Room Swap!!

So this is the second afternoon that I have spent keeping very busy on my feet. Yesterday was making cut-out sugar cookies (most of which I sent to Aliza's school, and didn't even get to enjoy). And today was the big "room swap". Eben and Nora have swapped rooms and we officially have a girls room and a boy room. I've just put the girls to bed and have been in 3 times, all of which to keep Aliza from talking to Nora. I know its a lot to ask, because she always talks with Eben, but I just don't know how Nora will take it. Eben is very excited to have his own room, and yes, we are planning on painting it - at some point. That is definitely NOT a boy color. Poor kid :) Anyway, when I took on the task, I didn't realize it would take so much time. Basically I reworked all three rooms upstairs. Since we had extra space in the girls room, I moved the baby stuff from the playroom in there. Its set up like a little "house" and the girls really like it. I tried to get the rocking chair out of Eben's room to give him a little more space, but no matter how I worked it, it was not fitting out the door. Somehow we got it in! We must have taken the midget door off - its the only thing I can think of.

Tomorrow is pajama day. Eben gets to wear them to school and also gets to watch The Polar Express. We watched it as a family last week, so at least he knows what to expect. Our kids can always find something to be scared of, but all in all they did pretty well with it. Nora even sat through most of it on my lap. I was very surprised. The girls and I are heading to a Pancake and PJ's playdate, so we'll enjoy some relaxing clothing too :)

I'm so worn out from moving rooms around, yet a nice pile of dinner dishes is staring me down. Can't I just leave them til tomorrow? Jared made dinner, as I was still in the moving mood, and then he and Eben headed out to do some Christmas shopping. I told him I'd do the dishes later, but later doesn't sound any better than earlier did. As much as I dislike seeing dirty dishes waiting in the morning, I think that's what is going to happen.

*I can hear two little girls voices... aren't monitors great :) Hmmm, how long should I wait to go up. (sigh) It could be a long couple nights in the Van Haitsma home...

Enjoy the pics, especially the one with Eben's sprinkled cookies. Teenie Tiny cookies and an insane amount of sprinkles! My back was turned when he did that or I would have stopped him. Wowza!! How about a little cookie with those sprinkles!

Oh yeah, and say a little prayer for the next several bedtimes ;)

Michigan Trip

So here is a quick view of our trip to Michigan. We went home for Thanksgiving this year instead of Christmas to try to beat the weather. It worked. We had great traveling weather, and not too bad there either. We squeezed in Thanksgiving and Christmas with both sides of the family and even a joint birthday party for Lyvinia and Nora. It was very busy, but good, as always. I sure wish we lived closer to all of them! Coming home, it was weird to think that Christmas was still weeks away since it felt like it had come and gone. Now that we've decorated and brought out the Christmas CD's, it feels a little more like Christmas is coming. It will be very strange to wake up Christmas morning in CT. I have never been away from my family at Christmas, so it will be a new experience. I hope it don't get too sad. We are going to plan some fun events with the kids the week we all have off so we don't go crazy in our house! This will also be the first Christmas that we'll get to go to our church's Christmas Eve service. I'm looking forward to that. We also just saw something in the bulletin for a New Year's Eve Party for couples at the church, so I think we'll do that :) Its nice to have something set up for that already, so we don't just sit in our house wishing we had plans.

As an update from my last post, Nora hasn't really jumping on the "potty train" which is fine with me. Every once in awhile she'll ask, but she never goes. Eben had his first follow-up appointment for his tooth, or lack-there-of, and it went well. He'll get the spacer put in on the 17th. All is well :) Enjoy the pics!

