........the dark? heights? loud noises? radio commercials? being abandoned?
These are all legitimate fears in our household, each held by a different person. Guess who is afraid of what by posting a comment. I'll reveal the answers and explanations next Saturday. Have fun!
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Household Happenings
So, we've been having a week. Not an exciting week, not a bad week, just a week. I'll just ramble awhile about what the family has been up to. Collecting my thoughts right now is like collecting fireflies....just grab the one closest to you and look at it for awhile...let the other ones go!
Matthew has been playing Mario Kart Wii every day this week. He is limited to about 30 minutes of play time and thankfully doesn't complain when the timer goes off. Here's my justification for allowing Nintendo play at this young age: He has poor fine motor skills and it's improving them, it helps his hand-eye coordination, and he's learning directional sense (which his Daddy does not have, so he needs all the help he can get.) He loves it and is doing very well. In a short time, he's gone from barely finishing one lap to finishing four races and actually placing higher than twelfth! He's won a few single races, so he's doing well. His personal goal is to get a trophy so that he can open up the races with Bowser's castle. (Bowser is his character of choice to race with.) Anna watches him (and him, not the screen) and Ben commentates while he races. It's pretty cute!
We signed Matthew up for the summer reading program and have finished the three steps already. It's 300 pages per step and it went by quicker than I expected it to. Those children's books have a lot of pages! We also read from a chapter book at nap time, so that helped as well. We finished Little House in the Big Woods and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. Now we're reading Mary Poppins, which we'll count as our extra pages. For that step, we have to read 50 extra pages and draw a picture of something in the book. Since Matthew doesn't really draw yet (but he has drawn some letters), I'm going to have him draw with chalk on the sidewalk like the Match Man and take a picture of it to turn in. Pretty clever, huh?? Anyway, he earned a butterfly finger puppet for step one, a free scoop of ice cream from Mullins for step two, and for step three: a free personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut, a family pass to the Wisconsin state park of our choice, a ticket to a library pool party in August, a book, and a certificate of completion. We're also working on the family reading program, for which we have to fill out info sheets, scavanger hunts, attend library progams, make crafts, and make a bug out of recyclables around the house. Rob and I are doing the adult program as well. It's enough to keep us busy all summer!
Along with that, I tried taking the boys to the story time at the library. They hated the first session, mainly because it intimidated them. All of the other children "knew the drill" and the boys were over whelmed. I took just Ben last Friday, and the lady doing it was new (Rachael, Grandma Lou has been replaced!!) and Ben loved it! He came home singing the Baby Bumblebee song and has been singing it with me all week. If he hadn't been running a fever all day today, I'd be taking him tomorrow. The Friday session have far fewer kids, so I think that's the one we'll go with. And I like the new lady quite a bit.
Miss Anna is just a delightful baby. She sleeps 8-10 hours straight at night and naps on and off during the day. I can't believe she's sleeping through this early! I love it!! She's so cheery and smiley and laughs at everything. She's the kind of baby you just love to play with. Matthew said today, "I love Anna. I love holding her and kissing her. She's such a sweet baby!" Anna likes to watch the boys play and you can tell she wants to run around with them. She's trying to turn her head to roll over, but her body just won't cooperate yet :) She's gets excited when the boys are running around. Yesterday I helped her "jump" on the couch with Matthew. She loved it and so did he! She smiles real big for Rob and gave him one of my looks, the look that just melts him. I asked him which one of her little fingers he's wrapped around!
The flooding is going down slowly. Our county is an officially declared disaster area, so that's interesting. Watertown has most streets open now, but Chamberland play area at the park remains closed (for repairs.) The two bridges in Jefferson are closed for an undetermined time. I-94's westbound bridge will also remain closed for a long time. We cancelled our trip to Illinois for next weekend b/c of all the detours and b/c of gas prices.
We've had some coughs go around this week. Ben got it and has had a fever with it today. I hope it passes by me and Anna. Yesterday, Ben was crying for some reason and I was feeding Anna, so I couldn't hold him. I tried to coax him up next to me, but he wouldn't come. Instead, he climbed up on Matthew's lap and leaned his head on Matthew's chest. He was there for quite a long time! It was so sweet. And I couldn't take a picture b/c I was feeding the baby!
