Merry Christmas.

Peef

I went with Levi and Ezra to see Peef the Christmas Bear, a musical at Hopkins' Stages Children's Theater. It was based on the Children's book called A Silent Night for Peef , written by an Eden Prairie author. The show was very well done, the boys loved it and it brought back fond memories of my own time in the theater. A grand afternoon for all.

Ring Those Christmas Bells

Above you can click and see and really hear Levi's first solo in Church (or anywhere). We're so proud of him! He was very clear and on the right beat and everything. And he seemed to have fun.

We are also very proud of Ezra for his role in the Christmas play at church. I think it was called Chimes in the Night. It had a whole cast with grownups and middle school students and everything. The kiddos, including Levi and Ezra, came in and did a performance of the Christmas manger scene. Levi played Joseph.

Ezra, who played a lamb, certainly didn't want to go on stage and was a wreck all morning Sunday, but he showed us a lot about his character when he got up and did what the rest of his class was doing - and wore his little white hat with ears and big white cotton balls. He looked very cute.

There's a story behind the photo below of Ivy and Roman. 

You see today (Monday) Roman took a big tumble down 7 wooden stairs from our main level to the entryway. The tile contractor, working in the master bathroom, accidentally left the gate open at the top of our stairs and he fell down the stairs. We are still remarking how remarkable it is that he wasn't hurt! 

Christina took him into the doctor's office and they said he checked out OK. In fact, they found that he had a double ear infection and gave us some antibiotics to treat them (which could explain why he's been waking up screaming at night for the past week). So in a way, his fall was a blessing. Of course, Ivy realized how happy she was to see him when he came back from the clinic and she gave him a big welcome (shown below). Maybe she was telling him about the time two weeks ago that she climbed, and then cartwheeled down, three wooden steps from the new addition to the main level. Who knows. They're both fine and  happy, as this photo illustrates.

We put our Christmas tree up this weekend; the boys were excited about that. Next weekend we're looking forward to doing some baking.

That's all.

Christmas shower in the works

Levi and Ezra excited about Advent gifts from Grandma Black.

Daddy super-excited about Ivy opening advent calendar Dec. 3.

Master bathroom - before tile guys come.

The little room on the right is the shower.

There are two pallets of tile in our garage now.
Costco delivers the  212-pound vanity Tuesday. 

Advent underway

First, off, to follow up on last week's post, Ezra got his stitches out on Saturday morning without any problem. If you didn't know he had them, you would never guess by looking at his eye they healed so well already. He was very nervous about getting them out, but instead of saying that he just cried and was ornery all morning before we left. I had to even pry his hands off of the railing in the entryway to get him out to the car. Of course, by the time that the nice nurse took the stitches out, he was fine and behaving like the cutest 3-year-old I've ever seen. We got donuts and juice and came home to tell Levi and Mommy all about it.

Now, onto Thanksgiving. Could you ask for better weather for driving up and back to North Dakota? No. It was great. It would have been nice if we could have bottled up some of the weather and used it to mitigate some of the yucky mid-winter storms that blow along the same route. You know, just average things out a little. It was dry the whole weekend - which made it for nice, safe driving. On the way out of town, we had to stop by the pediatrician's office - because Ivy got pink eye. It cleared up quickly.  It's annoying to have to put drops in kids' eyes, although much easier when they're babies I've found than 3 or 4.

So, we took grandpa and grandma's big conversion van - and Levi and Ezra loved it because they could watch videos easily on the DVD player. I liked it because it was easy to pack and had enough room for Christina to get out and about to help the babies and boys out when they were fussy.

In Grand Forks on Wednesday night we had the honor of participating in Roz's baptism. It was very special and she was a doll. Thursday was "F" day - football, family, fun and food. Friday was travel-back day _ I'd call it Black Friday, but then again isn't every Friday one of those for our family? Just like the day-after-tomorrow is Black Tuesday? We did virtually no shopping.

We did get our new cell phones though in the mail, and they will take a lot of work to get set up like our old ones. I'm certain we can do it - and I'm super excited about the new camera and video camera features built in. I'm not so sure I'll figure out how to use Siri.

Saturday was a fun party day here at our house. We had a ton of folks here - good food and home-made music and laughs. In the video above, Kari and Brian and Kermit did a nice version of Rainbow Connection on the banjo. (The laughing was genuine - I hadn't had one drop of wine before I made the video.)

My favorite dessert I think was the Wild Blueberry Pie from the "World Famous" Tobies Restaurant & Bakery in Hinkley. They have an online store. Wow. it is awesome. There is one slice left- just calling my name and I have no idea how come I haven't finished it off yet. Soon.

