Of Wives And Theology...

Yesterday Gabe was wondering about dying. He wondered when he was going to die. I told him it would probably not be for a very long time. He still seemed a little worried about it - for after all, when you are four, "a long time" can be till the end of the day, or a week, or another month. He told me that he doesn't want to die because he doesn't "want to not go to CannonMennoniteChurch" (he says the name of the church like it is one word. It is very cute, I must say. He has talked a few times recently about how much he likes our church.)

Our conversation about dying led to a conversation about heaven, and how if we love Jesus and have a relationship we will go to heaven to be with Jesus. He wasn't too sure that he wanted to go there right now. He asked if his "wife" (a common topic of late) would go to heaven with him. I said that, yes, she would if she loves Jesus. Then he said "OH!! I FORGOT!! I have to think of my wife's name! I can't beh-yeeve (believe) I didn't remember to think of her name!" LOL. I smothered a smile and told him that he probably has a good twenty years or so to think of it. He soon told me that his wife's name was Maddie. I asked him if that is the Maddie who is his imaginary friend or his friend Maddie at church, but he didn't say.

This morning again he told me that he was going to think of his wife's name, "the wife that is going to go up to heaven with me". He gave me some weird nonsense name, and then told me that he was going to think of the names of his children, of which there would be twelve.

LOL. Too hilarious.

Growing

I moved Zion into 3-6 month clothes. (2 months 2 weeks) He is very interactive, with lots of eye contact and smiles and "talking". He sleeps soooooo good. Last night he slept from 10:30 PM-ish to about 8:30 AM-ish. This convinces me that there is no miracle baby sleep solution, but that some kids do and some kids don't. Sleep well and easily, that is.

Gabe moved up into a new Sunday School class for the 4-6 year old kids. He likes it a lot. I knew he would. He is one of those kids that I know will love school just for the social aspect.

Israel is in a tantrum stage. He gets SO FRUSTRATED when we can't understand what he is trying to communicate, and bursts into wails and tears and throwing himself down on the floor and kicking his feet. And they can be pretty prolonged. After several of those in a day, you get really sort of in the mood to ignore him when he is doing it. If he was doing it to be manipulative, I would think that's ok, but I have to remember that I would get really frustrated too if no one ever understood what I was trying to communicate something that I really wanted. But it's still honestly really annoying. :) He has also grown recently and looks more "small boy"-ish. I will really miss his babyness when he is all grown out of it. He has been such a happy little chipmunk baby.

Lately

Picture catch-up.  Zion has been napping in the same room as the computer with our pictures. Sigh.  This means I feel like I never get around to doing my pictures.  Sigh.  Which means it takes forever when I finally get around to doing them.  Tim sighing.    :)  But anywho, here's life of late.

Mommy and the boys cooking some egg sandwiches, while Daddy prepares to leave for the evening.

Zion helping Mommy hang up some clothes.  :)

Mommy's little helper elves.

Mommy and baby.

A Zion collage.

Riding tricycles on a sunny day.

The CUTEST little cuddly buddy ever.

Daddy and boy catching some morning snoozes.
Fireman Bob gets distracted by a cool little toy.

Bounce bounce bounce.  Zion is only semi-tolerant of this handy little jumper at this point.

The fall that has disappeared into winter brown/grey.

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving Day here in DE - Tim spoke at a combined church service, and then we went to Larry and Eileen Crossgrove's house and had a very enjoyable time with them and Weston and Stephanie Yutzy and their two boys, Carson and Nevin, and...ummm....Erika and...I forget her husband's name.  Sorry, Erika's husband.  :)  The next day, we left for Virginia, where we had a Beery Thankgiving/Christmas (to which I forgot to bring my camera), and then a Heatwole Thanksgiving at Mom and Dad's house.   

Mom and Dad had gotten some new stools for the boys to sit on.  Gabe was very concerned that he be the one to sit on his stool, which was pushed up to the big table, and no one else.  He perched on his stool during the afternoon
 and after everyone had arrived and was milling around after the prayer, Mom went to find Gabe and found him staking his claim.  :)

Zion was sort of cranky throughout the meal, so I just got some pictures of the after dinner activity.

The boy cousins.

Another exciting thing about our visit this time was getting to see all of Grandaddy's new calves.

They are little baby calves who need a bottle, and Gabriel got to help.
  Israel checked out the action, but was too dubious of the Maddie factor (Dad's Laborador dog) to really enjoy his time on the ground.

We also enjoyed some time to do some shopping, fix tires, and replace van belts.  I really enjoyed those last two, oh man.  

Gabe and Israel pattered happily and busily around, getting all their "work" done.  

