chin ready to go to sleep, hands folded waiting for prayers. It was so sweet, but I feel bad just walking away with him sleeping on the floor. I pulled his mattress off the crib and laid that on the floor and he was happy enough to climb onto it so he is going to sleep on the mattress on the floor tonight I guess. We will see how it goes. We are working on getting a new mattress for our queen bed and then we will shift around beds and GQ will have a real, big boy bed. Maybe then he will like it better.

Irene and the weekend

We spent a few days under the impression that we would get a direct hit from Hurricane Irene. Thankfully, that did not occur. My heart and prayers go out to those hit by Irene and I think it goes without saying that we are all so thankful Irene weakened some before making landfall in the northeast. Irene was a larger than usual hurricane (so we hear) and so even though it stayed well offshore of FL, we did see some very brief activity from Irene.

All we had was 2 quick storms go through with gusty wind and heavy rain. When I say quick, I mean quick....each lasted only 5-10 minutes.

I watched Irene for days keeping an eye one where it was and where they expected it to go. Florida has an area of high pressure that tends to steer hurricanes away from it. I'm glad that we are blessed by that. I do love storms especially thunderstorms with moderate winds. A tropical depression or storm would be neat to see but a hurricane might be a bit much..

I have been bad about taking pictures of our activities lately. We took the kids to the pool yesterday and they had a blast but I didn't even bring the camera. Maybe next time I'll think to grab it. I hope everyone stayed safe this weekend and that those not affected by Irene had a nice weekend. Those affected by Irene, my thoughts and prayers are with you and I am praying that the clean-up is quick.

I'm singing in the rain!!! ...

Wait...no...that's not right. Fighting bad guys is more like it! But, we will get to that in a minute. I like the warmth. I really do and it's definitely the lesser of two evils (hot and cold) in my book. However, this incredible FL heat is starting to drain me. I'm starting to get tired of it after 3 months of it and now that school has started....well I feel like we need a break. Thankfully, the almost daily rain we get brings relief, short relief, but relief just the same. That's one good thing about rain in FL. The other good thing is that even though it's raining, the rain isn't cold and you don't freeze once wet. So, bearing that in mind, I let the boys play in the rain for awhile a few days ago. Doc and GQ had a blast! Mr. X prefers not to be rained on so after experimenting with his mini weather station, he went back inside.

Mr. X's rain gauge. He filled and emptied it at least 3 times!

 We had a puddle that was more like a stream at the end of the driveway.

The kiddos filled up water guns and used those to fight the "bad guys". Basically they filled it up at the end of the driveway and ran up to the garage. Then they would spray the water out at the driveway to get the bad guys. Doesn't GQ look like he's having a blast?!

Doc was concentrating hard on filling the water gun up.

The boys did not want to go inside. Finally, I told them they needed to go inside after fighting one more bad guy. Doc told me he got him. He then proceeded to peak out of the garage to the side yard and said "Oh the alligator just got the last bad guy!" Apparently we now have bad guy fighting alligators teaming up with our boys. (For the record, we have not seen an alligator nearby since the one was removed from the pond.)

MI Part 2

The last couple nights of our trip we stayed with my in-laws. They too live in the country but about an hour south of my folks.

My in-laws live on a hill that is one of the highest points in the county so you can see for miles.

My father-in-law has a motorcycle and the kids got kick out of playing with the helmets.

All the fresh country air and the playing hard wore out GQ. At one point he went upstairs grumping all the way and passed out.....all on his own!

Look at that sweet boy!

We also went to the zoo with some friends! It was so good to see them! The kids had a blast and the weather was very conducive to outside time at the zoo!

This is Lochie. He resides at the zoo now but was part of an art thing around town a few years ago.

This was our first time seeing Lochie in person.

They had a bird cage you could go inside. You could buy sticks of bird feed and some of the birds would land on you. The boys got a kick out of it.

Doc always climbing.

They had a petting zoo area. Doc and GQ went in to pet some of the goats.

Komodo Dragon

After the zoo we drove past our old house because the boys wanted to and stopped at our old daycare providers house. The kids played with her son and we caught up a little bit. She closed down her daycare recently so she sent us with a whole box of Thomas trains. The kids love them! Mr. X's old school is just a block away from our daycare provider's house so we walked over there so he could see some of his old teachers. He loved the people at that school and they love him to death! They miss him and light up so much when he visits. It's really great to see them invest so much in the kids they work with. Mr. X was able to see his old Kindergarten teacher, art teacher, principle, school nurse, secretary.

Mr. X fixing the putty on the calendar. This was a regular thing for him to do in his old kindergarten class.

Doc and GQ playing with the trucks that Mr. X use to gravitate to. His teacher said he would sit and play with those all day if she would've let him.

We spent time with WB's brothers and their wives. We got to see his brother's new house. The kids got to play with their cousin. Overall it was a great visit!

Our trip back to FL was not so great. The kids were cranky and tired but yet didn't sleep. We got on the road at 1:30 am hoping to be home by 9-10 pm. An hour down the road we got a flat tire. Poor WB unloaded the entire trunk to get to the spare and put it on. We spent the next hour or so trying to find someone to fix the flat but of course nobody would at 3-4 am. So we drove on the spare for a good 4 hours before we were able to get the flat fixed. That put us way behind schedule and we hit some not so great traffic. It took us 25 hrs to get home instead of 19! It was not a fun day. That said, the time in MI was worth it and I imagine we will do it again. :)

MI Part 1

We just spent 6 days on a trip to MI that was so worth it! The kids loved every minute! We left at about 1:30 am on Friday and arrived about 10 pm. It was a long day but the kiddos did amazing! They didn't complain much and just sat quietly or slept. Mr. X didn't sleep a lot and Saturday you could tell. Underneath his eyes were so reddish-purple. I haven't ever really seen anything like it. The drive takes us through the mountains in Tennessee and it is a pretty drive.

These are pictures we took at a rest stop crossing into Tennessee. It would've been a perfect place for a picnic lunch but alas it was 9 am and we had already eaten breakfast.

Passing through Indiana, we went through miles and miles of wind turbine things. It was so cool to see but no picture to show you. We stayed at my parents' house for the first couple nights. Saturday we went into town so Mr. X could pick out something for his birthday and I could find a book I wanted. Then we just hung around at my parents' house and played pinochle that night. My parents live in the country and the kids love running around outside. They helped with the horses, and Mr. X wrote a letter to his cousin so we walked down the quarter mile driveway to put it in the mailbox.

Sunday afternoon, we went to a small little beach where a river/stream runs out into the lake. The kids had a blast. No life vests needed because they could touch the bottom of the little river.

The guys walking down into the river.

Mr. X started giggling right away with walking down the river.

Doc pretended to swim with his belly on the bottom.

GQ kept getting cold so he wrapped up in my dad's shirt while I went to go get his towel. He would then warm up a bit and run back out. He wanted to badly to be in the water but he would just shiver constantly.

Mr. X had such a good time. He was the only one of the little guys that didn't get cold. He didn't want to leave!

WB was doing a cheeser because that's what GQ usually does for the camera. You can practically see how cold GQ was.

Wrapped up and trying to get warm.

Doc got a bit chilled too. He was telling me he didn't want any more pictures.

We walked back to the car through the river and carried the two little ones.

It was a fun day with my folks. We left their house that evening to spend time with WB's family. I will do a post of the second part of our trip another day.