Rebecca and Caleb and Dad

Caleb is good kid. He is a fun kid. He is a boisterous kid. He is a playful kid and he is often a rough and tumble kid. But you should see him with Rebecca. He loves to play with her and make her laugh. A week or so I got out an old car/walker for Rebecca. Rebecca liked to play with it, but did not fall in love with it. Enter Caleb. He put her right on the car so he could push her around the house. They giggled and had tons of fun. Rebecca likes her car a lot more thanks to Caleb.

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The other night there was an event at our local elementary school. I was watching Rebecca away from the main event, close to the entrance. I saw a "bus" friend come into the school. (He has a daughter Grace's age, but I usually interact with him during the daily bus commute.) He took one look at Rebecca and me and said, "You guys have the same haircut." The haircut is a different style for me. I decided that I should go to the buzz cut. I am going bald and I don't want to mess with my hair anyway. So why not make it easy all the way around?

Cook-a-book

Joshua got a new cookbook for his birthday. He calls it his "cook-a-book". (I don't know where he got the extra "a" sound. Though he does live near Boston, and a Boston accent tends to move around "a" and "r" sounds.) At any rate, he loves to help in the kitchen and tonight was his night to cook dinner with Mom. They decided to make stuffed shells together. Joshua started by "reading" his recipe and telling Mom what was in the pictures so they could get everything out that they needed. While the shells were boiling, they got everything ready to stuff them. Joshua got the tomato sauce base ready after mixing the cheese stuffing with Mom. Since the shells were hot and we were in a hurry, Mom stuffed most of the shells while Joshua put them in the pan. Then he added the rest of the tomato sauce and the cheese. In the picture below, the shells are ready to bake. The stuffed shells turned out really well and everyone ate them. (Grace came home from dance class and had six of them. After which, she complimented the little chef.)

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While Joshua and Mary were cooking, I asked Joshua if he was the chef or the sous-chef. I don't think he has ever heard those terms before and I just wanted to see what he was going to say.

Joshua looked at me and said, "I am the sous-chef. Mom is the king chef."

And there you have it.

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I took this picture of Rebecca eating dinner tonight. You may not be able to tell, but she has stuffed about 10 small pieces of apple into her mouth. Her cheeks our stuffed with food. We have never had a child take to "people food" like Rebecca. She is highly insulted when you offer her baby food and will only eat what everyone else is eating. This started about a month or two ago. There is no way we will go through the baby food in our cupboard at this point.

Basketball

If you have ever met me, you probably know that I like basketball. Okay, that is not really true. I love basketball. It is my favorite sport, my favorite way to get exercise, and one activity that I really love. I try and play basketball twice a week. Mary is kind enough to support my addiction. But lately, basketball has taken over our lives and our Saturdays in particular. I play pick-up most Saturday mornings. Caleb has a game most Saturday mornings. Grace has a game most Saturday afternoons. And I help coach both of their teams. So you can imagine that we are doing a lot of hooping most Saturdays.

I thought I would share some pictures of Grace playing. (We need to take some pictures of Caleb playing and post them.) A friend of ours from Grace's team took these pictures. Good basketball always starts out with playing proper defense. Grace likes to shoot the ball from outside. Grace can really move up and down the court. Here is a picture of the coaches. The one in the center is the head coach. I am an assistant as is the gentleman in the red shirt. We have a lot of fun coaching together. I am not sure what I was thinking in this picture. My guess is that I am about to tell Caleb to stop bouncing the ball while the game is being played. I like this picture because if you look in the background you can see that even the littlest fans make it out to the game to cheer on Grace. Go Grace!

I Have a Blog!!

Did you know that I have a blog? I don't ever post to it. My mom complains that I never post pictures. Well, she is right. I don't post pictures. So I am going to make an attempt at rectifying the situation. Here are a couple of pictures from February. Joshua got a new Elmo suit for his birthday. Here he is wearing the Elmo suit, our family birthday hat, and holding his new cookbook from grandma.Rebecca loves her blanket. Two of my favorite ladies. Caleb likes to get his hands on the camera. Here is a Valentine's Day self-portrait. Grace also created a Valentine's Day self-portrait. I left the image the way she wanted it. She turned the camera upside down to take the picture.

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To honor the end of the Olympics yesterday and all things Canadian, this was posted while listening to this song.