Oh yeah, I should probably explain a picture for you - the one with pink all over Nora's face... While at my cousin Nicki's house, she explored the lipstick of Nicki's foreign exchange student. What you see is what she did. We hadn't heard from her in awhile, (which is kinda rare since she's often stuck to my side), so Jared and Nicki when searching. Let's just say they were very much in shock when they found her. What a rascal! And let me tell you, lipstick is very greasy, and certainly not the easiest thing to get out. Now you know ;)

Our Three Little Monkeys

The dreaded Dentist appointment went so well!! Eben was amazing! The Dentist even said he was one of the best patients he's ever had at that age. I was so proud of him. And holy cow, was that tooth huge! Usually when you lose teeth the root has already been dissolved, but only 1 of 3 were gone, so it came out with 2 huge roots on it. It looked so painful coming out, but Eben just laid there relaxing with the nitric oxide...or whatever it was. When we were almost ready to leave he asked when they were going to take the tooth out. I told him it was already out and I had it in an envelope to take home. How funny. We still have a few foll0w-up appts to do in Dec, but hopefully they'll go just as well!

In other news, Nora has picked up 2 new interests, the first being "why". She asks "why" after almost everything now. No idea where she got it from, but she thinks its pretty funny. And no matter how many times I answer, she just says it again. Ugh, the little rascal! She also has taken an interest in the potty. For the past couple days, she's told me she wants to sit on the potty. I haven't been thrilled, but I figured if she wants to, I'll let her. I'm not jumping into anything though! I learned my lesson w/ Aliza! Anyway, she usually sits there for awhile and doesn't do anything, then I make her get off b/c its time to move on to something else. Anyway, yesterday she asked to sit on the potty and shortly after told me she was done. I told her I'd get her diaper, and when I returned I was shocked to see that she had gone in the potty! Oh boy! She actually did it again at a birthday party we went to yesterday. Nothing today, but that's fine with me. I'm not going to do anything until maybe after our trip to Michigan. If she asks, I'll put her on, but I'm not going full steam ahead on this. We'll see where she's at after our trip.

Aliza, oh Aliza. She is giving us a run for our money! The "Trying Threes?", yes I believe it. I'm just hoping 4's will be better :) Today she found a burned out light bulb that the kids decided to remove from Eben's "bug light", and proceeded to think that throwing it at Eben's bed would be a good idea. No Aliza, it wasn't. It broke, leaving little bits of glass all over Eben's bed. What fun that was... On a positive note, she is doing well in school and can write her name quite well. That "Z" is tricky, but she's getting it. I forget sometimes how old she is getting.

Well, I'm off to work on a Christmas gift and then do a little reading :) I'll post some pics next time.

Dental Drama!

Here's a good one! (by the end you'll be able to sense the sarcasm here...)

So, Eben had a dentist appointment on Monday, just a regular cleaning, which always goes well. The girls were with a friend (so grateful for that!!). After talking with the hygienist a little she said we'd get some x-rays since it had been awhile since the last ones. Eben did great, and she mentioned that his back 6-year molar was coming in in front of his baby molar. The one on the other side had come in a little crooked, but straightened itself out. However, it didn't look like this one was going to. Anyhow, we move back into the other room and she starts looking at his teeth. While checking out the "troublesome" molar she notices that part of his gums around there look kind of white. She thought maybe there was something stuck in there, so she cleaned a little, but then said it looked more like an infection. Meanwhile, I'm sitting here feeling horrible that I hadn't noticed it. I guess when I floss, I'm in front of him and when he opens his mouth, I don't see the top outside of his gums. Anyway, I felt like a real great Mom. Back to the story - After talking with the Dentist, she decides not to poke around there too much b/c it probably hurt. I asked Eben if it hurt and he said it did when he ate carrots. Nice of you to tell us before this Eben!! We end up having to go get more x-rays done so she can get the entire root system. Here's where it gets interesting (at least I thought so). The hygienist said that the adult teeth actually dissolve the roots of the baby teeth which is why they become loose. How cool is that! Totally didn't know that! However, in this case it isn't so cool. It turns out that because the 6-yr molar is coming in so crooked it has already dissolved two of the roots of the baby molar next to it. Therefore it left a gap up there for things to get stuck in, thus creating the nasty infection in his gums. Yes, good times...

If you haven't guessed yet, this is a problem. So, here's the plan. Next Friday, Eben goes back to the dentist (during the middle of school), gets hooked up with some laughing gas, and has the baby molar "wiggled out" (that's what the Dentist said, though I think that sounds a little too gentle). This way the adult molar can come in all the way. Three weeks later, we go back again to get some sort of spacer put in to hold whatever space is left where the baby molar was. Keep in mind that the baby molar that we're getting pulled won't be replaced by an adult molar until he's about 12!!! Therefore, Eben will wear this spacer for 6 years! That's as much time as he's even been around!! I was totally in shock by all of this. And oh yes, Jared had left for Maryland that morning. Lovely.

