Help for a dear friend and their family

I love the Sherry's both Annie and Tom, whom I hold very dear in my heart, and their son and daughter in law Caroline. Caroline and I got to be friends a bit when they lived here in Corvallis. So please, go to the link and help, if you can. Even $5 can help the cause. I have seen many amazing things happen when the people of the internet join together and help one another. Please, help this exceptionally deserving family if you can.

Also repost it on your own blogs, facebook pages, twitter, google+ or anything else. Let's get this out to as many people as we can!

http://scsherrydonation.blogspot.com/

late night musings

I'm having one of those nights where it seems impossible to go to sleep.  Honestly, part of me just wants to scoop of Mr. Bean from in his bed next to me and just snuggle with him.  It's one of those nights were my mind wraps around a million different things and I want to solve all the problems in the world, but just don't seem to know how.

Mostly my mind wanders to a certain two year old I know and love. It's one of those circumstances where the more I think about our struggles, the more it makes my heart sad. Sad for all the things I feel like we are missing out on as mother and child because of his speech. I think back to my relationship with the older three boys at this age and realise that Goober and I have nothing like that.  Not being able to communicate with my child on a  level beyond of a kid half his age is so frustrating. I know he feels the same way too.

There is so much frustration. I know it's there; I see it in his eyes every time he tries over and over again to make me understand him. Each time saying the same thing, but it being something I can't understand. Yes, I know every parent goes though this with every child. It's just that it happens, like I said, generally when the child is half his age. So to have this be where we are out communication wise, when I know he has so much more than an 18 month old going on in his head is just heartbreaking at times. There are no secret jokes being whispered in my ears, no telling me long silly stories, and so many things I feel like I don't even know about my own child.

What's his favourite colour? Food? Bedtime story? I can ask him these things, sure. And maybe I might even get lucky and muddle through pointing and picking out things until I find the answer. But to get to have him tell me why? That's just hoping for much too much.

I know someday he will speak, and we will be able to sit down and discussing things. For now I can't help but feel a little cheated though, when I think of how fleeting these early years are, and how once they are gone, the magic of those whispered words will never be able to be regained.

Mr. Beany 4 months old

I am honestly not sure how you get much cuter than this!

Some fun Beany facts at 4 months old.

He is an insistent thumb sucker.
He loves to smile at anyone who will look at him.
He 'talks' all the time.
He sleeps through the night often.
He loves to play peek a boo.

He likes to sit in his bumbo seat and play with a big piece of tulle.
He likes to be sung to.

He loves looking at picture books!

I sure do love this little Beany man.

Top o' the morning to ye!

Those sneaky leprechauns were out in full force again this year. Sadly, we still didn't catch one. But this year it seemed there was a leprechaun in training tricking our house because everywhere he went he accidently left some of his gold behind!

They must be very tricky to be able to get up there!

And strong too!

Every year they turn our dishes green, but this year they stacked them too!

"Wee Little Ones: Ye cannot catch us if ye try, but I left ye a few surprises any how. A bit o' luck to ye. Finny O'Shea. Jr. Leprechaun in training."

He seemed to drop some of his gold everywhere he went!

And when we opened the fridge for breakfast, they'd turned our milk green again!

Day #11: Someone I talked to today.

Love, love, love this Boy!

Day #10 Loud

"Rooooooar!"

Day #9: Red

FPs camera (taken in darkness playing with manual settings)

Day #8 Window

The windows I spend a lot of time looking at lately.

Day #7: Something I wear

My favourite thing to wear. It has taken a lot of 'love', over the last ten years, and could use some TLC, but it's still the perfect wedding ring, to me.

Day #6: 5pm

Outside the karate school, where I basically live in the afternoons.

Day 5: Smile

We call this his, 'super beaver' smile!

Day # 4b: Bedside

My stack of 'currently reading' books.
(not seen: The Mysterious Benedict Society; being read aloud to the boys)

Day #4: Bedside

My bedside is cuter than your bedside!

Day #3: Neighbourhood

Hello nobody...

Day #2: Fruit

"Apple"... pie, that is.

