Celebration Time!

On Friday we celebrated Oliver's third birthday in the city where he was born - Harrisburg. Another bonus for celebrating there is it's about half way between our home and my parents home in Maryland, which makes their drive more reasonable. We had donuts for breakfast (with a birthday candle) and then Oliver opened four presents - one from Aunt Wendy (lion costume), one from Aunt Yvonne (fingerpaint soap and a dvd), and two from us (a set of Mickey Mouse figurines and three Color Wonder pads). Then we drove to Harrisburg and met my friend, Joyce, and her daughter Kristin at McDonald's for a second breakfast (which was also our lunch for the day). After that we met my parents and Paul's parents at the State Museum. The kids especially enjoyed the "Curiosity Connection" room which was geared for children ages 1-5. We also participated in a program about peregrine falcons. It usually costs between $5-7 per person (ages 1+) to visit the museum, but they have some days where it is free from 11:00-1:30, and we took advantage of that special. All we had to pay was parking.

After spending about 3 hours at the museum, we drove to Chuck E Cheese. The last time we were there was April 2012 when Ian was in the feeding program at Hershey Medical and Oliver was in my womb. Since we hadn't spent much on his birthday presents, we splurged on his birthday celebration. We got a package that included 4 drinks, 2 pizzas, and 120 tokens to be used on the games and rides. My dad also got the kids 100 tokens. I enjoyed playing Skee-ball a few times. The place was NOT crowded at all, which was greatly appreciated. Paul was dreading the experience, but he also thought it went very well. I brought birthday hats, plates, napkins, and a tablecloth. Paul's parents brought the birthday cake that Aunt Millie had made. We had asked for the cake to be half chocolate and half vanilla since some people strongly prefer one over the other (Paul and his dad don't like chocolate cake). Oliver blew out the candle on his cake a couple of times, and then he opened his presents from Great Gram and his grandparents. He got a puzzle, a new pair of sneakers, some clothes, a dvd player for the van (ours broke a few weeks ago), a Pete the Cat puppet, Pete the Cat books, two dvds, a play-doh set, and a chef costume. The kids enjoyed the rides and games and earned about 960 tickets. They used the tickets to buy tootsie rolls, 2 slinkies, 2 rockets, a bracelet, a little plastic dinosaur, etc. I let each child spend about 330 tickets.

The kids left in our van with Paul's parents to go back to their house. Paul and I went back to our house in their car. We forgot to take our garage door opener out of the van, and I had given my whole key ring to Paul's dad. Thankfully I had used Paul's set of keys on Thursday night and had accidentally left it in my purse. This was a big blessing because we were able to use the front door key from his key ring to get into the house. Whew. Our 14th anniversary is on Tuesday, and we decided to celebrate it this weekend. We planned it too last minute to be able to use anything through our time share so we opted just to stay at home. We will be reuniting with the kids at church this morning. On our way home on Friday night we stopped at a mall and did a little shopping for the kids. Saturday morning we walked for about 3 miles and then Paul made us omelettes for breakfast. We went shopping (at a different mall) on Saturday afternoon, had dinner at TGIF, and then walked 4 miles last night. Oliver and Ian have been waking us up lately during the night so we just enjoyed being able to sleep through the night without interruptions and also that we could sleep in until 7:30, which is unheard of with the kids.

My first thought had been to spend the day at Ricketts Glen State Park, as we've never been there before and I've seen friends post pretty pictures from hiking there, but Paul didn't think he was in shape for that right now. The first 6 1/2 years we were parents we never had an overnight date, and now Paul's parents have graciously given us a total of four kid free nights this year (two nights this past January for Paul's birthday and two nights just now for our anniversary). It was Paul's idea, and it was a good one. I was just going to get a babysitter so we could go out for dinner on Tuesday night. I am sure the kids have had a great time with Paul's parents! They went to Lowe's yesterday morning to build Hulk's tank. We are very, very thankful that Paul's parents were willing to watch the kids so we could have a little time for just the two of us.

