Monday, August 27, 2012

Playtime!

Now that Malachi's back in school, Elliott's had to figure out how to play with Jonas more. Jonas is loving all the extra attention from his big brother!
And here's what happens when you let them play together too long:

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Summer Flashback #3

The week before school started was packed with fun! We went to Jackson to have a swimming play date with friends:
Look at all those kids! What fun!
Malachi and I had a special day together in Columbus looking for just a few necessary school supplies. He spent some of his money at the Lego store, ate lunch at Chipotle (his choice), visited Aunt Meggie and found the perfect lunch box.
We went to a splash park with friends in nearby Circleville.
Malachi was able to invite his friend, Carson, over for a whole day of fun the day before school began. They had lots of fun together playing Legos, building forts and hanging out in the tree house.
They even added to the available merchandise at C&M Rock Shop. Malachi was very excited when he realized he wouldn't even have to change the name since Corinne and Carson both begin with "C"! They made a few sales and finished their day with a few extra dollars in their pockets - not a bad way to finish off summer break!

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Summer Flashback #2

Last week we took the boys to Long's Retreat, a water park at a local lake. I had been there when I was young, but it was SO much better than I ever remember it and the boys had a blast!
 
There was a spash pad to play in on one side:
 And the lake, of course:
There were two docks in the lake, one with diving boards and one with a water slide. Malachi was really brave and went down the slide - twice!
 Then on the other side there were go-carts, an inflatable jump house, carousel and rock wall. Malachi was tall enough for the go-carts:
 Elliott was not and had to settle for this:
 We'll definitely be going back, and next year we won't wait until the end of summer to go!

Friday, August 24, 2012

Summer Flashback

In celebration of one week of school being over (and successful!) I thought I'd flashback to summer break and blog a few things that we missed.
 
Back at the beginning of August we were able to take a mini-vacation up to Drummond Island, Michigan, with our friends Andrew and Heather and their family. I've posted before about Drummond Island and the lake house Heather's family owns, and it was just as beautiful, fun and relaxing (or as relaxing as things get with six kids running around) as before.

Malachi and Corinne put their artistic skills to work and sold some hand-painted rocks to anyone who happened by C&M's Rock Shop. If you look closely you can see a rock hanging with the price painted on it- $1.99 each!
Apparently a tied-up jet ski is almost as good as one you can ride around. Elliott would have stayed here for hours!
A trip to the local school's playground was just what the kids needed after breakfast one morning.
 I think Andrew enjoyed himself too!
Elliott was very concerned that there would be a firetruck on Drummond. Lucky for us we found one right next to the playground.
 Best buddies! These two loved playing together all week.
Big kids ready for a hike with Cici- Heather's mom. She was brave and took them all and they had so much fun. When we were leaving both Malachi and Elliott said how they didn't want to leave Cici's house! I think she may have inherited a few more grandkids after our time together!
 Malachi loved being out on the boat!
It was really cold our last morning there, but we still took advantage of time and made a trip to Big Shoal, a great little beach. The kids had fun playing even though we had to break out the sweatshirts!
 A classic view of the sunset from the cabin's deck. Beautiful!
Our last evening turned out to be pretty eventful. Cooper had an accident with the coffee table which resulted in a trip to the island medical center and 11 stitches on his leg. He was tough and it was pretty cute to hear him telling the others all about his boo-boo. Here they all relax with a movie before bedtime.
 A special thank you to the Days and to Cindy for welcoming us to Drummond. We had a great time together!

Thursday, August 23, 2012

11 Months

The countdown is on - in one month we'll be celebrating this cutie's first birthday!
Not many huge updates since my last post about Jonas. I don't want to jinx us by saying how well he's eating or sleeping, although he is improving on both so that's something! He's moving everywhere, getting into everything and wants to be as big as his brothers.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Back to School!

I just dropped our boy off for his first day of school. First grade! Hard to believe, but this year I think it was harder than last! Everything just seemed so much bigger, with less guidance for parents about what would be going on each day and, as Malachi said, there weren't any toys and they'll have to work all day. Ha! No toys and no snacks...I hope he can survive!
His teacher's name is Mrs. Proehl. We met her last night at open house and she seems very nice. I've heard great things about her, including that she enjoys doing lots of hands-on experiments and she's known to push the high achievers. Malachi was disappointed that his best friend, Carson, will not be in his class this year, but as we walked into the school today we passed Carson and he told Malachi that he couldn't wait to play together at recess.
Overall Malachi was very excited this morning - he even got up by himself using his new alarm clock! Now I just have to figure out how to make Elliott understand that school's started so he'll stop asking where Malachi is every five minutes!

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Treehouse

Yesterday I realized that I had forgotten to post pictures of Erik's treehouse project. It turned out great and he is really proud of it. The boys love it and are so excited whenever they get to play in it or go have a picnic there. Erik still needs to build a ladder and he may put in screens, but other than that it's done!
 It's a little dangerous for Jonas right now so he had to hang out in his swing while I took some pictures of the other boys. He was pretty happy about swinging!

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

10 Months!

It's hard to believe that our littlest guy is over 10 months old now and that in less than 2 months we'll be celebrating the big first birthday!
 Jonas has gotten a LOT more mobile in the past few weeks and is officially all over the place. He especially likes to climb and open doors and cabinets. He's mastered climbing up the stairs and is even getting pretty good at sliding back down backwards...with a lot of supervision, of course. He likes emptying my cabinets while I'm busy in the kitchen but usually gets bored shortly after and moves on to his next target. He's fallen headfirst into the toybox a few times this week and grunts, groans or screams when a desired toy is out of reach.
 I've finally given up on baby food. While on vacation I realized that our boy does like to eat...just not that baby food mush! His favorites are any kind of cracker and Cheerios. He's not a huge fan of many fruits or veggies, but he did eat two entire slices of veggie pizza the other day for lunch! He definitely has a mind of his own and is figuring out how to use it. He's still not sleeping through the night but as our summer schedule comes to an end and a regular schedule becomes our norm he's gonna get some sleep training - this momma needs some sleep too! Other milestones from the past few weeks include waving, clapping, blowing kisses, saying "da-da" and "ma-ma", pulling up, and beginning to "cruise" a little. Jonas is happy and smiley all the time and we, especially his big brothers, are really enjoying how he's beginning to become an active part of the family!