Things to remember

• I love newborns. Especially their little peanut heads. Collin's head is covered in hair, and I absolutely love it.

• I forget how tiny babies are. They are so stinkin cute and snuggly.

• The boys wanted to name him Jerry. I have no idea where this name came from. My sister came over yesterday and asked Tyler what the baby's name was and he said Jerry, even though he knows it is Collin. They are pretty disappointed it's not Jerry.

• The best part of having a third is I know what to expect. I know my boobs are going to get as big as watermelons, I know I will cry for no reason when I am home from the hospital, and I know I will not shower, or have a clean house for the next 3 months.

• I am also o.k. with still wearing my maternity shorts and shirts. With the last two, there was no way in hell I was walking out of the hospital wearing maternity clothes. I am fine with wearing maternity clothes now, and I think it will be hard to part with them because they are so comfy.

• Collin sleeps most of the day, and doesn't cry until I change him, but the house seems so full of noise. It is overwhelming at times, and Collin doesn't even make a peep.

• I wasn't as prepared as I thought. Part of this was because he was a week early, but I had my cute jammies and bath robe on order when I went into labor. They got to my house the day I got home from the hospital. Go figure.

• David was set to take some vacation days after the baby was born. I had visions of us doing lots of fun family bonding. He was home for one day after we got home from the hospital and got called into work the next day (today) to haul to the oil spill in Battle Creek. He left at 7:00am and I don't expect him home tonight. They are working around the clock all weekend. How's that for timing! Thank goodness for my mom being here.

• Smart women get epidurals. I was not one of them. I was really freaked out about getting an epidural because of the bad headaches that you can get from them, and I didn't want any other drugs because they affect the baby. Labor hurts and I know this now. Good thing it went fast. Dr. P broke my water at 7:00 am and I had him by 8:30am. The only good thing is right after I had him, I felt great. And Collin latched right on and started feeding like a pro.

• Jake absolutely loves having Collin around. I remember Jake, who was 2 1/2 when Tyler was born, saying the first time he held him "I love him already." Melt my heart. He loves his brothers. Tyler could care less. But I was so excited to have the boys come up to the hospital to meet their brother. It was one of the best parts of having another baby.

• Mr. C loves his thumb. J and T had pacifiers up until age 2, and then I had to try and break the habit. Plus I had to constantly worry that I had a paci at all times. I'm trying to get him to suck his thumb and not use a paci. Any suggestions?

• For having three kids, I think I have been really calm the last few days. I feel like a pro at this. I was by myself for most of the morning today, and even took all three of them to the doctors office for C's check up. With J and T, I would have been pretty freaked out at this point. Of course I didn't shower today, my friend Danielle spent the afternoon with me, and my Mom came by dinnertime and I had dinner brought to me, but I survived without having a break down.

• It was really weird to see three car seats in our van. It looks like a lot to go from 2 to 3.

• I spent hours getting his room ready that he will not sleep in the first three months. I should have been worrying about getting food around for the next three weeks. Who would want to go grocery shopping with a newborn and 2 kids?

• Charlotte is the best nurse in L & D. I had her with Jake and never forgot her. I was so lucky to have her this time. She has the most calming voice and has been doing L&D for 36 years!

• I already forgot how uncomfortable pregnancy is/was and it's only been three days.

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  It's only been three days and I'm already dreading how fast he will grow up.

Cabin, Sweet Cabin

The highlight of the summer for the boys is our trip to the cabin every 4th of July. It is the topic of numerous conversations, and on a daily basis I have to tell them how many more days until we leave for the cabin. This year, I made a countdown calendar because it was getting to be to much asking.

They love it and I can see why. When they get there, the first place they go is the cozy loft full of Lego's and lincoln logs. From there, it's down to the dock for some fishing. That leads to swimming, and then it's time for a walk to the beach for some swinging or teeter totter. The days are filled with summer. Pure summer. There is no time for tv or phones, or for me: facebook. That's right- I went an entire 10 days with no computer (well, I got on-line once at the library). I also went an entire 10 days not cooking, cleaning, or emptying an dishwasher. When I got home, it took me a few days to get used to making dinner again. My mom takes care of everything while we are there, including spending time with the boys and doing the tasks that get repetitive like brushing their teeth. It is such a treat. By the end of the week, I actually get tired of sitting.