Going Hungry on Christmas Day

Joshua got a polar bear Pez for Christmas. Mary filled it up with candy for him. Joshua quickly ate all the candy. Then he came back to Mary and said, "Momma, my polar bear is starving!"

Now you can't have a starving polar bear at Christmas, can you?

Oh Boy...

Caleb has a really interesting personality. He is bound to do things that make you laugh and others that will make you try really hard not to laugh. Here are some recent examples:

• About a month ago, we took the kids to see the BC women's soccer team play. They were playing UNC, the top-ranked team in the country at the time, and we thought it would be a good game. (BC was ranked 6th at the time.) We got to the game and it was starting to get dark. They had floodlights in the parking lot to provide some extra light. (The lights were about 10-12 tall and the base looked like a standard generator.) As we were walking up to the first set of lights, Caleb took one look at the floodlights in the sky and screams, "Aaaggghhhh! It's the ghost light!" and runs off.
• For his birthday, Caleb got a remote control tarantula. His teacher has told the kids that they can bring in a toy from home. We did not know that he had chosen to bring in his tarantula to school earlier this week. (Fortunately, he did not bring in the remote controller.) He put the spider on the floor by some of the kids in his class. Needless to say, that did not last very long. Soon enough, his teacher asked him to put the tarantula back in his bag.
• Today, Caleb and I were doing chores together. We were cleaning the bathroom and out of nowhere he looks at me and says, "Father, it's dirty." Which is not all that funny except for the fact that he said it with a British accent. Where did he even hear a British accent?
• Yesterday, Mary and Caleb were looking for shirts at Old Navy. Caleb asked Mary which exit she wanted to use on the way out. Mary said that she did not care. Caleb asked if they could go out from the one they did not use on the way in. Mary did not think much of it and said sure. Mary paid for the shirts and she was not keeping too close of an eye on Caleb. She looked up and did not immediately see him, so she figured he had gone out the exit they had talked about. She walked to the exit past the front display and did not notice the extra mannequin standing there. Mary turned around to take a last look in the store and noticed that Caleb was standing still pretending to be one of the mannequins.

It is all funny and so Caleb, but I wonder where it comes from?

Issues with Clothing

Most people have an interesting relationship with their clothes. Some people don't care enough about the clothes they wear. (That was me in the 7th grade. I wore the same old, ripped sweatshirt at school every day for a large part of the year. It mortified my mom, so I had to keep the sweatshirt in my locker. That way she did not know that I was wearing it all the time. But I always had a different set of clean clothes underneath my sweatshirt, so I never understood what was such a big deal.) Some people are always buying clothes. Others always want to buy clothes. And some people fall in love with one special outfit. That would describe my Joshua.

This summer, all he wanted to wear was his "Big Bird" outfit. This outfit consists of shorts and a t-shirt. If either part of the outfit was in his drawer, he would put it on. If it was on the floor or in the dirty clothes, he would put it on. If he found it somewhere in the basement by the laundry, he would put it on. He loves that outfit. He did not need to wear both the shirt and the shorts at the same time. Either one would work. But the weather has gotten colder here and we had to take away the Big Bird outfit. So he had to find an outfit to wear this fall and winter. Mary and I were worried that this would be difficult because he really loves shorts and is not a fan of pants. Unexpectedly, he fell in love with a pair of green corduroy pants.

Of course, he wears them every day. Already we have resorted to hiding them in the washing machine because he can't see them when they are in there.

So if you meet a redhead talking about his "green quarter boys," then I would guess you met Joshua.

An Island Getaway

We promised the children that we would take them out to the Boston Harbor Islands. We had hoped to do it before school started, but we were rained out on the weekend we had planned to go. (The remnants of a tropical storm were in the area and we decided we should not go out on a boat.) We ended up going on Labor Day. It was a beautiful, sunny day.

