Lincoln and Annika turn 3!

Lincoln and Annika had a birthday 2 weeks ago and they are now 3!  I can't believe I have been doing the twin thing for 3 years now!  It's definitely easier than it used to be.

Lincoln loves cars, tractors, tools and coloring.  Even though he likes a lot of toys that are geared toward boys he can play princesses with the best of them.  He and Annika will frequently fight over Hans or horses as they act out Frozen or Beauty and the Beast.  I love to watch them play together.  Lincoln likes stories and I love it when he will recite parts of the stories we read frequently.  He has such a sweet little voice.
I recently took away his special blanket because he sucked on it.  It was gone about 3 weeks and every night he would ask for it.  I finally felt so bad about keeping it from him that I gave it back.  The joy on his face was priceless.  He is so happy to have his blanket back.  He puts it close to his mouth but tells me he is smelling it instead of sucking on it.  So far I haven't caught him sucking on it, even in his sleep, so I hope we are in the clear.  I would hate to have to take it away permanently.
Lincoln is still a feather weight, but I transitioned him and Annika both to 2% milk a few weeks ago.  The Nurse Practitioner told me I could still give them whole milk since they are small, but I don't think they need to develop a continued taste for whole milk since it isn't the healthiest long term.  Lincoln weighs about 28 pounds and he didn't cry one bit when he had his flu shot.  I'm still hoping that Lincoln will catch of vision of potty training.  He can go in the potty and goes in public places, but at home he would rather wear a diaper.  He'll get there though.



I put 3 construction truck Hotwheels on Lincoln's cake.

Annika is our spicy independent red-head with a sweet streak.  She loves princesses, coloring and organizing. She has been our child who is best at pretend play with or without a playmate.  I love to hear her chatter as she acts things out with her toys.  She loves to pedal her bike down the street but she doesn't like to stop and wait for Lincoln and me and that makes me nervous.
Annika is potty trained and can dress herself.  Dressing herself is a mixed blessing since that means she puts together her own outfits--usually mismatched--and sometimes changes her outfits multiple times a day.
Annika is just over 26 pounds and didn't cry for her flu shot either.  She did asked me: "Why the lady give me an owie?"  I thought that was a sweet way to phrase it.

I didn't make a special treat for their birthday breakfast because they don't care enough about sweets for me to make something special.  I did let them open a cereal that they really like.  For dinner we had Grandma Bev join us and I made pizza.  They both really like pizza.  Lincoln wanted a green cake and Annika wanted a pink cake.  I decided to make a chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting and make the frosting the requested colors.  Annika kept saying she wanted a pink cake but shortly before her birthday she was picking out her outfit and kept saying she wanted the pink dress but kept grabbing the purple dress instead.  I figured it out that she is still confused at times with her colors and really wanted a purple cake.  I had already bought pink candies for her cake so I just bought some purple candies too and put both on her cake.  They were both more excited about the appearance of their cakes rather than eating the cake.  At least the rest of us enjoyed the cake!

This post is long in coming because I can't figure out why these pictures aren't rotating for me.  I have the correct orientation for them on the computer but when I load them to the blog they are all vertical whether they should be or not.  I'm including the messed up pictures since I know some people like to pull pictures from my blog and then you might be able to correct the orientation on your personal computers.

I put 3 princess Lego mini-figures on her cake.

Birthday crowns from Nursery.  Just after we took this picture Lincoln needed to use the bathroom and his crown fell in the toilet!  That was the end of that.

This picture is the only one horizontal picture with the correct orientation.  This is the only picture taken with my camera so maybe that had something to do with it.

Edie turns One!!

I can't believe our sweet Edie is one! Eden definitely lives up to the meaning of her name which is "delight, delightful".  Words can't express what a joy she has been in our lives this past year.  I can't imagine our family without her.  A lady that lives in one of our local church congregations has 8 children and I once heard her say something along the lines of:  "You will never regret the children you did have, but you may regret the children you didn't have but wanted."  I feel this way about Edie.  Our family would definitely be missing something without her in our family.  I get comments from strangers all of the time about how many kids I have, but I wouldn't give any of them up!

Edie has been a gift from Heaven.  I have tried to hold on to her baby-ness and cherish every day with her.  I have been able to enjoy her in ways I wasn't able to with the other kids for various reasons.  She is so content and happy.  She has always been a good sleeper and isn't demanding.  

