I am sorry I haven't been blogging my life stories, experiences, situations...fill in the blank.....lately. Life with four children is definitely a lot busier than life with three children~ especially since right now, I have a 3 (almost 4) year old, a newly 2 year old, and a 3 month old. My son, Nathaniel....who is 10 1/2, is very helpful, but he is in school. Plus, he has difficulties, too. He is a great kid, smart, funny, lovable, and sensitive...just a hard age and life changing age right now. We are considering home schooling him next year. He has been in the public school for the last 2 years, after being home schooled for the first 3 years of school. He has experienced what "school" is now, and he is asking to be home educated again. One of the main reasons he wanted to go to "real school," A.K.A. public school, was to ride the bus. Now, that is one of the biggest issues he has right now. He hates the school bus ride. He is very sensitive to swearing and loud yelling/screaming, and he has been in tears over the whole mess. He has also had some issues with this year's teacher. Personally, I just don't think that she really "likes" Nathaniel. As his mom, I really struggle with that. She just doesn't have that warmness and caring presence that his teacher from last year had. Some of the issues I have with her is her lack of spelling tests and some of her reasoning. Nathaniel's biggest struggle is spelling. He has actually gone backwards in his spelling this year. They don't work on it in school, so how can he start getting it? There really aren't enough hours in the day to have him come home to practice/memorize spelling words for 2 hours each day when he gets home just before 4 PM. It is really frustrating. Nathaniel excels in Math, Reading, Language, and Science...he just really struggles with spelling. So, home schooling is probably the direction we need to go. I would love to have him go to a private school, but the cost is way out of our budget. Nathaniel's Dad isn't a big supporter of home education, however, he has seen it to be successful. He knows Nathaniel's grades have decreased this year, and that he has been struggling. Also, I think if Nathaniel shares his feelings with his Dad, he will be more apt to go along with home education. So, we are praying about it. One really great thing we have been doing with Nathaniel lately is having a talk session once a week. Terry and I sit down with him, and he has the floor to say whatever is on his mind. He can tell us if he is mad at us, disagrees with something, is upset about school/bus/friends/siblings, etc.~ all as long as he is respectful. Terry and I don't share our opinions, get mad, or correct him....we just listen. Thankfully, Nathaniel has been very open with us, and he is sharing so much. I see that he is just filled with so much suppressed emotion, and it breaks my heart. He is at such an impressionable age, and I really hope we can understand where he is at and help him overcome some things. I love him so much, and he is so precious to me. I am sure it is a challenge for him to live in one home with certain rules and expectations, visit another home with his Dad, and maybe feels out of sorts. Plus, he is entering pre-teen and that has a whole bunch of feelings/emotions attached. Terry and I are making some changes so Nathaniel can be happier with his home life, and school life. We are working on his own room, more one on one time with him, more time with his Dad, and his own space.
Caleb has been in a stage that is, what I would call,~
extremely independent. He has been very testy lately, and saying, "NO!" He is almost 4 years old (end of May). I think he is feeling a lack of attention lately with Maddie and new baby brother, Cole. Terry and I have talked about making sure he has more one on one time with us soon. He has been doing great with his potty training, and keeping his underwear dry during the day. Most nights he has accidents, but he really can't wake himself up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. He has been very observant of his body parts lately, and I find it embarrassing. I know God made him with those parts, but how do you explain it isn't a toy, or something that is of common discussion with just anyone. He says things like, "just playing with my ***," like it is just a game that he is playing. I know it is normal for this age, it just has never been comfortable to work through. Caleb loves wearing shorts so much lately. On Friday, I told him to put on jeans. He got so upset and what throwing them down on the ground. After a few rounds of me telling him he was going to wear them, and him telling me no with throwing them down....he said the funniest thing.
Me: "You will wear those jeans, and you won't tell me no."
Caleb: "I don't like wearing jeans!! I love my mom and dad, but I DO NOT like wearing jeans!" It was very comical.
Madelyn's favorite words right now are, "What?" and "Why?" She is really becoming more vocal and clearer with her words. She struggles a little with her pronunciation, but she is getting better at it. She is very strong willed, and independent. She is loving to dress herself, especially if she has a zipper on anything. She loves to be barefoot no matter where she is. If we are home all day, I don't even bother putting socks on her. She finally moved into a size 4 diaper. We also just moved her from the crib to a toddler bed. Last week, Nathaniel put the whole toddler bed together by himself without directions! We were so proud of him, and you could tell he was happy with himself and the results. I set it up in Caleb's room, moved the changing table, and she loves it! It is quite funny, because she will not get out of bed in the morning or after nap. She calls for Terry or I to come, and she waits for us. It is precious, and I am glad she likes it.
