95th Birthday Celebration

My great-grandma (my mom's grandma) turned 95 years old on November 23rd, and a bunch of family gathered at my parents' newly finished house to celebrate with her. It's amazing to think of what she's seen in her lifetime--95 years. Wow. She moved to an apartment at a retirement home here in Gresham last spring, and it's been so nice to have her close-by. The kids and I like to stop by and visit. She ends up with more artwork than she knows what to do with sometimes, I think. :)
She is one special lady. I admire, love, and respect her so much, and I'm so glad my kids have gotten to know her.

Opening her presents and cards











I like this one of Mom and Grandma











Grandma and just some of her great-great grandchildren (plus baby-holders).
Grant played with my great uncle, Gene, and Joan for quite a while.












Everyone who was able to make it that night.

Thankful

We have so much to be thankful for. God has blessed us with so much. This morning I am particularly thankful for rest. All the kids slept all night until 6am, and that hasn't happened for many weeks.

Joel brought this home from school this week. His teacher wrote whatever the kids told her they were thankful for. This warmed my heart.
























And then I saw this on Kari's desk a couple days ago. It, too, warmed my heart, especially since Kari isn't one to express her feelings very often. It was like seeing through a window into her heart. I think writing is going to be helpful to her in the years to come. I know it is for me.
























Happy Thanksgiving!

Fifteen months

My baby has turned into a toddler. It's true. He runs, jabbers with a few recognizable words, finally says "mama" as well as "dada," throws tantrums (that are still funny), looks at books (Hop on Pop is the current favorite), flies backwards down the stairs on his tummy, does and says things to make us and his siblings laugh, and just acts like a little tiny person with his own distinctive personality. He has become a pickier eater and refuses to eat meat. He loves his milk, though, and I mean really loves it. He also seems to have acquired some soccer skills at a very early age. We've been trying to capture them on video, but every time we got out the camera, he would stop. We finally succeeded, and you can see for yourself.

toddler soccer player and "yes" man from Andrea Moffat on Vimeo.

Isn't he funny? We love the little running kick he does. And since this video won't be a part of my blog book, I have to document the fact that he says "yes" very clearly. In fact, he has yet to say the word "no." He's the only one of our kids to say "yes" before "no." He's very good at showing his displeasure when things don't go his way, though, so I'm sure it won't be long before "no" is a part of his vocabulary.

End of the season

We are finding we have a little more time now that soccer is over. It was a good season for both kids, a little crazy schedule-wise but still good. Here are the team photos from the very beginning of the season back when it was 90 degrees on the field.






















Joel with "Coach Greg." This is cheesy, but I like the father/son photo





















The last couple games were a far cry from the 90 degree heat. The end of the season was cold, wet, and windy. We really didn't have a lot of rainy soccer games this year, for which we were ever so grateful, but those last two Saturdays were really cold! Grant could hardly move with all his cold weather gear and couldn't get up whenever he fell down, which was often since he was so bundled up and off balance, but he was warm! I love Grant's smile in this picture and that you can see Kari chasing the ball in the background.
          














Aubrey was a pretty good sport this season. She watched a lot of soccer and helped keep track of her wild little brother who was constantly trying to run onto the field. As long as I brought plenty of snacks for those long mornings, we were ok. She might get to play next year.

Joel became quite the soccer player this year. Last year he hardly touched the ball, but this year he was a major player out on that field. He truly enjoyed playing and liked that he got to score lots of goals.

 
This one was a goal!




Kari loved playing again this year. She was a go-getter, and she was FAST. She was on a team with a great group of girls and had a really nice, encouraging coach. Kari seems to have some soccer talent and got better and better throughout the season. We'll see if it's something she continues to enjoy. I hope so because I like watching her play.




Enjoying the treats after the last game with her good friend, Ellie.

"Just adenoids" isn't so bad

I said on facebook yesterday that Aubrey was doing well and was busy working on fulfilling all her post-surgery wishes: eating Jello, a popsicle, and ice cream and watching "Dragon Tales" (PBS show) while sipping on apple juice. Surgery went well and she did great. Having 1pm time slot was a little rough in that she wasn't able to eat or drink anything all day, but she made it through. She was scared and teary when we got to the hospital, but the pretty pillow and the beanie baby they had waiting for her in the room helped with that. She did not like the IV in her arm or the thing on her toe in the recovery room--not happy at all. That's when we planned out all the things she would eat and the things we would do when we got home. That helped distract her for a while. I appreciated the fact that they let me come in right when she woke up. It wasn't that way at the hospital where Joel had his surgery. All in all, she was a brave little girl and a good patient, and I'm thankful to have it over with. I really hate hospitals.

