HELLO!!!!!

Times flies, especially when you don't blog!  It actually took  me a while to figure out my old passwords/email account registered to my blog.  But here I am. 

I'll give a little update on everyone to catch up...

Lily is now 12.5 years old and in 6th grade.  Sixth grade in PA is middle school!  My child in in middle school!  Did I mention we moved to PA?  Anyhow, Lily is doing great in school.  She is consistently on the Principle's List for straight A's and is recognized for her hard work with many awards from IB awards to a medal for placing on her Spanish test.  She is a hard worker indeed.  She doesn't like homework hanging over her so she will complete it immediately.  Even if that means Friday after school.  She is also figuring out the tween thing and is impressive with her ability to be honest and direct with friends.  She's becoming more independent with wanting to stay home alone (even with grandma and grandpa gone....probably didn't mention they live with us, huh?!) and will hang out in her room listening to music instead of being next to me.  Oh she's growing up. 

Harrison is 10.5 years old and keeps us busy!  His favorite sports are snowboarding (did for first time over spring break in the Poconos), lacrosse and soccer.  Spring is a bit, or a lot, crazy for soccer and lacrosse but it's fun.  He scored goals in both soccer and lacrosse and usually plays mid so he runs a lot.  He also joined running club on Mondays after school because, you know, he wasn't running enough already.  If he's not playing sports he's either playing video games or watching youtube videos of other people playing video games.  Or he's playing with his million and one nerf guns or watching youtube videos of other people playing nerf guns.  His buddy is Lucas and is also hanging out with the neighbor boys too. I plan to stock the fridge/pantry for all the hanging out they will be doing this summer. 

Henry is 7 years old and in 1st grade.  His teacher, Ms. Houtz, is awesome.  He's definitely grown up in her classroom.  He may have gotten a bit spoiled last year by Mrs. Kim.  We are talking visiting siblings for hugs and Hersey kisses.  Frequently.  He's doing great in math and in the highest math class.  Like the other kids, he's taking Chinese and Spanish and seems to enjoy both.  He has the same after school activity desires as Harrison (nerf gun vs. video game) but add in legos as he still enjoys building legos, especially with Randy.  His favorite sport right now is baseball.  He started peewee baseball with Randy as assistant coach.  His mood can certainly impact his enjoyment of anything.  And his mood is definitely improved with food.  He is getting much better about trying new foods.  One of his newer foods and now favorites is tofu!  And....another example of Hen growing up is he went to the dentist.  And he opened his mouth!  Yahoo!!!  He did have a little oopsie while jumping on the couch with siblings.  A quick visit to the ER for 2 staples in his head!  Frequently with Henry I worry about his reaction to things.  And of course I worried about how he would handle staples especially since he wouldn't open his mouth (besides crying) at a routine dental exam 2 years ago.  BUT....staples...no problem.  He did great.  Really great.  The fun box of goodies (Jared Box) given to him in the ER definitely helped.  Legos in the ER.  Why not?!

May is 4.5 years old (it hurts a little adding that .5 since she's the baby) and just started preschool!  We did a lot of mom preschool and she loves learning.  She even has a diarrhea (ie actually a diary but apparently so close that she calls it diarrhea all the time) and does homework in it without any prompting.  That's just her style of play.  Otherwise she loves to do art and make new creations out of googly eyes, pipecleaners, etc.  We bought stock in scotch tape because we have to buy it all the darn time.  Currently she is putting together a puzzle.  Elsa from Frozen puzzle of course.  Still loves, loves, loves her red panda and blankie.  Don't have to take them everywhere but mommy handa does join us frequently.  She still naps and just this week I stopped giving her structured naps (in bed, read books, mom snuggle) but she still finds a way to snooze.  She started gymnastics and loves it.  Loves her coach too.  There isn't much May doesn't like.  She's not a huge fan of spiders and bugs BUT we started to attach names to them so she's much more tolerant of them.  Jim Bob isn't so scary when he's called Jim Bob. 

So that's good for now.  Long day of sports and finishing with forcing kids to watch Beetlejuice.  They just can't appreciate movies that we loved as kids! I'm tired.  Everyone's snuggled on the couch.  Time to enjoy that. 

Henry, Oh Henry

My little buddy loves to collect things. Very random things. I knew when I cleaned out our mud room cubbies he would be in his element. Captured is Henry wearing his dad's helmet band, a headlamp, a hammer and a golfing tee. 

