Special Trip to IN

I got a text on Sunday as we were headed to church. It was from my sister and it said "Contractions are 3 min apart". I immediately asked if that meant she was going to the hospital, but she said she was going to see if they remained steady. So, I agreed to text her when church was over. Well, sure enough, the contractions kept coming, so she was headed to the hospital. Since I was supposed to be the one to watch Kendalyn, I jumped into action. We stopped by the grocery, picked up some food for our trip, got home and packed and jumped into the van a couple hours later for IN! Grandma Spicher had been watching her, so she dropped her off when we got there and we headed to my parents, so we could stay there. This was Sunday night. We waited and waited and waited some more and FINALLY, Miss Avery Jane was born at about 6:45 or so Monday night. Yes. My poor sister was in labor from Sunday morning until Monday night. She successfully did a VBAC, so we were all really proud of her for making it through!




Avery's big sister Kendalyn is only 19m old, so I didn't know if she would understand that she just became a big sister. I told her that her new sissy was born and she looked at me like I was speaking in German. She couldn't care less. But, you'll see in later pictures that all changed once she met her! Here's a picture of Kendalyn and her cousins as we got ready to head over to her house and get things ready there for the baby.

Because Avery was born so late on Monday evening, we decided to wait until Tuesday morning to head over there. We got there at 9, so we obviously didn't wait long. ;-) Here is Livie and Kendalyn making their way into the hospital. Now, I don't know if many of you have ever tried to cart 4 excited kids into a hospital, but it's not as easy as it sounds. First of all, once we finally made our way into the lobby, I decided that Kendalyn couldn't go empty-handed to meet her sister for the first time, so we had to find the gift shop. The gift shop isn't anywhere near the main lobby (which makes no sense to me), so we had to walk around to find the place, before heading upstairs to the room.

Having a 1 yr old pick out a singular present isn't easy either. EVERYTHING is the "right thing" for a 1 yr old. She found that wolf that's on the floor first, but then got distracted by Elmo, then Big Bird, then Cookie Monster.... We finally decided on keeping the wolf.

We added a couple of balloons to the wolf and headed to the elevators.

Madie, Noah, and Livie were very excited to meet their new cousin. Or, should I say, Madie and Livie were excited to meet their new cousin. To Noah, babies are babies. They get a whole lot more interesting to him when they're Kendalyn's age. Every time he would leave the room that Kendalyn was in, he would say "Let me know if she does anything interesting!". ;-)

Obviously, we were in love at first sight!

Madie held Kendalyn up to get her first glimpses of her new baby sister.

Kendalyn obviously missed her mommy and daddy and wanted to sit with them a lot. Here, Kendalyn is helping her mommy open up the present from us.

But, since she was on the bed, she had daddy help her get a better view of Avery.

She loved looking at her baby sister, but was easily distracted that first day with the balloons. And, the curtains too. She liked hiding behind them. :-)

Now that Madie is a grown-up 10 yr old, she was super-duper excited to hold her new cousin! She was big enough to hold her without our help too. :-)

Livie still needs our help, but was very excited to hold her too. :-)

Though I doubt anyone was more excited than ME! Holding babies is something I never, ever get tired of doing. Especially my nieces and nephews.

Look at that beautiful, happy family!

Em wanted to make sure Jeff took a picture of the "sisters". Nothing quite like a sister. So glad her girls have each other now, just like my girls do and we do.

After our visit at the hospital, I drove Madie down to her Nana and Papa T's. Madie spent the night with them and had a fantastically fun time with them! She got to do all kinds of great stuff - from swimming, to frame decorating, to river-walking. You can see that she was very excited to spend all that time with her Nana!

Noah and Livie had been invited too, but since I'm not 100% confident on Noah's abilities to handle his diabetes on his own, I had him stay with me. Livie was a little nervous about the "overnight" part of the bargain, so she too stayed with me. Hopefully in the very-near future, they'll get their own special day with Nana T. :-) To make it a little special for them, though, we went back and, while Kendalyn was napping at Nana and Papa D's, we headed out to get ice cream. I mean, it's not swimming, but it's still good, right?!

Noah and Kendalyn had a fun time together. He liked to make her laugh. They watched Papa out the window and talked about cars. All the kids had a really, really fun time with her. Now that she's bigger and can interact with them, they find her to be quite a hoot!

Em and Jeff were headed home today with Avery, so I took that as my cue to head home. I wanted them to be able to have that first trip home together as a family, so they could bond and sort out the new dynamics of a family of 4. So, I had to take one more quick trip to the hospital before I left. Today, when we got there, Avery was awake. So, I got to see her eyes! And, she was "unwrapped", so I got to see her little fingers and toes. She's just precious!