Three 3 year olds! (30-36 months)

Nadia - 2.5 years old

1. At age 3, Nadia weighed 36 pounds, Ian weighed 32 pounds, and Oliver weighs 30 pounds.

Nadia - 3 years old

2. All three of them took one nap a day and slept well at night. Nadia and Ian switched from a crib to a toddler bed during this time span; Oliver had already switched before he was 30 months old. Oliver has given us the most grief with getting out of bed and other stalling techniques (I need a tissue, I need a drink, I need to go to the bathroom again, etc.). Ian is definitely the morning bird of the three kids, and Nadia and Oliver are probably going to be night owls. Ian falls asleep ever so quickly at night and is almost always the first one up in the morning. At this age Ian didn't have a "lovey," Nadia's was her Poland pillow, and Oliver's is his green "blankie." Oliver is the only one who slept on his back of the three kids.

3. Nadia was pronouncing the "d" in her name by the time she turned 3. Ian and Oliver still called her Naia.

Ian (2.5 years old)

4. Ian and Oliver hadn't started memorizing verses yet. Nadia did so during this time span.

5. Nadia and Ian both learned how to do a forward tuck roll during this time span. Oliver hasn't learned yet.

6. Nadia was much better at following instructions than Ian or Oliver.

7. Ian made the most messes. Oliver made more messes than Nadia but fewer than Ian.

8. At 2.5 years they were very different in their eating skills, but the gap wasn't nearly as wide at 3 years old as Ian made HUGE progress at this age. Oliver was hands down the best eater. I honestly cannot think of a single food he has ever refused to try. Some things he has spit out, but he's at least willing to try everything. One of his favorite things to eat is soup, which the other two still don't like. He spills his drink far more than the other two ever did, bu he is just as happy to drink water as he is to drink milk or juice whereas the other two greatly preferred milk at this age. Oliver eats far more meals sitting on my lap than the other two ever did at any age.

Ian (3 years old)

9. They all loved reading books, singing, and watching tv. Nadia didn't have access to an iPad at this age. Ian and Oliver both loved the iPad.

10. They all requested chocolate cake for their 3rd birthday, and it was the first birthday they were excited about.

11. Nadia became a big sister at 17 months. Ian became a big brother at 31 months. Oliver is still the baby of the family.

12. Nadia and Ian could count to 15 at this age. Oliver still makes mistakes sometimes, but I have heard him count to 13 perfectly upon occasion.

13. They all loved riding amusement park rides.

14. Nadia and Oliver were doing 24 piece jigsaw puzzles. Ian was still doing peg puzzles due to a

Oliver (2.5 years old)

lack of patience on his part.

'15. Although he cried a lot less than he used to, Ian still sometimes cried when I took him to Sunday School. Nadia and Oliver never cried during this age span over being taken some where. Nadia and Oliver did VBS for the first time during this age span.

16. Ian and Oliver were far more aggressive (pushing, grabbing, hitting, etc.) than Nadia has ever been, but they boys were also more affectionate than Nadia was at this age in terms of asking for hugs and kisses or to be held and also saying "I love you" of their own initiative more than she did. Oliver has the fiercest temper of the three and also has been more aggressive than even Ian ever was.

17. Ian had much stronger opinions about what clothing he wore than Nadia. The only thing she had a very strong opinion about was that she always wanted to wear her princess nightgown to bed. Oliver is somewhere in between the two kids. He likes to pick out his clothes, but it's not nearly as big of a deal as it was for Ian.

18.   Nadia and Oliver were wearing underwear 24 hours a day during this whole time span. Ian was wearing diapers at night until he was 34 months old. Nadia was independent by 36 months. Ian and Oliver still needed help with getting dressed at the end (they both liked their pants and underwear to be completely taken off). Oliver has almost mastered the art of wiping himself. Ian had no interest in attempting that at this age, but his aim was much better than Oliver's is. Oliver has more accidents than the other two did at this age and needs me to remind him more often to go, although at times he's gone more than a month without an accident. Oliver needs to go to the bathroom far more times a day than the other two (like me). Ian was the only one of the three who sat on the potty for a LONG time when going #2.