I think I rambled enought for now.
Matthew has been playing Mario Kart Wii every day this week. He is limited to about 30 minutes of play time and thankfully doesn't complain when the timer goes off. Here's my justification for allowing Nintendo play at this young age: He has poor fine motor skills and it's improving them, it helps his hand-eye coordination, and he's learning directional sense (which his Daddy does not have, so he needs all the help he can get.) He loves it and is doing very well. In a short time, he's gone from barely finishing one lap to finishing four races and actually placing higher than twelfth! He's won a few single races, so he's doing well. His personal goal is to get a trophy so that he can open up the races with Bowser's castle. (Bowser is his character of choice to race with.) Anna watches him (and him, not the screen) and Ben commentates while he races. It's pretty cute!
We signed Matthew up for the summer reading program and have finished the three steps already. It's 300 pages per step and it went by quicker than I expected it to. Those children's books have a lot of pages! We also read from a chapter book at nap time, so that helped as well. We finished Little House in the Big Woods and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. Now we're reading Mary Poppins, which we'll count as our extra pages. For that step, we have to read 50 extra pages and draw a picture of something in the book. Since Matthew doesn't really draw yet (but he has drawn some letters), I'm going to have him draw with chalk on the sidewalk like the Match Man and take a picture of it to turn in. Pretty clever, huh?? Anyway, he earned a butterfly finger puppet for step one, a free scoop of ice cream from Mullins for step two, and for step three: a free personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut, a family pass to the Wisconsin state park of our choice, a ticket to a library pool party in August, a book, and a certificate of completion. We're also working on the family reading program, for which we have to fill out info sheets, scavanger hunts, attend library progams, make crafts, and make a bug out of recyclables around the house. Rob and I are doing the adult program as well. It's enough to keep us busy all summer!
Along with that, I tried taking the boys to the story time at the library. They hated the first session, mainly because it intimidated them. All of the other children "knew the drill" and the boys were over whelmed. I took just Ben last Friday, and the lady doing it was new (Rachael, Grandma Lou has been replaced!!) and Ben loved it! He came home singing the Baby Bumblebee song and has been singing it with me all week. If he hadn't been running a fever all day today, I'd be taking him tomorrow. The Friday session have far fewer kids, so I think that's the one we'll go with. And I like the new lady quite a bit.
Miss Anna is just a delightful baby. She sleeps 8-10 hours straight at night and naps on and off during the day. I can't believe she's sleeping through this early! I love it!! She's so cheery and smiley and laughs at everything. She's the kind of baby you just love to play with. Matthew said today, "I love Anna. I love holding her and kissing her. She's such a sweet baby!" Anna likes to watch the boys play and you can tell she wants to run around with them. She's trying to turn her head to roll over, but her body just won't cooperate yet :) She's gets excited when the boys are running around. Yesterday I helped her "jump" on the couch with Matthew. She loved it and so did he! She smiles real big for Rob and gave him one of my looks, the look that just melts him. I asked him which one of her little fingers he's wrapped around!
The flooding is going down slowly. Our county is an officially declared disaster area, so that's interesting. Watertown has most streets open now, but Chamberland play area at the park remains closed (for repairs.) The two bridges in Jefferson are closed for an undetermined time. I-94's westbound bridge will also remain closed for a long time. We cancelled our trip to Illinois for next weekend b/c of all the detours and b/c of gas prices.
We've had some coughs go around this week. Ben got it and has had a fever with it today. I hope it passes by me and Anna. Yesterday, Ben was crying for some reason and I was feeding Anna, so I couldn't hold him. I tried to coax him up next to me, but he wouldn't come. Instead, he climbed up on Matthew's lap and leaned his head on Matthew's chest. He was there for quite a long time! It was so sweet. And I couldn't take a picture b/c I was feeding the baby!
