2 Interiews and 1 Party

Paul had his first phone interview this morning for a tenure track position to begin in August 2014. It was with Rowan University in New Jersey. Shortly after he finished that interview, he received a call from Florida Gulf Coast University inviting him to participate in a phone interview on December 6. It's very encouraging to get the interview process going again. I have submitted 11 applications thus far, and one of those schools withdrew their job posting without completing the search. So this means 2 of the 10 schools have invited him for a phone interview. I have 7 more applications to complete in the next few weeks. The newest one added to the list is in Frederick, Maryland. On a cold day like today, I have to say that Florida sounds pretty wonderful!

I took the kids to a two hour long Thanksgiving party this morning. I felt badly because the one mother put a lot of work into planning many crafts, games, and snacks. She brought four gallons of apple cider, but in fact there were only five children there, and Nadia was the oldest, and the only way Oliver participated was to eat popcorn. Nadia and Ian loved the turkey races with the balloons as well as the snacks. They each filled a sugar cone with dried papaya, dried pineapple, dried dates, chocolate chips, and candy corns to make "cornucopias." Oliver had his first testosterone shot this evening, which means his surgery will be six weeks from today. I am very thankful that our neighbor (who is an ER nurse) gave him the shot.

If Oliver's eyes had been more open, this pictures would have be the "winner." I'll keep on trying....

Getting Closer

 

Yesterday I made multiple attempts at getting a close-up photo of all three kids. All of them were deleted from my memory card and computer. Today we definitely got a lot closer to coming up with a  keeper. Getting a 1, 3, and 5 year old to keep their heads close together and smile and look in the right direction at the same time is very difficult! There were a few pictures earlier this year when I got a good picture with all three kids, but they weren't close up shots, and usually Paul was also in the photo. Next year I need to remember to work on getting this photo taken earlier in the year when it's warmer outside. The lighting conditions are so much better outside! It was 25 degrees out when we drove home from church today. There was no way we were taking a photo outside today! I might end up using one of the photos I took today, but I'm going to keep trying for the next 7 days (unless I get a "winner" before then). I got a bunch of good pictures of Oliver at the piano in his tuxedo today. It was hard to pick which to post!

 Both of our football games were aired today, but unfortunately only the Steelers won. While the Giants were on, Nadia and I went to the last session of our seven week small group Bible study on Heaven. Although she brought princesses to play with, I asked her questions about it, and her answers showed she had been listening to at least part of it. The last two Sundays I have played handbells. Oliver was in the nursery, and Nadia was in Sunday School both times. Ian didn't want to go to the Sunday School class at that church so he stayed in the worship service both Sundays. I was rather impressed with how well he was behaved. It did help that their worship service doesn't last as long as ours usually does. This afternoon I did a turkey craft with the kids. I will do a few more with them this week. I love handprint crafts, and of course they love anything that involves paint!

 Friday night we let Nadia pick our dinner as well as our activities for family fun night. She kept vacillating between McD's and Friendly's, and in the end she picked Friendly's. We also let the kids ride the carousel inside the mall once. At home Nadia picked playing Hide and Seek and Simon Says. On Saturday I taught her how to play Uno. She laughed her head off whenever I had to draw a lot of cards. Candyland and Chutes and Ladders are not my favorite games to play. I am excited about playing other games with the kids as they grow older!

Top 14 Recipes

The last few years I have done far more baking than I had ever done before, and I've also tried many more new recipes. Today I made shepherd's pie for the first time. The first time I remember having it was in college in Ohio. I have been trying to think of recipes that don't include pasta because Ian is not a fan of pasta, but unfortunately it was a major battle to get him to eat the shepherd's pie tonight. At least Daddy was home so I didn't have to endure the entire battle by myself. I thought it might be nice to share some of the new recipes (in no particular order) that I tried which have become favorites in our house (for at least some members of our family anyhow). Enjoy!