So, that's the dental drama. I guess this spacer thing somehow connects to the top of his mouth...I don't know. I was kind of lost at that time. It should be interesting. They say they'll give him oxygen after the procedure is done next week to get the laughing gas out of his system. So, I guess I'm going to attempt bringing him back to school. Of course its an early dismissal day for parent/teacher conferences, so he'll only go back for another hour and a half, but oh well. I know he won't be happy to have to leave school. Throws off his routine and all. He was actually crying Sunday night about not wanting to go to school because he would have to leave early. Come on buddy, a little flexibility would be helpful :)

On that note, I guess I'll get ready for bed. Here's hoping your next dentist appointment goes better than Eben's did!

Oh yeah, the pics are from the MOMS Club Halloween party yesterday. The girls are butterflies and Eben is the War Machine from Iron Man. No, he has no idea what that is ;) Aliza is also with her little friend, Ava...who has a crush on Eben :) Notice Aliza's "cut job" is starting to grow out. Isn't it the cutest... or something... ;)

October 2010

I love the colors! Yesterday we took a long walk in the woods behind our house. It was so pretty. Eben found much joy throwing a plastic saw ahead of himself the whole way. He'd slam it on rocks along the path and leave paint marks. He even managed to hit Aliza on the head with one of his throws. Oh to be entertained by that! The girls walked out pretty well, but were a bit tired on the walk back. I carried Nora most of the way home. I'm glad we were able to enjoy a "warmish" day traipsing through the crunchy leaves :) Love it!

And last night I went out to a local corn maze with some other moms from the MOMS Club. We took our flashlights and wandered around in the dark looking for the 16 markers throughout the 7 acres of corn. It was a lot of fun, and we even managed to find them all! Our reward? A little cup of ice cream. Sort of funny since I was wearing my winter coat, hat, and gloves. We enjoyed our treat though :)

As most of my "readers" know (yes, that includes all 5 of you!!), my Grandma Schilling passed away on the 12th of this month. We had about a weeks warning, and knew it was coming. It sure didn't make it much easier though. Besides another cousin, I was the only one who hadn't seen her since the beginning of July. I still recall that feeling while saying good-bye in July, that I wouldn't see her again. Unfortunately, I was right. I am so grateful though, that I was able to talk to her the day before she died, and tell her I love her. She said it back and my heart broke. My eyes are welling up even as I type. I couldn't bear to say good-bye to her. It just seemed too permanent. I know one day I'll meet her again and we'll walk Heaven's streets of gold. I am so incredibly blessed to have known her my whole life and experienced so much with her. I will treasure the memories we shared. There will be a vacant spot at our family gatherings, yet I find so much joy and comfort knowing that she has been made whole and is with Jesus, and Grandpa again! Death is a hard thing. I've only been to 3 funerals in my life, and I certainly don't look forward to all the others in my future. However, with death, there is life too. I'll say good-bye to people throughout my life, but I know I'll say hello to many as well - some day my children will introduce me to that special someone and then down the road, to their own children. What a journey we are on...

While I was home with my family, Jared's parents 'happened' to be out here (Thank you God for working that out in advance!!). I've included a couple pictures from their visit, and also a letter that Eben wrote to Aliza. He made a fort and told her she couldn't go in it. Later he wrote the attached letter. Yes, I am keeping it. :)

Halloween approaches, with lots of parties to attend. The kids are looking forward to dressing up, and mommy is looking forward to all the CANDY!!!! SO excited about that!! I wonder how long I can get away with eating as much as I want... Anyway, after all the Halloween festivities, we have a birthday to celebrate :) Nora will be 2 already on Nov 2nd!!! How the time flies! And before we know it, we'll be in Michigan again. This year we're going over Thanksgiving in the hopes of missing all the crummy weather. Here's hopin' :) Have a great day everyone!