The Boys

Here's a post devoted to these two cute boys of mine.  I'm still getting used to saying "the boys".  I've been so used to saying "the girls" for so long that when Nate came along I would keep saying "the girls....and Nate."  Now I've got two so it makes it easier.  :)

Nate loves his little brother.  And Elijah loves him right back.  He loves to just sit and watch Nate.  He can keep him entertained pretty well, which is nice when I need a few extra minutes to make dinner or whatever.

These pictures were taken at a science/wildlife museum we went to this week.  I thought it was so sweet that Nate was begging to sit and hold Elijah even though we were in such a fun place with tons to do.  

These boys are getting bigger every day.  Elijah has had a lot of new firsts.  He is now on solid foods.  I kept putting it off and putting it off and I felt really bad because he'd always be grabbing at our food.  He was clearly ready.  Still, he was not a fan at first:

He's gotten the hang of it now and eats pretty much everything:

Of course that means we're now dealing with stinky diapers and green and orange spit-up.  

Not a fan of that.

He's a rolling fool now.  In fact he just rolled off the couch tonight.  I know--I'm terrible.  I wasn't planning on leaving him there but something was bubbling over on the stove and I forgot.  

Here is some early rolling:

So proud of himself.

Nate joining in:

He also got to try out the swings for the first time.  He loved it!

Sometimes he lets me snuggle him and melts my heart:

Nate is growing and surprises me all the time with the things he can do.  He is my little helper.  I love it and I'm really hoping he doesn't grow out of it.  He does a great job getting his jobs done.  He is the best at brushing his teeth of all our kids.  He is actually quite a neat kid and doesn't like to be too messy for long.  

Now don't get me wrong--he can make messes with the best of them.  Before we moved he managed to dump out a whole big box of Cheerios all over the sunroom.  I got out the wet vac and told him he needed to clean them up.  I figured he would suck up a few of them and then I would do the rest.  I was so surprised when he kept working and working until he got basically every Cheerio in that room.  It was hard work for a 3 year old.

He's a sweetheart, too.  He is pretty sensitive and has been known to start sobbing when he's been reprimanded too harshly.  I love his soft heart.  I loved when he would run in and bring me roses from our old yard, too:

(Way better than dandelions!  That's one benefit of having tons of rose bushes.)

He's an early reader like his sisters, too.  He still has a hard time blending sounds sometimes but he is getting it.  Of course with all of our craziness it's been months since I've had him try to read much.  I need to get back on that.

Once again--refrigerator reading, courtesy of the word whammer magnets: (Buy one!)

One morning I found myself sitting up in bed with my two boys asleep on me.

You can't beat that.

School Wrap-up

Well, we finished out another year of school.  I can't believe I will have a 2nd and 3rd grader next year!  Time is flying.  The girls had some really great teachers this year.  I am SO thankful for that.  It made a new year at a new school go that much more happily and smoothly.  We'll miss this school.  

Natalie loved her kindergarten teacher that she started out the year with, Ms. Shirey, but she also loved Miss Bassi, her 1st grade teacher.  She expected a lot of her kids and did a great job keeping order in her classroom.  Natalie learned so much!  It was amazing to see the difference in her work over the year.  I think the transition was a success.  She was often a little behind some of her classmates in math after she made the switch, but by the end of year she had caught up completely.  I was proud of her for that.

Natalie wrote Miss Bassi some poems for her birthday and I thought it was so creative that I have to post it:

If you can't read it, here are the poems:
"A is for apple
B is for ball
M is for mule
and I like school!"

"balls like bouncing
adventurers like to blaze
gazelle like grassies
and I like Ms. Bassi!"

Elizabeth LOVED her teacher last year and I sure loved her too.  There will always be a special place in her heart for Ms. Lyman.  She even saved up her tickets that she earned in class to have a special lunch with her one day.  She could have spent them on little toys or getting out of homework but she picked that.  Ms. Lyman had a gift for making her students, including Elizabeth, feel loved and special.

Elizabeth gained a greater awareness of what it's like to have a disability this year, too.  Ms. Lyman is paralyzed from the waist down.  One cool thing that she does is have each child take a turn for a day in an extra wheelchair she has just to get a feel for what it's like.  Elizabeth definitely learned that.  She came home with food all down her shirt (even more than normal!) from trying to balance her lunch on her lap while she rolled around.  He arms were all tired out by the end of the day.