19. Ian had far more sensitive skin and also had many food allergies. Thankfully Nadia and Oliver didn't have either of these. Nadia and Ian didn't have any sick visits to the doctor during this age span. I certainly can't say the same for Oliver as he had pneumonia and other respiratory issues. He takes Singulair every day, and he also has been on steroids, nebulizer treatments, and antibiotics in the past few months.

THREE years old!

Over the last three years Oliver has...

Gained 27 pounds. He weighed 3 pounds at birth and had just hit 4 pounds when he was discharged from the NICU four weeks later. He's gone from wearing preemie clothes to wearing size 3T clothing and size 6.5 or 7 shoes. Right now my kids weigh 30 lbs (Oliver), 40 lbs (Ian), and 54 lbs (Nadia).

My first time holding Oliver (he was 6 days old)

Gained 20 teeth. He has 8 incisors, 8 molars, and 4 canines. He likes to have his teeth brushed. He will be seeing a dentist for the first time in October.

Been potty trained. He started out wearing an XS preemie size diaper (about the size of a playing card) and now he wears size 2T/3T underwear 24 hours a day.

6 months old

Has been hospitalized four times and ridden in an ambulance twice. He spent the first 4 weeks in the NICU (one week in Harrisburg and three at Geisinger). He had urological surgery at CHOP in February and ended up spending one night in Philadelphia because his oxygen saturation levels were too low to send him home after the surgery. He spent 4 days at Evangelical Hospital in April of 2014 due to RAD and RSV, and he spent 4 days in the PICU at Geisinger the end of December into early January 2015 due to RAD, RSV, and a collapsed lung. He came very close to being hospitalized again in May for pneumonia. We now own a nebulizer and use it whenever he has any kind of a cough.

1 Year Old

Learned how to talk and sing. He said his first word (Dada) at 8 months old, he added a second word (Mama) at 10 months old, and now he's talking all day long. It turns out he is an extrovert like his big sister and is very friendly, even with strangers.

Learned how to eat. At six months old I began introducing Oliver to solid foods, and he has done a terrific job ever since then! He is willing to try anything. He can use a fork and spoon, but he uses his fingers more often than I wish he did. Some of his favorite foods include any soup or stew, bbq chicken, pulled pork, baked beans, yogurt, fruit snacks, cheese puffs, string cheese, goldfish crackers, tootsie rolls, carrots, grapes, hot dogs, and most desserts. He prefers to eat sitting on my lap than in his booster seat.

Learned to sleep through the night. Currently he sleeps (on average) from 8pm to 7am and takes a nap (on average) from 1-3pm. He's gone from an incubator to a bassinet (in the NICU) to a crib at home to a twin sized bed. 

2 years 

Became mobile. He learned to crawl at 12 months and started walking at 15 months. He LOVES to climb. This boy has done things at his age which Ian (at 5 1/2) has yet to try such as riding a zip line and walking across the rope at the playground.

Learned to love his family. I am still number one in his life, but he also really loves Ian, Nadia, Paul, and his four grandparents. He loves to give bear hugs. He is definitely a snuggler!

2.5 years old

Learned to enjoy many different activities. Oliver loves to have books read to him, watch tv, go to the playground, swim, take baths, ride rides at amusement parks, play on the iPad, and play with a wide variety of toys. The toys he spends the most time playing with are anything related to cooking (such as play food). He also really loves to help me cook in the kitchen. It doesn't matter what I am cooking, Oliver wants to help!

We love you SO much, Oliver, and we look forward to seeing how you will grow and change over the coming years! His celebrations today will include donuts for breakfast, time at the State Museum, and his first trip to Chuck E. Cheese this afternoon. All four of his grandparents are planning to meet us in Harrisburg for the State Museum and Chuck E Cheese. Aunt Millie made him a Mickey Mouse birthday cake for us to eat at Chuck E Cheese. This is the first birthday he has eagerly anticipated, and we hope it lives up to his expectations!

Thankful Thursday

Nadia driving a fire engine!

1. We all enjoyed seeing the "True Story of the 3 Little Pigs" on Saturday morning, and it only cost us $20 total for the five of us to see the production.

