Zoo with the Troxells

I had big plans for us to go to the zoo with the Troxells on Sunday.  Unfortunately, the stomach bug hit our household via me and Jansen and we couldn't go.  Doug took the three healthy boys though.  They had a blast.  It was a gorgeous day, so they spent a lot of time outside at the new Islands exhibit.  

Looks like the sharks were also a main attraction.

I got this video too.  The boys have never gotten to ride these scooters at the zoo before.  They were so psyched!  I love how you can hear Penn's voice in the background.

Well, that's all I have about the zoo trip I didn't get to go on. =(  Janse and I hope to go on the next trip (and it needs to be soon, before our membership expires!).

Days with the Little Guys

I just have to share a few pics and videos from the last week or so with the little guys while the big guys are off at school.  Oh, how I love spending my days with Penn and Janse!

Jansen loves to cruise around on furniture, but last week he found a shopping cart at the play market at Phipps Conservatory and he was off and walking!

Here's a picture of Jansen being "helpful" in the kitchen.  He is excellent at being at just the right/wrong place at just the right/wrong time!!

This Spring we finally brought out the tricycle for Penn.  He probably could have mastered it long before now, but oh my goodness, he's so cute on it.  And man can he pump those legs!  This week he pedaled it all the way to Osceola Parklet!  Check out the concentration (including tongue!).

Penn made a super cool rocket blaster backpack at preschool.  He was so excited to show it off!

This morning Janse was being hilarious, so I had to take a video.  It's pretty random, but you get to see his sweet personality.

And then a bit later Penn was at the piano and Jansen joined him in a duet.  Love these little piano men!

Today Jansen and I observed Penn in speech therapy with Miss Christal.  Penn is such a hard worker and good sport in speech therapy and Jansen is a good sport with observing.  See how attentive he is?

Well, that's it for now!  Love you, Janse and Penn!

All Boys Weekend/All Girls Weekend

For the first time ever, Doug had all 4 boys overnight!  Months ago, I planned a "productivity weekend" with two dear girlfriends...a chance to get away and catch up on to-do lists we've put on hold because of the busyness of everyday life.  That meant that I planned to wean Jansen in time for the weekend and leave all 4 boys with Doug!!  Doug was totally up for the challenge and was an epic champion.  The girls and I had a blast (and got tons of stuff done, not to mention all the chatting!).  And Doug and the boys had a great weekend.  Here are a few pictures...

The first interesting text I received from Doug was that Jansen had shoved a Lego piece up his nose. Thankfully Doug was able to gently retrieve it with tweezers.  Oh my goodness!

Then I heard from them on their adventure...a bike ride to Point State Park from the 31st Street Bridge (Doug walked with double stroller with little guys, big boys biked).  Apparently, there was another little snaffoo and Koen and Tav got a little lost on their bikes, but thankfully they all ended up happily picnicking in the end!

Doug texted me this picture of Janse-man.  Oh my goodness.  I wanted to drive home and have some sweet snuggles!!!  Cannot take the cuteness!

We ladies had a lovely day up at the cottage we were staying at.  We enjoyed walks and kayaking as breaks from our productivity sessions indoors.  (Yeah, we are a special breed!)  Here's a picture of Deborah and I coming in for a docking in the kayak (then Megan and I went out).

Doug sent me this adorable picture of Jansen sleeping that night.  Torture for this momma!  

I was so proud of Doug.  He got all 4 boys to church on his own!  Don't they look dapper??!!

Megan, Deborah and I at the lake on Sunday morning.  

After church, Doug took the kids up to Deborah's place for an afternoon of fun with Grant, Deborah's husband, and their kids.  Penn and his best bud, Hazel, LOVED hanging out in the creek (it was about 80 degrees!).  Such a cute pair!

Well, it's a short wrap-up and doesn't nearly give Doug the credit due for handling four boys for forty-eight hours and doing it wonderfully.  Thanks, babe.  I so needed this weekend.  And I could just see how much you and the boys enjoyed your special guys weekend (imagine all the guy weekends that lie ahead!!).