Kendalyn was VERY interested in Avery today. She didn't want to get off the bed. She wanted to see the baby. And, I'm pretty sure part of that was also that she wanted to see her mommy and daddy. She was such a good girl for us, but it was obvious that 4 days away from her parents was hard on her.

She sat on the bed and tried tickling Avery's toes and played with her fingers. She gave her kisses and hugs and patted her head. It was the cutest thing ever! I told Em I couldn't believe she wasn't sobbing at the sight of it! Madie was completely uninterested in Noah when he was born. When she finally pointed at him (aka poked his eye) and said, "Baby" I was a wreck. I cried and cried, because I knew that we were now a new little family. It was a fun visit and we can't wait to see her again!

When we got back, we ate lunch, then I put Kendalyn down for her nap. Gave her lots of hugs and got everything packed up and ready to go. Of course, Noah had a have a little time with Grandpa before he left. Grandpa heard Noah's interested in coin collecting, so Dad got out his coins to share with Noah. He was very excited, because he got to take some cool ones home with him. They gave hugs to Nana and Papa D and we headed down to pick up Madie at Nana and Papa T's. We were there for a little while, sampling the brownies they made, then headed home. We were greeted by a very excited Tater and a happy Daddy. It was a great few days, full of lots of happiness. But, it's good to be home. :-)

Invasion!

Do you see this beautiful sight? These are our tomato plants. Just two of them grew into this mammoth! However, something most distressing has occured....

When Madie took Tater out this morning to do his business, she came back in and gathered up the other two kids to show them what she had found! She found the tops of our tomato plants were eaten off. I looked at them and thought that deer had come by and eaten them until Noah saw the REAL culprit! A catapillar! A tomato hornworm to be exact. Now, I thought it would be fun to find a hornworm, knowing how much the kids would like to see one. I did NOT, however, want to find over 20 of them!!!

We are under an invasion of the most distressing kind. Tomato hornworms are destroying my glorious tomato plants. People have been speaking about the beauty of our tomato plants all season. I planted two Big Boys and they had literally grown taller than Livie! They were amazing! Now, at the moment they have fallen over, because of the weight of them, but that was nothing compared to its current affliction.




The kids went out with gardening gloves and began to take them off the branches and throw in a bowl. They were giving up the fight easily. Sometimes we just had to pull off the leaf or branch they were on, because they were holding on so tightly.

This bowl ended up with 12 of them in it, before we called it a morning. There were at least 4 more that we couldn't reach before being attacked by the catapillars' friends, the ants. The BITING ants, to be exact. They fight dirty.

That mass of plants is our tomato plants, even leaning over, you can tell that those two plants grew to massive proportions. Now? The tops of them are nearly completely stripped.

See that little guy in there? Yeah. They're everywhere. And, did I mention they poop? A lot?! Yeah. I think they're gross. The kids? They think they're amazing! Giant, pooping catapillars by the dozen. They're in heaven. We were driven off by a wasp, but we'll be tackling those things again soon. With as thick as the plants are, I can't even imagine how many are hiding on the inside of the plants, considering how many we see just on the outside. It's a sad day to know that my once glorious, beautiful garden tomatoes are looking at total demise by pooping hornworms. :-(

Room Redo

There has been a festering sore in my life I'd like to call "my bedroom furniture". I must begin by first saying I am SO thankful that we even have the gift of this bedroom furniture. If Pete's parents hadn't generously given us his bedroom furniture when we got married, we'd have clothes in bins right now and a tv tray for our television. That being said, it's a little outdated. I'm talking 1982 outdated. The reason I know the date of these beauties is because I nearly jumped off the couch when we were watching E.T. recently and saw that Elliot has the same furniture we do!! If that's not telling me it's time for an update, then I don't what is.



This is of which I speak... The pulls are really what sets it apart from most. Those things have been staring me in the face for 12 yrs and I finally got around to doing something about it!

Over the past couple of weekends, I've spent hours painting every piece of bedroom furniture we have, as well as trying to rid our home of the hideous pulls that have haunted me.

After couple coats of onyx black paint and some new handles we have entered a brand new century! Welcome to 2011, my furniture friends!

As you can see, the furniture has been reborn and looks SO fantastic now! I couldn't be happier!!No longer do I see gargantuan drawer pulls of brass laughing at me with their ugliness. No. Now I see pewter pulls, streamlined and full of glee. It's a beautiful thing!