Israel and his baby doll.  Like his hair? :) :) :) 
Israel loves to ride this horse.  Mostly I was just capturing the Dennis the Menace hair at another angle, though.  :)  Love it.

I also got to see my friend Angela Zehr Heatwole that I had not seen for a long time!  
We got to chat over some chow at O'Charley's.  It was a very good time.  It wad great to see you, Angelina!! :)

As we were packing up to go, the dogs were both a real help.  
Maddie offered to drive us home, but we didn't take her up on it.  So she just settled her injured feelings by sitting on the gas pedal, revving the engine, and thoroughly startling herself.  

Thanks Mom and Dad for everything! We missed you Norm and Carol!

The Miller's

How go the results-of-fruitfully-multiplying? Mine have been sort of busy of late...

Israel has some virus that makes him very cry-at-the-top-of-his-lungs-and-not-tell-you-what-is-the-current-disaster, such as, the lego basket not being over by his truck or something...something...something unknown and mysterious and impossible to figure out about his cup. Lots of wailing, my friends. Mucho the wailing.

Gabe, on the other hand, has the worst diarrhea I think I have ever seen. This is combined with a rampant case of let-me-pick-on-my-younger-brother. Let me nudge the edge of the little table he is eating on with my foot and spill his water. Let me accidentally-on-purpose bowl him over as I speed down the hall. This alternates with a rash of Zion-hoverings, Zion-kissings, and wake-Zion-up's-and-make-mommy-get-very-scary-mad-eyes. :)

Zion is as sweet as a bittle button. A wittle ol' smoochy smoochy bittle button. Seriously. The kid is irresistable. I can't figure out what his deal is the past several days, but I never get annoyed at him, because he is still so SWEET!!!! I can't give him just one kiss, but must instead give many many. He has started studiously batting at my face when I am holding him in the crook of my arm and looks rather satisfied when I capture his hand and hold it up for a kiss.

And in other updates...

Tim is busy as ever, but I must admit that I am madly in love with him.

Chloe is...is...annoyingly in existance.

I am existing in fuzzy warm clothes.

I have to admit that this stage of life leaves me sometimes feeling trapped. Not trapped in my life or situation, because I like both of those things very much, but trapped geographically. It is so. much. work. to load the kids up and go anywhere and keep an eye on all of them at once that I usually just don't have the energy or motivation. I sometimes watch Tim come and go with narrowed envious eyes at his arms swinging freely, no legs propped on bouncers, off to work and a feeling of productivity. Some days, when Zion is fussy and demanding, the most frustrating thing is not being able to look at my day and see anything truly finished - the living room is only half picked up, there are still dishes in the sink waiting for someone, anyone, with two hands free; I still haven't worked on scrapbooking, I have more pictures to sort through, I still need to put candles up in the windows and find that sneaky hide-y tree skirt, I wanted to wash our sheets today and didn't get to it, I need to hang some more laundry on the line and put away the clean stuff on the table fuss fuss fuss fuss fuss goes the baby and I resume my bouncing, patting, pacing circle. Bounce bounce bounce eye the things on the floor that I LOOONG to pick up and put away so that I won't feel SO STRESSED OUT ABOUT ALL THE WORK I STILL HAVE TO GET DONE!!! And then the kids want food and then they're fighting and it's bath time and splash time and finding clothes and lotion and settling more squabbles and finding snacks and brushing teeth and so then the day is over and the kids are in bed - and I look around and see not a sight that makes me sigh happily over my productiveness, but instead - more work. Blech. Today Israel was sick on top of Zion's third or fourth day of fussiness, and threw several exhausted, prolonged, temper tantrums. I honestly just sometimes had to laugh, as two children bellowed while Gabe begged to play hide and seek. Sigh. Tim was also gone tonight...so friends, it was a long day. :)

They aren't all like that. Sometimes I can strut around proudly and shake my tail feathers and demand compliments on the meal/house/other productiveness I have busily whipped up for the day. Just not today.

I did have a good start though. I am currently in an obsessive research phase over whole foods/natural foods/organic foods stuff. I am devouring two cookbooks (I have never in my life done such a thing) on the topic and dreaming of buying another one that I really want that is like, 672 pages, called Nourishing Traditions. I have borrowed Mom's book, The China Study, which talks about diet and disease associations from a study of 170 villages in China, and am dreaming of somehow obtaining a flour grinder so I can grind my own wheat. I had to look at myself the other day and shake my head with amusement as my eyes lit up greedily when I came across a recommendation that I check my local natural foods store for ingredients. Local natural foods store (breathed in a wistful whisper). Dilated pupils, staring into space dreaming of sea vegetables and millet and all things organic. What a weirdo I am. But I can't help these random, irresistible, insatiable hunger-for-knowledge-of-my-current-fill-in-the-blank interest. I snarf up any relevant books I can get my hands on and research madly online till I am finally knowledged out. Then I move on. But this morning Zion and I made a happy little trip to our not-exactly-very-close closest natural foods store and I thoroughly enjoyed myself, rummaging among the arrowroot starch and xantham gum.

