OH MY GOODNESS!!

It has been a week. I helped whelp 9 puppies for 12 hours on friday, we tried to revive two of them and succeeded with one, 8 survived. Spent part of the day on Saturday visiting them and trying to help my mom. Sunday, we literally cut itty-bitty tails off of itt-bitty puppies and pulled their dewclaws out, gluing and trying to stop bleeding at every turn. Evelyn started crawling this week. On Tuesday I went to Orientation for Caleb's school. I went to all the tables, waited in a bunch of lines, met Caleb's very sweet teacher, realized I forgot paperwork at home, took Caleb back to Harriet and Peter's, nursed Evelyn and got myself back to said orientation to finish everything up. I came back and took a dip with my kids in a beautiful pool, it was great. Wednesday was dramatic, trying to calm storms with friends and my future with homeschool vs. traditional school. I've put myself in the middle, not quite full-time homeschool, yet not really in "school," it's weird. It's Thursday now. River pulled too many feathers out of an escaped chicken - AGAIN! I go out there and this poor chicken is totally alive, with mortal injuries. Like the chicken is flying! But it truly can't survive it's condition, so I have to kill it. SO, SO lame! Meanwhile, Evelyn is crawling around my house, eating all sorts of things off my floor. Thank goodness Mom came over to help in my moment of crisis. I didn't even want to talk, killing an animal, even for good reasons is super lame - if I didn't make that clear before. Evelyn cut her first tooth this week, seriously?! She actually slept better this week than ever before, thank goodness! My floor is covered with homeschool curriculum for Caleb and Josiah. I have to schedule out our year since no one made a schedule for me, why didn't someone do that for me?! I'm planning on starting Josiah in Pre-K, but I'm pulling out all of these books that I used for Caleb and I just don't know if he's up to it yet, he's still a baby!

ok, dinner is due in half an hour and I have no idea what to make. WOW, I just don't even know what to think of my life right now. It is so full and everything is so good, but man it's full! And full of exclamation marks:) Things can't be too bad?!

Wish I could post a photo, but I lost the battery cover and now my camera doesn't work. Ordered a new cover yesterday so we can get some shots of our baby learning to crawl.

Caleb's dream

I was just going through some of Caleb's homeschool work for the year (we are nearly done!). I came upon one of his Creative Writing assignments and I thought you all would enjoy a good read:)

A True Story dictated by Caleb Sytsma, written by Mom
"Last night I had a dream there were many holes in the ocean, lots of rock holes and they had arrows on them to show if submarines could fit through them. Then there wasn't an arrow on one but Grandma, Josiah and I wanted to check if we could fit. The submarine could not fit and ran out of gas. Then Daddy came in a tow-truck submarine and they had more fuel, so they gave the fuel to us, but it all ran out again. Then a hover-craft came and towed our submarine. It could only go ten miles, but we needed to go twenty. Good thing there was a gas station to refuel the hover-craft! We went the rest of the ten miles, but right when it was at our driveway, it ran out of gas again! We gave it gas from out of our car. Then we went down and unhooked our submarine from the hovercraft. Daddy took our car to the gas station to get re-fueled. Grandma then came and she drove the tow-truck submarine to the gas station and so did the hovercraft pilot. Then everyone went back home. The End"

Evelyn is 3 months

Ah, she is so adored...a 3 month old little bundle of adorable! I think she is a little easier to just enjoy as she is our third. We just go along with the flow with her and appreciate every moment we have with her. She coos and gurgles and does whole-body smiles that knock her backwards. She sucks on her fingers and falls asleep wherever she is if she is tired enough. She loves it when her brothers, Caleb especially lays down and talks to her. They completely obsess about her. They wish she was always awake and say good-night to her reluctantly for EVERY SINGLE NAP! We have finally figured out some nursing challenges, that was a pretty big deal around here, and we are so much more at peace now. She wakes up once or twice a night, eats, sometimes talks a bit and then peacefully goes back to sleep. Okay, let's get to some photos.

Grandma and her babies

Grandpa and the babe

oh, the boys LOVE tummy time, they think she is so very strong!

He's an amazing big brother!!

First shots

Caleb's expression when getting to look at his sister.

I turn my head for a second and they've put a bow on her!

Just hanging out, gotta love the helplessness of this age

Poppy and his Evie

3 month photo shoot

She fell asleep on the changing pad and I missed it!

LOVE - LOVE- LOVE!!!!! Morning time today:)

Welcome Evelyn Rose Sytsma

Evelyn Rose was born one month ago. It was all so convenient, her arriving on a sunday afternoon and all. She has been a lovely baby and her brothers absolutely adore her!! She will be a light in their lives for quite a while at least:) If she is awake, they burst forth in joy and delight in her! It is truly amazing to see. We never thought Josiah would be so very keen on a little one, but he most definitely is. They make sure they wash their hands every time they want to touch her, talk to her in sweet little voices (sometimes a little loud) and totally invade her personal space and mine!

I forgot how much newborns sleep, so it's kind of like having a newborn visitor from time to time and an alarm clock that wakes us up three times a night:) She IS lovely though and Matt and I are definitely falling in love with her. She is starting to give cute little faces and hold her head up more and more. We are awaiting the arrival of her smile now:)

Here are some photos of her