County Line Apple Orchard

Our Adult Fellowship class met at the apple orchard Saturday morning with the intent to go through the corn maze. Elijah and Levi had spent the night at a friend's house for a Nacho Libre wrestling birthday party. I had the 2 sisters of the "Nacho Libre" boys at our house, so neither my boys nor my girls slept all that well Friday night. That sets the attitudinal stage for the morning.
Well, we started by going to get donuts for breakfast in the cafe area. Home made apple and pumpkin donuts...yum! Also some of their cider to wash it all down was the only way to go. So, now we have under rested children and we just charged them up with sugar. Perfect. Micah was already wanting her morning nap and we hadn't really begun our morning yet.

The other kids were just going to act goofy...the natural un-rested, sugar hyped behavior for these kids...at first. Ok, so breakfast is done and so now it's time to go buy the wristbands for the activities. I hate to say this (same song, different verse),but by the time we did the breakfast and then got to buying the wristbands for the day's activities, we saw that there was no way to pay for everyone to go to the pumpkin patch and the maze, so we were quite contented to go without the maze. It was an 8 acre maze that we would never have had energy or good attitude for!

At the pumpkin patch we had plenty of fun! The rule for the pumpkins was that if you couldn't carry it, we weren't buying it, but we did pretty good here. This was about all Eden could manage.

Elijah attempted to go for broke on his pumpkin!

Levi was the middle-sized man.The kids even picked one for Micah.

We did stop for a photo shoot...what we could muster out of our kiddos.

And then mommy and daddy had a short bit of fun!

Lovin' that man of mine!

Later on that night, we went to a wedding where we met up with John Paul and Sarah.

The happy couple. We had fun at the reception with conversation and food and dare I say a wee bit of dancing?!? If that's what you'd call what I did, then I danced, but if you were raised to believe that dancing is wrong, no matter what, then you are what they call "white, through and through." I find it difficult to dance with Tim sometimes, and that shouldn't be!!! Fortunately my husband is a bit darker on the inside than I.

Miss Sarah, here, has some moves and is getting JP to be the dancing Casanova. In fact, they stole the first dance at the party. Oops! Nikki and Bob were taking a while going around to the tables talking and so JP and Sarah ran off for a dance. I don't know if they realized that Nikki and Bob hadn't danced yet.

This isn't the best shot we took all night, but since it hasn't been emailed to me yet, this is the picture I have. Good enough! We had a good night out and boy did we need that! Our anniversary is coming up soon...November 27th and I can't wait to go out again. We had been visiting local B&B's but I'm not sure if that will be possible this year. No matter what, I can't wait to go out with my hubby and have some much needed and wanted personal time!!! What'll it be this year big daddy?

Finally I get to capture some action!

I found it!!! I must have packed my camera the night Tim and I went downtown Chicago for my birthday (we went to dinner and then to see Max McLean perform Screwtape Letters) and I left it at my inlaw's house with the kids. Oops. You wouldn't believe the Titus action I missed while my camera was MIA.

This was the day I found the camera. Not an hour before this, I pulled Titus off of a chair that he had dragged to the pantry. He was crouched down squatting on the chair trying to stuff a cereal bar in his mouth before I caught him. Earlier that morning, I found him lying on his bed...voluntarily...which made me wonder why. He was laying on a 2 pack of Starburst. What gives with this kid and food???

So, Starburst in the morning, cereal bar in the early afternoon and what do I find after lunch? A sneaky little boy helping himself to some of grandma's peach jelly. I opened this jar brand new for lunch and barely used any for the 2 sandwiches I made.

Boy did he enjoy himself!!! No wonder he was running like a crazy the rest of the day. Now there's a true jelly belly.

Let him sleep...for when he wakes, he will move mountains! I sure do love you Tidyboy.

Wonder mom strikes again...

I can't find my camera...it's not very easy to have an interesting blog without one. Ugh, this is pathetic. I'll keep you posted. Without pictures.

How do you all like the background? Is it hard to see??? It's just an experiment. Although, I lost all my fellow blogger links and anything else I had off to the side. Wonder mom strikes again!

Robots

So, several weeks ago, I was awakened in the middle of the night by Levi who was crying, almost uncontrollably, and that is rather unusual. I went upstairs to see what was the matter and he seemed rather upset, he was walking around but was very unable to tell me what was wrong. We even got up to try going to the bathroom but for some reason it was difficult. So I finally figured out that he was still sleeping.


I put him back in bed and sat beside him to calm him down and it seemed like he never missed a beat and was fast asleep in seconds. Well I put my hand on his chest to help calm him down and I noticed that his heart beat 3 times and then paused; 3 times and then paused. I figured that it was because perhaps he woke up from a bad dream and I know that can happen when you're upset or worked up like that, so I went to the toy room to get the Fisher Price stethoscope to listen to his heart (how I thought that would help, I don't know) but I couldn't find it. By the time I got back and felt him again, he was back to normal.