The truly ironic thing is that, as I'm scouring these cookbooks for exciting new information about what sea vegetable to use with beans to make them digestible and how to stay away from red meat, I often have a healthy little item tucked into my paw, like, say Mountain Dew, or say, a chocolate covered doughnut. Priorities are priorities, see.

Christmas Jobs

Getting the Christmas tree stuff out of the attic whilst mumbling under one's breath about such a chore and the existence of an attic in the first place - Tim's Job

Putting up the Christmas tree and clambering back up into the attic to try to find the rest of the branches and lugging several more boxes down and finding the missing pieces and unraveling and wrapping lights around the tree and then discovering that one string of lights won't work and then trekking to Wal Mart and finishing the next day and then clamboring back up to the attic twice unsuccessfully searching for the tree skirt and starting to hang up ornaments and picking up all those scattered little green thingies and burning nice Christmas-y smelling candles - Carrie's Job

Carefully sorting through ornaments and attaching green hangers to them and asking if we can "wap pweasents" and if it is Christmas yet and exclaiming how pretty Nana Carol and Gwandpa Norm will think the tree is - Gabe's Job

Banging Christmas tree ornaments together and throwing those little green hanger thingies all over - Israel's Job

Being really tired and cranky and continually disrupting Mommy's many attempts to just get the tree done already - Zion's Job

Gabeisms

"Gabe, did you see that those pants have pockets?"

Gabe looks down. "OH!! Yeah, dey do have pockets!! Dey have real-wy down pockets!"

"They have really down pockets?"

"Yeah, their pockets are real-wy down far on my negs (legs)! On my nittle negs (little legs)!"
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Gabe was just chattering away a mile a minute the other day. He said "Mom, Maddie (his imaginary friend) told me a naughty sec-wet about why poop dies into the toy-yet (toilet)."

Why poop dies into the toilet. Heh heh heh. This is like the honey living on the bread.

The sec-wet was entirely nonsensical, and made no sense with anything - sometimes his conversations are like a Free Association monologue.
___________________________

Said today as he sat shirtless at the supper table, "Sometimes I p'yay (play) hide and seek with my nipples!"

To which Daddy's response was to count to ten, and find them, which he thought was a great game. :)
__________________________

The other afternoon he said "When I guh-whoa (grow) up, I'm going to have a wife!"

"A wife?" I said interestedly. "You are?"

He nodded affirmatively. "Yeah." He then said something about me picking him out a wife or something, and I told him that when he grows up he will decide who he wants to marry, and that person will be his wife.

He thought that was a good idea, and then informed me that he needed some shoes so he could guh-whoa (grow). This is because he had new sneakers recently that made him taller, ie. guh-whoa. :)

Story Time...Or Not.

Ever since we moved here to DE, I have been wanting to take the boys to Story Hour at the library. But every week I forget, or, on the rare ones I remember, we oversleep or something else happens. Today, finally, we were up and at 'em. I tracked down the many layers involved in getting two young children and an infant out the door, buckles were clicked and clacked and fastened fast, I scurried into my front seat, and turned the key...

..and...

the stupid van wouldn't start. Grrrrrrrr!!!!!! We piled back out of the van, and trudged back inside, dreams of libraries and educational stimulation and GoodWill and maybe even Walmart drifting away on the cold, clothes-piercing wind. I drearily unbuckled the baby and sat down with him, feeling very cranky indeed. Words cannot begin to describe my level of crankiness. The crankiness is abounding.

I suppose I could, say, pick up toys. That would be fun. Or, like, do some laundry. I'm dripping with gleeful delight over this prospect. Maybe I could write some more thank you notes for baby gifts. Or empty the trash. Or scrub the toilet. With a toothbrush.

There's just something about having plans to do something different, going to all the child-ready-ing work to do it - and then suddenly you can't. Makes one feel sort of grinch-like.

I think I'm going to go eat some chocolate and scowl at the dog.

It's Honey, Honey.

This morning Gabe was inquiring about an unfamiliar substance in his cereal. "It's honey," I told him.

"Oh!" he said, and then he paused. "Honey cereal or honey that lives on bread?"

Honey that lives on bread. Heh heh heh.

Life

I've been sort of too busy lately (for some reason) to blog very much, particularly when I have to edit photos. However (of course), life has continued to happen, so here is some catch-up over the past two months. These pictures unintentionally have a Gabe-theme, but I'll catch you up on Israel next.