Sunday, we found out that Levi was asked to sing a solo in the Christmas pageant at church. It's 4 lines, so its not that small. He's excited and he's going to do great! Tonight Levi and Ezra and I hung the Christmas lights. I gave them a big box of tangled up lights and said to sort them; just like Christmas Vacation.

Speaking of Christmas, we lit our advent candle Sunday night. 1 down, 3 to go.

Ezra Gets Another First

Well, Ezra has won another first in the family - the first to get stitches. It happened Sunday night at about 2 am when he fell out of his bed and cut his eye on his bed side table. Sam took him to Children's and two hours later he came home with stitches. There was no waiting at the ER, which was astonishing compared to the other times we've been there. The nurse remembered Sam from when Roman was there the first week that he was born - when he was losing weight and had a cold. She was so glad to hear he is big, crawling and happy.

She also said Ezra was lucky where it hit, a few inches over and it wouldn't have been good. He's not too happy about the stitches, he wants them out. We'll have to take him to the Dr. on  Friday or Saturday to do so (after our trip up north for Thanksgiving)

This month has been a flurry of activity around here. Today I had the honor of attending Ezra's preschool Thanksgiving feast. He made place mats and a turkey decoration for it. He only ate the pretzels and m&m's (no soup, no cheese, no bread) but it was fun nonetheless. He is doing great at preschool. Often he doesn't want to go and has a hard time, but they always say he has such a great day. Today I observed him for a bit before he saw me and he was doing great - cleaning up and talking to others.

Levi was the star of the week last week in school. He got to lead the group during certain times and on Friday Sam got to visit and read the class a book (The Three Questions). His classmates all drew pictures for him to put in a keepsake book.
We had our first school conference at the beginning of the month. As expected, no problems and I guess he is talking to kids and making friends - maybe even a little too much as we found out that the teacher moved them around because there was a little too much noise one day. His teacher decided to have his reading accessed by the literacy coach. Turns out he's reading at level C (end of kindergarten, beginning of first grade). So, he gets to do some additional work (mainly crosswords) instead of coloring. That's good.

Roman and Ivy are all over the place. Ivy is close to pulling up and standing up and she has found the tea drawers. Roman has four teeth through and Ivy has three. They both are still waking up a ridiculous amount of times through the night, so they are often separated (one in the room and one upstairs in our closet in the pack and play).
Roman had physical therapy today. He is doing pretty well. We finally get to cut down to once a month. I think the crawling has helped.
Only ten weeks until they are 1. It was a year ago tomorrow that bed rest started for me. The time has flown.

We had a dusting of snow last Saturday so the boys went out and swept the lawn and rode their hot wheels around. They got to try on their new boots (that Grandma Black bought them last year) for the first time. They work great!

Other happenings: got our new pastor installed, kids started practicing for the Christmas program, attended PTO meeting, friend had her baby, children's ministry meeting at church, Tanglen Bingo night, tile and toilet in the small bathroom (sink and door left to go), master bathroom will start getting tile in about a week and a half, ordered the office door (not in yet), got the Schwan's project back last weekend, saw a mouse scurry across our garage (hope he's not living in there), got a new fridge, reluctantly got iphones, been swimming at the Williston center (but not enough), are starting to contemplate Christmas presents, a tree, decorations and a busy and fun season starting. Cheers.

Starting November Right

Levi and Ezra and I put off yard work to play Nov. baseball.

Roman found his way into this blue bin, I turned him upright for photo. If you click on the pic and enlarge it, and look closely in the background, you'll notice Ivy found and got into the puffed stars package that had been in the diaper bag. She's like a little Houdini - can figure out how to get into anything - and escape from the complex Ikea bibs too. 

This was at cousin madison's first communion

Funny grown-ups making kids smile on the couch.

Costumes 2011

our theme this year:

Jack-o-lantern

Saturday we carved pumpkins. Roman and Ivy missed out - cause they were asleep.We had good time. We made a cat and a 2 regular jack-o-lanterns that we decorated with some feathers to make them unique.

Boo!

Today is Reformation Sunday at Church we will be hearing our new pastor - Jay - give his first sermon. It is exciting since Christina was on the call committee to help select him.

We are headed to Shakopee Monday night for trick-or-treating. Can't wait.

Leaves, Leaves, Leaves over our entire lawn
I couldn't rake in 1 day, even if I began at dawn.

Christina and Levi and Ezra went to a "Young People's Concert" at Hopkins Sr. High last Thursday night. They wore their PJs and brought a blanket and stuffed animals. And got balloon animals too.