Edie has 6 teeth and her 7th tooth cut through about a week after her birthday.  She weighs 16 lbs 14 oz. and is 28 1/2 inches long.  She still army crawls and recently started just scooting on her bottom.  She is really close to pulling to a stand, but hasn't officially done that yet.  She did master climbing up the step from our family room.  I'm okay that she is taking her time on her gross motor skills;  she'll feel little longer.  

For breakfast I gave her a piece of chocolate banana bread.  I knew she wasn't having a chocolate birthday treat and thought she still needed some chocolate on her special day. She loved her banana bread.  She just might have a sweet tooth like her mama!  I know you are all thinking "look at those big blue eyes!"  That's another think I hear a lot about Edie--her blue eyes.

For dinner Grandma Bev came over.  Annika was very excited and insisted on sitting next to her.  I think by the end of dinner Annika was on her lap!  It's good to be loved by little ones.

 

Edie's birthday treat was pumpkin dump cake.  During family council we all decided that we would have a non-chocolate dessert for her birthday since I had a chocolate dessert and Lincoln and Annika would be having one, too.  She loved it!  She loved having us sing to her.  She got a big smile on her face.

Edie dumped out her cake onto her tray but wasn't very messy with it at all.  Aside from Annika who didn't eat her cake on her first birthday, Edie was probably our cleanest 1 year old.

We didn't really give Edie much for her birthday.  We pulled a few things out of the basement for her and put money in her savings acount.  She was still loved by other people though and we appreciated everyone who sent her a gift/card.

Here we are together.  I needed a few pictures of the two of us together!

Happy Birthday, Edie!!  We are excited to see you grow and change this next year!

September

September has been a busy month for us.

School started on September 6.  Kimball is in 5th grade and is off to a great start.  He will continue to play the cello this year and a few clubs after school.  There is a late bus that will bring him home from the clubs which will be very handy!  

Rebecah is in 2nd Grade and doesn't have any friends in her class this year.  It's an opportunity to make more friends. We went to the Back to School barbecue for the elementary and attended Open House at the Middle School and Elementary.  I think it will be a good year.

Lincoln and Annika love this sweet lady.  We call her Grandma Bev because she is just like a Grandma to the kids.  She fills a void since we don't have family near us.  While Joseph was in Ghana we had Grandma Bev over for dinner 2 nights.  She would spend time with the little ones while I would make dinner and clean up.  She also sat with us in church and was a great help.  Annika saw Grandma Bev in the parking lot at church and was so excited she ran across the parking lot shouting "Grandma Bev!  Grandma Bev!"  When Annika reached Bev she threw her arms around Bev's legs.  It was so precious.  

Joseph helped with Operation Walk, his 4th year helping.  This year the team went to Koforidua, Ghana.  Joseph said the area was a cross between Panama and Mexico where he served his mission.  It was a jungle region of Africa so there were a lot of palm trees and plantain trees.  It is also a very poor area.  Joseph said the African people are humble and trusting and just wonderful people.  He also said that they have no concept of personal space so it was not unusual to have someone grab his hand and lead him around showing him things.  

The Operation Walk storage containers were delayed going through customs when they arrived so that set their entire trip behind schedule.  They still managed to perform a lot hip and knee replacements and help a lot of people, especially young people, have a better quality of life.

This last picture is a screen shot of a comment one of the patients sent to the doctor who did the daily summaries of the Operation Walk trip.  I just love her gratitude and appreciation for a chance for a better life physically. I hate having Joseph gone so long, but knowing he is helping to improve the lives of others make his absence from us worth it.

We really missed Joseph while he was gone--especially me!  Joseph was gone 9 days.  In the past it hasn't been that long and a few years he came back early from the trip.  We were really busy with various activities, but busyness is no replacement for a husband and father.

Syracuse has a lot of festivals in the downtown area.  We went to the Irish Festival to see what it was like.  It was a chilly day and it wasn't as exciting as we hoped, but we still managed to entertain ourselves for an hour.  There was live music and some dance performances.  There was a lot of alcohol for sale and since that isn't our thing we wouldn't attend the fest again.

Joseph dressed Lincoln and Annika up one day!