Recovery is going well the day after, too. She's assumed her position on the couch and while a little paler than usual and a little more tired, she's acting pretty normal and seems to be in little pain. We'll still take it easy this week, though. Thanks to all who prayed for Aubrey and for us!

The Negotiator

We've been whittling away at the Halloween candy stash around here (went with the ration-it-out-for-a-while method this year) and making them work for their treats after dinner each evening. Picking up, working on homework, and doing chores has been earning a few treats. This evening one of the kids asked, "How many treats tonight?" and before Greg could reply, Aubrey piped in with her own suggestion: "Six, plus a bonus!"

Um, no, but very funny! To be fair, she has fully embraced the idea of the Daddy Tax and is a generous and willing taxpayer.

On another note, Aubrey could use your prayers this coming Monday. She is going in for surgery to have her adenoids removed. She's been struggling with sinus infections for the last year and half (treated 6+ times). They finally did a CT scan a month ago and sent her to the ENT, the same one who did my sinus surgery, Joel's tubes and tonsillectomy, and Grant's tubes. We know his office well! Basically, her adenoids are chronically infected and the underlying cause of all her perpetual illness. We've tried everything else, and it hasn't worked, so surgery it is. I'm not looking forward to the hospital experience or having my little girl put under, but at least it's not tonsillectomy. We're hoping to never have to do that with any of our kids ever again. Boy, was it awful! This should be a lot quicker recovery. We're looking forward to having our healthy, happy Aubrey back in the near future. We've had quite a few battles lately, and I think it has more to do with her not feeling well than her just acting three.

Too quiet

This is what happens when Mommy is chatting downstairs with a friend and doesn't check on the children who "are playing so nicely" upstairs. I really should have known. It's happened before.


thousands of "fun fusion" beads in every nook and cranny of the room

Grant dumped them out, but Aubrey and Joel did the spreading. The clean-up was painfully long and wasn't quite done before Kari came home from school. The fact that her brother and sister missed out on cookies for afternoon snack because of their misdeeds made her feel better about the state of her room. It's all about justice, you know.

Trick-or-treating

I got Spidey to take his mask off this time. Aubrey roared for almost every photo, which made for some funny facial expression from her but also made Grant laugh in a lot of them.

He's laughing at her in this one.

Pretty sure none of our other kids had lollipops (or any other candy) at such a young age. He was very much aware of the fact that all the kids were getting yummy stuff in their buckets and wanted in on that action. We brushed his teeth well that night. :)






















Grandma walked around with us for a while and helped keep track of kids.




We ran into Brian and Emily and little golfer, Russell towards the end of our time there, so I tried to get a cousin photo. Aubrey was ready to be done, can you tell?
 
I quit taking photos at this point, but the rest of our evening was eventful and fun. We had dinner down the street with Grandma and Grandpa M and Eric and Leah and the kids, and then headed towards home (after a couple candy stops) for more trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. We suspected that it would be a fairly busy evening in this new neighborhood and made sure we had lots of candy, but I was shocked at just how busy it really was! We got home at 6:30pm, and for that next hour, we had a steady stream (as in hardly shut the door) of kids, and the hour after that was a semi-steady stream (during which I believe I broke my toe running into the couch on my way to the door--can't forget that exciting part of 2011's Halloween--such a stupid thing to do!). We shut off our light at 8:30pm and were down to the bottom of the bowl. Our kids handed out candy for a few minutes before they headed out themselves when we got home, and it was so fun to hear, "Hi, Kari! Hi, Kari! Hi, Joel!" A ton of the kids who go to East Orient live in our neighborhood, and it seemed like they were all out there that night--made for a really fun, family-friendly atmosphere. I stayed behind with Grant to "man" the door, but Greg said the kids had a great time running from house to house, saying hi to their school friends along the way and making quite the candy haul. It was a great Halloween in the new neighborhood, and having done it once, I'll be more prepared for next year. :)