Family Reading Night

Koen and Tavin's school had a great Family Reading Night last week.  Doug was out of town, so I took the four boys.  I was impressed with myself.  I'm not highly motivated to take the boys all out around bedtime, but it was definitely worth the effort to enjoy this sweet night with Koen and Tavin in their school element.  Here are the few pictures I got of the night to help explain what we experienced...

Koen and a few friends have a very organized Rainbow Loom business.  They had a booth setup.  They were so proud.  It was so cute!!

The Family Reading Night had a fairy tale theme.  There was a super cute activity to build a structure that could withstand the big bad wolf's huff & puff.  For straw, there were bendy straws to build with, for sticks, there were popsicle sticks and for bricks, there were Legos. Tav and Penn really enjoyed it.  Here's Tav's straw creation.

Penn made a stick structure.  The boys set their buildings in front of the fan to test them against the wolf's "huff and puff" (i.e. the fan and the hairdryer).  They both blew down!

Tav and Penn also enjoyed building castle towers.

The outdoor classroom was open and that was probably the boys' favorite part of the night running around with each other and their friends.

At the end we attended a storytime by the local librarian, Miss Molly.  Oh, how I love the Pittsburgh library system.  The children's librarians are so sweet and care so much about the kids and getting them excited about reading.  

Well, that's it for the picture review.  Poor Jansen just stayed in the Ergobaby all evening.  Such a trooper.  We got home and I got those 4 boys in bed so fast!!  =)  

Jansen's Into Everything

Just a few examples of how Jansen is in to everything these days.  You have to be really fast to keep up with him!!  I have to block the hallway to the stairs or he can do both flights up to the 3rd floor in just 30 seconds.  He loves a challenge and often climbs under stools and chairs just for the fun of it.  He finds every toy the boys set down.  He's starting to try to stand all on his own from sitting (it's so cute to see him try to get to standing from the floor on those chunky thighs!).  He coasts all along the edges of furniture.  And oh my goodness, if someone is on the floor with him, he thinks it's an invitation to wrestle and he is quite the attacker!!  

Anyways, here are just a few pictures from yesterday of the the things he gets into...

Climbing under the buffet...

Tav and Penn had a very involved fire truck game going on and nothing (not even his brothers' greatest attempts) was going to stop him from getting involved himself.  So cute!

That's it for now, but I really need to do a better job in getting pictures of all this little guy is into these days.  So stay tuned for blog posts in the future with all sorts of Jansen's antics!

Koen's 9th Birthday!

Oh my goodness, I cannot believe we have a nine-year-old!!  Koen had quite a weekend celebrating his birthday.  I think this will be a memorable one.  It was for me.  It's just such a striking realization that your child is getting older when you hit these birthdays.  My Koen is 9!!!  I think it's time we had a quick review in pictures, don't you??
The original BIRTHday...

1st Birthday...

2nd Birthday...

Around Third Birthday (all the pictures from the actual birthday he had sunglasses on!)...

Fourth Birthday...

Fifth Birthday (ok, well two days before on Easter...this was just too cute not to share)...

Sixth Birthday...

Seventh Birthday...

Eighth Birthday...

Ok, so that was fun!!  Now on to the fun of his birthday this year.  We had his birthday party on Friday afternoon after school.  He had been asking for months about having a friend party this year (we often do family parties).  We were happy to concede and although I was a little nervous about entertaining about 8 big kids, it was a complete success!!  We decided about a week before the party that we were just going to risk all odds and plan on it being an outdoor party.  It's April in the North East, so you never know what you are going to get.  We had had weeks of warm Spring weather though, so I was really hoping we would get some more of that.  Turned out to be 40 and windy, but the kids didn't care and I was just happy there wasn't rain!!  Koen had helped me come up with the idea of having a nerf gun theme party.  Where really it's just an opportunity for them to run around at the park playing team on team nerf gun battle games.  Sounded easy enough, except that we don't own any nerf gun stuff!!  Thankfully all his friends do, so everyone brought some guns to share (and the friends all noted that Koen didn't have any of his own gear, so he got several guns as gifts).  I did some prep work and had fun making treat bags for the kids that included Ammo, protective eyewear (thanks to the Dollar Tree, just a $1 a piece!) and a few candy items for later. 

