New Sayings for a New Year

I thought we'd start the year out right with some quotable quotes from Gabe and Elijah:

Me: "Gabey, come here please."
Gabriel: "Mom! It's Gabe, not Gabey!"

We took the boys to Red Robin where they got helium filled balloons. By the next day they were on the floor so I explained about helium and how it had leaked out and now there was not enough to make it float. The day after that, Elijah brought me his balloon and we had this conversation:
Elijah: "Mom, I can't see them."
Me: "See what?"
Elijah: "The aliens. There used to be lots of aliens and they made the balloon fly but now they don't, right? I can't see them in there!"

Gabe wanted me to read him a book in church. I told him I would read him one when the current speaker was finished. He squinted up at the pulpit and said, "Who, the white guy?"

After I took the tree and nativity down Elijah asked, "It's not Christmas anymore?"
Me: "No, it's not Christmas anymore. Christmas only lasts for a little while each year. We will have it again next year."
Elijah: "The Grinch taked it?"

Me (in response to Gabriel pulling wipes out of the package one by one and dropping them on the floor): "Gabe, what are you doing? Pick these up right now and put them in the trash please."
Gabe (with a heavy sigh): "Sorry, Mom. It's just been a long day."

This evening we read some nursery rhymes before bed. I would occasionally pause to let the boys fill in some of the words. Elijah did well with Humpty Dumpty but struggled with this one.
Me: "Mary had a little lamb whose fleece was white as..."
Elijah: "Me."
Me: "And everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to..."
Elijah: "Hide."

The Blog I Will Never Write

It is not December and so I cannot write the blog that I wanted to write.
I know this post is still dated in December- but it is a lie. Somehow December escaped my clutches with but one paltry post and that one was about November and now it is January, a whole new year, and far too late to go back to musings on what happened in December of 2010.
So here it is, the blog post that I will never write unless at some future date I happen to cross paths with a time machine.
I am sorry to say you will never read about the soft spot I had this year for the TV Christmas special "It's Christmas Charlie Brown!" as I surveyed my own gimpy wreath and tree. The wreath I made myself with real fir boughs, but it didn't turn out quite as I envisioned it so it hung inside our house and we enjoyed the piny scent. I could pretend that its humble, lop-sided appearance was on purpose in honor of the humble birth place of Jesus, but let's face it- I just can't make wreaths.
The tree, which I will not write about, was just fine, lovely in fact, until we decorated it. The twins helped me decorate it while David John just as quickly ripped off and destroyed ornaments. I had to keep moving the ornaments up higher and higher as David John devised new ways to reach them until the bottom 2/3 of the tree was completely bare and the top 1/3 suffocating with decoration. All of this majesty was topped by a homemade cardboard and foil star which frequently decided to flop over or threaten to fall off entirely.
David John seemed to notice the disparity in decoration, however, and tried to make up for it by shoving megablocks, dinosaurs, cars and dusting cloths into the bottom branches. This was truly a tree only a mother could love and you will never know about it.
I neglected entirely to write about the formal Christmas party for the Cleveland Clinic Children's Hospital that Marc signed us up to go to. You might never know about the panic of trying to find something even semi-formal that would fit over my gigantic pregnant belly. I won't be able to tell you about combing thrift stores with all three boys in tow, about Elijah opening the dressing room door while I was changing or about the miracle of finding a very plain funeralesque floor length black velvet maternity dress for $7 which a team of fairy godmothers turned into a cute knee length little number with fabric flowers on the neckline and matching hair clips and beautiful pearl jewelry. Marc and I had a wonderful time with all of the fabulous people he works with. We played with the exhibits, ate, danced, watched an awesome IMAX movie about Alaska and came home to find that our boys did not destroy our neighbors' house or even their breakable Christmas village display.

My year of blogging will not include the cute quip in which I asked my boys about the nativity scene and the only three characters they seemed to think worth mentioning were baby Jesus, Jesus' mommy, and the cow. (Here is the picture that I would have included of our nativity set we bought in the Philippines. The boys loved watching me unwrap each piece and put it on the mantle.)
I won't get to write about Christmas morning and how Gabriel threw a tantrum about having to put on his pajama pants before he could go downstairs and declared that he did not want presents. Of course, he changed his mind.
I'll never tell you about the boys unwrapping presents to find a sealed box beneath the paper and calling out, "I got a box!" then tossing it aside without thinking that there might be something in the box. This fabulous picture of Elijah after having eaten all of his stocking candy with a smile only a dentist could truly appreciate might never see the light of day.
No one but my immediate family will recall how cute David John looked in his little red robe, or how he stood by the door with his snow boots just waiting for someone to take him outside.
I wish that I would have written about my husband who worked through the Christmas holidays without complaint and even made it through some very tough days of endless patients, long hours and heartbreaking cases without a family to come home to. I wish that I could tell you about my gratitude for him and how sweet it was to come home to him and to have our own little Christmas celebration on New Year's Eve. I wish I could boast about what a good job he did in surprising me with thoughtful gifts but I will never write this blog so I can't.
Oh, and I wish that I could wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year but this blog was never written. Maybe I'll remember to write one this year.

Gratitude

So, it might be a month late, but I still wanted to express our family's gratitude for the blessings big and small in our life. Let me first say, that I am grateful for family and friends who take fabulous pictures since I so often forget my camera or am too busy interacting with the boys to take pictures of them.