I called his pediatrician the next morning to talk to a nurse, and she said that it's not uncommon for a virus to cause the heart to reset like it was doing, and wanted to know if he had been sick or had run a fever lately, and he had. He had a fever out of the blue that lasted only one night. So that made sense to me and I didn't think about it much.

Well, a few days later he was sleeping in our bed and I felt his heart again and it was still doing the same thing, but he only had a couple more days until his kindergarten physical, so I figured I could wait until then for more questions. When we got there I asked the doctor about it and he listened carefully to Levi's heart and found that it reset itself 7 time in a minute. With all 5 kids in the 10x12 examining room, I don't know how he heard anything...but he did.

He decided to call the pediatric cardiologist to ask his opinion as to what to do. They decided that we needed to get an EKG and set Levi up with a 24 hour heart monitor.

The only way I could describe to Levi why we needed to go to the hospital for this monitor was to tell him that his doctor wanted to know how strong his heart was, to which he said, "It's very strong. I can lift up my whole self."

The whole visit took less than half an hour, and Levi, oblivious to everything, was his usual active self. The Monitor got put on first because the nurse didn't realize that he was getting an EKG as well, and then she wired hime up for the EKG.Bless this little guy's heart. He left the hospital saying, "This is the best day of my life! Now I get to tell everyone that I'm a robot!!!"

He had a walkathon the next day at school, so he was a proud little robot. That afternoon we went to the hospital to take off the monitor. Easy as anything.

I started this post when the whole thing was going on and now here it is, almost 3 weeks later and I finally am posting.

By the way, he has a sinus arythmia. Nothing to be concerned with. Thank you, God!

A month in a day...brace yourselves.

Many of you are wondering what happened to the 'boda clan. Well, let's see...I dropped the kids off at school the day after my last post, then I went home for a nap and that's the last thing I remember.

Really, I have just been rather busy. And tired. I could probably have used sleeping for a month, but I can't even squeeze in 30 minutes, let alone 30 days. I am going to attempt cramming this whole last month in this post, so hold on to your eyeballs!

Once I was down to 3 kids at home, I didn't know what to do with the extra energy I was saving not breaking up fights and taking care of bad attitudes all day (somehow with Levi at home, I had more fighting activity going on), so I guess I found time to start scrapbooking again and did more leisurely things with the kids like taking walks and going to the park after dropping the boys off at school. Micah loves sitting in the swing and could probably last all day if I'd keep her moving that long. I didn't so we went home, probably to clean up breakfast from that morning.

For their birthdays, Ruthie and Dave have been taking each kid home with them for an overnight adventure. Since we celebrate his birthday in July, and after Eden's turn was done from her "wedding day birthday," late August was Levi's turn. Uncle Dave works in Portage and comes to pick them up after work and so on this particular day, little Titus thought that he was going to "go wif Levi" and proceeded to get in the backseat of Dave's car. Well, uncle Dave had to be mean for a second (at least in the eyes of a 2 year old) and pull him out of the car and hand him off to me, all the while, Titus is kicking and screaming and not happy, to say the least. So, I got this picture of him sadly staring off at the car that would leave him lonely in the driveway. It was a pathetic sight.

There's nothing special about this picture except the obvious. It was cute. With 5 kids and 2 adults in our family, there is a ton of laundry to do (some of you know what I mean) and this particular morning happened to be daddy's clothes. They donned these shirts and posed. They got a goofy, stick your finger in your mouth and pull your cheeks shot, but I favor this one. These two, much like Levi and Titus, are twins separated by 3 years. It's interesting.

Later on that day, Eden had her first Princess Party at her "bestest friend" Abby's house. We curled her hair like we do for church and got her new (I think it was Barbie) dress that Auntie got for her on Eden's turn at their house, some pink heels and a bag full of things she needed in case they went in the backyard to go in the pool. She was beaming from ear to ear and couldn't wait to go. Abby and Eden see each other at least once a week and play "princess" together, (as long as they behave like princesses, they can play as long as they like).

One afternoon I took the three kids on a walk around the neighborhood. I pulled Micah in a wagon, Eden rode her bike and Titus wanted it all. He rode in the wagon; he walked next to me; he pulled the wagon and he even tried riding the bike. Remember not 3 months ago when all he would do was push his bike from point A to point B? Not so much anymore. This was the day he learned, finally, how to pedal. Now he can ride around the garage (the most even surface we have besides the street) and he is very excited about it. For that matter, so am I. No solo rides on our family bike rides yet, but soon, I'm sure.

We made another trip to the farm just before Labor Day, as we try to go there any time the kids are out of school. We asked grandma and grandpa to come with and we enjoyed the weekend together. The kids had a lot of fun doing things like this...poor grandma and grandpa. I know they were tired and, no doubt sore, but I had to get them to do this "swing the kid thing" once more so I could get a picture. Thanks!

