Three's a Crowd

I am so glad our boys love their mei mei (little sister)...sometimes though it seems like she can become another competition between these loving brothers.  Today they were both trying to entertain her and kept vying for her attention.  Actually, the boys have been playing together surprisingly well the past couple of weeks.  Austin does get his "bossy big brother" on and Bennett will end up in tears at some point most days, but they do love love each other and are having fun playing "train" (one on the top bunk, one on the bottom riding the train), "hotel"- our curtains are the elevator, the Boppy game- where they take my Boppy pillow and chase each other and so on.  Here is the cutest crowd of three around these parts:

A: "Hey Mei Mei look at these shapes"

 B: "No Mei Mei look at this computer!"

 "Mei Mei, Mei Mei look at me, look at my toy i picked for you!"

 "Ok, we can show her together"

So happy together... What Lucy really loves is people and eye contact.  She is entertained by toys these days, but if you leave her alone long enough she will get kinda fussy.  But if someone goes and looks at her and talks to her, she is all smiles.  Or if we put her where the boys or boys and their friends are playing, she is VERY entertained.  Maybe we finally have an extrovert in the family?  Hard to know...Bennett was a VERY extroverted baby but not so much these days.

Also I am happy to report Chris got home safely last night...tired but it was a fun reunion for all of us.  he brought me enough wheat germ to last till May, NYPD matchbox cars for the boys and 2 new pair of slim pants for Austin and a belt from Lands End.  However, they STILL seem to fall off of him. He has a constant crack showing these days, my little skinny boy, and I am not sure what else to do about it. These Lands End purchases were sort of a last resort...maybe I will post a picture sometime of the problem.

Where are you Spring?

Another week has gone by, with more sickness and I am getting stir crazy.  I am ready for some warmer weather.  While it is in fact warmer than it has been (today low 28 and high 46) it just is still cold.  We don't go outside to play. We could and should probably start...but we still are getting very bundled, bringing an infant and my middle child does not like the cold at all.  Bennett will be miserable and cold and tell you about it...and it isn't very fun.  But have spent a LOT of hours in our house lately so I am hoping for Spring.  Two years ago we had snow in March, so it is nothing like the SE United States in March, which I miss about this time of year.

While Chris was gone I did get the stomach bug Saturday afternoon and night, but it wasn't as bad as his bout of it.  Again, Jason and Angie fed my kids dinner when I couldn't even be around the smell of food- so thankful for them.  We need to contact our landlady soon, as our contract is up in May and we want to settle the next year of rent early since we will be coming to the US for the summer.  We are really praying she won't raise the rent too too high (it is almost certain she will raise it...rents continue to increase at amazing rates in this city...up, up, up) because it would be so hard to move.  Especially though I have gotten so spoiled living right next door to our friends and don't want to move away from them.  So please think of us as we will probably contact her in the next week or two.
Bennett and Lucy have runny noses and don't feel great and Austin told me today he thinks he is getting it.  Do families with multiple small children ever get all well?

Here are some of the indoor things we have been doing...hoping to trade some in for outdoor playing soon.

 More camping out...couldn't resist this photo.  Sleeping side by side with matching pajamas.  We did put the tent away last night...there wasn't much room to play in their bedroom.

 Watching the Heels play with Daddy while Mommy was gone...even Lucy was in on the action.

 Watching some video...trying to limit that but with lots of sickness in the house, it tends to increase.  Bennett is more clothed than usual here.

 Bennett has learned to write his own name.  Actually, he has been able to write the letters for awhile, but usually when he writes he gets the order wrong or puts too many N's or T's or adds other letters because he loves writing letters. But now he is writing all the letters correctly in the right order every time (and if he gets it wrong his big brother is NOT afraid to correct him...it is hard to be the little brother sometimes).

Seperate Ways

I had the amazing privilege to get away for a few days this week at a retreat for women who live overseas. It was a really fun time to meet other women, be encouraged, have time to myself and even be pampered.  The people who put on the retreat bring volunteers who do massages, physical therapy, pedicures and other things.  I was very thankful to Chris for staying home with all three kids...Lucy actually took the bottle well all three days.  I was worried i might have to come home early if she didn't.  Poor Chris...Tuesday (I was gone Sunday to Wed) he started feeling badly.  I came home for a couple hours and then returned, and then he started throwing up.  Then our neighbor Jason was helping Chris out by watching the boys during dinner and Austin threw up all over their couch.  Needless to say, they both win husband/dad awards for letting me (and Angie) be away and dealing with all of that while I was gone.  Chris didn't even tell me that Austin was sick for fear I would come home, but let me finish out the last day!  It was a treat and no one has thrown up since I have been home...still hoping B and L will not get sick ( and me too).
So I got home Wednesday and as I write this on Thursday, Chris is on a plane for a quick trip to the U.S.  So we literally were passing each other in the night...but I am really thankful to start Chris' trip with a full tank.

