Oct 28th? Our week in 28 pictures. :)

On Saturday, we walked to the pumpkin patch across the street from our neighborhood.  

Of course I had to dress Allie in the pumpkin dress. 

And we tried to get a pic of the 4 kids, all looking, all smiling.  Never easy.

There's always one.  Or two.

So I scrapped the older three, but Allie was totally distracted by the other kids.  

Matt was first to brave the big slide.  Big bump at the end.  

Hay ride!  Well, no hay, but we were pulled by a tractor.  Such perfect weather too.

Allie had to sit by herself because, you know, she's so big.  Or so she thinks.

Then we picked pumpkins and carried them home.  Gray stopped for a photo op by the entrance.  His idea.  We reminisced on how Joshua used to say if he lived in our neighborhood he'd stand in the gazebo there and wave to everyone coming in.  He did not live out that dream once we moved in.

Julia was overjoyed to borrow this Hermione costume- thanks Alicia!  She wanted to wear it to bed, but settled for putting it back on at the crack of dawn Sunday and even came down dressed up, wand and all, to wake me and announce Allie's need for the potty.  She is pumped to be twinsies with her friend Sage this year and trick-or-treat together.

Pumpkin painting and carving.  Gray and Joshua carved with pocket knives and loved it.

Breaking out the sling to keep miss "hold you minute" happy.  She was giddy to be able to be this close to me and Gray happily took over when we had a monstrosity to move upstairs...

The monstrosity.  Joshua has wanted a fish tank for forever.  When his friend Josh had one to give away, we resisted at first.  "But it will just go on my dresser and I'll pay for anything we need and do everything" says Joshua.  We agree.  I had no concept of what a 55 gallon tank would be like.  It's almost as tall as me.

 Another family party by Julia.  Of course no party would be rockin' without worksheets.  She graciously shared her treats from her friends' party and we also had some freeze dance and hide and seek.

Team day at school.  Julia is a wolfpack fan these days and loves this hat.

 Allie playing dress up at school.  My boss thinks she would make a great Harry Potter.  If I had the stuff for it, would totally do that.  But instead, I finally got together a costume idea Jeannie sent me...

 Meet our little Princess Leia.

She will debut tonight at a Halloween party.

Julia had her first mile run at school and did awesome!  Matt and I had to work but thanks to Nanny, Pa, and Stacy for being her cheering section.  She looked strong out there on the videos.  And you gotta love her style.  She has been really into the fact that she is not a "girly girl", but is in fact much more complex than that.  On that note, she is very close to trying basketball again, which I think would be so good for her.

On Thursday, Gray left for her 10 year old trip with Nanny and Pa.  He chose Boston and they seem to be having a good time.  Here they are whale watching!

Thursday Matt had a meeting for a couple hours and wanted me and Allie to drop him off so he wouldn't have to deal with parking.  We ran errands and got a little turned around on UNC campus, getting a side tour of the stadium area and such.  I had to take a pic for Daddy, who was appalled that we would set foot in such a terrible place.  I used to share his repulse for the light blue, but after living here 9 years and all of you darn UNC people that I love so much, my feelings have been muted. 

We stopped in at the Chapel Hill library and Allie loved this huge Clifford.

Cool place to read at the library.

Cupcake butt.

Oh rotten punkins.  They are not fairing too well.  Smell lovely too.

 Friday playdate with Molly and Caleb.  Still seems surreal to have them all with us now.  This time last year we were still waiting on paperwork.

Testing, testing.  I knew it wasn't very normal that she went days without crying.  We're making up for that a bit now.  This scene plays out multiple times a day some days:  Allie wants me to do something, grabs my sweater and won't let go.  I tell her not right now and ask her to let go.  She gives me a look like "you know what I'm going to do if you make me let go...do you really want to do that?" and I give her a look like "oh well, you're going to let go anyway." and detach her hands.  In a millisecond she opens her mouth very wide and screams an angry cry.  She does not like to see that she is not in charge.  Typical toddler, but we also must be entering some new phase of our bonding that she's suddenly feeling free to let it all hang out.  The difference in parenting a little one when you've got older ones (as opposed to all little) is that I have constant reminders of how fast they outgrow these phases, so I'm much more laid back.  Love being her mama!  (Oh, this pic is her watching her favorite (only) show "Baby Signing Time".  All the kids like it actually.  Although, I'm not sure I've seen my kids turn their noses up at anything on a screen.  Anyway, find it on youtube.)