Elijah and Levi are becoming quite avid tree-climbers...as long as grandad doesn't come around yelling at them to get down before they fall and break something. They love the trees at the farm! Do I see a treehouse out there in the future?We came home early from the farm so that dad could help us finish the fireplace mantel and surround. If you look at the picture above with Elijah and Eden, you can see the unfinished drywall portion of the fireplace. It has been that way for at least a month, and before that it was a hole above the installed fireplace. Before that it was no fireplace and all unpainted drywall. I like this much better. The design of the fireplace was something I modified from a picture I saw on a painting brochure, but it was dad's idea to do a 2 level mantel since I have a 2 story greatroom. It's fully equipped for when the next residents want to put their widescreen TV up there. Until then, I have yet to fill it with something that will work for us. I guess it's good that the holidays are coming. I can always figure out something "fallish" and "Christmasy," but the rest is difficult. My birthday is this next weekend. Hopefully I will get some money to do something up there that looks inviting!!! We still have baseboards to put up and some of my red wall that needs to be touched up now, but I think dad and I did a pretty good job of my fireplace!

We like to take bike rides as often as possible while the weather is nice, and this particular Saturday, I packed up sandwiches, fruit, snacks and drinks and we took a ride off down the rails to trails, east toward Chesterton. We had not been that direction before and were quite pleasantly surprised to see that every mile or so, there are little rest areas with water and picnic tables. After eating, we played catch with a football that Elijah snuck into Eden's bike basket. It was a lot of fun! But, alas, nap time quickly approached, and if we were to get Micah and Titus to take a decent nap, it couldn't be in a bike trailer!

One morning, on our way out the door, we were looking for Elijah's lunch, and, oh by the way, Titus too. Imagine my surprise to find the two of them together. Big shock there. I got this picture just after he shot me the "Hi mommy. How did this lunch box get here in my lap...opened?" look. Little turkey.

This is what I pulled out of Micah's mouth at one time. Not the dime. That's just there to serve as a visual reference for your viewing pleasure. Magnetix. Yes, kids will leave anything lying around (Titus), and yes, some babies really do put everything in their mouth (Micah). Good grief (Charlie Brown).

Titus. Need I say more? Can you see the nice puddle? Oh, and have I ever mentioned that in all our work on building the house, sealing the grout never took place? Yeah! That's not coming out without first attracting every dirt, dust and smell granule in the whole house. That does wonders for resale. I know they suggest putting cookies in the oven for a showing or an open house, perhaps this is a shortcut. Good thinking, Titus!

Micah is in the "here you go" stage. Between that and crawl/walking like Mowgli, she's very, very cute.

The kids chose one thing they wanted to do this one night before bed and they chose wrestling with daddy, one of the most exciting (and crazy)events at our house. I think the kids won this one.

Uncle John Paul and miss Sarah came over for dinner last Sunday, along with mema and poppy. Grandpa g was supposed to come too, but due to all the rain and flooding around here, it was suggested he stay home. At any rate, John Paul and Sarah were showing us all some silly videos on youtube and Levi, the huggy guy that he is, came up and snuggled into uncle John Paul's arm, rested his head on John Paul's shoulder and sat there watching the videos. I just had to take the picture.

I sat Micah in the rocker so she'd sit and watch a Baby Einstein video so I could get a little work done. It was nap time, but I let her sleep longer than usual for her morning nap and so she wasn't tired at nap time. What am I? A mom of multiple kids rookie? By the time I put her down, it was getting close to 2pm and I have to get the kids up and out the door no later than 3 to pick up the boys from school, and that's pushing it. An hour nap is a laughable nap. Who's hosed now?!? Ooh, Ooh, pick me!!! Pick me!!! (like Donkey from Shrek).

This past Friday night was movie night. We didn't go out and rent one this time. Instead we drew from our own collection. Night at the Museum. If you haven't seen this movie, where have you been hiding out lately, and you need to. It is practically squeaky clean, funny and perfect for almost, if not all ages. The kids got jammies on and grabbed their sleeping bags and headed for the toy room, while Tim went downstairs and surprised everyone with popcorn. Yummy. The kids huddled up to the little 20" TV and ate and watched TV and Tim and I...you bet...slept! We both fell asleep right there on the hard floor. Next thing I knew, the credits were rolling and the kids were all standing up "dancing" to the music. It was then that I woke up, because apparently Tim's dancing involved steps that included stepping on me.

That brings us to last night. Tim's parents called us up to come for a visit, so we cooked out and hung out and the kids got to play a couple of games before they went to bed. We even played a little Rook after the kids went to bed and before we adults got too tired. It was a great night.

Today we are at mom and dad's house relaxing. The Bears are on TV and dad's mowing the lawn outside the open window; a very relaxing combination of sounds for me!!! My eyes are heavy. They are already burning, and my body is screaming "NAP," but there are no fall decorations out yet and so mom has a very different idea of how to spend the afternoon. So, I am off to dig through the attic and beautify the house for my momma.

Hopefully the next post won't include Halloween pictures!!!