Not sure if these items speak more of his interesting fashion sense or of my exotic collection in my mud room cubbies. 

Kids rule the world

Maybe not the world, but it's impressive when a 2 year old determines your day. May and I just dropped off Lily and Harrison at school and instead of going inside to tidy up the kitchen after breakfast we are sitting in my van. May's  favorite activity as of late is to play in my van. Pushing all the buttons, opening doors and appearing confused when the child safety lock prevents them from opening over and over. All the while I sit nearby slightly bored and knowing there are breakfast bowls needing to be rinsed and cereal needing to be swept off the floor. But at least now I can blog about it. Yeehaw!! 

First day of school (A week late!)

Lily 4th grade!!

Harrison 2nd grade!!

Preschool and turning the big 0-2

This momma was hit hard in one day by proof of babies growing up too fast. Henry was off to his first day of preschool AND May turned 2 years old. On the same day. Tears. 

Henry was my first stay at home baby.  Despite working from home for his first 1.5 yrs he never went to daycare. A college girl babysat him a few hours a week during my work from home stint. He got a lot of mom's attention!  Anyhow, I was worried about him and it was for nothing. He did great. Big smiles going and big smiles coming home. 

May's birthday was pretty low key. Grandma Kim and Grandpa Roger visited for her birthday which is always nice.  I made her some cupcakes and she was sung to about 100 times that day. So much she started singing it (as best she could).  She got some trucks, books and I'm going to decorate her bedroom since she never really got any decorations at all. Since birth. 😁 

Waiting for kids

I'm currently sitting in car pool line waiting for Lily and Harrison to get out of school. Usually I walk to their team door (Harrison's at least, can't be two places at once although that would be soooo nice) and walk home or to our car with them. But they are happy with the extra independence of meeting each other and walking the back trail to my car (where I wait with all the other parents).  And now I can blog while doing so!  

Not to exciting of a post but I'm over the moon to have the easy access of the app!  And can blog as easy as posting to facebook! 

First time blogging via app!

The hardest thing about not blogging for so long and actually keeps me from blogging, is that I have so much I need to write about.  It gets overwhelming.  But I will take a deep breathe, in through my nose, out through my mouth and...blog.

Right now, Randy and I are in bed watching The Voice.  He's eating ice cream while I blog.  What I love about us is that we just laughed (I laughed until I cried) about something so silly...I was staring at him thinking about what I was going to blog and he caught me staring and was taken aback thinking I did something to his ice cream.  So that probably isn't funny to anyone else but we just cracked up for a few minutes.  So yeah...what was I saying?

This past weekend, Randy was pretty sick with a virus.  Like contagious (higher fever for 2+ days) and self quarantined himself to the basement.  This virus struck earlier in the week with May and hit Lily but not as hard.   It was a hard weekend with May being 18 months old (which I know because she was being such a pill for days-yes she was sick-but this went on for longer than her sickness, and because my kids don't hit age 2 and turn terrible, they like to hit that milestone early at 18 months!) and Randy being out sick.  But it's Monday and we all survived and Randy is better!  He's even eating ice cream. Haha.

Henry received his birthday present from Grandma Sherry in the mail.  A brand new scooter.  He's pretty excited.  So is the 18 month old.  Can't wait until she tries riding it outside on the sloped driveway.  Uh huh.

Lily is the homework champ.  She has until every Friday to complete a 1 page worksheet and practice her spelling words but she does them immediately after school on Monday.  Since I am a HUGE procrastinator, I am in awe.

After school, Harrison read me his literacy library books, did his homework and tried out a new math website on the "big computer." And before May's bedtime I planned to read a few Dr. Suess books since it's Dr. Suess week, but Harrison requested to read them.  Yay!!  Love his interest in reading.  He's really improved this year and went up a few levels just from December.  Happy! Happy!  Happy!

And now, we have a quiet house.  Everyone is asleep.  Maybe not Lily.  She likes to read for a very long time before bed.  Sometimes I feel like I should make her stop reading to get to sleep but that seems wrong.  Occasionally if shes reading an really great book she'll come into my room and have to tell us about it.  Then we might suggest she get to bed and continue reading tomorrow.  But again, love when my kids love to read.

So I'm outta here.  Hope to blog again soon!!

cool new toy

Happy Halloween

I know we're missing a baby but I can't manage to upload a photo from my phone.