Other news, Matt really likes his new job.  Yay!  And I'm in the process of signing on to a part-time online job teaching Chinese kids English!  Still doing training and deciding if it's for me, but I think it could work.  Will decide in the next week or so.  

The Pumpkin Dress

Of course much more happened this week than the pumpkin dress, but gosh I love this little hand-me-down (thanks, Robyn!) and the little pumpkin inside it. Happened to find it while looking in the attic for a Halloween costume for Allie. (Still got nothing on that front, but we tend to be a last minute costume family anyway.)

 

 

 

We finished Joshua's bday weekend with a visit to the lego store, bringing along his friend Josh who had stayed the weekend with us. A Red Robin dinner finished up the night and Joshua felt tired, but happy. Fun weekend and many times more pleasant than I anticipated. 

 

One of my favorite things about my job is doing science experiments and science learning with the kids, which always surprises me because I've never been too excited about science as a student. This week we were studying plants and did a cabbage experiment with acids and bases. I had brought in a while cabbage for the kids to see and feel so we had some of it for dinner and I decided to let my own children do the experiment with the rest. I don't know what Joshua was doing during this time but the younger three were loving it!  Gray was searching for more and more stuff to mix in and see what would happen...let's add salt! Let's add vinegar!  Lots of fun exploration and they got along beautifully too. 

 

We had a super fun day of preschool Wednesday, with a German parent coming in to teach us about her home country, including some fun snacks and a lantern craft and parade to go with celebrating St Martin's Day. The story behind it is such a good one, as Martin cuts his coat in half and gives half to a beggar, which Jesus later says was like giving Jesus himself a coat. 

Thursday I got some baby things together to try to sell. Don't think we will have anymore infants in our house and it feels good to not hold on to so much stuff. Allie loved playing with it all and showed she really could still use the bassinet in a pinch. 😂

 

Nanny and Pa came over Thursday night to celebrate Joshua's birthday and, full of hope for the evening's game, Matt had us making Cubs cookies that afternoon. 

 

Some of the kids had birthday parties to go to this weekend, plus dance and lacrosse and we have just been trying to get in all this beautiful  weather that we can. Allie was loving the water and sand on the deck this morning.  She has had some uncharacteristic testing of us this week, just doing what we tell her not to while staring with a half grin and iron will. Crying a good bit too. So unlike her but to be expected. Was good to see her all smiles again today. 

 

Hopefully pumpkin patch this afternoon, with more pumpkin dress pics of course. Up this week- Matt starts his new job and Gray ventures up to Boston with Nanny and Pa!  Have a great rest of the weekend!!

Doctors and Diapers, Pyramids and Parties

 Joshua's idea.  I love how appropriate her shirt is here.  This family is forever for you, sweet girl, even when your siblings dress you up all crazy for their entertainment.

 This was Allie's first time playing dress up at home.

Allie loves looking at pictures. I try to talk to her about some of them but I don't know what she remembers.  We talked about her shirt that says Mei Mei and how she was called Fen Fen in China.  We talked about her Ayi in China that took care of her and loved her and she said, "Bye bye Ayi."  It's been 8 months now.  She probably doesn't remember, but I just can't imagine how much she must have missed her when she first left her foster home.  

Matt did 4 nights in a row and then had some time off in his schedule, which was going great till he got a bad cold that has got him down.  He's got one last week at his current unit, then starts the new job next week.

