Sounds of Home

I like that I can usually tell what my kids are doing in another room just by knowing the sounds that different things make and how they sound when they're doing different activities. I realized this morning that much of that skill has been developed because I've had to do a lot of clean-up as a result of different sounds.

For example:

• I can usually hear the faucet being turned on upstairs because I've cleaned up a number of floods in that bathroom.
• I know the sound of an opening screen door because I've chased Clayton around the house a few times after he's proudly escaped.
• I can hear tiptoes down the basement stairs of someone about to get something out of the pantry (like a new box of Cheerios proudly opened by anxious fingers.)

And this morning a new sound for my database...odd hissing from the family room - Clayton applying his own aerosol sunscreen. He was so proud of himself that he could get ready to go outside all by himself that we simply talked about how that was mommy, daddy, grandma or Miss Becky's job. SO - Mike will be cleaning the carpet this evening!

1st Annual Guys Camping Trip

This year the guys of our church life group decided it would be fun to take the kids camping by themselves. Mike tackled 1 night with Brooke and left Clayton at home this year. The weather left something to be desired with rain through the night and part of Saturday morning, but they were troopers and had a lot of fun. Mike thinks that next year he'll try the older two kids.

Brooke & Casey Buntrock

Hanging out with the Boys - Brooke was the only girl until Saturday.

Seiler's Return

Several weeks ago now we had the privilege of having the Seiler's come back to visit with us. Tom had some business meetings in Milwaukee, so Karen took that as an opportunity for extra hands to help her make the drive here. They were very gracious to accept the accommodations that we had to offer - our house really isn't built for sleeping and showering 9 - but it was fun! I can't believe I didn't take more pictures, but I thought I'd post what I did have.



Here's Allie enjoying some sunshine and her new-found love of cruising along anything that will support her.

Brooke and Tommy had a great time in the pool - even though it was freezing and they both came out like a Popsicle. As far as Tommy's outfit goes - because it was naptime for the others and of course Tommy's suitcase was in one of the bedrooms, we had to make do with what was available (underpants and a pink swimshirt, about 2 sizes too small). Good thing he's only 4 and since there was water involved was less than phased.

Happy Birthday Grandma Nancy!

Today is Grandma Nancy's 51st birthday. We celebrated yesterday in conjunction with Father's Day. It's not often that we get a good picture of the kids both looking and smiling at the camera - what a present. For those wondering about the numbers on the cake - we made do with what we had...30+21 = 51.

Goggles

Clayton was so excited to find blue goggles when he went with Mike to Sam's club. He wore them around the house for most of the evening. I just had to post this picture!

Strawberry picking

Strawberry picking at Basse's Farms has become a family tradition for us. This year marks the 3rd annual trip. With me being on bedrest it was a bit modified this year. On Sunday afternoon, Grandma Nancy was able to go with Mike to help manage the process and the decision was made to leave Clayton home this year. Clayton, however, kept talking about how he was going strawberry picking too - so Mike fulfilled his wish. They went out to our garden and filled 1/2 of a Cool Whip container with strawberries. Clayton was thrilled, and as you can see, very content with his collection.

At Basse's Mike, Grandma and Brooke came home with 43 pounds of strawberries! YIKES.

No secrets here!

Mike and I are learning that not much gets by Brooke and she is very quick to point out surprises or mistakes to the parent that's "not supposed to know." Here's a few recent examples:

• Yesterday, I told Brooke to be careful with her juice (in a sippy cup) on the carpet and to set it down upright so that it didn't drip. Her response, "I will. I don't want it to spill and make a big mess on your new carpet like daddy's rootbeer did last night. Clayton knocked it over and it was not my fault because I was in the bathroom when it spilled on your carpet."
• Today in the mail I received some new Camelbak water jugs. I bought a purple one for Brooke and pink one for myself and a blue one for daddy - for Father's Day. We're at the dinner table and Brooke is showing off her new "toy." Mike asked me why he didn't get one - to which Brooke pipes in "you have to wait until SUNDAY daddy!" Hmmm..there went that surprise.
• A couple weeks ago we were sitting around the dinner table on a Saturday night having our normal random conversation. Brooke all of a sudden says, "Daddy bought two donuts at the store this morning and ate one in the car before we got home." See...Mike and the kids occasionally head for donuts on Saturday morning and as they are leaving I usually remind all of them "one donut per person." Apparently Mike found a way around that - and Brooke was sure to let me know.

1 down, 9 to go

I've officially survived the first week of bedrest - only nine more to go! Brooke wanted to know how long 10 weeks was, so I told her 70 days. I can definitely say that it feels much better just to say 10 weeks! Miss Becky came over last Tuesday to get a whirlwind debrief on all the things of the Stanley home. She started caring for the kids full-time on Wednesday morning as I began my time in bed. But in typical Stanley style we wanted to make sure her first day was memorable...Clayton woke up around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday night with a 103.5 degree fever. We finally got him to sleep only to have him screaming hysterically for Mike at 5 a.m. So Mike brought him into bed with us and a few moments later he was vomiting all over our bed. I'm not sure exactly what bug he had other than a fever and diarrhea for the next couple days, but his mood was justifiably less than good - "welcome Becky!" She has done so well with the kids. I like to think of them as pretty good kids, but Brooke and Clayton are definitely non-discriminatory with who they will act up for, whine at or be outright defiant to at any given moment that they don't get their way! Becky has stepped right in to let them know what the boundaries are and that her rules are pretty much the same as mommy's. They've gotten to play outside more in the past week than we did all spring - mostly because I haven't been "allowed" to chase Clayton for about 4 months and generally being outdoors with Clayton leads to some sort of chasing. Each morning they wait in the family room asking over and over "Is Miss Becky here yet?!" or "How many more minutes until Miss Becky comes to play?!"

Last Friday, Grandma Nancy took the kids to the zoo. Yesterday, Becky took them to Old World Wisconsin - I'll post some great pictures of both events when I make it downstairs.

A note about bedrest. I had to be on bedrest for 8 weeks when I was pregnant with Clayton and I really don't remember it being too bad - time marched on and I had a healthy, full-term child at the end of it. Well for this round, after about 2 days my legs would spasm any time I'd recline on my back and if I layed on my side for too long my back muscles would start cramping. All that to say, my Dr. agreed yesterday that I could spend a good portion of my day sitting vs. laying down and just to continue to minimize the amount that I was standing or walking. Today was great. I felt like I actually accomplished some things (it's pretty difficult to do much of anything while laying on your side) and here at the end of the day I'm not in pain.

Last Day of School

On Brooke's last day of school I realized I hadn't taken any pictures of her with her teachers during the school year - nothing like the last minute!!

Miss Cheryl

Miss Sara