yikes (39 weeks already!)

i’m so sorry its been so long since posting last. time just totally gets away from me. as you can now see, i am still here. don’t go expecting a new post everyday, so don’t worry! i will definitely post when something happens =) all is well. i am 39 weeks and 5 days. due on thursday…my mom is flying in saturday morning. so time is tightening and this baby needs to come soon. PLEASE! we have been having a major room change-around this weekend so the house is a mess, instead of looking nice and tidy which was my idea for the weekend. oh well! i do like the change though. our front room (the bigger room) is now and sitting room at the front window and our dinning room at the back half. our backroom is our school room/music room. the piano, school stuff and comfy chair are back there. its nice. getting a bit use to it first, but so far so good =)

the boys are all doing well. had a little bit of runny noses last week, but nothing terrible. school is going well for micah. still hard to get him to want to read, but enjoys some of the stuff we do. last week was telling time and maths. i wasn’t well one of the days and it just so happened that it was a day that andy had brought home some math sheets! wow, was i ever so relieved! jonah is able to occupy himself a bit more so he’s not been quite so troublesome =) he (jonah) loves his trains and cars. and anything thomas. i happened to find some thomas books hiding in a bag that he hadn’t seen yet so he was quite happy the other day!

our friend sophie came by one morning last week, to lend a hand, and she occupied jonah for a bit and just kept the boys entertained while i just got one with washing dishes and making lunch and stuff. always so nice just to have someone else around! i have no idea what this week is going to be like. at the moment i’m not so tired though it is getting hard to get up and down, from sitting to standing or just bending over to pick something up off the floor! hard work i tell you! my hospital bag is pretty much packed. i am adding things day by day so its just the toiletries to get in there. andy still needs to go up into the loft to get down the baby clothes, moses basket and car seat! we’ll get there i’m sure =)

and just from some photos =) these are from the last week of october:

aren’t they all just precious! the little girl is our niece sarah! she just turned 2 in september. her daddy came over to help fix our car (which wasn’t running for almost 2 weeks) and a leak in our bathroom and our front door lock! so thanks simon! you’re a star!!

october

what to say? october has been a great month so far for us. i can’t believe we are already past the middle of the month! i am 36 weeks and doing fine. normal restless legs though they are driving me crazy at night time and heartburn. yuck. today starts me every 2 week check-ups with the midwife. i’m still putting myself on a timeline as my mom is coming 2 days after my due date and only here for 9 days. so trying hard to get this baby out before or during her time. basically the baby needs to be here before thanksgiving!! jonah was 9 days late so we’ll see…(micah was 3 weeks early and noah bang on time!) i also need to get my hospital bag packed. though i am wanting a water birth, i am wondering what to wear or take with me… hmmm =)

we found a farm to buy some pumpkins and lots of fresh veg. we can’t wait to go back as the veg we bought was delicious!! here are some photos though i guess if you are on facebook you’ve seen them! (oh well!)

we carved it a few days later. micah didn’t want to reach in and pull out the seeds or anything but noah did!

micah drew on the eyes

finished product!

andy brought home an old globe from school and we have been enjoying it!
learning about the globe:

we used the childrens dictionary to look up the word globe, we drew pictures and looked up lots of places!

last week we had auntie jo here to visit and had lots of fun. mommy was able to get out when needed on her own =) then on friday night auntie karen, luke and zac arrived while the next morning nana and papa, and uncles stephen, philip and paul. we had a wedding in wales to attend and andy and i were doing the photography. so we left early with jo and jonah and noah, while we left micah at home to come later with the others. it was a lovely day, beautiful wedding and great to see the rest of the family! here is the teaser photo that i have put out until the rest are ready.

i can’t think of anything else at this very moment, so will end it here =) though i just thought that next week is half term so no school for andy, though i’m sure we’ll still continue on for micah! oh yes, i am just thinking of even more ofcourse! our car decided to almost die on the way home from wales on sunday. the battery light came on for a little while and we were very very low on petrol but thought we could make it home so that andy could get to church on time. but once home it wouldn’t start again! the battery wasn’t dead b/c the lights still came on, but whenever andy put on the indicator (blinker) it just died again… so really, i have no idea and don’t know what we’ll do about it. as we need a new car, a bigger car but can’t afford anything at the moment…anyone know of a free 6 or 7 seater!?!?!?

