Being Little

It's tough being little. The older kids are playing hide-and-seek on their bikes in the neighborhood. The younger ones can't keep up and aren't allowed to ride bikes alone (a requirement if you're trying to hide). It's killing Bekah. She was a little hysterical earlier, when her big sister left her behind. I'm going to go read some more Charlotte's Web to her.

Birthdays Galore!

First off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Bekah. She turns four today (I think it's her day, maybe it's Kearsyn turning two? No, it's definitely Bekah, that's what's on the calendar).

October is a crazy birthday month around here. We have six. Our nephew, Josh, on 10/1. Bekah on 10/5. Our neice, Lauren, on 10/8. Kearsyn on 10/10. Vicki's sister on 10/20. Vicki on 10/30.

This morning, Connor commented that he just LOVES October. It's cake, cake, cake, cake, cake, cake, and then Candy to top it all off at the end of the month. He didn't mention the dentist bills in November...

Catching Up

I just transferred some pictures from my camera to my computer, and thought I'd send some here as well.

Here's Kenzie in her indoor softball tournament in January. Her team won all three games.














Tay and Ty got some Eitech (similar to Erector Set) Sets and began building all kinds of stuff. Here's Tay with his windmill. Then, they both designed and built their own rocketships.















Here was a lazy day in early February.














The weather broke nice one day, so we let the chickens scratch outside their pen. It made their day. They love to scratch up new territory.


















Finally, here's Kearsyn.

Bad Daddy!

But with an explanation. No posts for a month?! Bad, bad, bad. The avalanche called our schedule has been overwhelming again, as usual. There are way too many things going on right now to post them all, so how about some bullet points.

--High school (and not the easy public school version) has hit full force.

--JV soccer, at a school 25 miles away. Ugh, we travel just to go to practices.

--Fall sports (soccer, mostly, but also flag football) for everyone else.

--New nephew was born, a month early, on 10/1.

--Gall stones (me, including a midnight trip to ER), laproscopic surgery scheduled for next week.

--Homeschool, for the middle four kids.

--Piano lessons.

--Kenzie. She has several entries to herself since she causes more than the usual conflicts.

--Kenzie travel softball: four-hour practices (30 minutes from home) and weekend tournaments, year-round.

--Kenzie travel soccer: three nights a week, plus weekend games (sometimes 2 hours away).

--Connor travel soccer: not really on the team, but he practices with them twice a week.

--Birthdays. Our family (including in-laws) has 6 to celebrate in October.

I gotta stop now because Alex's ride just picked him up to get him to the bus stop and that's my cue to get everyone else rolling. Here's some quick shots of Bekah's birthday. She just recently discovered Barney.

GO RAVENS!

Vicki's blog demonstrates, a little, how looney tunes people get around here about their Ravens. Here's Bekah, getting into the spirit too, wearing my sweatshirt from when the Ravens won the AFC championship in 2000.

Bumble Bee

Bekah found this old bumble bee costume last night and has been wearing everywhere. Here's her in the classroom this morning, before we went to church. I made her take off the bee suit for Mass.

Bekah's New Bed

Since we took the day off today for the chicken thing, I decided to get some other things done, as well. This included getting Bekah her first bed. This is necessary because she has been attempting to climb out of her crib, succeeding only in getting herself stuck in various gaps in the rails.

After I got the bed home, I went food shopping. As I did that, Vicki began disassembling the crib in Bekah's room. This sent Bekah into a frenzy of excitement. She just knew this meant it was time for her to move up. I don't think any of the other kids caught on as fast as she did; at least they didn't show it. Once her bed was ready, we had a hard time getting her out of it. I bet she'll have no trouble finding her way out of it in the middle of the night, or when she's not in the mood for her nap.

Velda, Keep Your Canadian Air!

Brrrr. It's supposed to get down into the 20's tonight. The first time we may go below freezing this season. I wouldn't mind that too much, except we have two 8 AM soccer games and one 9 AM game. We are all going to be popsicles before lunch. I hope the chickens out in the coop will be okay; I haven't winterized the coop yet. I was waiting until next weekend, when my friend will pick up the foster chickens and my babies can move out there. Speaking of my chicky babies, they are growing fast. Here's some pictures I just took. They are five weeks old and have most of their feathers. I still can't tell if two of my hens are really hens, or not. The roosters have a definite comb, like "Nugget" here, the brown one with Bekah. And the obvious hens definitely have nothing like a comb. But some, like this black and white one have a sort of cross between the two. In case you're wondering, yes, we did name this one chicken Nugget, since this is probably the one rooster we'll keep for breeding purposes and he won't get eaten, at least for a while. But if we do decide to eat him, at least his name is Nugget. Kenzie, for some reason has also been calling one of the hens "Hawkface" because it does look kind of like a hawk from the neck, up. Kenzie's very happy that Hawkface appears to be a hen because I don't think I could have convinced her to eat her favorite chicken, even smothered in her favorite sauce, Ranch salad dressing.