I had big plans of hanging up some crepe paper ball target things around the shelter we had at the park and also had high hopes of making the tables look cute with orange posterboard and the blue paper plates and napkins I got, but the wind had another plan and blew my plans literally right out the window.  Oh well.  I rigged up the sign at least!!

The kids dove into their bags for their ammo and eyewear.  It was so cute, they thought the "protective eyewear" was so cool and wore them the whole time and thought it was so special they got to take them home!  Score!

Rallying up on the hill for picking teams and explaining the rules for capture the flag.  Doug did a great job!

We knew we had to have some organization or things could get out of hand, Doug really set the tone laying down the ground rules and then played in the game as well.  The kids thought he was a pretty cool dad. =)

And they are off!!

After a few rounds of the game, we broke for hot cocoa and gifts (Koen had received some hints from friends that if he opened his gifts he might have some more guns to try out in the game).

He was pretty psyched!!  He also got some great other gifts.  His friends were so sweet and excited for him and really did a nice job getting things he would enjoy.  It was cute to watch them all socializing together.

Back at it!!  My job was to pick up the ammo and get it back to the kids.  I was happy for the job because it kept me warm!

After awhile we had another break for brownies and ice cream and to sing to Koen.  Then the kids went right back to playing with the nerf guns.  As the parents arrived it was quite a job to round up the kids and make them stop.  I guess the cold weather wasn't a bother to them having fun and enjoying the party!!!  It was a big success, phew!

After we cleaned up we headed back home.  Deborah, Miles mom (Miles was at Koen's party), had stayed at the house with Janse, Penn and Tav and her two girls so that Koen could have this party for himself and his peers (I was totally fine with it because these days it just takes one wrong look or word and he and Tav are at it and I wanted him to just be able to enjoy his friends and his day).  We celebrated again though and let the kids who had stayed at home and played have brownies and ice cream so they felt like they were part of the party too.  Thankfully they had so much fun with Miss Deborah and each other they didn't even care they didn't go to Koen's party.  After Deborah left, we got out our present for Koen.  A new bike!!  He was thrilled!  He has been too big for his bike for awhile and we knew that this would be needed this Spring.  We both really looked forward to giving it to him.  Such an exciting gift for a growing boy!

Jansen is trying to get in on the action.  The bike in this pic is too tall, but adjusted the seat and it's a much better fit.

Here's the happy birthday boy with his new bike testing it out outside before sundown.

That wasn't all for Koen's birthday though.  Even though Doug and I had to be away on Sunday, the Troxells filled in beautifully with a family party with their boys (who made an awesome sign for Koen) and they had brownies and ice cream (can you tell that's Koen's preferred birthday treat?).  Here's a video we got of the celebration...

And in the afternoon on Sunday, Koen had lunch out and an adventure with Miss Kylie, a babysitter and friend he's known and been cared for by for at least 6 years now.  She's made it a point to spend some time with Koen around his birthday most of those years and this year was no exception.  They had lunch at Mercurio's in Shadyside and then they visited The Bicycle Museum (I had no idea that even existed!).  It was a fun adventure (and a nice break for the Troxells who had Tav and Penn back at their place still).  Here are a few pics I got from Kylie...

Well, that's a pretty great birthday.  And this pretty great kid deserved it.  We were excited he had such a special party and some very special time with special friends.  We love you, Koen.  It's amazing to review those old pictures and see how you've grown, but it's even more amazing to see how with every year you are developing more and more into the person the Lord is crafting you to be.  We look forward to continuing this journey of life with you and are trusting God to bring His purposes for you to fruition with each passing year.