quack quack

this is jonah’s new thing! he can quack!! i think he’ll take after my dad and i and be able to talk like donald duck!! ha ha =) though he thinks all animals quack!
micahs been out on his bike every.single.day. he just can’t get enough of it!! thankfully our road is very very quiet and he just goes up and down and up and down! noah sometimes tags along on his tricycle too and jonah tries to follow but that is usually a no from mommy as he just likes to run away!
jonah too cute

noah drinking mommy’s tea

one of the learning sites that micah likes to visit

some of my hats for tanzania

i’ve decided to stick to hats instead of blankets for the missionaries as a blanket takes too long to make but a hat is about a 2 evening job or so! the pink and white one i actually made in one day!! yea me =)

last night i went to aquanatal class again and its great! this was a smaller class, only 6 of us so it was a bit quieter. last week it was at a different pool and there were 16 of us and we/they were very chatty! but its so relaxing =) the leisure center that we went to is wonderful for children and i can’t wait for micah, noah and jonah to be older to use it! slides, water cascades and different levels of pools! its amazing =) this one was a bit farther away, but worth it =) so every tuesday that we can, becky and i will be going there!! and i guess for those interested, i am 33 weeks tomorrow and all is well. just the normal (for me anyway) restless leg and heartburn are the only ‘problems’ these days! i saw the midwife last week and don’t go back until i’m 36 weeks… so no worries!

oh and on a fun note, out all the people from college, 2 couples had baby boys this month and named him micah! and micah’s birthdya was this month as well…so lots of september micahs out there!!

so we are starting week 4? or is it week 5?

i’ve lost count already! but things are going well. somedays are obviously better than others in regards to school work, but we are getting through it all. we will be ordering soon a kindergarten program called ‘my father’s world’ yes we’ll starting it late, but never late than never eh? i just feel like i need a bit more planning wise and this will provide that!
in the phonics program jonah knows the letter ‘t’ and does the action to go along with it! noah does know a few of the first ones as well, s,a,t,n,d are the main ones. noah’s colouring has improved a lot! colouring in the lines and using more than one colour!
micah is doing good too. its still like pulling teeth some days but if we have a craft he loves it. and as much as he doesn’t like writing in his book? he loves showing if off to people who come over!
here are some recent photos:
micah’s pirate card for luke


noah doing some matching

micah teaching noah!

micah’s camera

micah’s little camera died this last week so i downloaded the photos into flickr if anyone would like to see, his point of view. i think they are go back almost 2 years!! some of the photos with noah are definitely old! he’s so little in them! so enjoy…and remember that micah’s needs a new camera! he loves taking photos =) and i’d rather give him his own than use mine!
Photos by Micah

school picture day

so i tried to do this yesterday and when i put my memory card in the computer it said it was corrupted! =( never had that happen before to me. i was very sad as i had gotten some lovely photos as it was a sunny day (though the photos were inside, the light was wonderful!)
so today we tried again on this dreary day…
jonah

noah (my favourite!!)

micah (his hair was much better yesterday with the spikes)

and this is the nicest of each of them:

week 3

starting week 3 of homeschooling… thanks to andy and his ‘lesson planning’ i felt a bit more prepared today. my only trouble is jonah! we have 2 desks and 2 chairs and jonah wants one of them! he played outside a bit today but he is not interested in anything else. not painting with water or colouring or anything else! yuck. so any ideas and that would be great!!
we are still learning days of the week, counting by 10s and our letters. our words this week are ‘on’ ‘it’ ‘as’ ‘at’. i let noah watch a seasame clip today for the number 2! that was fun and jonah enjoyed that!




this past week we did some art with sponge painting. micah got these people sponges for his birthday from auntie karen and family and it was pretty fun. it takes a lot more paint that i thought it would but it was good!
micah is our little perfectionist…=P

noah had a great time!