Our journey began on the T. The children love to ride the buses and subway. Here is a picture of Joshua and Caleb with Mary putting stuff in the stroller. We got off downtown and caught the boat out to the harbor islands. (Mary reserved the tickets online. It was good decision since the line was quite long when we arrived there.) Grace and Caleb liked to be out on the deck. Joshua joined them for a couple of minutes. They were all quite windblown, but enjoyed it. While the rest were out and about, Dad and Rebecca sat inside for the most part. It was just too windy for Rebecca. Joshua did not like the wind as much as the others, so he came inside and decided to eat. Our first stop was King George's Island. There is an old fort that was built by the French in the early 1800's. It has been used in a number of different wars, but it not in use now. The kids decided to help protect the island. The kids had a great time exploring the fort. They even climbed up in one of the old lookouts. We also got a good look at the Boston lighthouse. It is not visible from the shore. After we explored King George's Island, we took an inter-island boat to Spectacle Island. After the children had looked for shells on the beach, Mary took this picture of Joshua. If you cannot hear Joshua saying "Cheese" when this picture was taken, then you need to get to know him better. Caleb wanted to try out the lifeguard's chair. He thought it was great that he could climb up there and sit. (I think the weekend before Labor day is the last weekend with the lifeguards on duty.) We took a walk around Spectacle Island and got a picture of the whole crew with Boston in the background. Mary took some pictures of Grace and Caleb that turned out really well. After that, we caught the boat back to Boston. We took the T back to our car and drove home. It had been such a busy day, that Joshua was dead tired by the time we got home. But it was a fun day that we will all remember!

Rebecca Update

I have had a tough time keeping up with the blogging. We will have to see if I can make a bit of a comeback. We will start simple and give you an update on Rebecca. She is doing really well. She loves her momma, likes to eat, sleeps pretty well, and is good natured about being taken to all of the other events her siblings are involved in. Here is a recent picture of her. She loves candlelit dinners, long walks on the beach to smile and giggle. (Caleb is really good at making her laugh.) She loves to try to throw herself out of any chair or swing you put her in. (I don't understand why she just won't sit back and enjoy sitting in a chair once in a while. Maybe she is just ready to get going.) Her favorite thing to do is to be in her onesie in the evenings and chew on her toes. She can even do it when she is dressed!

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This post was created while listening to "Fireflies" by Owl City. Oliver pointed this song out to be a month ago and I really like it. I even heard it on Sirius radio when I took a business trip.

Recent Pictures

Grace has been working on a school project this summer. A scrapbook is part of the project. I noticed that we had many pictures we have not posted. (Must be a side effect of rarely posting.) So here is a quick post of pictures from the last week.

Last weekend was Grace's baptism and Rebecca's blessing. We had family in town and it was wonderful to see everyone. I think I found a picture of all the cousins that came for the events. Here is Grace in her white dress. Grace was baptized on Saturday and we went downtown after the event. Here are some pictures of the kids playing in the North End. They were all taken not far from the Old North Church. ("One if by land, two if by sea.") This is Sadie. Lilly loved to run around. Emily, Nick, and Janelle threw money into the fountain. I like this image of Emily. This captures Caleb's personality. Joshua fell asleep on the way downtown. We managed to transfer him to the stroller while he was sleeping. I love this picture Mary took of him after he had just woken up. You can tell that Rebecca is one of our children. Look how she is holding her blanket. That is a sure sign that she belongs. During our busy weekend with family visiting, Joshua was not on his normal nap schedule. This meant he was more difficult to get up from his naps than usual. One afternoon, Mary went upstairs to get him up. After half an hour, I went to check on them. I think Mary was pretty proud of her skills in waking Joshua. What do you think?

Old Photos

I am looking through our pictures from May and wanted to put some of them on the blog.

I love this picture of Caleb and Rebecca. Rebecca is doing the ultimate baby stretch in this picture. When you see a baby doing this, you know they are still a newborn. Here is a picture of Rebecca's first bath. Rebecca screamed for most of it, but she has since come to enjoy them a lot more. We have had a cold summer. Mary and I thought that Rebecca would never have many cold weather newborn clothes. In June we only had two days that hit 80 degrees and they were not much hotter than that. Rebecca spent a lot of nights for her first month sleeping in her hat even though she was born in May. I was not expecting this kind of weather for a May newborn. I just like this picture of Rebecca and me. And this picture of our hands.

Sorry for the Absence...

...but things have been a little busy. Rebecca is a wonderful addition to our family. We have tons of pictures and stories to post, but sometimes it is difficult to get to the computer.

So remember, the more she gets of this: The less likely we are to do this: Or this: Have a good night's sleep. I know we will!