2. I know I just talked about Shutterfly last Thursday, but last week was my best week ever with that company. On Saturday I placed two more orders. One was similar to the two I mentioned last week, and then I found out they were giving EVERYONE free shipping on Saturday no matter how big or small your order was. Wow. If I hadn't recently placed a few orders I would have placed an even bigger order, but still I was able to get several things completely for free due to free codes plus free shipping. I am farther along in my Christmas shopping than I usually am at this time of year, and I also have already finished my Christmas card (and I won't be writing a letter as I included several paragraphs of text in the card). That's a first also to be done with that by August 1. On Saturday I also received in the mail my very first lay flat

photo book. Wow. I learned if you stack two codes you can get one of those for free. I am not saying I will make every book a lay flat book, but I am also certain I will be ordering more of those in the future. It's a much nicer book. I'm so thankful for Shutterfly and also the Shutterfly FB group I'm in.

3. The five of us also enjoyed seeing "Alice in Wonderland" on Sunday afternoon.

4. Although it was a MAJOR ordeal to get Nadia and especially Ian to eat a little bit of mashed potatoes, they all ate the meatloaf very easily even though at first there was much protesting over it. I'm always happy to discover a food they will all eat easily. The only bad part is that Paul is not a fan of meatloaf so I can't say it's something all five of us like to eat. Meatloaf was one of my most favorite foods growing up. I usually asked for either meatloaf or ham for my birthday dinner that my mom would prepare.

5. Oliver had a mild case of pink eye the end of last week, and thankfully it didn't spread to anyone else. I believe it's the first time he's had it.

6. Nadia, Ian, and Paul enjoyed seeing the Lego movie at the theater on Tuesday morning.

7. All five of us had a great time at the National Night Out on Tuesday evening. My highlights were seeing how excited Ian was to show me what he has been learning in his swimming class, watching the kids enjoy various different activities (such as the zip line for Nadia), and eating a very delicious raspberry shortcake (huge fresh black and red raspberries on it).

8. As of yesterday, I have lost ten pounds! Progress is exciting, especially as I was nervous given I enjoyed some treats at the National Night Out the previous night (although I did skip the chips and cotton candy). I can now jog for as long as 26 minutes in a row (probably could go farther). Now I am working on increasing my pace although I don't expect to get to

the 10 minute mile mark that the app is expecting. I had hoped to lose 20 pounds by early September. I don't think that will happen, but maybe I can reach my goal by the end of October.

9. My dad made is back safely from Turkey on Monday.

10. When we read chapter books, Nadia is the primary audience, and I also hope that Ian is benefiting at least partially. I really am not expecting Oliver to be paying attention. On Wednesday morning he started saying things like "I am a dragon," and we were in the chapter in Voyage of the Dawn Treader when Eustace becomes a dragon. Paul turned to him and asked Oliver, "What is Reepacheep" and Oliver immediately responded "a mouse," which is the correct answer. We were dumbfounded. I am not saying Oliver is grasping most of what we are reading, but I was surprised to realize he's paying attention at least part of the time. I plan to reread the Chronicles of Narnia to the kids when Oliver is older.

11. Last night I attended a free concert at First Baptist in Danville. June, a woman who sings alto in choir with me, went with me. Paul watched Oliver and the other two were at their musical rehearsal. The concert featured Jason Grey and Saline. What a treat!

12. The weather has cooled down so that the highs are now in the low 80's, which is much nicer than the 90's in my opinion.

Wordless Wednesday

National Night Out

Two years ago we attended the National Night Out event in Lewisburg for the first time, and today was our third time attending it. Our fire department has a MUCH smaller event, but we drive to Lewisburg for theirs instead. Everything including all the food is free (Domino's pizza, hot dogs, popcorn, snow cones, bottled water, raspberry shortcakes, cookies, chips, cotton candy, etc.). Some of the favorite activities included the zip line (Nadia's third year doing it and Oliver's first), the inflatables (only the boys did them), going up 55 feet high with the electric company (only Nadia did that), watching Ronald McDonald's magic show (Nadia participated in one part), face painting, and swimming in the pool. Nadia went down the water slides and jumped off the diving board in that pool for the first time this evening. I apologize that the video of Nadia on the zip line is sideways. I am still learning how to use my new phone. If the kids were older, we would have stayed a little longer to see the fireworks from 9:00-9:30. Because of this event they cancelled their swim lessons this morning. This meant that Paul was able to take Nadia and Ian for one last movie for the summer. They saw the Lego movie. We spent a grand total of $10 on movie tickets this summer which paid for Paul, Nadia, and Ian to see three movies and Oliver to see one. It was Nadia's first time seeing the Lego movie and Ian's second time.




