"Helping other kids who don't have toys"

Addie and I held our station for the Salvation Army kettle bell ringing yesterday at the mall. Benjamin really wanted to participate too, so he and Brian came in for the first 5 minutes with us.

Then it was up to Addie and I to "help other kids who don't have toys." She sang, she danced, she wished people "Merry Christmas."

After the first hour and 35 minutes or so, she got a little tired with it all. She was still energized whenever someone came up to us to donate money, but otherwise she was sort of over the waiting.

She did this for a bit, and a woman came up to me and said, "her being pathetic like that actually adds to the point." She was a little annoyed by the bells, so she told me, "If I sing, will you stop ringing the bells?" That worked for a while til she got tired of that too.

I have to say how humbled I was by the whole experience. I would bet that 90% of the people who stopped to donate put in at least one dollar bill. Someone put in a $20 bill. A few put in $5 bills. I don't know if we'll get told how much we collected, but I venture to guess a few hundred dollars. It was totally worth two hours of our time. We'll be volunteering again, hopefully next week, to do the same.

A lot to be thankful for

Mostly for these two

who without my wonderful husband would not exist. Which leads me to being thankful for my parents, one who literally gave me life and the other who renewed all of our lives. I'm thankful for my siblings who played with me as a child and now play with my own children. I'm thankful for my friends who make me laugh til I cry (I know it's not that difficult!), I'm thankful for the internet and all the wonders and connections it had provided in my life, I'm thankful for being able to provide for my family. I'm thankful for good health, which sometimes is interpreted on a spectrum, but hasn't let us down. And finally I'm thankful for digital cameras, for without them I don't know if I could remember all of the wonderful things that have happened over the years.

My Pilgrim children wanted to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving too:

And Guppy couldn't stand to not be included:

I'm thankful for the fact that we had 18 people who wanted to have dinner with us, in our house. This is what the tables looked like. In case you can't tell, the end closest to you is actually in the foyer! That was a whole lotta people.

In total we had Muddy and Guppy, Steven, Cathy and Matthew, Wendy and Richard, Kimberly and Tom, us 4, Danielle, Scott and Graham and Brian's parents.

I'm also thankful for the opportunity to video chat with LouLou, Bub, Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Amanda.

Being a social worker and working in a children's hospital everyday makes me very aware of how lucky I am. Not only to have children who are healthy and bright, but because I meet families whose whole lives are lived within hospital walls. I meet families who know no different
than to make due with nothing.

So in the spirit of the holiday season that is now upon us, I ask you to consider giving back to those in need. Addie and I will be ringing the Salvation Army bell in the mall on Saturday, collecting money in the infamous red kettle. Each week when we do our grocery shopping, Addie and Ben are excited to pick from the Angel Tree, which holds the name, sex, age and Christmas wishes of a child who otherwise may receive nothing. I want to instill in them the beauty and wonder of helping another child out.

I'm thankful for the fact that Addie and Ben believe the rest of families are like ours, with tons of people who love them and shower them with affection every chance they get. But we all know that's not reality for many children and families out there. This year has been particularly tough on many families who until very recently did not know what it meant to need something.

Please be generous to others this holiday season. May you continue to believe in the spirit of giving. I'm thankful for my blog followers.

Life is good

Nothing hugely major to report, but we're just plugging along here. Busy life, busy having fun and being a family.

She looks so proud doesn't she?

Ben loves the pool, although he hasn't mastered not gulping down chlorinated water the whole session.

I was trying to take a picture of her with her new boots on. This is what I got...typical.

Their pj picture for LouLou and Bub.

Monday I worked from home so Muddy and Guppy could enjoy a long weekend in Williamsburg. At one point Ben had all of his dinos on the couch with him and Addie was playing vet for them. Her line of questioning was like this, "Did they drink from the river?" "Oh, that's bad." "Do they have any nose hurts?" They were so seriously playing it was adorable.

Then Ben decided his dino army needed to be lined up on the attack and that's what this picture is from.

We celebrated Muddy's birthday on Tuesday, which I'll post pictures of tomorrow hopefully.

Can't believe next week is Thanksgiving. Wowza. Where has the time gone?