Camping out

Austin has been really into pretend camping lately.  Several days at nap he has asked if we can set up our travel tent downstairs so he and blue puppy can go camping.  He will acquire pots and pans from the kitchen, pretend food and other things to go along with the tent.  So the other day I looked in the backyard and was surprised to see our little tent back there.  Apparently Austin had put it in the backyard at 7 am!  The rest of the day he kept talking about wanting to camp in the backyard, while I said that sounded like a fun idea, it would NOT be fun when the temperature at night is in the teens.  He kept asking about it and I tried to explain what frostbite was.  Later that day I overheard this conversation:
Austin: "Bennett we can't camp in the backyard tonight.  Mommy says there is something. It's frostbite and its worse than mosquito bites and we might get it.  So we can't camp in the backyard."

Ha ha.  I kept laughing as I thought of him trying to conceptualize "frost bites" on his body.  So I had something that evening and went out. I came home to this. 

 

Chris helped the boys "camp" in their bedroom.  They read stories by flashlight in a dark room.  They built a Lego campfire.  Their play food was all over the floor.  And I found Bennett and Austin both asleep in this small (one child size) tent. Bennett was naked (of course), with his rear on the same end as Austin's face.  Lest Austin wake up to a puddle in his face, Chris and I wrestled his pull up back on him, without Bennett waking up. They slept all night together in that tent.  Austin has camped every night since then, on the floor of his room but Bennett seems to prefer his bed and is back in it.  Hopefully clothed.  Our boys can certainly be creative in their play and provide quite a few laughs as well.

Happy Belated Valentines Day

I have spent all this week catching up from being sick for a whole week the week before...so this is a bit of a belated post.  We had a nice Valentine's Day.  Here the translation for Valentines Day is "lovers day" which doesn't really include kids or family love...but we made a big deal of that kind.  The boys made simple cards for our family and friends.  We started the day with these...Austin insisted we must eat something with hearts for breakfast.

 Pink chocolate chip pancakes, in case you couldn't tell.

 The boys sporting new pajamas in a Valentine's package from Nana and Bop...and enjoyed lots of candy.

 Lucy in her little Valentine's outfit in the package too.  Lucy rolled over last week!  From front to back- she hasn't done it since then but definitely likes to scoot around on the floor and can change positions.  Still a sweet smiler.

We had nice family dinner at home, gave our cards and I made chocolate raspberry truffles for dessert (we have some frozen berries I recently ordered from a local farm...yum).  Chris and I did not go out on a date, though tried to have a date at home watching a movie. Unfortunately for poor Chris I fell asleep about half way through..I mean completely out, not just dozing.  Guess I was more tired than I realized.  Oh well, he was gracious with me.  We also did live vicariously through two of our favorite single friends here who recently started dating. He stayed with us and she stayed with the Hunemullers so they could go out on a fun date and be close to work the next morning.  So we enjoyed hearing about their first valentine's day together.  Anyway, happy belated lovers' day to all those reading :).

Down and out

I am going on day five of the flu. I have had a bad cold along with fever and achiness and chills and have been pretty out of commission.  It is hard to be the mommy and be so useless...but that has been me.  I am really thankful that Chris has been able to help a lot these last couple of days.  And I did have a temporary helper come yesterday to help out with the growing load of household chores that have not been attended to.  Apparently this bug is going around and usually lasts 5-7 days, so it is a long one.  So far only Lucy seems to have some very mild signs of it, but with no fever thankfully.  So glad for nursing immunities for babies.  But if this goes around our entire family it could take awhile to get everyone better, so thanks for praying for this to end soon.  Well, I hear Lucy squawking in her bed (yes, her new way of communicating is in these LOUD squawks and squeals.  So funny).

All smiles

 I just started snapping away this afternoon, since I had not taken many pictures of Lucy lately.  She is so smiley, even though she might have started to catch the flu/cold that I have. I started feeling bad late Saturday and am still achy with a cold today.  But these smiles help!

Smitten

I think our whole family is just smitten with Lucy right now.  She is four months now and so cute!  She wake once a night to eat, is taking three fairly consistent naps a day, smiles and laughs, holds toys and chews on them and her fingers and is mostly happy.  She is so sweet and we all just love her. I wish I had more time to just sit and hold her...I do it as much as I can though.  Austin will have long "conversations" with her in baby talk.  He can imitate her coos pretty well, though I keep telling him he should use real words so she won't learn t talk like that.  Bennett has less of the attention span of Austin to interact with a four month old, but still likes to talk with her and gives her sweet kisses.  She is definitely a joy to have and makes the extra work of 3 kids totally worth it.  Here is our sweetie at 4 months....quickly growing out of her 6 month outfits!