While they were at the movie, I took Oliver to two playgrounds (exercise for me plus I tried to get some birthday pictures of him). I also did Oliver's 3 year birthday interview today (I know it's three days early but it's close enough in my opinion). As a frame of reference, here is Oliver's interview from 6 months ago, Ian's 3 year old birthday interview, and Nadia's 3 year old birthday interview. I think this is a record for me that I am including four videos in this post (plus links to three older videos). Some of them are only 13 seconds long so it won't take long to watch them. Enjoy!

Balloons and brownies

This is the first birthday that Oliver has eagerly anticipated. It was the same for Nadia and Ian. They didn't comprehend what birthdays were like when they turned one or two, but they were very excited about their third birthdays. Several days ago I overheard Oliver through the baby monitor talking about how he wanted his birthday when he was in bed. Today we started Oliver's birthday celebration by letting him pick out three mylar balloons at Dollar General. He picked out an Elmo balloon, Mickey Mouse balloon, and a black one that says "happy birthday."

After dinner Nadia and Oliver helped me make brownies. I taught Nadia how to crack an egg. She cracked three of them and laughed her head off while doing each one. Oliver was laughing right along with her. I had no idea cracking eggs was such a hysterical endeavor! It was not surprising that they loved licking the bowl clean with a spatula at the end. Yum!

The kids wore a wide variety of costumes today. Ian was the one wearing the Blue's Clues costume.

Alice in Wonderland

This morning I helped out in Nadia's Sunday School class, and then Ian, Nadia, and I attended the second worship service. After lunch, all five of us went to see "Alice in Wonderland" in Williamsport. It was a put on by children and lasted one hour. We have seen several productions at that theatre over the last few years, and this was the best one we had seen of those done by children there. Nadia can't wait until she is old enough to be involved in more productions like this. We have two more plays that we are scheduled to see later this month - Jungle Book and Winnie the Pooh. Today we finished listening to BFG (by Dahl). We are planning to see a production of that at PSU in the spring. We were listening to Charlie and the Glass Elevator, but Nadia found the part with the Wonkavite to be too scary (I can't figure that one out). They both enjoyed the BFG. We read half of a biography on Cameron Townsend and decided to take a break and read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader before we finish the biography.

Nadia and Oliver with the Queen of Hearts

Trying on the Mad Hatter's hat

Three Little Pigs

We haven't seen a production at the Millbrook Playhouse before. It's located about 40 minutes west of us near Lock Haven. When I saw they were doing a production of "The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs," I knew I wanted to go because the traditional version of that story was Oliver's favorite story for quite awhile. This play, which lasted one hour and included several songs, was based on the children's book which tells the story from the wolf's point of view. He wasn't trying to blow down any houses. He had allergies and was only sneezing while trying to borrow a cup of sugar to make a cake. This afternoon Nadia and I were discussing possible ideas for how she could write a story which took the point of view of a villain from a different story. That will be a creative writing assignment for her at some point. Homeschooling truly is a 365 day adventure. Maybe some year we'll take the kids to see the musical "Wicked," which does the same thing regarding the Wizard of Oz. Paul and I saw it on Broadway in NYC a few years ago.

Other than this outing this morning, we stayed home all day, which involved a lot of time playing with Legos. On Thursday night we started a project of sorting the Legos by color and placing them in bins in a unit Paul had picked out years ago for screws and such but had never used. I unwrapped it and put it to good use. As the kids and I sorted Legos on Thursday and Friday, we learned that the two colors we have the most Legos of are black and red. We made one bin for people, another bin for wheels, one for light gray, one for dark gray, etc. We filled the whole thing up before we had put away all the Legos so I need to buy another unit for the rest of them, but we did put away at least 2/3 of our current Lego collection.