I think I rambled enought for now.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Rambling Post
I have quite a bit to talk about, so I think I'll just ramble for awhile on various topics I've been meaning to post about. We took a trip to Illinois last weekend, have been keeping up with the flooding problems in Wisconsin, and had VBS this week. I'll probably intermix all of these topics as I ramble. :)
Last Friday, we took off for Illinois mainly so I could throw my sister a baby shower with the assistance of my mother, my mother-in-law, and Mandy's friend. We also visited with lots of family at the same time. We were interested to see how we would get to I-90/I-39, since there was lots of flooding on Hwy 26, our route to get there. Before we left, we were told to drive around Watertown for abit. Oh my, was that worth the extra minutes! We drove out to Riverside Park and saw that the island we love to run around on was covered with water. I'm surprised we could even drive across the bridge as the water was just underneath of it. I guess they've been pulling large debris out of the river for the past two weeks to keep the bridges from being swept away, and that's in Watertown and in Jefferson, the city affected worst by the flooding in our county (which has been declared a disaster area.) Some people have been forced from their homes here in town and just five blocks down from us, people have their homes sandbagged. In fact, we looked down a short side street while we were walking and saw the river up close and personal!
Anyway, we are very thankful that we've had no damage to our home or water in the basement. We must live high enough up on the hill to not be affected. We did have a nice sinkhole in front of our driveway for a few days before the city came to fill it up. We weren't impatient about it. I mean, after all, people are out of their homes! We can handle a little hole in the road!
We took off and soon found ourselves in Jefferson. At first, we thought that we could get through and maybe the river had gone down. WRONG!! We were routed to a different street and saw all of the crazy flooding along the way, including people's houses surrounded by water. The bridge we crossed was almost flooded over and the park we passed was sandbagged, with water already spilling over the bags. We later saw an aerial shot of Hwy 26...completely underwater. And it's worse now b/c we couldn't even go through Jefferson on our return trip!
Once we got around Jefferson, it was smooth sailing. Okay, well, the road was clear anyway. Travelling with three children under four was no picnic, but I haven't had nightmares, so it wasn't all bad. The boys barely slept, but at least Anna did. I did have to run her into the house and bypass grandparents b/c she had a dirty diaper and was screaming for 20 minutes before we got there. After a change and a bottle, she was better. She was crankier than usual that night, but not bad. Her crankiest day is like one of my good days....
We had a nice time visiting with Rob's family both Friday evening and Saturday morning. His aunt and uncle from Florida were visiting and that's always a nice visit. We also got to see Jamie, our nephew, who is getting big way too fast. I'm sure everyone thought that about Anna as well. Babies just need to slow down!
My mom came to pick me up to take me to the shower while the guys went to visit Rob's grandparents. I heard they were extra naughty while they visited. Note to Great-Grandpa: Spray the house with obedient spray before they visit next!! If I found out where they sell the stuff, I'll let you know :) We got to the church and got set up with time to spare. There were less people than we expected, but we had a nice time. Mandy got lots of great stuff and has pretty much all of her big items taken care of. She had another shower today and has one next week, so she should be all set for baby Makenzie Leigh (Kenzie for short).
While I was at the shower, the guys went to the Make-A-Mess fun center and, well, made a mess! My brother Joel, father-in-law, and bro-in-law Chris went along, so Rob had plenty of help watching the boys. They had a great time.
We finished our trip spending the night with my parents and took Dad out for a Father's Day breakfast the next day. It was at this point that I realized I had done nothing for Rob. I still haven't made him a card. I did buy him cupcakes from Wal-Mart with Dad stuff on them last night (love that bakery bargain cart!) but that's it. Poor guy....he really deserves better but he won't let me spend money on him. Time to get creative...
Anyway, the drive back was better, as the boys were more subdued. We had to detour way out of our way to get back, but got to see why I-94 has been closed down. The river was threatening a bridge and they still don't have one side open yet. There is a crossover so traffic can flow in both directions, but it's very slow. Part of the detour includes going through Watertown, which is stupid, because we have a bridge torn out for constuction and half of a major road in closed down until November for construction. Needless to say, traffic around here can get ridiculous at times.