Day 1:Up

Taken with less than 5 minutes left in the day:

Our ceiling lamp in the dark bedroom

Photo a day: March

I did this sort of thing once a long long time ago with some friends who were all professional photographers. Their pictures were amazing, but I had fun. I figure, why not give it a go again then.

Sweet Beany at 3 months

When you look good, you look good!

Watch out ladies, he's off the market until he's 16.

The Fun Jar

As the semester wrapped up for the schools, it meant a rather long time off of preschool for the Littles. They take the last week of the semester off as well as most of the first two of the new one. This is so the kids who are their teachers, at the high school, can take their finals, and then be trained in the in coming class.

With the prospect of having them at home with me all day again, I decided to institute a fun jar. This is an idea our friend Tiffany does with her kids. they go to a year round school, so she is in the position to have them home for long breaks several times a year rather just over summer.

We have had so much fun, and it has made getting in the Valentine's Day spirit super easy, as most of our activities were V-Day themed. I can't wait for what we do the last few days before class starts again, this Friday.

Activity 1# Indoor Snowman

Activity #2 Heart frames

Activity #3 Was making a bed fort and 'camping' out with marshmellows.

Activity #4 was making a record-able book to send to Sister Sherry in Fiji for her birthday.

Activity #5 Valentine Plants

Activity #6 Snow globes with guest Fun Jarrer, Alice Rampton (Boy's Sunbeams teacher)

Activity #7  Marble painting

Sheepie learns to ride a bike

For a while now we've told Sheepie it was time to ditch the training wheels, as they just don't work on our gravel driveway, and it was just silly watching him carry his bike all the way up the drive way to the street. A few weeks ago he got on board with the idea and gave it a try. Over all he did pretty well, but when the weather changed and we were flooded out he'd still not really mastered it. But last Monday I told him we should give it a try again.   With the existing promise of a brand new, not hand me down Buzz Lightyear bike hanging in the air, he was more than happy to give it a go. And then he just hopped on his bike and peddled away, silly boy. He still has to work a bit to start, but he can ride up and down the street, drive way and just about anywhere now. So Wednesday I bought him his new bike, and it ended up working out perfectly b/c the next day happened to be WALK and BIKE to SCHOOL DAY at school.

I'll try to post pictures of him on his new bike soon.

the 1st ever Carleski Root Beer Tasting Invitational

Benjamin recently went to a game night and tasting party activity for EQ (men's group at church). We thought this was such a fun idea we adopted it ourselves that weekend. We split the boys up into two groups and went all over town finding as many different kinds of root beer as possible and brought them back to the house. We did real sampling (small sips with breaks to cleanse our taste buds) and then did blind taste tests to pick our favourites. At the end of the night Papa came over and the Biggies got to stay up and play their first ever RISK game.

We ended up with 26 different kinds
(don't even ask how much we spend o_o)

Let the tasting begin!!!

the empties start to add up

 Taste test winners:
Henry Weinhardts for Benjamin and Katie

A&W for Frog Prince

Crater Lake Root Beet for Sheepie 

and

SODA!!!!! for the littles.

the men folk playing RISK

FP valiantly makes his last stand.

Sheepie decimates all the competition on his first ever game. Can you tell he's excited?

Snow day Jan. 15th

The 15th of last month brought us our first and only snow of the season, but it lasted for a few days and it was a great great time. When it melted though, it brought along heavy rain, and all of Corvallis was seriously flooded. We almost could not get out of our neighbourhood, and our property was quite flooded. We had knee deep water ice cold (I know I walked through it) running through our little season creek, and our poor chickens were about to float away, their entire enclosure was flooded as well. Thankfully they were able to stay in their coop through most of it, and were not too worse off for it.

 Frog Prince having fun

 Sheepie didn't figure he needed anything but a hat and gloves 

 Boy attacking Daddio

 Goober's first year really enjoying the snow. He was HOOKED!

 Snow Angels

 Oh Boy, you sweet Sassy Pants!

 Look at that sweet Goob face, don't you just want to smoother him in curry and eat him all up!

 Even Abbey dog got in on the snow action. Not bad for a mutt who came to us from AZ.

 FP worked so hard getting all the snow for the man. He built huge discs (because he was only rolling in one direciton) and then they fell over so he started again, and this buddy stayed on our lawn for about a week.