Red Room

One of the really great things about our church is the children's program. However, it does take a lot of volunteers to make that happen. I wish I could say I love children so much that I am signed up for regular nursery duty, but I am not. I really don't love hanging out with other people's kids. But I feel like it's pretty selfish for us to have three kids in the nursery every week and not be willing to help when needed. So I have told the nursery coordinator that we are willing to work when she needs help. Today was a fifth Sunday which means they don't have anyone regular signed up, so she called me and asked if Jason and I were willing to work. We were able to work and were assigned to the red room, which is older one-year-olds. It went reasonably well and Clara was able to come in with us even though she is normally in a different room. Here I am reading a book to two of the kids. We probably will be working on occasion and I would be totally happy to work in this room again.

Look Out, Ladies!

Pretty much since he was a baby, Joshua's had long hair.  We've liked the longer curlier look for him.  But this year we decided to get him a shorter haircut for the summer.  So I took him with me to get a haircut.  The first try wasn't short enough, so we went back today, and I think it came out great.  What a handsome little guy!  The only sad thing is it makes him look older, which is yet another reminder that he's not our little baby or even a toddler anymore, but he's a full-fledged little kid.  But if he's going to have to be a kid, at least he's a good-looking one!

Corn with a Hat

You know how every so often there's a famous actor or actress who decides he or she should should not only act in movies but also start directing them (Affleck, Eastwood, Clooney, Penny Marshall, etc)?  Well that's sort of what happened to Joshua today.  He knows that we take a lot of pictures in our family, and of course he is often the star of them.  We got Chili's takeout for dinner tonight, and Joshua had corn-on-the-cob as his side item.  We also gave him a pear cup so he'd have some fruit.  He decided the empty pear cup should go on the stick in the cob, and he pointed out that the corn had a hat.  We acknowledged this, and he then declared, "Picture!".  It didn't really seem picture-worthy to us (I mean, it was a little cute, but not that cute), but since it was his request, we took a picture, and now that's our picture of the day, courtesy of Joshua's daily photo blog directorial debut.

A Visit with Dr. Matt

Today I took Joshua and Clara to the dentist. This was Clara's first ever visit. Clara did not agree to be examined in the chair, but I held her and she let them look at and clean her teeth while she sat with me. Joshua was totally on board with everything. On the left, you can see our hygienist, Sara, cleaning his teeth. Though Clara wasn't willing to let them examine her in the chair, she did enjoy sitting in the chair with Joshua for awhile. Each chair in the office has a tv mounted on the ceiling directly over the chair so kids can watch tv while being examined. On the right, you can see Joshua and Clara checking out the show. They were both cavity-free and Dr. Matt was happy with their lack of plaque.

Grocery Day

Because my in-laws are so sweet and helpful, I have very rarely taken the kids to the grocery store because I typically go during the times they are watching the kids. However, occasionally I need just a few things and need to bring the kids. I have never brought all three unless you count the time I had Clara in a sling, Joshua in a cart, and Hannah in utero and it was not a pleasant experience. I feel a little overwhelmed by the thought of it so haven't tried it since then. Two is totally manageable, though, as long as there is an appropriate cart. Wal-mart surprisingly doesn't have much to offer there, even though the people who shop there stereotypically have a lot of kids. Hy-vee and Price Chopper do a better job. Today the girls and I went to Hy-vee while Joshua was at preschool to get some milk and bananas. Clara loves shopping and Hannah seemed fine with it even though I was a little nervous about it since this type of cart doesn't offer as much support as a normal one and she seemed a little wobbly. Clara wasn't that interested in driving. She really likes to hold groceries so she was asking to hold pretty much everything she saw.

Smile and Say "Arrrrgh"

This week, the theme at Joshua's summer program is pirates. They are doing a lot of cute projects and also reading pirate-based books. Today Joshua made a hat and eye patch. Here he is modelling them. On the left, you can see his cute pirate pose as he is saying "argh". One of the funniest things about him in his eye patch is he had a really hard time figuring it out. On the right, you can see one of the many times he accidentally put the string over his other eye, which made him not be able to see which he thought was funny.

Clara decided to get in on the act and try on the hat. In this photo you will note that the craft store that the preschool used apparently was out of medium skulls so they went with teddy bear and cross bones instead.