October Skies

Well, I guess it's harder to keep up with the blog when you've doubled your children total. We've been busy over the past month getting used to school and preschool. Levi started walking into school on his own now about a week ago. I still walk him across the street and then he says goodbye and runs up to the door. It took a lot of coaxing and a little bit of pressure (i.e. talking about how his other friends walk into school). As a reward, Ezra and I made cookie dough while he was at school. So, that night Sam got to decorate them with the boys.



I have volunteered to be the Room Parent Coordinator for Levi's class. So far there are only two other moms helping which floors me and disappoints me, but we'll do the best we can. We are currently planning a Pumpkin Party happening a week from today. We've got four stations planned and it should be fun.

Ezra is enjoying preschool and even stayed for lunch bunch last week. They said he had a great day and was even a little mischievous by throwing sand on the slide. He seems to be coming out of his shell so that is great. He still gets a little clingy and sad when I leave but gets over it much faster these days.

Ivy is crawling forward now and starting to get into things. Roman is a rolling machine, but is still pretty much contained. Their sleeping has taken another nose dive if that's possible. Not even sure what to say about that - nothing I guess, except please let it change!

Our new pastor starts at church on Monday. Looking forward to his first sermon in a week!

Last weekend we took the trolley ride at Lake Harriet to the small pumpkin patch where L & E got to pick out a (small) pumpkin. They enjoyed it. Here is a great picture of the little ones. 

And, here's one from after the event - mama and Ezra checking out the water. Sometimes these pictures are way better than posed ones!



Yesterday we went to the orchard with mom's club. I think it is our 4th or 5th annual trip. This time, in addition to playing in corn,





sitting on tractors, feeding the goats, playing on tires, watching the cows, and taking a tractor ride where we each got to get some corn and a gord,



we got to pick our own apples. We tasted them as we came to different varieties and picked those we liked best.

Also, I got a great shot of all four in the pumpkin patch.



The little goblins are up from quiet time/nap, so I must scoot.

Category: Milestone

I took this short video soon after Ivy had crawled for the first time - well the second time. Christina said she crawled a little bit earlier in the afternoon upstairs in the office. Either way, it was one of those milestones I won't forget. Go Ivy Go!

French Lake weekend w/ some Mozart

Ezra, Levi and Dad went to a concert at the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra where a dude dressed up like Mozart and walked us through the composition of one piece: Concerto No. 17 in G for piano and Orchestra (1784) 1. Allegro.
One guess who was the corporate sponsor?

When in St. Paul, play with St. Paul

We went to Lakeshore Learning store and did a free craft after the concert and a quick trip to Costco.
This time it was chef hats.

This weekend we all took a trip to French Lake Park. 

Let me just say that Roman has two bottom teeth now,
and he's been rolling over much more than previously. So that's good.

We let the boys take their big wheels on the walk.

Ezra taking a turn on our treadmill this week. His first ever.

Making the most of the warm fall

Ezra's first pre-school field trip - they went to a nearby nature center - best weather ever.

Ezra (in red) and Levi decided to rake the front yard on their own tonight. Levi figured in five nights they'd be done.

Babies playing with each other in our living room.

This picture never gets old. So cute and fun.

HAPPY FISHING !!! They didn't catch anything, but had a lot of fun when mama took them fishing one day this week.
The boys got to eat fish crackers and use pretzels w/peanut butter as little fishing rods/bait - which was fun too.

"when life was slow and oh, so mellow"

A few last flings of summer.

Tonight, I picked about a dozen red tomatoes off the vine. I'm not sure how much longer we're going to get those and also fresh basil from the garden, but I'll take it - in OCTOBER! Very nice weather this weekend too from what I saw.

A few highlights from our last two week:

Ezra is loving pre-school, he always has stories to tell about his art projects, or playing in the big motor room or singing songs. He also seems to be sick again, which is too bad, because we just got over getting colds. I have a hunch that his runny nose tonight is from his flu mist vaccine. 

Levi has been enjoying kindergarten. Tonight at dinner, he surprised me and recited the entire pledge. I didn't even realize they were saying it daily at school, but I'm glad they were and that he listened. He's been opening up more and telling us a few more details about his class - some days more than others. He never talks about other kids in his class though, which is frustrating. Levi got a new baseball glove - its intermediate size and he should be able to use it next year for baseball. It has already improved his catching and throwing (he usually just loves hitting).

Roman is doing better. He is almost turning over on his own again. He's still very happy to be talked to or looked at or paid attention to. He has one tooth on the bottom of his mouth too, which is cute when he smiles. His fine motor skills are improving and he loves to eat Cheerios and Gerber "puff" stars and buttered toast. Roman is getting too big for his car seat, so this will be the last two weeks probably that he'll be in an infant car seat - we'll have to move him to a toddler one that is rear facing, but doesn't come out of the minivan. It seems like just yesterday (honestly) that we were taking him home from the hospital and that car seat was just too big for him and we needed to put in extra padding. Now, our baby has outgrown it.