1. Beef noodle bake - egg noodles, ground beef, sour cream, cottage cheese, cream cheese, etc.

2. Tuna melt pie - eggs, milk, cheddar cheese, tuna, etc.

3. Slow Cooker Chicken Barbecue - brown sugar, chicken, Italian dressing, etc.

4. Slow Cooker Baked Potato Soup - potatoes, cream cheese, chicken stock, etc.

5. Chicken Supreme - chicken, almonds, bread crumbs, parmesan

6. Chicken Bacon Bowtie Bake - chicken, bowtie pasta, milk, cheese, bacon, cream of chicken soup

7. Parmesan Crusted Chicken - chicken, mayo, parmesan, bread crumbs

8. Slow cooker Pork BBQ - pork, beef broth, barbecue sauce

9. Slow cooker chicken and dumplings - chicken, vegetables, biscuit dough, cream of chicken soup

10. Heath Bar Cookies

11. Butterscotch Chip Cookies

12. Reese's Pieces Peanut Butter Cookies

13. Garlic cheddar biscuits

14. German Apple Cake

Thankful Thursday

1. On Saturday all three kids slept in until at least 7am! WOOHOO! Oliver was the first one up, and Ian didn't get up until 7:20, which was amazing! Oliver and Nadia slept even later on Sunday. Oliver was up at 6:15 on Monday, and I would normally have let him cry a little to see if he'd go back to sleep, but he was having a horrible coughing fit so I had to go get my baby and snuggle him. On Tuesday I did let him fuss a bit when he woke up at 5:50, and I was very glad I did because then he slept another hour. Nadia slept in later this morning than I think she's ever slept in her life - 8:45! Usually she gets up sometime between 7:00-7:30.

2. The Giants and Steelers won again on Sunday! If our teams win their next two games, we both will have won as many games as we've lost this season.

3. We had a few warmer weather days. It was a delight to walk to the playground on Saturday and Monday. A temperature of 60 degrees felt balmy after having highs in the 30's just a few days before that. It's all a matter of perspective!

4. Oliver's naps have been improving! There are still days when his morning nap is only 30 minutes long, but that is no longer the norm. The norm is now 60 minutes for his morning nap, and his afternoon nap has also been getting a little bit longer. It was actually 2 hours long yesterday (not the norm but greatly appreciated!). Today both naps were longer than 60 minutes. Yesterday and today his total time napping was 3 hours each day!! WOOHOO! It took 6 months to get him back on track. It is easier to do home schooling with Nadia and housework when he sleeps longer. In light of that, I bought the Motivated Mom chore app and started using it today. Also enough time has passed that I no longer wince at the thought of going on vacation again. I paid our time share fee for 2014 yesterday, deposited our week, and have started searching for a place to go on vacation in 2014.

5. I'm thankful for Paul's safety as there was a bomb threat yesterday afternoon in the science building (regarding the other FT chemistry adjunct!). Paul was having office hours when the building was evacuated.

6. Nadia is making great progress in her school work. In math we've been working on telling time with an analog clock, in spelling she's been doing compound words, and in reading she's been working on words with "ee," plurals, contractions, and words with long vowels. For decades I wanted to be a mom, and I also wanted to be a teacher since I was in elementary school. Being a homeschooling mom is the perfect way to combine both of those passions! I am thankful Paul had the idea and desire for me to homeschool our kids. It would be easier to cook and clean if I sent my kids to school, but I absolutely love teaching them here at home.

7. Paul's mom got a good report at the hospital yesterday! They are indefinitely postponing her chemo/radiation for the lymphoma; she doesn't return to the oncologist until March! She has two more treatments scheduled for her MRSA, and she seems to have recovered from the double pneumonia. Her shoulder is healing from the skin cancer surgery she had two weeks ago. We're still praying for Oliver and Paul to get healthy within the next week so that we won't pass any germs on to her on Thanksgiving.

8. Ian did a great job at the hair salon today. His haircut cost $2.55; I gave her $5. She gave him an excellent hair cut!

9. I saw today while driving Nadia to gymnastics that a Panera Bread will be opening in the near future! I love that restaurant, especially the strawberry salad they serve in the summer. Yummy!

10. Paul will not be teaching the next eleven days due to Thanksgiving break (and the fact he doesn't have class on Mondays or Fridays). He has a lot of grading to do (ex. research papers), but we should see a bit more of him than we usually do. Yahoo!

Breakfast with Rapunzel

I made Nadia's breakfast, and she made Rapunzel's. I hope it is a LONG time until she outgrows playing with dolls!

Number Five

Oliver has been really fussy the past several days. I assumed it was because he hasn't been feeling well (cough, runny nose, etc.), but I discovered this morning that he also had gotten his fifth tooth sometime in the last few days. Oliver has five teeth, and three of them are molars! His newest tooth was his first molar on his bottom jaw. When I take pictures of him, it looks like he has only two teeth since molars don't show in pictures. Nadia's bottom two teeth are still wiggly, but I think it's going take awhile before they fall out. My babies are growing up.