Benjamin's 3 year well child visit

Today was Ben's 3 year check-up. I love that little boy so much. He's just such an easy soul to work with. When the nurse took us back to weigh and measure, she asked him how old he is. Immediately he responded, "Three." Then he quickly put his mouth to my ear and confirmed, asking, "I'm three, right Mama?" He weighed in at 35 pounds and 38 3/4 inches tall, which is 75% for both. When the nurse asked about potty training, I told her he was 100% potty trained. She gave him a high five and he said, "I'm a big boy. I don't poop on myself and I don't pee in my underwear." When the doctor came in, she just listened to Ben and I find pictures in the Search and Find book. Then she started with, "besides his incredibly advanced verbal skills, how is everything else going?" He really articulates so well and has an wonderful vocabulary. Everything looked good and it was time for an eye exam. Using picture symbols, she confirmed what Ben called each one before testing with one eye covered. When she pointed to the picture of a bird, he said, "A chicky...actually, it's just a bird." So he used his favorite word for the doctor, which made her laugh. Also what is interesting is that when she pointed to one picture, he said "telephone" and she was shocked by that. It's a stencil picture of the old-school telephones where the receiver hung across the top of the keypad. She said something along the lines of "I'm amazed you knew that was a telephone. They don't look like that anymore. This is what they looked like when your grandma and grandpa were growing up." When it came time to talk vaccinations, Ben promptly told her, "I'm not scared of shots. I'm a brave boy." We opted for the seasonal flu vaccine today and the H1N1 when it comes in. So the doctor left, after Ben and she had a conversation about safety and what he wears when he's on a bicycle-- "my blue helmet, to be safe" and the nurse came in with the needle. Ben immediately pulls up his sleeve and sticks it out to her. She says, "We're actually going to put it in your leg" since they don't start arm vaccines until 4 years of age-- something about needing a big enough muscle to inject into. He was devastated. He kept saying, "but I want it in my arm!" I put him on the exam table and he looked at the picture on the wall as she prepped the site. Then he said, "ouch." and that was it. Seriously. That was it. Barely a whisper. Barely an acknowledgement. Such a contrast to his big sister and her fear of needles.
When we got home he told Addie he got a needle. She immediately wanted to see the area, so he obliged. Then Muddy asked, "did it hurt?" He replied, "No." Then thought a second and said, "just a little bit."
Overall, a wonderfully healthy little boy. When the doctor asked him to draw a circle, he did it methodically. Then she drew an plus sign/x/t and asked him to draw one too. He drew the first line and then said, "I can't draw an x. I'll draw an E instead" at which point he promptly drew four lines on the right side of the vertical line. (We're working on it.) ;)

Quick funnies

I have been remiss in posting about our weekend of birthday celebrations, but I'll try to work on it soon.
In the meantime, here are two quick funny stories that happened with Addie last night:

• We were watching the Country Music Awards on television and Brad Paisley was singing in front of a giant screen with PacMan on it. Addie took one look at it and said, "are those monsters?" I explained they were called Pac Man and they were the video games that Mommy and Daddy had when we were little. She looked perplexed. I said, "you know like the Wii today? Well that's what we had when we were your age." She asked how long ago that was and I said, "When I was four years old, that was 25 years ago." Her expression immediately changed into one of disbelief. Apparently she didn't realize I was such an old fogey. Later on in that show, Carrie Underwood sang in front of the same screen and there was a red curtain gathered like the old velvet ones you see in theatres. Addie looked at it and asked "why are there so many pepperoni on there?"
• Addie's favorite tv show is Glee. I think because it's like a musical and she thinks she lives in a musical. Anyway last night episode featured the song Proud Mary for one of its musical numbers. Addie jumped off the couch to dance and sing, exclaiming, "I love this song!" She does her hand motions of rolling, all the while stamping her feet wildly. When the chorus came on, she sang, "Rollin, rollin, rollin down the windows. Rollin, rollin, rollin down the windows." I didn't have the heart to correct her!

Ben and Guppy's birthday

Just a few pictures to get you started. We fooled Guppy into believing we were going to Ben's 3rd birthday party at Oasis. Instead we surprised him with all of his siblings and good friends, plus all of us kids there to celebrate his 70th birthday. Enjoy a little bit of our fun. Tomorrow is Ben's party. More pictures and videos to come!

Someone was a little obsessed with the games and winning tickets....

Gee, do you see any wild obsessed person in both of these pictures? Uh huh.

We went to dinner at a nice restaurant.

And ate delicious cake. This is Addie,Ben and their cousin Matthew.