Ivy is still eating whatever we give her - which lately has been yogurt, cheese and eggs. She also eats veggie nuggets and veggie burgers. And she eats veggies and fruits. Pretty much everything but potatoes (which she doesn't care for) and sweets (cause we don't let her have those yet). To my surprise, Ivy isn't crawling yet. She's scooting fine, but mostly backwards. I give her a week and she'll figure it out for sure - we're already putting up the baby gate at the top of the stairs whenever she's on the floor though, just in case she motors too fast. Ivy, probably because of the exercise and the less-fatty diet (fewer bottles of formula) is thinner and has no problem fitting into her car seat. She's shorter too, which is really what is pushing Roman to get into a bigger chair.

So here are a few of the activities we've done recently include: Going to Target's kid book fest in Bloomington; going to the Mall of America amusement park, I went to the Gopher's game with my neighbor Justin. (We watched the Gopher's lose big to North Dakota State - of course I was rooting for the Gophers.) We also have been shopping at Ikea, Target and Lowe's. Oh, and last Sunday, the Levi Ezra Christina and I went to meet the new lead pastor for our church. His name is Jay and he is supposed to be voted on by the church council next week and the congregation a few weeks after that. He may be installed on All Saints Sunday. He was very polite and friendly to talk to. I think he was surprised when I brought up a news story I read about him when he was a starting pastor in California - he was quoted in the LA Times. It was easy to find, but I doubt he expected anybody to do that level of background check on him. Oh, Levi gave him a buckeye. We happened to go on a bike ride the afternoon of the party and found a rare buckeye tree near the high school - i told Levi that my mom considers the little round nuts to be good luck and so we agreed it was something that a new pastor like Jay would enjoy getting as a gift. Levi gave it too him, and I kinda had to explain why. 

Finally, the really big news around here is the fact that Christina and I have moved our bedroom up to the new addition. We were blessed to get a very beautiful bedroom set from Christina's uncle. Her cousin Erik and dad went up to "the lake" to retrieve it and haul it in - Thanks so much to both of you for your help. It was back-breaking labor - the dresser felt like a piano. We have the floors upstairs pretty much finished and this week I installed blinds in the room (from Lowe's). We haven't really done much but paint the spare bathroom upstairs, but that will come together soon enough. This weekend, I'll be staining the new stairs we had installed - they are maple and look a little bit like albino stairs right now - so we need them to match our existing wood stairs and main-level floors. It's very exciting too that Roman and Ivy get their own room (to share). We moved our bed out and got them a little rug  at Ikea and put in the glider that Jonathan gave us. It's very cozy and cute in there, now we need a nice kid-friendly light fixture and to paint the drab walls, and we're in business.

That's about all for now. We are sort of distracted getting ready for winter around here - seems like we have a lot to do outside - I have to put up some shutters and do some raking of leaves and maybe even mowing of grass this weekend. I also want to finish painting at least some of the overhang near the back porch so we don't have to see yellow blobs of paint peaking through.

That's about all for now. My work is going OK. This week I wrote a story about a printing company that decided NOT to do an expansion project - you could say I made lemons out of lemonade. Here's a link - even though the story will only be available to our paper's print subscribers for the next two weeks - the link will still work after that and go to a free site. I also recently broke significant Twin Cities business stories about Target buying a piece of land near its headquarters in Minneapolis and one about a new $100M apartment project in downtown Minneapolis.

I'm listening to BOLERO by Maurice Ravel in a live concert by Minnesota Orchestra Live from Orchestra Hall. Good stuff. Oh, and did you figure out what the title is from up above? September song.

First Day of Preschool

Yesterday (Tuesday, Sept. 13) was Ezra's first day of preschool at Oak Knoll. He did great. Although quiet, as we expected, he sounded like he had fun when he told me that he played play doh, played outside, sang some silly songs, had snack of pretzels, raisins and juice (really?!?) and read The Hungry Bear. He even said he followed his friend around. He goes back tomorrow (provided he doesn't have a temp tonight and his runny nose stops by morning) for another day of fun!

Oh, and last week I took him to Barnes and Noble for story time. Curious George was there. I didn't quite get the ideal picture with the big one, but Ezra made sure I took one of him with the small one.

OH, also, last week I took Levi mini-golfing. It was a long overdue "date" we had planned together. It was just the two of us. After driving for what seemed like forever, we made it to Golf Zone. It was a course outside, nothing like Pirates Cove, but fun nonetheless.

Next on the list...getting a recent picture of Mister Romano on the blog. Ta ta for now.