Eventful week around here with several out of the ordinary days including yet another visit to the pediatrician for Allie to catch up on vaccinations and -spoiler alert- we will be back there again in a month to get the prescribed flu shot #2 that is supposed to make it more effective if you've never had the shot before.  (I really want to just skip this one.)  Allie bawled at getting weighed (our nurse said she felt the same way when she has to weigh) and still isn't packing on the pounds, though she's getting taller.  So we are supposed to stuff her full of pediasure and recheck weight in a month.  She is in the .7% for her weight.  I just really don't care about this but am going along with our doctor's efforts for now.  Allie is healthy and happy and nothing irregular came back on her genetic testing, so we are all good in my book.  We visited Duke Gardens after, which we haven't done in awhile.

"Look!  Hiney!" says Allie.  She had to really check that out.

We followed the pediatrician appointment with a dentist appointment for Allie the next day.  She bawled through it again, but at least it's quick!

Allie's doing great at school, though I found out this week that she's not even talking during class and instead of asking will stare down her teacher if she wants more snack. Contrast that will mealtimes at our house, which sound like this: "Mommy, bowl, Mommy, Allie snack, Mommy water, Mommy please milk, Mommy, Mommy, bowl, Allie food", etc. etc.!  She loves crafts and sensory stuff at school and continues to mostly follow me around at home and try to help.  She loves feeding Raven, using the squeegee on the shower, spraying the plants with water, helping cook, etc.  She does like playing with Julia, though, and when she had a friend over, Allie spent the whole time joining in with the big girls.  She and Julia can bump heads, but she's also very sweet to her, which I think surprises Julia because she doesn't get that from her brothers.  If Julia cries, Allie is there rubbing her back.  If she gets hurt, it's "Okay, Judah?"  If she makes Julia mad, it's "Sowwy, Judah."  If Julia drops something, she is there helping her pick it up "Here you go, Judah."  I can just see as they grow that Allie is going to hang on Julia's every word!

Friday night was our Kids' Night Out event for the month.  We have been doing a lot of thinking about the direction of the program lately and even some of the high schoolers wanted to talk about when we first met them, which was sweet.  We are finishing up our 6th year of KNO, which is just hard to believe.  I still remember vividly when it was just one of the ideas we were brainstorming and had no idea what would come of it.  Anyway, Friday night we were talking about building our lives on Jesus and one intro exercise was to make a human pyramid.  I had no idea what a hit that would be.  Each class (2nd grade and up) had such fun with it, as you can see from the pics.  Love these kids.

I spent a lot of time over the last week on diaper duty-- washing, photographing, posting, chatting, etc. trying to sell a lot of our cloth diapers.  Yes, there is a market for that.  I haven't sold them all yet, but most, which is such a blessing to be able to recoup that money and use it for things we need.

 Gray spent a lot of the week reading, trying to reach his personal goal of 2000 minutes read for the school read-a-thon fundraiser.  He did it, thanks to some late night flashlight reading sessions, unbeknownst to me till later.  He finally finished the Harry Potter series too.  He had read some of them twice but there were a couple he hadn't read till this week.

Julia spent a lot of her week doing usual Julia things-- making party plans, playing school, looking for stuff in the woods to make things out of, and enjoying music.  

We ended the weekend with Joshua's birthday party.  He had 8 friends come over Saturday afternoon to play all sorts of things outside, eat dinner, go back out for nerf war (this was pretty good entertainment for the rest of the fam as we sat on the porch and watched them trying to sneak up on each other and get scared when Raven barked at them), and finish the night with a movie.  Five of them also wanted to spend the night and stayed up quite late, but were quiet enough that the rest of us slept on.  I was kinda dreading this party to be honest, and had tried to persuade Joshua to do an outing with one or two friends instead, but they were truly not much trouble at all and I'm glad we let him go with it.

 Love how Julia was unafraid to sit with this table full of boys for dinner. 