Right now, Connor is sitting in the room with me, staring at the ceiling, while all his siblings are watching a movie. I think he's trying to make me feel guilty for punishing him (no TV/Electronics for the rest of the week, starting this past Monday). He's being punished because he kicked, and broke, Bekah's chair because he got mad at Kenzie. Breaking the chair was bad enough, but then he didn't tell me about it (I explained to him, what if Bekah got in that chair and it fell apart). It was the cover up that got him in the most trouble, as always. My kids always get in more trouble for not 'fessing up than for the actual crime. With the University of Maryland football team on TV tomorrow, and the Ravens on TV on Sunday, I have to figure out how bad I want to torture him. Connor will do almost anything to watch his football. And on Sunday, we may all miss the game because Kearsyn is getting baptised at the same time. I should have thought of that before I scheduled her Christening, but I guess it really shouldn't be put off until after the Superbowl.

All right, I'm starting to ramble and I have a little girl to put to bed, so I'm outa here.

Bekah Had A Bad Day

Bekah has turned into something I am not familiar with. The closest I can recall to experiencing what she has become would be Tyler, at two years old; well, Tyler at any age, actually. She has become a stubborn, self-centered, whiny, screaming, tantrum-throwing...in other words, normal...two year old. Most of our kids weren't normal two year olds. If they had been, there would definitely have been fewer of them; at least fewer that survived to see age three. But I guess I have to give Bekah some slack. In the span of a week, she turned two and lost her baby status, and all the attention that comes with that position. I lost count of all her tantrums today, from the doctor's office (for a Kearsyn checkup), to the lab (for a Kearsyn bili-rubens test), to home, several times (where family visited to see Kearsyn), to church (no Kearsyn, but why mess up a perfect record?). This is just to remind myself that she has her good days, too.

Who's Watching the Girl?

Ok, I'm making an early dinner: Kenzie has to get to softball practice and, if you remember, that's good trek down the road. Vicki is trying to get some work done from home. The kids are on their own, mostly they're playing Nintendo in the playroom. All except Bekah, who decided to have some alone time with a tube diaper rash medicine. At least she didn't eat it. And she did show remorse.

Halfway to Chicks

Well, we're about halfway to new chickies. I haven't mentioned the eggs for a while because, as either Connor or Kenzie mentioned in their blog, I was a little disappointed at the first candling. It appeared we didn't have too many viable eggs and I was expecting a few more chickens on October 2. I re-candled a few random eggs, including some from the "questionable" group. It looks like we might have more good eggs than I first expected. Of course, I still don't really know what I'm looking for, so it's still wait-and-see. That's one reason we separated the eggs: so we can learn what to look for in future incubations. I think it might just be easier to let the hens do the work next time, but sometimes even the hens get it wrong. Some friends of ours tried letting their hens set on their eggs, and they only got three to hatch. Hopefully my numbers will be higher than that.

I can now announce that I know of at least one of my own friends that have visited this blog, not just one of my wife's friends. Don't get me wrong! I love having visitors, but if I have to rely on Vicki for all my web traffic, that doesn't say much of my ability to make my own friends :o) Laura is a good friend of mine from when Connor was still going to public school. About the only good thing that came out of public school was some of the people my kids met, and the ones I met through them. Laura's son and Connor are still pretty good friends, even after all these years of not going to school together. They can go months without seeing each other, then pick right up where they left off the next time one calls the other.

That lighthouse is still for sale. I'm still waiting for a partner with a lot of money to join in the venture. They lowered the starting bid to $5,000 instead of the original $30,000. The current high bid is only $10,000, so it's still a steal, if you just happen to have 15 or 20 thousand dollars laying around the house. They've scheduled a trip to inspect the lighthouse, in person, on October 17. I'd love to go look at it, but I think you have to be serious bidder to be considered for the trip. Besides, October 17 is my predicted delivery date for Kearsyn. It'd be my luck to be stuck on a lighthouse when Vicki's ready to go to the hospital.

Speaking of which, I think we've been through this birthing thing enough times to just go ahead and do it ourselves, right here at the house. Vicki doesn't quite agree, but I've gotten her to change her mind on things before. I have a big basket and a sharp Swiss Army knife. I don't really understand her concerns about having to go all the way to the hospital just to do something we're experienced at, and will happen naturally anyway, whether we go to the hospital, or not. And, we're only a '911' away from help if anything really weird happens.

Bekah's been entertaining us in the classroom recently. She's just so cute I couldn't help posting a few pictures of her here.










And, finally, Alex and I went for long bike ride a few days ago. We came to spot with a wonderful view of our Bay Bridge. We've been there before, but I never took a picture. This time I did.