With a few finishing touches, we will have a complete room. Just need a new roman shade behind those curtains, a fun crafty project I found - courtesy of Jill's sis, Amy - and a black throw blanket (that is currently in the washer in an attempt to remove enough dog hair to actually make it look black again). Oh, and if I get my wish? A new lighting fixture as well. Anyway, twelve years of suffering are gone and our furniture has found new life again! Now, when I watch a movie from the 80s, I won't be surprised by any similarities. ;-)

Another Goodbye

It seems we've been saying goodbye to too many friends lately. Our dear friends, the Havengas, left just a few weeks ago for Arizona and now, in just another week or so our other wonderful friends, the Couches, say goodbye as they leave for Florida. They had a going-away party today at their house and we just had to stop by and give them hugs!



There were lots and lots of people there, celebrating their love of this great family. Madie and Gracie, their daughter, are good friends, so Noah and some of Gracie's other pals joined in for a picture. :-)

Here is part of their family. Gwen is the one in the striped dress and her husband Craig is beside her with the sunglasses. I used to babysit their daughter when she was just 1, so we've known them for a really long time. They will be greatly missed!! We've given orders, however, to all our other friends and let them know that there will be no more moving in the future by any of them! At least not without written permission from us. :-) It's too hard to keep saying goodbye!

Library

Our summer has been so busy that we haven't taken the time to do one of our favorite summer activities - going to the library! We just had to fix that problem and went there Friday after skating camp.



Our library is very small, but we really enjoy going there and checking out new books. Livie is always the most excited when we go, because she doesn't get the library experience at school like the other kids do - though that changes in just a month when she enters KINDERGARTEN! Wowza!

Madie also loves books, but I haven't quite pinned down the kinds she likes best. She goes with really different things each time. I think her favorite genre right now is probably adventure stories. I have yet to figure out her style yet. I don't even know if she knows herself. Just glad she enjoys reading, no matter what the subject!

Noah has very clear choices in books. I can pick out a book for him a mile away! It either has to be hilarious books like Cap'n Underpants or informational books on whatever he's obsessing with at the time. He read nearly every book on poisonous plants last year when he was really interested in poison ivy. Now? He's really into hurricanes and weather. Seriously checks the weather sites on the computer 4 times a day to see how the storms in the ocean are faring or, currently, how the heat advisory are covering our area. It's like having a meteorologist in the house right now!

Despite all their different choices, they always walk out of there with a smile from Jan the Librarian and a handful of books to read. And, the best part? I know when we get home I get at least one good hour of quiet time while they are occupied with their new stories.

Now that I just finished watching the last of the Harry Potter movies, I know what I'll be checking out of the library myself this week! Can't wait to read the series!!!!!

I'm Baaaack!

After 3 very long weeks without a camera, we're back in business!!! It's hard to go that long without a camera, gotta tell ya. Especially when I love blogging so much! But, we got a camera on Wed night, so I was able to get back to doing what I love. :-)

This week has been roller skating camp, which I do believe could be the best camp of all time. I mean, who doesn't want to spend a week on roller skates, right? We didn't get to go on Monday, because Madie had an orthodontist appointment during that time, but we got right into it on Tues. By the way, Madie found out her expander comes out the end of August! That's like 3 months earlier than we thought! She'll get her retainer the next week. Very fun!





The first hour of camp was for Livie and Noah's age group, so they got to skate around first. They were a little shaky at first, because it's been over a year since they roller-skated, but after a day of it, they were doing so much better! I don't think any of them even fell once today! BIG improvement! Noah is a typical boy and doesn't slow down no matter how many times he fell. He just got back up and kept going!

Livie bought a pair of skates at a garage sale last month, so she wore her own this week. She did great on them too! The boy in red is one of their friends, Andrew.

Here is Madie with Andrew's brother, Michael. They got to skate during the next hour, but took advantage of that extra hour to skate on the carpet and get themselves ready for the class.

They learned to skate forward (obviously), backward, and how to stop.

Even Livie learned to slowly go backwards.

Madie was very slow at going backwards, but she still managed to do it! The first day she skated, she fell down so many times on her bottom, that she was really sore and tried to be very careful the next days, so she preferred to take it slow than to fall and hurt herself again. She made it the rest of the week without falling!

They also learned to skate forward and then hug their knees. Now, if I attempted this, I would never get up again! But, they did a great job and I believe this was one of their favorite things to practice!

While Noah and Livie waited for Madie to finish up her hour, they played a lot and found new friends to play with. Noah quickly found a new friend, Izzy, who was using an Ipad. I told her mom that the way into Noah's heart is through electronics. ;-)

Izzy also brought an electronic bug thing that walked like a crab. And, after our trip to Maine, crabs are Livie's new favorite thing. So, she had a ball playing with it. It's been a fun week and I'm so glad to be able to share it with everyone, now that I'm back to blogging!

Look Who's Here!