A Big Bra

Lately Joshua has gotten to the age where we have to be on guard against him making people feel bad. Like he wants to call any remotely middle-aged woman or man grandma or grandpa. He also has recently become very interested in big tummies since Aunt Julie is nine months pregnant and actually does have kind of a big tummy at the moment. However, it doesn't take much imagination to realize that identifying big tummies probably isn't going to go well. One day he was making big tummies out of playdough (he is very interested in big tummies) and mentioned that I had a big tummy. We talked about how we don't tell people they have a big or small tummy, we just say they have a tummy. I doubt that really sunk in, but it's a start. Apparently not enough of one though. Today I was putting Joshua to bed and he put his blanket in his shirt and I asked him why he was being so silly. He told me he wanted a big bra like me. And then he was excited that he had one after stuffing the blanket in there. I guess I'd rather be identified with having a big bra compared to a big tummy, but only marginally. So still some work to do there.

Potlucks, Family Parties, and Flying Wallendas

We are still loving our church and Sunday School class. Today our class held a potluck after church to allow us to get to know each other better and also for everyone to meet each other's families. Unlike many group food settings (like in a restaurant), this worked well because all the kids had plenty of room to run around.  Joshua and especially Clara took advantage of this and ran around like crazed fools.

In the evening we went to Mom and Ron's house for a family celebration of Mom's birthday.  All of our local family were in attendance, which was great.  Matt, Abby, and David couldn't stay the entire time but were there for quite awhile.  Meghan made Clara a dairy-free cake with dairy-free frosting so she wouldn't be left out of the cake fun.  Ron organized the event, and it went off really well.  Mom seemed very pleased to have a chance to celebrate the day with much of her family. 

And we avoided a potential huge downer when Nik Wallenda successfully tight-roped across part of the Grand Canyon instead of falling to his death in front of us on live national TV.  That just might have put a tiny damper on the evening, so we were all glad that worked out.  

Welcome, Weber

I mentioned recently about our purchase of a new Weber grill.  I didn't have time to finish putting it together until this past week, which meant this weekend was going to be its debut.  Tonight's plan was grilled chicken burgers, which made it the perfect night for the maiden voyage.  Everything went well, and the burgers tasted great.  The biggest difference between the two grills is the quality of materials and craftsmanship.  That said, our old grill held on way beyond its expected lifespan, so the Weber had certainly better match that, or I'll probably regret the purchase.  But so far, so good.  And much like K-State men's basketball coach Bruce Weber, my Weber grill had a good start, but it's got a ways to go to prove itself.

Torreon and Croquet: Our Kind of Evening

Meghan and I always appreciate the chance to have a night to ourselves, and tonight was one of those nights, as it was a pre-planned date night in which Mom and Ron were watching the kids for us. We started out by going to one of our favorite restaurants that is not very kid-friendly, Torreon. We've always liked it, though in the past it's been annoying as it was pretty much the only Mexican restaurant I know of that didn't have unlimited chips and salsa for free. We (and especially I) are chips and salsa fanatics, so we would never not get it with our meal at a Mexican restaurant and the one complimentary basket was not normally adequate, so it was always a little aggravating that we had to pay a few bucks for it. We were pleased to see this time that they had dropped that policy and provided us with the all of the delicious appetizer we wanted for free.

We also love games, and something we used to do a lot in our old house that we hadn't yet done in this house was play croquet.  It's the type of game that doesn't work too well with small kids, as I'm pretty sure Joshua would dedicate himself to finding and removing every wicket and also chucking the croquet balls across the yard.  Mowing is on the agenda for tomorrow, which means that the grass is quite long now, so it wasn't ideal for yard games (you can't even see Meghan's ball in the picture), but it still worked and was a lot of fun.  We were really appreciative of the chance to have a night to ourselves and to get to do some things that we can't normally do.

Someone's Got a Brand New Bag

Today our parent-educator came and visited with us. She did a new game with the kids that involved hiding certain items in a bag and having the kids guess or figure out what was in the bag. I like it when she gives me ideas for these types of things because this is something that can be done on multiple levels at the same time for both kids. Like for Clara it's more about memory and remembering what is missing. For Joshua, he can use reasoning skills to feel the object in the bag and think about its characteristics and try to guess what it might be based on what he feels. Elizabeth also left some suggested activity sheets for the kids that have other ideas on them so those are nice to have.