We did make it home with plenty of time to spare to get Matthew to VBS. (see previous post for that blunder.) He had a great time this week, although it was a bit of a challenge to cart him back and forth (especially when Rob forgot to leave us the car on Monday). Having three kids in tow is not fun, but it's worth it for Matthew to hear God's Word. He loved it and came home telling us the Bible stories and all about the missions room. (Did you know there is a BIG WALL in China?) We've also been working on the reading program at the library. Matthew has finished all three levels now and gets to go to a pool party in August. We're doing the family program as well. I'll talk more about that later.
Otherwise, we've had a nice week, although Rob has worked odder hours b/c his supervisor has been sick all week. He did get to come home early on Friday, so that was nice! We had a great, relaxing Saturday, including our walk to the post office and bakery, so we're happy Litwillers. We had a "Hooray for being a Litwiller" party tonight. We had homemade pizza, brownies, and played Wii. Rob and I also told both boys what we liked about them and why we're happy they are Litwillers. It was fun and I think we'll do it again!
Ta-ta!
Last Friday, we took off for Illinois mainly so I could throw my sister a baby shower with the assistance of my mother, my mother-in-law, and Mandy's friend. We also visited with lots of family at the same time. We were interested to see how we would get to I-90/I-39, since there was lots of flooding on Hwy 26, our route to get there. Before we left, we were told to drive around Watertown for abit. Oh my, was that worth the extra minutes! We drove out to Riverside Park and saw that the island we love to run around on was covered with water. I'm surprised we could even drive across the bridge as the water was just underneath of it. I guess they've been pulling large debris out of the river for the past two weeks to keep the bridges from being swept away, and that's in Watertown and in Jefferson, the city affected worst by the flooding in our county (which has been declared a disaster area.) Some people have been forced from their homes here in town and just five blocks down from us, people have their homes sandbagged. In fact, we looked down a short side street while we were walking and saw the river up close and personal!
Anyway, we are very thankful that we've had no damage to our home or water in the basement. We must live high enough up on the hill to not be affected. We did have a nice sinkhole in front of our driveway for a few days before the city came to fill it up. We weren't impatient about it. I mean, after all, people are out of their homes! We can handle a little hole in the road!
We took off and soon found ourselves in Jefferson. At first, we thought that we could get through and maybe the river had gone down. WRONG!! We were routed to a different street and saw all of the crazy flooding along the way, including people's houses surrounded by water. The bridge we crossed was almost flooded over and the park we passed was sandbagged, with water already spilling over the bags. We later saw an aerial shot of Hwy 26...completely underwater. And it's worse now b/c we couldn't even go through Jefferson on our return trip!
Once we got around Jefferson, it was smooth sailing. Okay, well, the road was clear anyway. Travelling with three children under four was no picnic, but I haven't had nightmares, so it wasn't all bad. The boys barely slept, but at least Anna did. I did have to run her into the house and bypass grandparents b/c she had a dirty diaper and was screaming for 20 minutes before we got there. After a change and a bottle, she was better. She was crankier than usual that night, but not bad. Her crankiest day is like one of my good days....
We had a nice time visiting with Rob's family both Friday evening and Saturday morning. His aunt and uncle from Florida were visiting and that's always a nice visit. We also got to see Jamie, our nephew, who is getting big way too fast. I'm sure everyone thought that about Anna as well. Babies just need to slow down!
My mom came to pick me up to take me to the shower while the guys went to visit Rob's grandparents. I heard they were extra naughty while they visited. Note to Great-Grandpa: Spray the house with obedient spray before they visit next!! If I found out where they sell the stuff, I'll let you know :) We got to the church and got set up with time to spare. There were less people than we expected, but we had a nice time. Mandy got lots of great stuff and has pretty much all of her big items taken care of. She had another shower today and has one next week, so she should be all set for baby Makenzie Leigh (Kenzie for short).
While I was at the shower, the guys went to the Make-A-Mess fun center and, well, made a mess! My brother Joel, father-in-law, and bro-in-law Chris went along, so Rob had plenty of help watching the boys. They had a great time.
We finished our trip spending the night with my parents and took Dad out for a Father's Day breakfast the next day. It was at this point that I realized I had done nothing for Rob. I still haven't made him a card. I did buy him cupcakes from Wal-Mart with Dad stuff on them last night (love that bakery bargain cart!) but that's it. Poor guy....he really deserves better but he won't let me spend money on him. Time to get creative...