Gabriel is thankful for books, books and more books. This kid loves to be read to.

Marc is grateful for "help" with raking and piling the leaves by the curb so the leaf-sucker truck can take them away.

Marc and I are both thankful for 3 adorable boys and 1 on the way.

Marc (and particularly Opa) is grateful for massive amounts of free leftover movie theater popcorn. He scored this bag after we all went to see the latest Harry Potter movie on Thanksgiving.






























We are very grateful for Robert, Nancy, Oma and Opa who came to visit us during Thanksgiving and helped out so much with the cooking, cleaning, and child-wrangling.

All the boys are thankful for birthday ice cream- Opa's treat.

Elijah is thankful for stickers.

I am grateful for movie night and my husband who watched our kids and our friends' children so I could go.

David John is grateful for his first kiss from a cute girl. Ava is quite the go-getter.

We are thankful for all the great friends we have here in Cleveland.

A Tale of Two Vans

Our van was dead to begin with..... dead as a doornail.

Okay, not really and I know that line is from A Christmas Carol and not A Tale of Two Cities- but remember last winter when our van had "irritable bowel syndrome"? We never did figure out the source of the IBS until it was too late. Apparently, in vans anyway, IBS can be deadly.
The estimated repair cost for a procedure that may or may not work was a minimum of $1500. At that point, the van was still running albeit in a scary vibratory kind of way. However, as I drove my little van home I had pretty much decided that we were in the market for a new vehicle. It was at that very moment that the van died for the first time. My van with the fatal IBS also had ESP.
Marc and I went to work at finding a replacement and located a 2009 Toyota Sienna for a good price. On the big day when we were to go trade our sickly van for a shiny newish one, Mr. Minivan refused to start at all- it clearly knew our plans- and had to be jumped. As we drove to the dealership, Marc made some comment about how this van only had to make it 2 more miles and then it would be out of our lives forever.
It promptly died.
After getting it started again, we finally made it to the dealership. Now, I am no expert on vehicles but I knew that this van we were trading in was something special. I mean, it wasn't going to work for us to keep it because we needed a vehicle that would, you know, go. However, I was sure that this van could be of use to someone since it clearly understood human speech and could even read minds. At the very least it should have been a valuable collector's item.
Would you believe that after we presented the dealership with all of anecdotal evidence pointing to our van's ESP abilities they actually lessened the trade-in value from the blue book price?
Anyway, for better or worse we traded it in and drove home in what the boys are still calling "the new van" even though it has been more than two weeks now. I love our new van, but kind of miss the red color and character of our old one. Oh, and the boys are definitely missing the built in VHS player. Our VHS tapes are missing it too since that was the only use we had for them. *Sigh.
It was the best of vans, it was the worst of vans.

Quotable Quotes

Gabriel: Mom, that's a lot of groceries.

Me: Yep. You guys eat a lot.

Gabriel: Yeah. I eat a lot and I drink a lot. It means.... I'm pregnant.

Elijah (referring to the baby in my tummy): Is he awake in there?

Me: Yes he is, he's wiggling around.

Elijah (holding a toy truck): I want to give him this truck. (He moves as if to put the truck down my shirt.)

Me: No, we can't do that.

Elijah: Why? The baby will eat it?

Me: No, there is just no way to get it inside where the baby is.

Elijah (thinking): Why don't you eat it?

Me: laughing too hard to respond

Gabriel (in response to me nagging him about picking up his toys): Mom, you are making me crazy!

Me: The feeling is mutual.

Gabriel: Yeah, the feeling is cereal!

Elijah (crying): Mom! Gabe take my truck!

Me (busy in kitchen): Just a second, I think you're okay.

Elijah: I am not okay! Gabe take my truck I said!

Gabriel (referring to the woman in the pew in front of us at church): Mom, that is a lot of hair. That it is a big head. Mom, I can't see.

Elijah: Mom, you okay?

Me: I'm okay. I'm just not feeling good today. My tummy hurts.

Elijah: Oh. Do I smell bad?

Gabriel (in response to Elijah refuting something Gabe said): Well, my name is Gabriel and I start with “G” so yes it is.

Elijah: P P P P P P Y spells puppy.

Half Baked

Happy 20 weeks of pregnancy today. Woo-hoo! Half way done! And I have the belly to prove it.

Boy oh boy oh boy...

oh BOY!
That's right folks. We are expecting baby boy number four! We had our big ultrasound yesterday, and while I will not post the picture proof believe you me that there was no question about the gender of this baby. Not shy, this one. :)
We had a really nice and enthusiastic ultrasound technician. She was patient with my wiggly and sometimes uncooperative little guy and gushed over every part. "Here's his femur- it's perfect!" "Oh, look at that humerus, looks great!" I think during the ultrasound we heard all of the following adjectives: perfect, wonderful, fabulous, great, beautiful, nice, outstanding and amazing. The doctor confirmed that our little guy seems to be the picture of health and is weighing in at about half a pound- right on schedule for his April 4th (or 5th) due date.
Here's a few pictures- keep in mind I don't have a scanner so there is a little glare from taking pictures of the ultrasounds:


This is the naughty foot that already keeps me up at night sometimes.


Look at that handsome profile!



And here is a little hand waving hello. When Gabe and Elijah saw this picture they pointed to my belly and asked, "You have a monkey in there?"

Our boys are excited about the new baby as are we. I guess maybe we should have one more boy so we can have a whole basketball team. Marc thinks we should anyway.