The Littlest Rebel

All the parenting books say at Clara's age you should distract from undesirable behavior. This is pretty ridiculous for her as she has refused to distract from six months old and maybe earlier. She is a very focused girl and, when she decides she wants to do something, it's what she wants. Period. She doesn't want to stop working on her goals to play your stupid game or whatever you are trying to distract her with. Even if she temporarily takes the bait, like if you offer a really good snack or something, as soon as she is done, she goes right back to what she was doing. It's really not effective for her. Right now we are storing our children's chairs in the basement behind a gate because every time she has access to them, this is what she does. She knows three things: 1) Joshua uses his hands to unlock the doors sometimes 2) Outside is the most gloriously wonderful place in the entire world 3) To go outside you need the door to be unlocked. So being a realist, she understands she can't unlock the door because she's too short. So her solution is to bring the chair to the door to unlock it. This is a good idea. Unfortunately, kids aren't allowed to open doors without permission in our house and also are not allowed to stand on chairs when they are not on the carpet so it's not working out as she hoped and the chairs are almost always not available to her at this point.

We Have a Crawler

Hannah must have sensed her baby book milestone page was getting a bit dusty because yesterday she army-crawled for the first time. She isn't super motivated to move, so she doesn't go all the time, but she definitely can get somewhere when she wants. It's really cute because though she sometimes army-crawls, she more often moves like a little inch worm and puts her bottom in the air before straightening out. Here, she is looking pretty proud about her moving skills. Not content with only one new entry on her milestone page, she also figured out how to sit unassisted and can now move from laying down to a sitting position on her own. It will be interesting to see if now that she has more freedom, she will decide she wants to go and start moving everywhere or if she'll keep her trend of being mellow and content to stay in one place most of the time.

First Day of School

Today was Joshua's first ever day of school, though it will be short-lived since this is only a three-week program. I made the decision not to enroll him in preschool this year for several reasons, but I still want him to be able to enjoy social situations with his peers. So we did soccer in the spring and this summer we are doing preschool summer camp and we'll probably choose something in the fall too. This week they are learning about growing and are focusing on The Very Hungry Caterpillar as well as the concept of seeds growing into plants. He seemed to have a good time and Clara also enjoyed having some less divided attention too.

Father's Day: First with All Three

I flew home from Vegas today, just in time to see the kids before bedtime.  They had to stay up a little past their bedtime, but it was worth it for me to get to see them on Father's Day.  We started off enjoying some caramel mini-cakes that Meghan had made for me, knowing how much I love caramel.  We then opened cards.  I thought we could get a nice picture of me with all three kids first without cards, and then with cards.  But the above picture is how things started out, with all of them only barely tolerating the process.  It quickly got worse from there and ended up with this:

Even Hannah was annoyed with the process.  So we didn't really get the picture we'd hoped for.  Joshua and Clara got down, and Hannah must have been relieved not to be crowded anymore, as she cheered up enough to take a picture of me with the cards.  Meghan got me a nice card from her, and she made a really great card from the kids and pets.  Here you can see an image of the kid portion of it (the three pets had a similar setup also with the letters on the inside of the card)::

Unfortunately the wedding was this weekend, so I didn't get a full day at home today, but it was still a special day, as it was my first Father's Day as a father of three.  We certainly didn't expect to have so many kids so quickly, but it's been such a blessing to us, and I love all three of my little ones so much.  I love having them all as children now, and I know I'll only love it more as they continue to grow.

Chad and Anna

Today was Chad's wedding.  We all went to the wedding chapel (well, one of the wedding chapels) in Mandalay Bay.  The ceremony was short but nice.  Chad looked smooth in his tux and Anna was beautiful in her dress.  After the ceremony we went back to their suite for the reception.  Anna is Mexican, and while she speaks English just fine, some of her family doesn't, so the speeches were translated into Spanish, which was fun.  The only formal pictures were of the family right after the ceremony, so I wanted to make sure we got a picture of our group of guys.  From left to right are Brett, Deyrle, Jason, Chad, me, Mike, and Nick. 