David and my siblings came up for the weekend, so the boys had fun with their cousins and Daddy and Uncle Sam spent time fishing with them. The first day we were there Tyler caught a big bass on his little Lighting McQueen fishing pole and he was so proud of himself. He is so content fishing. His only request is a chair, and he will sit there for quite some time waiting for the fish to bite.  

On the 4th we took the boys out in the canoe and kayaks to watch the fireworks. It is so fun to be on the water to watch fireworks. They love it and we don't have to fight crowds. It's only the people who have cabins on the private lake.

By Monday most everybody had left, including David. He has a hard time getting the week after the 4th off work. So every year it is just me, Mom, and the boys for the week. We have no trouble staying occupied. I brought up a night stand I had been wanting to paint and spent way to much time on that project. I also read a whole book, and organized the boys' baby books.

The rest of the time we shopped, went to Harbor Springs, went out to eat a lot, played Sequence, and kayaked. The boys swam all the time. They had a great time doing run and jumps, bouncing on the water trampoline, and playing pirate with Grammy.

I asked the boys to think of something they really wanted to do on their vacation. Jake wanted to have a bonfire, s'mores, and sparklers and I can't remember Tylers request. He usually follows whatever Jake wants anyway. Mine was take the boys to Pirates Cove, a putt-putt place we pass every time we go to Harbor but never stop. It was the coolest putt putt place I have been to. I definitely recommend it.

And vacation is not complete without a stop at Yummy's in Harbor Springs for 50 cent Itsy Bitsy ice cream cone. It is the perfect size for kids and you can't beat the price.

Thanks Mom for all the wonderful memories the boys will have of the cabin!

Summer So Far-

It's already the middle of July, and I have no record of the summer. And I definletly won't in 2 1/2 weeks when this baby comes. It's time to start playing catch up!
In June:

• We celebrated Jake's 6th Birthday with a trip to Michigan Adventure.

• Had a garage sale with my friend Keri.

• Took Jake to the dentist 3 times for cavities and cleanings. I was there once a week!

• Had T-Ball games Monday and Thursday nights.

• Took Jake to swim lessons everyday for 2 weeks.

• Got cable because I was so tired of not having anything for the boys to watch, especially when they were pestering each other. And secretly I wanted to watch Kate Plus 8 all summer.

• Went to the library once a week. I'm working hard to have Jake read 15 minutes each day, and with the summer reading program at the library, he gets prizes for reading- good incentive!

• Picked my Mom up from the airport so she could spend the summer up north and help me when the baby comes.

• Went to Harbor Springs for a weekend with our friends Corey and Keri to help my Mom clean out my Grandpa's condo, while my sister watched the boys and took them to Lake Michigan.

Still Learning

I think one of the best things about having kids is seeing the world through their eyes. Everything is a new discovery and it is so much fun showing them, even the most simple things.

 Back in the summer of 2008, I took the boys to the pond next to our house to explore.

It was full of fun things to look at. We even found the smallest baby turtle I have ever seen. It was about the size of a half dollar. I picked it up thinking it was a rock, and was going to throw it in the pond.

Anyway, I got the idea to catch some tadpoles. We collected some pond water and put it in a small plastic fish tank. Then I did some research to see what to feed our little creatures. I wish I would have taken some notes because I am not sure what I did feed them now, or how long it took for them to turn into frogs, but they did. I can remember one day looking in the tank and our tadpoles were gone. I could not figure out what happened to them.  I was thinking the worst, hoping I wouldn't find it in our house somewhere. I happened to glance on the underside of the rim, and there was the frog! Overnight it had completed the last part of it's cycle of a tadpole and became a frog.

We moved frog's house outside and changed it to a plastic container with a rock so it could get out of the water. We had a lizard looking creature left, and I still am not sure what it was.

We let the eventually let the frog and lizard thing go in the pond. After doing something like this with the kids, I can see why people homeschool. You can take things to a whole new level of learning. I'm pretty sure when I learned the frog life cycle in school, we read about it from a textbook. We did get some books from the library so that I that the boys could learn more and answer their questions.

This is a great book, and it is part of a series called Let's Read and Find Out. Stage 1 books are for ages 3-6.

Last summer, we decided to try again at growing frogs. This time I got fancy and bought a plastic habitat for growing frogs.

