The Fall, Birthdays, and Halloween, even though it's March

***Quick Preface - this entry was written 2 years ago, but I'm just going to go ahead and publish it without photos! Otherwise it may never be published!! An actual update for 2020 will come soon***

So even though it's spring, we're still not caught up with the fall. And we all know fall is the best season around here, and October is a pretty great month with 2 birthdays! (And this last October was extra wild with me moving to a new office and changing the practice!) But first, there were a couple of events from last summer that I didn't really mention in the last post. One was the Jay Owenhouse magic show that I took the boys to. They loved it - and it was pretty great! Lots of big tricks and illusions - lots of fun. We also took the boys to another magic show in February, which Damon and I thought was great, but was a little over the boys' heads. If you ever get a chance to see Vitaly though, definitely a fun show for the older crowd. 

I think I mentioned in the last post that the boys went to a couple of different camps last summer - the YMCA soccer and swimming camps were a hit. Edison also went to a few of the Nature Center camps and enjoyed that. On the topic of extracurriculars, I think we've (Edison and I) reached a stopping point with the ukulele. I'm not sure what we'll try next, maybe the piano...Everyone's still enjoying gymnastics though! So that's good. We're at the local gym for their classes 3 days a week - one of the instructors recently told me I'm there as much as she is 😀

A random observation I've made over the last few months is that Miriam knows landmarks in town really well. She gets very excited about picking up Adlai and Edison, going to Pamma’s house, my office (including my old office), etc. As soon as we go around a certain curve to gymnastics, she starts screaming (excitedly) about how we're going to gymnastics. It's pretty funny. Oddly, no one gets excited when they see the grocery....

Moving on to Adlai's birthday, here's kind of a play-by-play. He woke up and broke through the traditional birthday streamers, except without crying!! This was huge. Damon made him giant pancakes for breakfast, and we then went to SkyZone in Mishawaka to jump around on trampolines for a while. We had Martin's sushi for lunch, then went to Target to shop for 4 presents. This was a good lesson in parenting - just because something worked well for one child, does not mean it will work well for the others....Then we went to Hesston Train Museum to ride the Halloween train, which Edison very clearly did not enjoy. We had pizza (Adlai's favorite) for dinner and opened presents, then got to attack the amazing gigantic  butt pinata made by Aunt Sam, and filled with various poop-themed items. 💩 

Between Adlai and Miriam's birthdays, there were a lot of Halloween themed events to attend, including one at Edison's school and at the Nature Center. 

For Miriam’s birthday, she started the day by having her brothers hold her hand and walk her through the birthday streamers. They very protectively guided her through the process and wished her a Happy Birthday. She ate her normal breakfast and went to gymnastics, where another child also had a birthday! We all went to Edison’s parent teacher conference,  picked up Adlai from school, then had a pizza buffet lunch (and of course got candy everywhere we went). We took a trip to Meijer, went to Pamma’s house, went to Bounceland, went home to change, went to downtown Benton Harbor to trick-or-treat, went back to Pamma’s neighborhood to trick-or-treat, and finally had dinner and cake and opened presents.  (Is every b-day going to be crazy for her???) 

As I mentioned in the last post, Thanksgiving was spent in California, where we had a fantastic trip visiting Ema and Papa. We can't wait to get a chance to go back! Then there was Christmas, which was also fun. Uncles Clint and Jamie came to visit, and Miriam was particularly enamored by her Uncle Jamie. The Great Birks came to visit as well, making it all the more fun. The kids have asked pretty regularly how many more days/weeks/months until Christmas ever since. 

The winter has otherwise been pretty wintery. We had a lot of snow this year, but also a lot of cold weather. Edison attempted to snow board for the first time and did a pretty good job! If the videos would ever upload on here, I'd show you how he did, but alas, I haven't figured that out yet. 

We have had a lot of stinkbugs in the house though. Miriam used to love bugs, then became afraid because Edison would scream when he saw them. But after some immersion therapy, she now loves them again and has to catch every stinkbug in the house. At gymnastics recently the theme was superheroes. During class (which she loves), she found a stinkbug crawling around and had to stop, get down and carefully catch it, then we had to leave class to take it outside and free (rescue) it. Then today we were outside and I was moving wood and found a really big spider in the wheelbarrow. After showing it to Miriam she immediately put her hands next to it and said 'me hold it'. Uhhh....let's just dump that guy in the woods here...I think he'd prefer to be free. 

All three are getting really comfortable with swimming. Edison is trying to teach himself how to front crawl. Adlai is learning that it’s easier to just swim underwater. And last week Miriam got brave enough to swim around without holding onto us (but with a bubble on). 

In the pool: 

Miriam looks at my arm: Mommy! Look! 

Me: What? 

M: Mommy, Look!! (pointing at my arm)

Me: What? What’s wrong with my arm?

M: Like Daddy! Like Daddy! 

Me: Ohhh. My arm hair is like Daddy’s? 

M: Yes!!! 

Me: Well, someday your arms will look like this too! 

Adlai still wants to do everything that Edison does. And Edison is often annoyed by it. 

Edison has had several playdates - after his first visit to his friend’s house I asked him what they did - his response? ‘We played chess’. Ah yes, that's exactly what I did at friend's houses when I was 6....or not. 

Edison is working on learning how to keep a beat. We’ve made a lot of progress in the last month - maybe not so much with the ukulele itself, but at least with learning how to keep/feel a beat! Adlai and Miriam are also in a Kindermusic class that they love, while Edison takes his ukulele lessons. I'm pretty sure A and M aren't going to want to give up their class even after Edison stops ukulele. 

We've been attending different classes at the YMCA since January too, including a Family Fitness class on Sundays that all three of them seem to like. It mostly ends up being me and Miriam as one person, which she is totally fine with.  

About a week ago, we all got to meet cousin Effie for the first time! All of the kids loved seeing her, although they only referred to her as 'it' or 'Effie'. I think Miriam was surprised to see a baby that moved on its' own, and loved staring at her. 

Last topic for this post is regarding Edison's 1st grade social life. It sounds like there is a lot of talk at his school about the prospect of him getting braces. Some kids have assured him that he is getting them - I only wish I had been there to see how they came to their conclusions. Edison was also involved in a love scandal earlier this year when another girl in his class received a mysterious letter saying that Edison loved her. When she confronted Edison about it, he told her, 'I don't love you, I didn't write that', but proceeded to help her find out who did write it. Eventually they learned it was two 2nd grade girls who wrote the note, who just happened to have the 'punishment' of having to hug Edison every day for a week....😍

Quotes:

Pamma: Miriam, you're so pretty today! 
M: I KNOW! 

Miriam (looking up my nose): Mommy, look! 
Me: What? 
Miriam: Spiders in there! 

Adlai: What do you call a smelly firefighter? 
Pamma: I don't know, what? 
A: A firefarter!