Maddie and Caleb are at Grandma's for the weekend. Caleb and his other boy cousins were peeing outside today by the trees. Madelyn was standing by a tree, and just kept still. Grandma asked her what she was doing, and Maddie said, "I go potty, too!" Then, she tried to go. Poor girl! She is the only girl grandchild with 7 boy grandchildren. I know she will fair well, but it would be nice if there was another girl for her. OH well!
Cole is growing so much these days! He just rolled over from tummy to his back this week on Wednesday, I believe. He is now 3 months old. He is also reaching for toys, and putting them in his mouth~ when he makes it that far. He is such a happy-go-lucky baby! He is a great sleeper, and is great about crying when he needs the necessities: feeding, changing, sleeping. He does bite down on me sometimes, and that isn't very pleasant. He is a great breast feeder, though. I love his smile! He really lights up when he is talking or being talked to. I am totally not rushing him into his stages or milestones. I want to just enjoy his growth, and learning. He may be our last baby, so I just try to relish his moments and cuteness!
Terry has been working with the DNR this whole week. He is a smoke chaser/fire fighter. He loves fighting fire. April and May are the big fire months of the year. His full-time job has been very slow this week (not good) but he has been able to get his fire-fix with the DNR at least. He has been on some great fires this week, too! I love hearing his stories and hearing about what happened with his evening. My house has seen better days than this week, but Terry has been gone most of this week. Tuesday night he was home at 2 AM~ Wed., 9:00 PM on Wed., and 7 PM on Thurs. So, the hours are a lot longer. I was so happy to have the whole day with him today with our drive to Wisconsin for a train show. It was a beautiful day! Tonight we looked for refrigerators. Ours is dying, so we need to get a new one. It was good to go hunting around for prices, but I know that I am not much of a shopper these days.
Tomorrow I have a bridal shower to go to for my future sister-in-law. Terry is going to work with the DNR again, so we will both be busy. I am excited to go because I love showers! The shower is about an hour from my house. After the shower I will be picking up Caleb and Madelyn. I plan to head home after that, but if Terry gets called out to a fire, I may have to drive another 2 hours to pick up Nathaniel, and then an hour and half home. So, I may have a lot of drive time tomorrow. I hope you all are having a great weekend! Thanks for visiting, and reading my blog! I will try to write more about us, and visit you all more soon!
Madelyn is in her purple unicorn outfit. She got this costume from my friend, Lisa, from a garage sale special find. It is so warm and cozy, and Madelyn loves it!
Here is Nathaniel in the pirate hat, and one of his new favorite shirts from Terry. (hand-me-down)
Cole is wearing the Jo-Jo hat. I know it is a girl's hat in the show, but it looks cute on him!
After that, we helped some friends move to their new home. We got home about 5:30, and our kids were tired. However, they still wanted to go treat-hunting. We had considered bringing them to a local church party (games, outdoor petting zoo, outdoor blow up jumpy-thingy...etc.) but we had come home too late for that. We got the kids in their costumes, and went to a local neighborhood.
Cole was super happy that night, and he was in a warm costume as Pooh Bear. I have to say that I was excited about this find...$1.25 at Savers! That was a great deal, and he can now play "dress-up" with the kids.
Isn't he a cute little Pooh Bear? Caleb and Madelyn had a lot of fun, too. They picked out their duds.
Caleb was a jester/clown and Madelyn was the "itsy, bitsy spider." Maddie's costume was a little too small, but she insisted that she wore that one. We did hand-me-down costume attire this year.
The owner of this home was all dressed up as Princess Leia, from Star Wars. I thought her costume was superb!
It was a fun night out with the little ones. Nathaniel was with his dad this year. I am not sure how it worked out, but he has only been at his dad's one other Halloween in his life. Nathaniel had wanted to be with us this year because his best friend was going to have his birthday party/celebration. But, his dad said no, because he wanted to have him for trick-or-treating after all these years. I really had no clue that it was that important to his dad, or I would have offered to make it work out for him to be able to have that time with Nathaniel. Nothing I can do about that now. At least he had a good time. 