jonah liked to eat the paint =(

last saturday (the 5th) we went to the nature center with our church sunday school. it was a nice day =) all 20+ kids were great and i think they had a great time too.
a satatunga:

giant british bunnies:

porcupines:

jonah is just waking up so i must go =)
to leave you with this photo:

this is our weather today! chilly!!!

micah’s birthday….

a week late!
so last wednesday (2nd september 2009) we celebrated micah’s 5th birthday!! OMG…where has 5 years gone? i have noe idea?! but here we are living with a 5 year old, a 3 year old and a 1 year old! oh and 10 weeks away from a newborn. are we crazy? most certainly, YES! BUT, are we blessed? OH YES!
so anyway, micah told me a bit of how he wanted his birthday to go. he wanted us to hide when he woke up so that we could jump out and say surprise. he wanted his presents hidden but not to hard so he could find them easily and wanted his bike to be the fist thing he found…maybe hide it under the table or something. well, we hadn’t picked up his bike yet so that one had to wait! but he did wake up to this:

and to some of his presents he had to find the balloon first and the present was nearby:

we had fun sandwiches for lunch:

with each boy having a different shape =)
we played in the afternoon, it wasn’t the greatest weather and we didn’t have anything really planned but it was nice anyway. dinner was fun:


we had a delicious brownie cake with mint neopolitan ice cream and it was delicious!!!

we did get micah’s bike the next night and he was estatic! its a teenage mutant ninja turtles bike! so its nice and green =) there are no stabalisers (training wheels) and he is doing really good on it!

homeschooling has begun!

on monday we started our official homeschool year! micah in kindergarten and noah in some kind of preschool mode! noah is hard to place since we still don’t have many words….but we are trying! he is getting better at trying new sounds and so we are going through jolly phonics with him here and there. we’ve been working on his name as he can obviously say no and can say ah, but will not combine them!
we started with days of the week and going back through the first set of jolly phonics, s,a,t,n,i,p. we have a work book for micah from jolly phonics and then a normal school book to write in each day with the date and so on. he is not into writing much but doesn’t seem to mind repeating and ofcourse playing games.
on tuesday i found it a bit hard as i tried to work with noah a bit and micah was leaning over trying to answer or point out the right answer! oh well. i’m sure we’ll have some of that…
my friend posted this site, letter of the week where you have weekly themes (cow) a learning poster, colors/shapes (square), letters (a) and numbers (1). so i am going to try this out with noah, more for direction for me but i’m sure it’ll help him as well.
today was an off day as it was micah’s birthday (for another post), but we did talk about things that had 5 in it! i think as well that once andy is back at school (which is next week) i am definitely going to find it hard to do this whole homeschooling thing with jonah running about! i can’t keep him in another room and he is just into EVERYTHING!! and then in november with a new baby??? yikes! so hopefully we’ll be well into routine by then and all will be ok…right??

camping last week…

last week we went camping. it was a last minute decision and turned out to be not to bad!! it was a learning experience!!! we were going to leicester to visit paul and karen at the camps open day and decided from there that we would camp somewhere for 2 nights. we went to ashbourne and the campsite was just north, off that 515 rd. (if you click out a few times, you can see where we live in relation…just south in birmingham )
<a href="
View Larger Map“>. it was a great campsite with lots to do. and since we were right outside of the peak district (that green area) we went for a walk on the thursday. not a long walk as we knew the boys wouldn’t handle it and we hadn’t brought the stroller for jonah! yikes =)
so next time we’ll take the bigger tent as we were squashed when eating and changing and stuff inside our 4 man tent! the sleeping bit wasn’t bad just uncomfortable for me as we didn’t have room to have the air mattresses =) my poor hips! and we had to go and get an extra sleeping bag (only £12.99) as andy and i were a bit chilly the first night. not enough sleeping bags and the extra blankets we did bring the boys had most of them =) but i really like the sleeping bag, so i’ll claim it as my own! i also got myself my first pair of wellies! will have to take a photo though as i forgot and they are really cool =)

this is the hill that andy decided to run up and over and meet us in the carpark down in the valley. he did a good job, but the next day his legs were oh.so.sore!!!

jonah throwing a rock like the boys (and no it didn’t hit andy at all!)



andy took this the first night there….it was so nice to be out of the city!

noah

micah

jonah