Christmas Pics

This morning I saw the proofs from our Christmas mini photo session. I don't like any of them enough to pay another $15 to get all the images on a CD. I'm just ordering the prints that were included in the smallest package. Because of that I won't be able to post the pictures on the blog. If any of you (such as grandmas) want to check them out, go to www.mhp.shootproof.com. You have to enter something in the email address and the password is jolly. I am ordering one of the pics of all three kids and one of just Ian and one of just Oliver. Nadia is usually the easiest one of my kids to get a nice smiling picture (with a dimple!), and I don't like any of the pictures she put in our gallery of just Nadia. The ironic thing is that when she did our family shoot in August, she took tons of great pictures of Nadia. She is really nice to work with. As I looked at the proofs, I was wishing one of the pics of Ian was cropped to be more of a close-up. I sent her a message on FB, and she immediately cropped it for me, which I greatly appreciated. It is a really nice picture of Ian.

Well the bottom line is that I have zero desire to sign up for another mini session (she does them for Valentine's, Easter, patriotic, fall, Halloween, and Christmas).  It's much cheaper for me to take pictures myself. I am determined to get a nice close-up photo of my three kids together next week. If I have to try every day, I'll do it until I get a good one. I'm waiting until next week since Paul will be off of school. It's hard for me to get all three kids to smile and look at me while I'm also taking the picture. I'll still need to pay someone to take our family picture next year, but I think I'll make it my goal that by 2015 I learn how to take our family picture myself using a timer or remote. The two photos in this post were taken this afternoon on our way to the playground. You can tell we live near Amish people!

First steps

Oliver took his first steps yesterday evening! He took a couple of steps toward Paul while I was at the grocery store. I was very bummed that I wasn't present to witness those first steps, particularly as I spend FAR more time with Oliver than Paul does, but Paul didn't witness Ian or Nadia's first steps, so I guess it was his turn. Today he took a few steps on several occasions, and I did see him do it a few times. He mostly took steps toward his Daddy. I am very glad I didn't accept the referral for physical therapy. I  think he'll be taking off in the very near future. I did email a PT in our church, and she had said #1 the doctor should be viewing Oliver as 13 months old in light of his being born months early and #2 that it's considered normal as long as the child is walking by 18 months. I expect by the end of the week I'll be posting a video of Oliver walking! He wasn't feeling very well today so I couldn't get a nice picture of him, but boy did he look cute. I think the suit he wore today (which included a hat) might be the cutest suit I've ever bought for either of the boys. He'll be wearing it again, and I'll be sure to get a picture of him in it! The shirt is a dark mauve color.

Ian got up at 6:30, but the other two really slept in. I had to wake Nadia up at 7:45 so that she would have time to get dressed and eat as we had to be out the door at 8:10 since the handbells were playing this morning. Oliver slept until 8am so he had breakfast in the van on the way there. He slept a full 12 hours last night!!! Considering he rarely sleeps until 7am, it was pretty amazing that he slept that long. Yesterday all three of them slept until at least 7am. Nadia quickly made the adjustment to the time change, but yesterday was the first time I felt like both boys had also made the switch.

We love books!

Once a year I like to post a list of some of the kids' favorite books. I wrote a list in October 2010 and September 2011 and May 2012. I have to say reading to the kids is one of my most favorite parts of the day. I am so thrilled that they enjoy it just as much as I do.

None of the books from the 2010 list are current favorites. Once Oliver gets a little bit bigger I imagine some of those will reappear. Oliver now selects books and brings them to Paul or I to "read," but of course he's not to the stage of really enjoying books yet. He's stopped eating books, but now we are working on the concept of not ripping books.

The books by Dave Ramsey on the 2011 list are still some of Ian and Nadia's most favorite books. Nadia still loves Berenstain Bears books, fairy tales, and books by Kevin Henkes. Ian still loves Little Critter  and Froggy books. They both still enjoy books by Robert Munsch. This list was much harder to create because we read a wider variety of books lately in part because we check so many out of the library each week. Previously Nadia went through phases where she was really obsessed with certain books (Madeline, Amelia Bedelia, Pinkalicious, Fancy Nancy, Curious George, etc.), but aside from Beatrix Potter, that hasn't been true for her lately. Here are some favorite books and authors that weren't listed on any of the previous lists:

1. Beatrix Potter - Nadia is really into stories about Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny, Jeremy Fisher, etc.

