Our baby is here!!!

After much anticipation (not as much for us as for Phil and Shelley, for sure) and a whole lotta patience, we now know who Wesley Bob really is.  Flashback:  Shelley gets pregnant.  A little while later they "are pretty sure it's a boy."  A little while later and out of the blue Titus says, "I hope aunt Shelley names the baby Wesley" and Levi chimes in, "yeah, Wesley Bob."  Today at 3pm Massachusetts time, Quinn Gabriel Svoboda was born, weighing in at 7lbs 6oz and measuring 20" long.  We couldn't be happier for the former trio and are ever so eager to see them again and meet our nephew.

 Proud parents Phil and Shelley (with an "e") Svoboda.

 

I can't say for sure who I think he looks like, but I can definitely say he has some of Nadia in him...at least for now!  He is beautiful and the perfect addition to our family.  Now, in discussing his name, our boys have decided that they are going to call him Gaber.  Or just Gabe.  I don't know that they will follow through with that, but that is the boy's decision.  Eden says, "No, his name is Quinn.  I am going to call him Quinn."  Micah couldn't care less!

Not been one of those days...

You know how sometimes, you get up and you hug the kids good morning and you ask if they slept well...then you make them pancakes because you haven't made them in so long, but you don't have anymore "just add water" mix so you gladly break out the internet to whip up a batch from scratch...everyone sets the table together and then eats breakfast while thanking mommy for making their favorite breakfast and afterwards they put their dishes in the dishwasher as they have been asked to do after every meal since they could walk...you tell them it's time to clean up their rooms because you'd love to take them to the pool on this very warm Summer day and because they want to go swimming so badly, they all say "yes ma'am" and run off to do the 20 minute job...the necklace that has been sitting on the floor at the top of the stairs for a week gets picked up by one of the boys on his way to his room and he kindly drops it off at the girls room, since he's passing by anyways and his pair of shorts and the light saber that have also been stepped over by everyone in the house also gets picked up by someone, even though he didn't play with it and leave it there...the girls don't fight about who's cleaning and who isn't and because of all that you can actually get your own "chores" done with out breaking up fights and checking attitudes and babysitting the kids to make sure they can get over themselves enough to clean up their rooms even when they may not have touched the specific item that needs to be put away...?  Yeah, well, it's not been one of those days.

Eden is 7!!!

Now that everyone is up to speed on most of the goings on around here (at least for now until I slip into another blogcoma), I can post an event that just happened.  Not one that is over a month old.  A for-really-real current event.  Shocking.  That's an event of its own, I know, but I digress.  Eden's birthday.  Now, she turned 7 last Tuesday (not completely current) but we celebrated her birthday last night (about as current as it gets anymore).  It's always interesting to me, as a mom, to watch my kids open their gifts and I have come to notice a vast difference between Eden and the boys.  I will have to see about Micah before I call it a girl thing, so for now, it's just Eden.

When the boys are opening their gifts, first of all, there are a whole lot fewer gifts because theirs are always more expensive (Legos are not cheap, plain and simple).  Then, when they are opening gifts, they couldn't care less about a card unless it has money in it, and they never get money, so they don't care about cards.  They are forced to endure going through the formality of opening them first in order to give the proper person thanks, inevitably directed by a "now what do you say?"  Even Elijah, after 10 years of training needs to be reminded to say thanks sometimes.  Seriously.  That drives me nuts!  Once their gift is opened and the mandatory "thanks" has been thrown out there, they are off to the next one as the previous gift is shoved to the side to make room.

Eden is different.  She will get several gifts mostly because her gifts aren't that expensive and she will be antsy excited to open them, but she will calmly sit and wait until the go-ahead is given.  She will sweetly get a gift and make sure to find the card.  If, for some reason she doesn't see one, she will ask everyone who's gift this is to see if she should be looking harder for the card.

Once she finds the card, she painstakingly opens the envelope, pulls out the card and proceeds to read everything inside of it aloud, including any of the personal notes to her, pausing only for help on an occasional word.  That part is really cute.  After the card is read, she opens the gift, loves the gift and hugs the gift giver.  VERY different from the boys for sure.

Even the kids got hugs for the packs of gum and travel office supply kit they got her!

When Eden is done hugging the generous gift giver, she will even stop to pose for a picture for her mommy.  Here is an outfit she got for her Madame Alexander dolls.  This birthday was all about them.  The three dolls she has got a Red Racer wagon, the outfit you saw above and they each got a twin bed that all bunk on top of each other.

Naturally the dolls would want to sleep comfortably, so I made these three reversible comforters and matching pillows.  Unfortunately the beds won't be here until tomorrow, but how much fun we will have putting it all together "for the dolls."

I think Eden made out like a bandit and I know she loved everything she got.

 

I should have gotten her some pony tail holders, right?!?  She wanted a DQ Blizzard cake again this year, and since she got a pink one last year, she decided to get an Oreo one this year.  Mmm.  Mmm.  Good!

While there was down time, grandma snuck in some reading to some of the kids, 

 

and not one to miss a beat, Levi was sure to entertain with his antics.

Thanks to everyone, even Kevin, for making Eden's birthday a fun night together with [most of] our family.  (We missed you Uncle Phil, Aunt Shelley, Nadia and Wesley)!!!

Titus can ride a two-wheeler

Since we don't have sidewalks in our neighborhood (Boo.  Hiss.) I didn't know when or if the 2 younger kids were going to learn to ride their bikes.  One weekend away at the farm, Titus decided he didn't want his training wheels on anymore, so I took them off and had absolutely no intention of ever putting them back on.  Once he got over the attitude of "I CAN'T!!!!!" he did really well and learned how to ride and did it all in less than 20 minutes.  Think about that timeline.  Let's just say it took him 10 minutes to learn to ride.  That left him 10 minutes to start trying, realize he "can't", mope, pout and throw the attitude around for a bit, me talk to him with the motherly "if...then..." statement and then come back down to reality.  I am sure it took him less time to do all that drama and more time to learn to ride the bike, but what does it matter now?  Once the attitude switch was turned to "off" he was fine.

 We had plenty of space for him to learn to ride, to do turn arounds; the whole nine yards.

I have two kids in particular that can defeat themselves (in their head) in seconds and go crazy but the universe is right when their mindset it right.  There's a life lesson!

Titus really did do such a great job...and I'm guessing that the traditional learning how to ride a two wheeler reward of ice cream helped clear up any attitude deficiency he had!

Creepy!

Ok, so the other night Tim came up to bed and said I had to see what was going on in the hallway.  I did, and let me tell you, it was creepy at first, then funny and then just really cute.  Ready?  Here goes:

At some point after going to bed, Titus got out of bed and eventually fell asleep, like this, outside our door.  That's our Tidyboy!