Father and Son Camping

This weekend was the Father and Sons camp out. Ben was counting down the days all week long. I told Nathan on Friday that he was going to go camping with Dad. I don't think he really knows what the word, "camping" means, although we've been several times before, but he was pretty excited about the idea. When Sean got home and we were packing up the truck, every single time I walked out there he waved at me and said, "Bye Mom." He was ready to go. The boys grabbed dinner at McDonalds and then headed to the campground. It was really close, so it didn't take long. They had fun setting up camp and playing around. There was a fireside that night. Sean let the kids have a graham cracker and a piece of chocolate (because they couldn't build fires to make proper smores). Eventually they headed off to bed. That night Ben woke up at around 12:30 and had thrown up all over his sleeping bag (poor guy). Sean got him cleaned up and the sleeping bag out of the tent. He let Ben use his bag, which meant he now didn't have one. He tried to go sleep in the car where it was warmer, but Nathan woke up and FREAKED out because Ben was sleeping right by him. Sean went back to the tent and calmed him down and tried to lay down by him, but soon realized he was going to freeze all night long like that. So he quietly packed up the boys and their stuff and headed home at about 2:00 AM. They were bummed they couldn't stay the whole time, but they did get some good playing time in on Friday night. And Ben was totally fine for the rest of the day. It must have been something he ate.

Mother's Day Tea

On Friday I got to go to a Mother's Day picnic that Ben's Kindergarten class was putting on. Aunt Carolyn graciously took Megan and Nathan for the hour, so that I could just hang out one-on-one with Ben. When we got there Mrs. White had all the Mom's get their food (bagels and cream cheese and fruit) and then take a seat. The kids all came in, stood in a line and sang, "Skidamarink" while doing sign language hand motions. It was very cute. Ben was so excited to see me - his smile was awesome! Then they got to sit with us and eat too. He had made a card and a bookmark (with a flower made from their fingerprint) that he gave to me. It was special - I loved it (and what I loved even more was how much Ben loved that I was there - makes a Mom's heart happy).

New Baby

Hello Baby Boy Dick. Yes, I am pregnant. We are expecting baby #5 at the end of September. The due date is Sept 28th (right in between Nathan and Sean's birthdays - we're getting a little crowded right there). We had our ultrasound on Tuesday. None of the kids knew that we were having another baby. We took them all with us. The room we were in had an extra screen on the wall, so the kids all took a seat and looked at the images on the TV screen on the wall. We told them to tell us when they thought they knew what they were looking at. Megan said, "It's a volcano. Is it Mom?" Ben said, "Space." So then we specified that what they were looking at was inside of Mom's tummy. Caelan guessed a baby. When we confirmed it Megan got so excited, "It's a baby? You're having a baby?" It was cute. They were all excited. The machine the technician used even showed some 3-D images, which we have never seen before on an ultrasound, so that was fun. They were much easier for the kids to distinguish than the other images. They loved the tiny picture of the foot and of course the face views. We're really excited to have another little kiddo to add to the bunch.