Early in October, we went to Apple Scrapple in Bridgeville.
It was right up my Fall Festival alley, which has been sorely deprived over the past seven years as I seemed to have to work over almost every fall celebration in Kentucky. Zion was two weeks old, and he did fine. We didn't stay too long, but we did enjoy a scrapple sandwich, an apple dumpling, check out Cannon's pie selling booth, get the boys a dolphin balloon, and take them on a Ferris Wheel ride. Oh, and as we were walking out, we got to see a helicopter land. Very cool. :) I just adored the entire experience, while walking through a skillion people pushing one double stroller containing two young children and one regular stroller containing a very small infant was not on Tim's list of "Things I Love To Do On My Day Off". :) But me - I can't wait till next year!!!

I like this shot from a few weeks after Zion was born. Often Zion wakes up around 7 or 7:30 AM, and then I lay him beside me on the pillow and give him his pacifier and we doze together groggily for a while. On this morning, I had one dozy infant and two inquisitive brothers. :)
Here was a Zion picture on the baby quilt his Grandma Edith made for him.
Gabe hangs out with his beloved little brother.
Gabe's four year old picture.
All three boys got some much needed haircuts the other week. This was Israel's first "clippers" haircut, and he had a GREAT time getting to be like Daddy and Gabe. :)
Mom and Dad came to check on the grandchillin's again around the beginning of November. Here was the Granddaddy and the grandboy.
A late night shot of a Daddy and a sleeping boy.
This is a common activity of mine these days. BUT. Would someone please explain to me why one of the RARE pictures of me and Zion has to also contain a shoe?? And a Croc, none the less. Frown at husband, frown at husband. >:(
Speaking of husband, that good daddy has boys who LOVE to wrestle and play with him when he comes home. Gabe gets all hyper every single night when he comes home and does unwise things like bop his daddy on the head while he's sitting on the couch to try to get his attention. :) Tim is good at giving them some "boy time", and they just eat it up!!!
"Mommy, can I hold the baby and can you take my picture?"
Enjoying the Zion cuteness...
Silly boys.
The other day, Gabe and I were looking at a photo album from when he was a baby. "Oh!" says he "I was ado-wable!!" (like he says about Zion) :) "Yes you were!" I respond. I show him the picture of the baby shower where Grandma Edith gave Mommy a baby quilt she made for Gabe. He emits an excited gasp. I go get the quilt for him from the closet, and he exclaims excitedly over it. I show him the "cozy side". He immediately has to shuck off his pants so he can feel it on his legs. :) I cannot persuade him to put his pants back on, as he would rather "be cold" and feel the "cozy blanket". He had to sleep under it that night. Grin.
Zion, asleep on his Mommy's pillow. Can you find him? :)
And finally, here's my boys, busy being boys. Happy sigh.

The Zion Baby

The Zion baby is growing and getting sweeter and sweeter every day. I LOOOVE it when he smiles - they are just adorable...melt melt melt sigh. One of my favorites is when he gets a little grin on his face when I lay him down on the bed and he happily stretches out his legs.

He is a generally happy baby - except when he's not. :) He calms down with a pacifier, eating, or a bouncing walk.
He loves to look over my shoulder.

He is starting to coo.

He spits up more than my other boys have.
I'm pretty sure he's going to be blond like Gabe. When he was born he had blond hair on top (that has since fallen out) and brown hair on the sides and back that is still there and looks like a nice receding hairline. :) Some of it is starting to rub off, though, and it looks to me like the "peach fuzz" blondness that was on the top of his head is starting to grow longer. His eyebrows and eyelashes are blond too.

He continues to eat well and fill out the wrinkles in his legs. :)

He will sleep usually from 10 PM to 7 AM, and wake once in between to eat. I moved his cradle into our closet about a week ago, and he seems to sleep better in there. (I don't know what we are going to do when we move to a house without a nice walk-in closet, as it has been so busy these past few months! :))
He has recently switched his "going to sleep" routine (as babies seem to do). Before, he would only go to sleep for the night when Tim carried him either over his shoulder or like this.
Now, he likes the Moby Wrap which I use for a carrier, and usually falls asleep in that.
He likes his Mommy - and I love it that he does. He calms when he comes to me, and seems to like my kisses and smooches and pats. I've noticed that when one of the boys climb up beside him, he seems to get a little agitated, wide-eyed and whirly-armed, and is only semi-tolerant of their generous heapings of loving pats and kisses. Gabe loves to just hover over him, and Zion is not so big on that idea.
Both boys still do really well with him and really love him. He often has little wet patches of hair from Israel's many kisses, and Gabe often exclaims over and over "He's just so ado-wable!!"