Edie turned 11 months this month.  She is the sweetest girl ever!  She loves to swing!  We were at a friend's house while Rebecah had piano lessons the sun was in Edie's face, but she didn't mind.  She just enjoyed swinging!

Soccer practice and games started for Kimball at the beginning of the month.  Rebecah started piano lessons.  We had a really hot spell mid month that lasted about 6 days.  It was probably the longest hot spell we had all year.  Thank goodness it will be snowing in a few months.  Next month we will celebrate 4 birthdays within 6 days.  It will be another good month.

August Happenings

We had quite a few different activities in August that kept the kids busy.

Playing Cars

Annika "mowing" the lawn.  She was even making sound effects to
go with it!  Multi-use stroller.

Water fun with a friend.

Lincoln being silly!!

More Lincoln silliness.  He loves to be outside and to go on walks.  This was a neighbor's yard where he decided to just slither through their grass!

Ballet Camp

Rebecah participated in her 4th and final year of ballet camp.  She has enjoyed ballet camp each August.  Next year Annika will be old enough to start ballet camp if she chooses!

Gymnastics

Rebecah has wanted to try gymnastics for a while now so we finally signed her up for a 6 week summer program through the town.  She really enjoyed her lesson each week and has improved her skills.  She can do a handstand now, a bridge and has better form all around. Rebecah would love to stick with gymnastics, but I just can't justify the monthly fee to have her in gymnastics full-time especially when she has other interests that make her just as happy.

We took a day trip to Fair Haven, NY which is on the coast of Lake Ontario.  It is always fun to see large bodies of water that aren't oceans.  

Edie on the pier!

Last year Annika didn't want anything to do with water, but she really enjoyed it this year.

There was a nice playground.  

Horse Camp

A friend at church has a little farm...chickens, 5 alpacas, 2 horses, and 4 dogs.  She and her husband decided to hold a free horse camp this summer so Kimball and Rebecah both participated.  Learning to ride a horse is one of Rebecah's dreams!!  There were 5 lesson and each lesson was 2 hours and it was FREE!  The Town of Cicero offered 1 2-hour class for $25 so we definitely got a good deal.  Kimball and Rebecah loved horse camp.  They learned how to take care of the horses and ride them.  The both got to the point where they could trot with their horse and go on trail rides.  I took some videos of them riding, but no pictures.  

These next few pictures were the little ones playing during Horse Camp.

I think driving a front end loader is one of Lincoln's dreams!

Sickness

Annika had the weirdest GI bug in August.  She threw up every single day for 7 days.  It was awful because she isn't old enough to get it into a bucket so it was a lot of cleaning for me those 7 days.  The weirdest part was that she could throw up and then eat a sandwich 5 minutes later and be fine only to throw up hours later.  Lincoln had a mild bout of the same GI bug but thankfully the rest of us were spared.  My kids have always been really healthy so I think Annika threw up more in those 7 days than the rest of us--Joseph through Lincoln-- have thrown up combined in the 12 years of our marriage.  I'm glad we don't get sick too often!

Joseph was able to take Kimball, Rebecah and the neighbor boy to one last Syracuse Chiefs baseball game.  They had a fun time and came home with a lot of free stuff.

The Great New York State Fair

We love to go to the State Fair.  It's always a good family time.  We really lucked out on weather...the day we went the high was only 63 so I didn't have to fret too much about sunscreen since we were all wearing long sleeves and pants.

This year Joseph, Kimball and Rebecah went an additional day so the big kids could have arm bands and ride the Fair rides.  The big kids really enjoyed going on the rides.  Joseph and I are not amusement park people for a lot of reasons, but the kids had a great time.  Rebecah went on all of the scary, high adventure rides--by herself-- that Kimball was too unsettled by and she would always leave the ride with a huge grin on her face.  I'm glad the kids could have this little adventure and grateful that Joseph was willing to stand around all day while they went on rides.

State Fair Day!

My boys love tractors!

Blacksmith demonstration

German Dance performance

Lincoln was so excited to see all of the animals.  The night before we went to the Fair Lincoln was telling us about the animals we woulds see his list went something like this:  "Horses, cows, pigs, bears...pause...no bears, chickens."  It was cute. For the record we did NOT see any bears. 

This big sign is at the entrance to the Fair.  I was glad most of us made

 it into this picture.  We DO love New York and the NY State Fair.

We had a great month and we are all ready for school to start tomorrow, September 6th!