We went to the pond again and got tadpoles. We had them for about 6 weeks and they never grew. I got tired of having to feed them and we let them go. I still wanted to have a "theme" for summer learning, so we did gardening instead. You can read more about it here.

Here is another Let's Read and Find Out Book:

This summer, I hadn't really thought of a theme, or anything fun to learn about. It seems like the themes for our learning just sort of happen from exploring. David had a big car hauling trailer sitting in our yard getting ready to sell. The boys loved playing on it, and soon they discovered a robins nest with one egg in it. Everyday they checked on it, and each day there was a new egg until there were 4. Cue mommy for a book:

A week later, David sells the trailer. I took the nest down and tried moving it, but the momma bird never came back. We felt so bad for those babies.

 I know what you are thinking- I did not try to hatch those baby birds myself. Instead we looked around the yard for other nests to observe. We found a small nest in the ferns I hang from our porch. There were 3 small eggs that were the same and one speckled brown egg that was different. Everyday we took the fern down to see if they had hatched. Last Monday when we took down the fern we found 4 baby birds!

We checked on them everyday, and watched mom and dad feed them all day long. When I got the nest down yesterday, the 4 birds could barely fit in it. They had grown so fast in just 1 week. I took a little too long taking pictures, and next thing I knew the babies starting flying off. Jake and I chased them and carried them back to the nest, but they must have been ready to leave. This morning, there was only one baby still in the nest and by lunch time, he was gone.

I still can't figure out why one egg was different. The bird on the top looked a little different that the others.

So this was the summer of birds. Who knows what next summer will be. I am excitied to see. I am still learning right along with the boys, it is just more amazing to me. When you think about how a bird can make this perfect little round nest or a tadpole can turn into a frog, you realize we need to stop our everyday crazy busy lives and just enjoy the simple things with our kids. 

Finishing Florida

I am so ready to finish! We took this vacation almost 2 months ago!! I want to remember everything so I am making myself finish.

Anyway, we went to Boca Grande on Monday. My grandparents had a house on Boca and I went a lot when I was growing up. It was fun to take the boys to the places I went as a kid. I hadn't been since I was 22, so it had been awhile and it brought back a lot of fun memories. We spent the day at the beach and the boys each found a shark tooth. Later we took them to Banyan St. a favorite from when I was little. This picture is not the best-

It's just a fun little street lined with banyan trees.

The boys had a blast climbing and sitting in the trees. After that, it was time for ice cream.  We had a lot of fun at Boca. It is a great little island- it has bike paths, a charming little town, great beach, and not crowded. I actually meant George Bush Sr. in church at Boca when he was president and I was visiting my grandparents for spring break.

It was back to the pool on Tuesday. It was hard to keep the boys out of the water! Later in the day, we took them to the jetty to watch the boats and fisherman. After that we went to downtown Venice and let them play in the water fountains.

Mom and I got to shop on Wednesday. Venice has a lot of fun stores downtown. The boys each picked a souvenir- Ty got a shark and Jake got a t-shirt. We spent the rest of the day at the pool.

Our last day was Thursday. We made it to the beach in the afternoon, and then went out to eat at a fun restaurant right on the water called Pop's. There is nothing better than eating right on the water watching the boats and birds. It kept the boys entertained.

We packed up on Friday to head home. We were going to get up and go in the morning, but thought traffic might be bad so we waited until around 2:30 to leave. We got stuck in some traffic in Florida because of construction. The worst was outside Atlanta because of more construction. We went 2 miles and it took us 3 hours. The boys were still up and it was 11:00pm. David was getting frustrated. The computer battery was already used up so we had no movies. We kept seeing minivans with the flip down DVD players and David and I agreed our next van, we are getting a DVD player in it! I am really impressed though that we did make it home without letting the boys watch movies. We drove straight through the night and still had a big stretch the next day, and no way to charge the computer. They entertained themselves, the same way I did when I was little and there were no tv's in cars! I think we fianlly arrived at 4:00 the next day. It was good to be home! It was a great trip and I loved taking the boys to the beach. Especially Tyler who had never been. We are grateful to my mom and Bob who gave us the opportunity to take the boys on vacation. We have many memories we will never forget.