I don't have a camera, so I haven't been able to post this week, but this morning, we got news that was just too important not to share (plus, I could steal their pictures!). Micah and Cara had their baby girl! Yay! Miss Emma Hope Drexler was born at 11:16am this morning. Looks like she's a beauty and I know she'll be spoiled rotten by her 3 older brothers. Congrats to my brother and his family!!!

Changes

Now that I am done with all our vacation pictures AND don't have another camera yet, I thought I'd post a couple pictures that Cara posted yesterday on Facebook. We seem to have created a tradition where we take pictures of the Drexler grandkids on the couch whenever we're all together.



This picture was taken 5 yrs ago, when Mason was still in Cara's tummy, Livie was just a little baby, and Kendalyn wasn't even a thought yet! Look at those cute kids!! The grandchildren brood will be increasing by 2 by the end of the month, bringing the total to 10 (though our sweet Lincoln is in Heaven). Just 5 were here in this picture back then. Isn't it great how much things change in just 5 yrs?

Well, here are those same kids today - Isaiah, Mason, Caleb, Noah, Livie, and Madie. They're growing up fast! Can't wait for the next photo which will have all 9 squished on a couch together. :-)

Vacation 2011 - MAINE!

The one thing I was looking forward to most (other than seeing my brother and his family) was Maine. I've always wanted to go there and why, when we lived in NY, we didn't visit there, I'll never know. But, I was soooo super-excited to get up there this time!


My friend Donna, who's been to Maine, told me that the beaches there are very different than they are at the Jersey shore. She told us about the rocky beaches and we were not disappointed! This was our first glimpse of the Maine coastline. I fell in love instantly!

It was very cold that day for the beach - in the low 60s - but that didn't stop some of them from going in the water. I mean, how you can you resist going in that beautiful blue water?!

Noah was meant to live at the ocean. That boy loves the water, no matter what temperature it is. He had a ball, though was shivering cold once he came out.

Those are three very happy Trolinger kids right there!!

The greatest thing about these rocks was what we found underneath and around them. Cara told us we would find some treasures and we did. In fact, Livie (my critter lover) didn't put one foot in the ocean, spending instead all of her time exploring the rocks.

As soon as she found her first snail - before we even put down our beach blanket - she was in heaven! She didn't stop exploring the rest of our time there!

Isaiah and Mason spent most of their time with Livie exploring.

We moms stood around and took pictures. Cara's due like next week, so she's super-pregnant as you can see! Just wish I had looked that good when I was that pregnant! She carries it well. :-)

These little trails in the sand are made by the snails. There were thousands of them!

We found lots and lots of crabs too! This one was the first one we found. He was dead. But, we found lots of them that were hiding under rocks very much alive. Livie was heartbroken when we had to leave and put them all back in the water. She wanted to keep them all.

Madie played in the ocean for a little while, but she was too cold. She decided to join us and found the very first starfish of the group! The one thing we were CONVINCED we were going to find in all these rocks was sea glass and sadly, we looked so hard and found not a single piece. As much fun as we had, that was our one disappointment. The tide wasn't in yet, so Cara said a lot probably hadn't been washed up yet. In fact, there was a big section of rocks that we found most of our critters in that after lunch was completely submerged. The tide came in quickly and we ended up leaving mid-afternoon, because of it. I wondered if we had been able to go back after the tide went back again if we had found some. Maybe next time!

This was the last picture I took with our camera. Shortly after this shot was taken, my camera fell in the little pools by these rocks and was totally destroyed. Thank the Lord that my memory card wasn't and I was able to save all my pictures! I told Micah if they had been, we would've redone every single thing we did on this vacation, so I could get more pics! Thank goodness it didn't come to that.

The rest of these pictures Cara posted, so I could copy here. I thought this was a great one of the little explorers!

Noah and Caleb found every little pool of water on the beach and soaked in it. It's the only thing that kept them warm after being in the ocean. I eventually had to make Noah take off his shirt and put on a dry sweatshirt to keep him from being miserably cold!

Isn't this a great shot of Cara and Mason (and a preview of baby Emma)? :-)

While all of the kids, Pete, and I were searching through the section of rocks by the shoreline, Mason and Micah decided to start building sand tracks. I don't think they ever built a full sand castle. It was mostly just roads, I think. Mason was very excited about them!

You can kind of see how the water was getting closer, so we took Cara's camera and took a couple family shots. Don't they have a great-looking family?! I was so jealous of Cara's big hat too. I swear, if we lived in Maine (which is now my dream!), I would own a collection of awesome hats like that! At this point, it wouldn't keep my from freckling any more than I already have, but at least I'd look awesome!

And, here is a shot of my family. It was a spectacular day and I can't wait to get back there and spend more time. Granted, the salt water turns my hair into something you might see from '87, but I'm ok with that. Just glad we were able to spend time at a beautiful, peace beach with our families. :-)