Can't believe we have a 12 year old!  Happy Birthday, Joshua!!  He's growing up but staying sweet.  Still loves those hugs and kisses and even volunteered to start making his lunches at night instead of morning to try to make it more convenient for me to put a little note in his lunch box. :) He's never said or shown he's embarrassed of me and he shows in words and actions every day that he cares about his family (some of us more than others, but he's getting there with Gray and Julia).  And from what others say, he's even nicer in public than he is at home.  Pretty proud of my guy.

The Great Outdoors (and Indoors)

With the gorgeous weather we've been having, we have spent so much time outside these days.  Last weekend we (meaning me and Joshua with my "loppers" and Matt with his chainsaw) got to work on opening up our woods so the kids can play more back there and we have a little fewer piles of leaves for snakes to hide under.  With the trunks and branches of the smaller trees we cut, the kids made a "fort" all afternoon.  Well, truthfully here's how that went down--I left the kids to make the fort together while I went in the garage to lift weights.  Within a couple minutes, I was exiting and reentering the garage every little bit because of the screaming going on in the backyard.  Joshua wanted to take over, Gray was feeling offended because he had been the only one planning the fort originally and now had to work with his siblings, and Julia was feeling slighted because she was treated as if she didn't know what she was doing.  After several counseling sessions (which most days lately is all I do around here!), the kids resumed working, with Gray being allowed to dictate his plan and the others come on board.  That worked about 10 or 15 minutes and then after another blowup, I joined in and Gray quit.  Oh well, we did get a lot of time enjoying our backyard and the little wall they made is pretty cool, though I don't have a picture.

On the inside, I had waited 7 months until I got my birthday money (which makes me sound like such a child, but whatever--birthday money is very exciting!) so I could make a China wall to display pictures from our trip.  Took me literally hours to make this collection of frames into a square, but when it finally went up, I was so glad I did it.  I want Allie to always know we are proud that she is Chinese and that we want to talk about her story and her birth country.

 Also on the inside, we did a little clothes cleaning out, which clearly from the picture, was super fun for Julia!  She did a much quicker job of picking out her clothes and getting ready this week once we cleared out stuff she couldn't wear anymore, so despite the whining and drama, I will call this project a success!

 And just throwing in a few pictures of our snuggle bug.  This week, her catch phrase is "Hold you minute".  She means, will you hold me just about every minute of the day.  :)

 Sometimes Julia gets really into playing with Allie and Allie eats it up.  Here, Julia made a hospital bed for her, complete with things to do and eat while she rests, playdoh pills, etc.  They had such a good time and it's always nice to see Allie playing and not saying "hold you minute" ;).

 We are counting laps twice a week for the 5th graders now.  This little peanut is getting more and more comfortable there and wants to walk the track now too.  Her prescription for toddler health-- 3 laps around the track (3/8 a mile) first thing in the morning.  Hand on your hip, option.  Hand to hold, mandatory.

 Thursday night brought us GrandGene to talk Matt to a State game.  And GrandGene brought us books from Mimi.  After dinner, this was the scene...everyone with their noses in their new reads.

 Thursday, Allie and I have a routine of counting laps, going to the riverwalk, and then the library.  The weather was so nice, that we came home and sat in the sun (the little one in her bathing suit because that rash is not looking good these days) and read our new books.  She's gradually letting me add in non-board books, though the one she likes best these days is called "potty".  I may have hidden that one last night.

Friday, we soaked up more great weather and went for a stroller ride with Matt.  As we headed down to the water, Raven started whining and barking like she saw a dog, but there was no dog.  It actually took us a minute to figure out she was barking at a group of deer right by the path.  They weren't really in any hurry to move on either.  One was just a couple feel away and staring at us.  We went on several yards down the path and I suddenly noticed that Matt and Raven had just walked right over a baby copperhead!  I shouted and Matt jumped a couple feet in the air.  :)  You could hardly even see it because of the leaves on the path and I would have stepped right over it- or on it too.  Matt smashed it with his foot (yikes) and we decided to go the sidewalk way for awhile.

 Final pic- Love this shot my friend caught of Joshua and his friends headed down to the creek to fish Friday afternoon.  He's so looking forward to his birthday party with these and a few others next weekend!