All of us before cake eating. There's the 4 of us, Muddy and Guppy, Kim and Tom, TJ and Gail, Amanda and Jeremy, Aunt Linda and Uncle Jack, Uncle Puffer and Aunt Benita, Jake and Gwen, Wendy and Richard, and Steve, Cathy and Matthew.

"Uncle Jeremy" the giraffe with Uncle Jeremy, Aunt Amanda, Addie and Ben

Excited Ben holding the Hot Wheels garage that Aunt Wendy and Richard gave Guppy to play with Ben.

The video of Guppy's surprise.

Channeling Uncle Jeremy

A package arrived today with Ben's birthday present in it (which is not to be opened up until his birthday!). It also included some other goodies. Below is Addie and Ben's ode to Uncle Jeremy. They feel just like you now. Brian's response was along the lines of, "wow." By the way, I know it's hard to tell, but Benjamin is smiling in the pictures. He was so intently saying "cheeeeese" that it comes across a little scrunchy-faced.

The things they say!

Well how 'bout these apples? A blog post with no pictures?!
I wish I had an audio recording running at all times in our house. The things that come out of Addie and Ben's mouths are so hysterical sometimes. A lot of the time, it's not even something funny that's said- it's because they use such adult words correctly and it just startles everyone who is listening. I know they both have amazing vocabularies, but sometimes it just strikes me as simply amazing.
A few examples:

• One day last week when I got home from work, I noticed in the backyard that Rosetta Pickle was laying, soaking wet and dirty. I knew this would devastate Addie. Rosetta's body is cloth, but her head and arms are plastic. When I showed her what I found, Addie got a look of despair on her face. I told her, "Don't worry, Muddy will take her head off and clean her up." To that, Addie looked like "WHAT?" I quickly just said "Muddy will clean her up." So fast forward a few days and Rosetta Pickle's head is decapitated and sitting out of sight (or so we thought) in the laundry room, while her body is cleaned and drying. We went to walk out the back door, when Addie spots Rosetta's head and stump of a neck. She picks it up, cradles her hair with her hand and says, "Don't worry my darling, you'll be whole again soon."
• Benjamin does a lot of talking in his sleep. Just about every night I hear him saying something. Last night he said, "I do want ketchup actually." He uses words like 'actually' a lot. They are very mature words used in the correct context and it just wows me. He's also thrown words like 'overcome' around recently too.

What do you get while sitting in the car waiting for Daddy to get his hair cut on a rainy Halloween morning, after swim lessons?

This. The many faces of my children.

You figure out which words correspond to which picture. I was saying, "give me happy. give me sad. give me excited. give me surprised. give me angry. give me wild. give me scared..."

A Willy Wonka Halloween

The children's hospital where I work does an Associate Halloween costume competition each year, for the patients and their families (who judge). It's quite a production, where they encourage all employees to dress in costumes and participate. Halloween is a fun day around here, where most kids wouldn't choose to be in Halloween- so we try to make it somewhat enjoyable.
There are some people who dress as individuals and some groups who do a theme.
This year for the first time the social workers participated, under my direction and coordination.
The theme we chose was Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory- the original Gene Wilder one; not the creepy Johnny Depp version.
We ended up winning "Funniest" which was a-ok by me! The other groups have nothing on a the amazing creative team of Muddy Wellman and Cory!
Enjoy the festivities.


My friend Jennifer was Violet Beauregarde, the girl who eats the ill-concocted candy and swells up with blueberry juice.

Muddy and I crafted beds for the four grandparents to be in together. If you look at the right front corner of the picture, you can see a pair of feet sticking out. We had four pairs of feet glued in place to give the illusion that they were laying across from each other. It was hilarious to see in person.

I was Willy Wonka, in the fully finished version of the coat Muddy made for Brian. Ben was our Oompa Loompa in residence.

The whole group of us- me as Willy, Laura as Charlie, Alexa as Mike TeaVee, the grandparents in bed, Kate as Veruca, Val as the Golden Ticket, Jen as Violet, Ben as an Oompa Loompa and Addie as a cute girl from the "Cibil War" who was thrilled to hold a Wonka bar.

We crafted it so that Ed, the Social Work boss, jumped out of his bed with his cane and did the dance that Grandpa Joe does. It was HYSTERICAL. The "I've got a golden ticket" song was playing. You can also see a pair of blue feet in the bed at this angle.