2. Caps for sale (Ian)

3. Good thing you're not an octopus (Ian)

4. The monster at the end of this book (Ian)

5. No more water in the tub (Ian)

6. Dr. Seuss books

7. Magic School Bus books

8. Larry Boy books (Veggie Tales)

9. Stone soup

10. How to make an apple pie and see the world (Nadia)

11. Henry's freedom box (Nadia)

12. Seven silly eaters (Nadia)

First bow tie

Ian has never worn a bow tie, although I did buy a tuxedo for him a few months ago at a consignment shop. It will be a few years before he's big enough to wear that outfit though. This summer I also bought one for Oliver in size 18 months. Nadia likes dressing up her dolls, and I love dressing up my kids. I wrestled with whether or not to sign the kids up for a mini Christmas photo session, and I finally decided to give it a whirl with the photographer who took our pictures in August. I was going to have the kids wear red and black, but Nadia really wanted to wear a black and white dress. So I looked through the boys' closets to find what would go with her dress the best. I was thrilled that the size 18 month tuxedo fit Oliver. Instead of having him wear the tuxedo pants, I had him wear a pair of size 12 month black and white pin striped dress pants. He looked SUPER cute. None of Ian's suits went with the color scheme so I had him wear a more casual Christmas outfit. He was thrilled, as he has been dying to wear the penguin Christmas sweater vest. Now that bow ties are so popular, maybe I'll be able to buy more of them inexpensively for Ian and Oliver to wear in the future. I highly doubt any of my kids will ever be a flower girl or a ring bearer, but I can still have fun dressing them up in formal attire.

The picture I was most hoping for was a close up of the three kids to use for a necklace for myself, necktie for my dad, etc. I am dubious that we achieved that goal because Oliver was not in a smiling mood today. I brought bubbles, but even blowing bubbles didn't amuse him. I was doing everything short of standing on my head to get a smile. She took individual shots of each of the kids and then group pictures of the three of them together. Hopefully we got some good ones! This experience again confirms in my mind that with little ones it's better to hone my skills because it's really hard to guarantee that they will be smiling at the given time if we make an appointment with a professional photographer. In two weeks we'll put our Christmas tree up, and hopefully I can get some good photos of the kids (separately and together) during the month of December. I am anxious to see the online gallery once the photographer finishes editing the pictures. This evening I discovered why Oliver wouldn't smile much at all today. He was feeling worse. He had a fever and threw up once this evening. My poor baby.

I'll write more about it in several weeks, but my main focus in 2014 is going to be on traditions - some are done daily, some weekly, and some just on certain holidays or special occasions throughout the year. As I have been thinking through family traditions, one of the fondest ones from my childhood was "family fun night." We rotated through the family in terms of who got to pick what the family did together for that week's family fun night. It might have been playing a board game like Monopoly, Sorry, or Uno, playing rough house with my dad, coloring, doing a jigsaw puzzle, riding bicycles, etc. I had always planned to make that a tradition in our family as well, and I decided a few weeks ago that there was no reason to wait any longer with getting started. Last week I explained the concept to Nadia and Ian, and we set the order of picking from oldest to youngest. Oliver will be excluded from choosing until he's older. Last week Paul picked to do a 300 piece jigsaw puzzle together. Today I chose a few games - Twister, Simon says, beginning sound BINGO, and an activity to work on the concept of one minute (can you tell I'm a homeschooling mom?). For that activity we had a timer and Nadia, Ian, Paul, and I took turns coming up with activities and we would rotate who would do the activity and the rest of us would count to see how many times the person could do that activity in one minute. Nadia did jumping jacks, bent down to touch her toes, did forward tuck rolls for a minute, wrote her name as many times as she could in a minute, etc. Nadia and I threw a ball back and forth to see how many times we could catch the ball in a minute.

The other tradition we've just started is that one person a week gets to pick our dinner out. I got the idea of eating out once a week from my friend, Jo. Over the past five years we've rarely gone out as a family. We get fast food when we are driving to and from Maryland or are on some other day trip, and we usually eat out once a day when we're on vacation. Otherwise we usually eat at home. For most of our marriage we have been in the habit of buying takeout pizza about three times a month. We are going youngest to oldest with this rotation. Ian got the first pick this week. I told the kids they could pick a restaurant for us to go to (Perkins, Friendly's, McD's, Subway, Cracker Barrel, or Wendy's) or Daddy could bring home pizza. Ian picked carryout pizza. Nadia says she's going to pick going out to Friendly's next week. We shall see if she changes her mind between now and then. The kids are excited about these two new family traditions, and I hope that they'll have fond memories of these when they are older.