Four Eyes

Recently, Michael became our first child to wear glasses. Turns out that he is rather nearsighted.

I assume that all the kids will need glasses at some point in their adolescence. Both Bob and I require aid for our vision. For me, it's those blinders that horses wear in parades. Keeps me from getting distracted in the ice cream aisle while doing the big Grocery Shop for the family.

For Bob, well, he got a Virtual Boy stuck on his head back in the early nineties. Never could get it off. But would you want to?

So Michael and I made a visit to the eye doctor...


...where he smiled real big and was given football cards for his efforts.


Since then, I've been trying to capture the little boy handsome-ness he displays while wearing them.


If you know Michael, you know he's a mover and that it's hard to capture him on film at times.


And now you also know how Michael looks in his War Paint.

Michael, you've been doing an awesome job at keeping your glasses "on your face, or in their case"! I'm so thankful that you remember to take them off before you wrestle! And I really do think you look handsome in your new glasses, Buddy.

Rocks for sale

My busy boys.

Daniel and Michael want to buy some 3 ring binders and special plastic pages in which to keep their baseball and football and I think Star Wars cards.



After I told them that they couldn't choose random things from the house to sell by the street, they decided upon an activity I remember doing as a child.



I am so thankful for the cheerful neighbors who now own Daniel's and Michael's spontaneous works of art.

PAinted roks for twenty five cents

My guys are growing at being good brothers to each other.

I love that!

Michael is Five

Michael's birthday was way back at the very beginning of July. July 1st, in fact. So it's high time to commemorate the special day of this special guy on the ol' blog.

This is how our Mikey looked one year ago at his fourth birthday. I think he's involved in a birthday water balloon fight at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Look at him go!


Michael is the "mover" of our little tribe. He's rarely caught on what used to be film in a still position. Unless he's reading a book. Those two sentences could really describe most of what Michael is about; reading and constantly in motion when not reading. (You pick which two sentences. I'm not sure that one of them is really a sentence)

Our Mikey is also very much a snuggler and toucher. Tactile activities are his very favorites. They are also some of the messiest and therefore more rare in our house. So for his birthday, I thought we'd set up a bunch of Michael-style activities outside and let the kids all rotate through them.

We have the Cormeal and Cars Station. Josiah decided it didn't taste good after, oh, four or five tries.


And then the Painting Station. I love this easel. It lives in our family room. The white board portion gets the most use. It's a good place to get visual with our school lessons. But we really don't paint as often as Michael would like. This is Mercy painting the clippy thing rather than the paper.


Daniel is here at the Bubble Station...He's demonstrating good form with the bubble blower. Michael spends his time at the Bubble Station by figuring out exactly how the battery powered bubble blower works... or would work if he hadn't been so eager to know. I considered giving Michael the broken motor from our dishwasher for his birthday. Bob said we should maybe think about buying him a "real" gift instead. We saved the motor for another day and when we did give it to him to take apart, he was thrilled. Michael seems to have a real interest in how things work.


The Musical Instrument Station. Michael loves to play with these toys. During his years as a three and four year old, he spent so much time drumming on things, his silverware on the table, his Doggie's paws on his head... that it's funny to think how he doesn't do that as much as he used to. There seemed to be maybe a little too much drumming for a small household of many small children during those years. There are several drums in that box and they don't get to come out of their home in the garage except on special occaisions. Like a birthday... or a time when no one is napping.


(I know, you are ready for me to tell you about how I yell "Get off my lawn!" to the neighbor kids in a crotchety old lady voice on account of all the little rules I have. And to that, I say: I can only listen to so many things at once and still be cheerful about it.)

The Birthday Boy at the Painting Station...


And then we had some parties! When it comes to celebrating birthdays, Bob and I try to take it easy. Keep it simple. We've never had a "friend" party where the kids invite their whole Sunday School class or whatever. But when I look at what we did to celebrate Michael's fifth, I feel like we may have broken into a higher level of birthday celebrating. I guess this one makes up for his first birthday during which I did next to nothing to celebrate because I was in the alldaysickness period of my pregnancy with Mercy.

After dinner on his birthday, we ate yummy ice cream sandwiches together...


...and gave him a birthday present: some magnetic building toys called Magformers. Look! They make goofy eyeglasses! And, as it turns out, they are not as greasy as a broken dishwasher motor is.


Then, on the weekend following his actual birthday, we got our families together so they could celebrate with Michael, too. We opted to meet at a park for a bbq with both Bob's family and mine.


It was a big, fun group including grandparents, uncles, an aunt, cousins and a great grandma!




We swam in the lake and played catch and frisbee and ate yummy food.

And here he is! Our wiggly, snuggly, MichaelMichaelMotorcycle is FIVE years old! Happy birthday, Buddy!