Anyway, the drive back was better, as the boys were more subdued. We had to detour way out of our way to get back, but got to see why I-94 has been closed down. The river was threatening a bridge and they still don't have one side open yet. There is a crossover so traffic can flow in both directions, but it's very slow. Part of the detour includes going through Watertown, which is stupid, because we have a bridge torn out for constuction and half of a major road in closed down until November for construction. Needless to say, traffic around here can get ridiculous at times.
We did make it home with plenty of time to spare to get Matthew to VBS. (see previous post for that blunder.) He had a great time this week, although it was a bit of a challenge to cart him back and forth (especially when Rob forgot to leave us the car on Monday). Having three kids in tow is not fun, but it's worth it for Matthew to hear God's Word. He loved it and came home telling us the Bible stories and all about the missions room. (Did you know there is a BIG WALL in China?) We've also been working on the reading program at the library. Matthew has finished all three levels now and gets to go to a pool party in August. We're doing the family program as well. I'll talk more about that later.
Otherwise, we've had a nice week, although Rob has worked odder hours b/c his supervisor has been sick all week. He did get to come home early on Friday, so that was nice! We had a great, relaxing Saturday, including our walk to the post office and bakery, so we're happy Litwillers. We had a "Hooray for being a Litwiller" party tonight. We had homemade pizza, brownies, and played Wii. Rob and I also told both boys what we liked about them and why we're happy they are Litwillers. It was fun and I think we'll do it again!
Ta-ta!
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Braindead Litwillers
I have lots to post after our weekend trip to Illinois and all about the flooding here in Wisconsin, but I'm too tired to type that much. However, I just have to share about our braindead evening.
We got home at 3pm today and thought that church didn't start until 6pm. I could have sworn that I saw it printed in two places that church didn't start until 6 (it's usually at 5pm). Rob and I go early on Sunday nights to set up the greeting area for nursery. So, we all left with plenty of time to spare for the six o'clock service. And then we got there and saw all of the cars and rushed into church. Oops! Why the mix up? Well, VBS started tonight at 6pm. Guess I got confused or something. Anyway, we got Matthew there in PLENTY of time for VBS and were only in the building for about half an hour.
Good thing we weren't there longer. We left to go shopping while Matthew was in VBS and found our car in the turn-around near the nursery. Still running. Unlocked. We might as well have had a sign on it that said "Please, we're idiots. Take our car from us. Keys included."
And then at Wal-Mart, Ben decided to wack a jug of juice off the shelf and spill it all over the aisle. And Rob dropped the package of light bulbs he bought there and broke one.
At least Matthew had fun at VBS and all three of them are asleep right now. Rob's frying homemade egg rolls. And I think I'm going to go to sleep. More on our trip and the flood later.
We got home at 3pm today and thought that church didn't start until 6pm. I could have sworn that I saw it printed in two places that church didn't start until 6 (it's usually at 5pm). Rob and I go early on Sunday nights to set up the greeting area for nursery. So, we all left with plenty of time to spare for the six o'clock service. And then we got there and saw all of the cars and rushed into church. Oops! Why the mix up? Well, VBS started tonight at 6pm. Guess I got confused or something. Anyway, we got Matthew there in PLENTY of time for VBS and were only in the building for about half an hour.
Good thing we weren't there longer. We left to go shopping while Matthew was in VBS and found our car in the turn-around near the nursery. Still running. Unlocked. We might as well have had a sign on it that said "Please, we're idiots. Take our car from us. Keys included."
And then at Wal-Mart, Ben decided to wack a jug of juice off the shelf and spill it all over the aisle. And Rob dropped the package of light bulbs he bought there and broke one.
At least Matthew had fun at VBS and all three of them are asleep right now. Rob's frying homemade egg rolls. And I think I'm going to go to sleep. More on our trip and the flood later.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Road Trip
There is just nothing quite like the open road, and we had our fill of it today. Today was my sister-in-law's baby shower, held in Streamwood, IL and the whole family went. The three guys hung out with my brother, Joel, while Anna and I attended the shower.