Here she is with a paper version of herself that she made for open house:

It was a great year but we're sure enjoying our summer off!

Another Summer, Another Move

Well, one reason I've been trying to update the blog is so I can get a little caught up before I mention our big news--we moved again!

It's a long story that I won't really go into here but here's the summary:  Joe's job in Sacramento didn't work out.  He was still working part-time for his old firm.  Thankfully, he managed to get hired back on full time.  He began commuting in January.  He would stay over two nights a week to keep from having to make the long commute every day.  This situation was no fun.  We eventually decided to move back to the bay area.  We found a house to rent and packed up and moved the day after the girls' last day of school.  We'll be putting our house up on the market soon.

Life is interesting.  In some ways it feels like the past year was one big difficult loop.  Yet, it mostly feels like there were important lessons we had to learn through all of this and we're grateful for having learned them.  There have been tremendous blessings, too--spiritual, financial and otherwise, and we're grateful for those as well. One thing's for sure: God knows our needs.

We're happy in our new house and our new area.  Message me if you'd like our address.  We love visitors!  We're definitely getting this moving thing down.  We did some counting up and Joe has now moved an average of once a year over his lifetime.  It's the same for the kids.  My average is about once every two years, and I lived in the same house for 18 years!  We'll all be glad to have some summers off in the future, hopefully.

Thankfully, the most important things are in tact--we love God and we love each other, we have all that we need and then some, and we're all healthy!  Life is good.

Culture Night: Denmark

A few months ago we had another culture night.  This time we did Denmark.  Joe and I both have many ancestors from Denmark.  So, we decided to learn a little bit more about the country.  

Here was the spread for dinner:

Pretty simple.  Just fruit and Smørrebrød (Danish open-faced sandwiches):

I got the recipe for the roast beef sandwiches here.  I just kind of made up the ham ones after looking at pictures.  I thought there might be a chance of the kids actually eating the ham ones.  As it turned out, they mostly just ate watermelon.  They didn't like the rye bread, or the sprouts.  I thought the roast beef ones were super tasty; even for lunch the next day.  It's always fun to have an excuse to buy new things like tarragon, capers and sprouts.  

One thing they liked a lot better was the ebelskiver we had a week or two later.  After being all wrapped up in Danish culture, I happened to walk by an ebelskiver pan for sale at Costco and made an impulse buy (that never happens at Costco...).  It came in handy, though, since Elizabeth had a heritage feast at school and had to bring something so we made those.  No pictures, sadly, but they are just little pancake balls that can have fillings or not.  

I do have a picture of the cute little Danish doll she had to make:

( I can't get that to rotate)

She is holding a violin in her arms.  I was proud of myself on this one for resisting the impulse to try and take over when she was making this.  Elizabeth made it entirely by herself and I think she did a great job.  

Anyway, back to culture night... Elizabeth was in charge of history, Natalie did animals, Joe did arts and culture, and I was in charge of family history.  My brother helped a lot by sending me some pictures from his files and from when he visited Denmark recently. (Thanks Matt!)

This is my great-great-great grandfather Bendt Nielsen Sr. with his first wife and some of their children:

 

(I am descended from a later wife)

Here are some pictures Matt took:

Danish countryside

My ancestors were farmers 

A church that near where they lived that would have been built around the time they lived there:

I don't know much about my family history but I want to learn more.  One thing that helps is the church's new family history website.  Have you been there?  It's pretty cool.  I love the family tree and fan charts and that you can see pictures and read stories that have been uploaded.  

Talent Show

The girls' school had a talent show and they both decided to play songs on the piano for it.  Well, that's not entirely accurate.  They were heavily encouraged/bribed by me to play songs on the piano.  Their teacher this year doesn't do any kind of recitals and I knew it would be good for them.  After a bit of procrastination, they both managed to put in a lot of work to get their songs ready and they both did a great job!  They were some of the youngest kids in the talent show and I was very impressed with their courage. 

Here is Natalie playing "Castle on a Cloud": (She was the very first one to go!)

And here is Elizabeth playing the waltz from Sleeping Beauty:

I loved watching her head bob up and down.  She is a good counter.

We all enjoyed big bowls of ice cream afterwards!