Bullets and Paintballs

One of my best friends from college, Chad, moved to California a few years ago.  He got engaged this year to his girlfriend, Anna.  They are getting married this weekend, specifically tomorrow, in Las Vegas.  Because most of Chad's friends still live in Kansas, he's also having his bachelor party this weekend, specifically today, while we are in town.  I arrived this morning just in time to join in the festivities.  Chad, along with Nick, Jason Keeler, Kroening, Deyrle, Brett, Anna's brother Federico, and one of Chad's California friends started with a trip to the shooting range.  This wasn't your average shooting range though.  They specialize in machine guns.  So I shot a Glock 9mm, an M4, an UZI, and an AK-47.  It was awesome and scary at the same time.  Firing a real, full-automatic weapon is an absolute rush.  Here you can see a perfect photo showing the muzzle flash (photography courtesy of Nick) and me looking way tougher than I really am.  But probably it's easy to act tough when you're holding an AK.

Later we went to an indoor paintball field.  I don't have any pictures, as my camera was locked in the locker, but here's the picture of the aftermath:

It looks even worse in real life, and that's one of several welts I have.  But that's how paintball goes.  It was a lot of fun, except when the 14-year-olds came in to play and we challenged them, and they made us look like the old 30-somethings that we are.  We then went back to Chad's suite in Mandalay Bay for some pizza and beer, followed by us hitting the casino and presumably contributing funds for Mandalay Bay's next expansion project.  All in all a great first day doing fun things with some of my best friends in the world.

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I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for the Last Time

Today Peg came over and watched the kids while I went to VBS. I think they appreciated being home and being able to sleep in so it was super nice of her especially because one of their cars is in the shop so they temporarily only have one. Since Ron was at work after he dropped Peg off this morning, I drove her home after VBS. Because the kids and I were out anyway, I decided to get some Sonic and bring it home and eat/drink it. It was delicious and we all enjoyed it, though Joshua probably enjoyed it the most. It's hard to beat his over-the-top delight in ice cream. Later in the afternoon, the doctor called me with Clara's biopsy results from her procedure on Monday. Everything is normal and healthy except they did find she is lactose intolerant. Though we are super glad to know she has no serious medical conditions, it's kind of a bummer because that's something that never goes away and I hate denying her fun things like ice cream and grilled cheese. Though it is possible cheese may be something she can eat. There are varying degrees of lactose intolerance and it's kind of trial-by-error to figure it out. But milk and cream are pretty much not okay for anyone with this issue. So this may be her last milk shake that we don't make at home. In general I think this is something we can work with since most places have other types of treats (like slushies at sonic) and I enjoy making my own ice cream so I am sure I could make something for her here at home.

Home in the Hawkeye State

Nearly all of my business trips involve flying, but every now and then it's some place I can get to by car.  Sometimes it's Wichita or St. Louis, but this time it was Iowa.  Other than Kansas, where I've now lived for more than half my life, Iowa is my "home" state, so I'm always happy to go back there.  Several years ago I was able to see my grandparents while I was there, but I didn't have time to do that on this trip.  I had a meeting in Cedar Rapids, which is a five and a half hour drive for me.  As I've mentioned before, I love driving, so if it's at all reasonable to get there by car, I will.  So I drove there last night, and we had a business meeting this morning, and I drove home after that.  It was a lot of hours in the car, but with the windows down, sunroof open, and music cranked, I could drive all day.  And including stops for fuel and dinner, I pretty much did.  

VBS

This week I am volunteering at our church's vacation bible school. Because I am not really a big fan of hanging out with other people's kids, I am working in adult snacks. You might be thinking "Adults get snacks?" Yes. Not only is this not your mom or grandma's VBS, this probably isn't really even your VBS from when you were a kid. This is a huge production with 300 volunteers and 700 kids. So there are separate kids and adult snacks. The team leader did a great job planning the menu and each day has a theme. Today was breakfast food, though some food like the meat and cheese tray I am working on and the fruit the lady beside me is working on, are consistent every day. (I can totally see despite the hair covering my face. I didn't want to touch my hair while I was preparing food so I didn't move it out of my face, but it didn't make for a very good picture). Since my kids are too young for VBS (which is for kids aged four through sixth grade), they are in nursery care, which is only for the kids of volunteers. Joshua is old enough that he has some actual programming, such as the craft he made yesterday which you can see in the picture.