Finally Florida

So now that we have been home now for over a month, it's time to finally write about Florida. We drove down for Spring Break and meant my mom and her hubby in Venice, where she rented a condo for the month. I was so nervous about driving. At this point, we had a terrible drive to Colorado at Christmas, and a terrible flight to Arizona in February. Something had to go wrong. We left a few days early to beat some traffic and extend our vacation a tad. So we got up bright and early Wednesday morning and drove to Chattanooga, Tennessee. We had an easy drive and the kids did wonderful. We brought our laptop and wedged it between the driver and passenger seat arm rests. The battery only lasts 2 hours so we let them watch a little at a time. The rest of the time they had snacks, played Leapster, colored on ColorWonder paper, listened to books on tape, or took naps. David was in charge of making the hotel reservations before we left, and he chose a Super 8. Really? A Super 8? It was what you would expect for $50. Not so super. We had dinner and let the kids swim in the pool.

The next day we only had to go through Georgia and Florida, but it seemed to take forever. I think we made it to Venice at 4 or 5. I'm glad we drove though, the kids got to see a lot and loved going through each new state. I think it helped Jake understand how big the US is knowing it took us 2 days to get to Florida when he looks at his map on the wall.

We spent a majority of the rest of our vacay at either the beach or the pool. The kids spent hours swimming. It was so fun to watch Jake. He went from learning how to paddle around with no water wings in Arizona to doing cannon balls in Florida.

On Friday, we took the kids to the Mote Marine Aquarium in Sarasota. We thought about doing Disney or Busch Gardens, but I wasn't up for big crowds and a lot of hassle. It was perfect. There weren't many people there, and they had a lot of hands on exhibits. Stingray with barb removed

Panning for sharks teeth

    Mr. Sea Turtle

 Dolphin doing tricks
We all really enjoyed the aquarium. On the way home, we found a cute restaurant right on the water and had a great lunch.

 Mom and Bob at cute restaurant

On Saturday, Venice held an Easter egg hunt in a park downtown. The boys have never really done a hunt besides our own so we thought we would give it a try. For some reason, I really thought it would be a hunt but no, they roped off an area, and dumped some eggs. There were quite a few kids there so I guess I can see why they do it this way. Tyler was pumped. He is usually my shy guy, but he wanted some eggs and was ready to gather. Did I bring my video camera? No. It was hilarious to watch him. He was in the 0-3 age group so he had the advantage understanding and knowing what to do. They announced it was time to start and he was off, collecting those eggs as fast as he could. There was no stopping him. He was on an egg mission. It was so nice to see Tyler come out of his shell- (that one is for you, Bob). Jake was in the 5-7 age group and those kids were fast. He had a harder time finding as many as Tyler, but he did find the "golden" egg and won a stuffed Pat the Bunny. That night we went to another fun restaurant right on the water. I had some great fish. Normally I don't care to much for fish, but I was craving it while we were on vacay. I had it every time we went out to eat. A pelican pooped on my shoulder while we were having dinner. This is all part of eating by the water. You take the good with the bad.

Easter was on Sunday and the kids dyed eggs in the morning. Then we spent the rest of the day at the pool.

We had a yummy Easter dinner of salmon. Tyler said the prayer for Easter dinner:

"Thank-you for this lovely Easter day and Jake, Nana, Grandpa Bob, Mom, and Dad." (Repeat again.) Yes, he really said lovely. Too cute.

I'm going to finish the rest tomorrow. It's getting late and really long.

I'm Single Again

That is- a single parent. David is back to work!!! Today was his first full day back and he was gone from 6am-6:30pm. He will be putting in long days for the rest of the summer, so I'm a single parent again. Today was really good though. I got Jake to school on time, although he asked to be dropped off at the school door instead of me walking him in. I shed a tear watching him walk in the school by himself.

Tyler and I came home and all of a sudden I decided to clean the basement. It turned into a dumping ground the last few months. I would just take stuff down there and set in on the floor instead of putting it away. It took awhile for us to clean all the ladybugs that were down there too. The floor was covered in them. I also made a big pile of garage sale stuff. It feels so good to get that stuff out! By the time we finished it was already time for Jake to get off the bus. The boys played outside until dinner, and then we had burgers on the grill, french fries, applesauce, and root beer floats for desert. So yummy.

Now David is home and has the boys in the bath while I get to relax. My back hurts so bad! I need to get that Gopher Grabber thing you see on t.v. I can't spend all summer bending over picking toys and stuff up. After the boys are in bed, we get to watch The Blind Side. Not to bad for my first day, give it a few weeks and I'll have a different opinion.