I was a little apprehensive about driving b/c our Map Quest directions took us there by means of multiple country roads (and even one "Bob's road"--see the movie Twister for an explanation.) We Google earthed the directions, but it took a half hour longer by means of interstate, so we opted for the crazy route. I'm so glad that we did! Traveling by backroads is so much more fun and you get to see all kinds of great stuff. We found a huge Amish gift and furniture store we'd like to go back to and Rob remembered that he had driven most of that route in college to get to the church he ministered in. The kids had far more interesting scenery to look at than if we took the interstate, so that was a bonus. Our only problem was the storm we hit coming back into Wisconsin, but even that wasn't bad.
We arrived with time to spare and had a good time visiting before the festivities began. Joel and Rob took the boys out for a bit and they went to lunch, a park, his house, and visited AWANA headquarters, where Joel works as a graphic artist. The boys had a ball and didn't stop talking about it until bedtime.
We had a great time at the shower. It was held at a restaurant and the air conditioning stopped working and our ceiling fans weren't working, but other than that, it was great. I felt very sorry for all of the pregnant women attending, but they seemed to make it through okay. Anna was very good the entire time and my mom held her for much of the shower. I won myself a prize by being the fastest diaper/outfit changer (which really isn't fair, considering I have lots of practice, but at least it paid off!)
It was good to see family, especially since I haven't seen some of them since Christmas. Mom took a picture of the four girls, three of which are pregnant. My sister Mandy is due July 25, sister-in-law Cara on July 26 (Joel's wife and he is Mandy's twin) and sister-in-law Melanie is due on October 2nd. Since we never got a picture of the four of us before Anna was born, Mom is going to splice in a picture of me while pregnant. I'll have to post it when she gets it done. Should be interesting!
In other news, Matthew can now identify all of his letters. We checked out a Leap Frog video from the library and after two viewings, he knew all of them and their sounds. He now finds letters everywhere! I love how he learns things "all of a sudden." Should make homeschooling him very interesting! I've been reading about unschooling and it sounds like it's the method that will work best for him. We'll just have to wait and see.
That's all the news that's fit to print....or post....
I was a little apprehensive about driving b/c our Map Quest directions took us there by means of multiple country roads (and even one "Bob's road"--see the movie Twister for an explanation.) We Google earthed the directions, but it took a half hour longer by means of interstate, so we opted for the crazy route. I'm so glad that we did! Traveling by backroads is so much more fun and you get to see all kinds of great stuff. We found a huge Amish gift and furniture store we'd like to go back to and Rob remembered that he had driven most of that route in college to get to the church he ministered in. The kids had far more interesting scenery to look at than if we took the interstate, so that was a bonus. Our only problem was the storm we hit coming back into Wisconsin, but even that wasn't bad.
We arrived with time to spare and had a good time visiting before the festivities began. Joel and Rob took the boys out for a bit and they went to lunch, a park, his house, and visited AWANA headquarters, where Joel works as a graphic artist. The boys had a ball and didn't stop talking about it until bedtime.
We had a great time at the shower. It was held at a restaurant and the air conditioning stopped working and our ceiling fans weren't working, but other than that, it was great. I felt very sorry for all of the pregnant women attending, but they seemed to make it through okay. Anna was very good the entire time and my mom held her for much of the shower. I won myself a prize by being the fastest diaper/outfit changer (which really isn't fair, considering I have lots of practice, but at least it paid off!)
It was good to see family, especially since I haven't seen some of them since Christmas. Mom took a picture of the four girls, three of which are pregnant. My sister Mandy is due July 25, sister-in-law Cara on July 26 (Joel's wife and he is Mandy's twin) and sister-in-law Melanie is due on October 2nd. Since we never got a picture of the four of us before Anna was born, Mom is going to splice in a picture of me while pregnant. I'll have to post it when she gets it done. Should be interesting!
In other news, Matthew can now identify all of his letters. We checked out a Leap Frog video from the library and after two viewings, he knew all of them and their sounds. He now finds letters everywhere! I love how he learns things "all of a sudden." Should make homeschooling him very interesting! I've been reading about unschooling and it sounds like it's the method that will work best for him. We'll just have to wait and see.
That's all the news that's fit to print....or post....
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