Getting an EGD

Clara is still quite short for her age and very light for her age. The pediatrician recommended that we have her evaluated to see if there were any specific treatable health issues that were causing this. We've been to several appointments for several different tests with several different specialists. So far, nothing significant has been found. Today was the last planned test. I took her in to see a gastroenterologist to get an esophagogastroduodenoscopy.  Yes, that's a 26-letter word.  Basically they stuck a cable with a camera down her throat to view her insides and to collect tissue for a biopsy.  They used Propofol to put her under, which is now famous for being the drug that Michael Jackson's doctor misused resulting in the singer's death.  Our doctors were good, so everything went well.  When she woke up, they gave her water and snacks since she had been fasting since the night before.  This is what I saw when I first walked in to her recovery room.  The doctor said he didn't see anything abnormal but that the results of the biopsy would tell the full story.

Later in the evening Joshua got a hold of a container of floss and pulled a bunch out. Not wanting to waste it, I started flossing my teeth, and Joshua and Clara joined me in a floss-fest.

Home Again

Today we drove back home to Kansas. This is our cabin with the kids making their own fun while we get all our stuff together so Jason can load the car while I get them dressed. Our normal "vacation" breakfast is French toast. I never make it at home and almost always make it on vacation. I am not sure why other than it is good, though not so good I want it all the time and it's very easy to make with a very few basic ingredients and is very easily customizable to what you have on hand. I think the first time I did it was in Puerto Rico where the hotel we stayed at supplied you with eggs, milk, and bread so it was kind of an obvious thing to make. Since then we frequently do it including several times in Florida and yesterday. But we wanted to try the Devil's Den restaurant, so we forwent our traditional vacation breakfast and went out.

Our Cabin	On the way to the restaurant, before anyone else saw it, Joshua alerted us to the fact that one of the park's many deer was very close to our car

Our breakfast was okay. The food was generously portioned and reasonably priced, yet only mediocre tasting. And it took a full hour (at one point we wondered if the waitress was actually the cook, but apparently they were just slow). But we were glad to try to the restaurant, and we got to walk around the pretty recreation area one more time.

On the way home, we decided to take a scenic detour and drive the Pig Trail Scenic Byway. There are a lot of scenic drives I would love to take in Arkansas, though most of them are a little further east than we were on this trip. But this one wasn't too far out of our way, so we decided to take it knowing it probably wouldn't be super exciting. It wasn't. There were some nice forest views and some decent scenic overlooks like this one, but it wasn't super special. However, Jason and I love driving on state and federal highways (as opposed to interstates) so we really enjoyed it anyhow. And because we didn't add too much time to our trip, we were able to make it to the vet just a hair before 6pm, so we were able to get the dogs today which is good because we are both pretty busy tomorrow.

Big Day in the Park

Today was our only full day in the park.  One of the best things about the park is the hiking trails.  We decided to try to tackle one of them as a family.  We chose Devil's Den Trail.  It's the most popular trail due to having such a wide array of things to see, although the cave is now closed due to white nose syndrome, which is sadly killing these bats and many others across the country.  But we saw the waterfall, which Clara liked to feel the water falling on her hand, as well as some other beautiful natural features.  They say they don't use guardrails and warning signs on the trail to preserve the beauty, but as a result some places were pretty dangerous, but we held onto the kids to keep them safe.  It was a pretty strenuous trail for the kids, and therefore for us, so we took a welcome rest when we returned to the car.  We then went to the picnic grounds for a nice picnic lunch.

After the kids started their naps, I decided I wanted to try trail running.  I chose a different trail, Yellow Rock Trail, and ran it.  It was less dangerous and more wooded, which made for a great running trail.  It's famous for having impressive geological features as well as Yellow Rock, which is an outlook point.  It's flat and is a great place to look way out into the distance, but you'd also plummet to your death if you fell off.  I made sure not to get too close, even though it looks like I'm closer to the edge than I really am in this shot (my mom is probably nearly fainting while looking at that picture).

We finished the day with a grilled dinner on our outdoor table, s'mores for everyone, and then bedtime for the kids.  One weird thing about this cabin is the beds are extremely and weirdly tall.  So I made a bed last night on the floor for each of the two older kids in their rooms to eliminate any risk of injury due to falling/climbing out of bed.  It was a really big day today, but it was very fulfilling, and I think we made the most of our main day here.