My dog jumped off our two story porch!

                                      This picture was taken 5 min. before chewy jumped off our porch.

4th of July 2014

Andrew and siblings

The boys introduced Andrew to Skylanders.

Then Shadrach read him a book.

Andrew Craig Hamlin

Baby Andrew was born in Kentucky on June 25, 2014.   Greg's mom came a few days early to help out.  She stayed for almost ten days.  She was a great help and the kids loved having her around.  Every thing went really well with him.  He was born by c-section just as planned.  This doctor even let me see him right away.  The first four I didn't get to see for around 20 min.  I was really curious about what he would look like.  Ali, Enoch, and Liam all look very much a like when they were babies.  Shad was my lone wolf.  BUT Andrew looks like Shadrach.  It makes me happy inside.  Ten min. after he was born, I started to feel pain.  It is hard to describe.   I know it feels bad.  It is hard to breathe, and it makes me cry.  They tell me that it is because the spinal stops working or gets stuck.  It is awful.  I don't recommend it.  Lots of pain and 4 hours later this top picture was taken.  My face was swollen from crying so much.  He is a very sweet baby.  I love him to pieces.

Liam's third Birthday

Liam turned three 2 and half weeks after we moved.  He never seems to be wearing clothes on his birthday.....

Moving

So we moved.  6 weeks ago.  We know live Georgetown KY which is just a little North of Lexington KY.  It was crazy.  I hate moving.  I don't like doing new things, and when you move, everything you do is new.  However, I really tried to stay positive through out the whole thing.  I knew it was going to be stressful and I knew some unforeseen things would come up.  I tried to tell myself that over and over again while it was going on.  I tried to laugh a lot instead of crying when I felt overwhelmed.  I allowed myself to cry with my kids when they cried about missing their friends.  I told them it was ok to cry and be sad.  It is always hard to say good bye to friends.  Both Ali and Shadrach wrote me many notes expressing their feelings.  It made me happy that they were able to write about their emotions and express themselves so well.  Shadrach often wrote how he was "willy, willy, willy, willy sad" ( just because he is a genius, doesn't mean he spells well ).

My emotions have been hard for me to understand.  This move was easier than the first move.  I didn't feel like I was moving away from "home" this time.   So that was easier. I don't have anger like I did with the first move. However, we only lived in West Chester for 2 years and 1 month.  I finally felt like I had a few things figured out and then we decided to move. :(  I tried really hard to make friends in West Chester; however, I still wasn't super close to anyone by the time we decided to move.  Part of that is just me because I would rather hang out with Greg in the evening than friends.

Greg loves his new job.  It makes me really happy to see him be so successful.  I know it is important to him, and I know he likes how it feels to be the boss.  I am proud of him for working so hard, taking calculated risks, and providing so well for his family.  Funny thing is, I never thought my husband would be successful.  I thought he would be smart but under paid for how hard he worked.  I just always assumed money would be tight.  It is hard for me to deal with in a weird sort of way.


Oh yeah, baby boy Hamlin is due 6 weeks from today.  More on him later. :)

Cold Days at home

There have been several snow/very cold days around here when school has been cancelled.  It has been wonderful.  We have had a great time.  I let the kids watch t.v. or play games until 9:00 in the morning.  Then I make them do chores for around an hour.  ( And when I say chores I mean get dressed, brush your teeth, tidy your room etc.)  Then I make them go play with toys. 

They built a very elaborate tent/hideout one day.  My linen closet is always a mess.  They love to build tents and make them all of the time.  But I make THEM fold the blankets and put them back.   They aren't really good at folding big blankets yet.  So my linen closet is almost always a wad of blankets. 

Starting in January, I have made Enoch a notebook of things to do.  Some things are fun and some things are school work.  He only has half day Kindergarten.  When he gets home, the first thing he asks is if he can play games (meaning video games).  My list normally takes him around 2 hours.  He then has about hour of game time until Ali and Shadrach get home.  Then no more games until 7:00.  Sometime I will show his notebook.

Everyone has a chore they do everyday right now.  It is the same chore every day.  Ali's is to clean this bathroom.  When I am pregnant, I hate the smell of pee.  It REALLY bothers me.  Shadrach cleans the kids bathroom.  Enoch clean the laundry room.

It has been crazy cold some of these days.  One day it was -14.  We have stayed warm with the fireplace going and warm blankets.   

Greg has found several games he likes to play with the kids.  They are old enough to really play now and he has a good time.

Ali played too.  I just didn't get her picture.  The games last 1 to 2 hours.  The kids get very into them and love to play them.

I really needed to mop the floors.  So I trapped Liam in his chair and let him paint.  He was really wanting to paint because Shadrach painted his pinewood derby car last night.  He was happy.  I was happy.

I walked by this bathroom on Sunday morning and all three boys were combing their hair.  It was the best picture ever.  But by the time I got my camera only Shadrach was still brushing.  And they refused to reenact it.

Shadrach stays up late into the night.  Bed time is 8:00 p.m.  but that only means you have to stay in your bed at 8:00.  You can stay up reading until as late as you want.  Shadrach is up until 10:30 around every other night reading.  It is HARD to keep enough books in the house.  I love it.  I am often in bed and asleep by 9:00 right now ( I get tired when I am pregnant).  So Greg often reports to me how late he stays up.  I love filling out his reading log for school.  They are supposed to read 60 min. a week.  He often reads 150 min. in one night.  So by the end of the week it is often between the 700 min- 1,200 min.  I often wonder what his teachers think.

 

10 years of Love

Greg and I went on our ten year anniversary a little early.  December 20th is a really bad time to "get away".  So we decided to celebrate in September.  We went to the very far away city of ........Cincinnati.  After dreaming of Europe and thinking about going on a mini cruise,  it was just cheaper ( I love cheap) and made more sense to explore the new city that we now live in.  Greg found out that Ghost the musical was coming to town.  We have been listening to the sound track for a least 6 months.  That really sealed the deal.

  Up first we went to a REDS game.  It was a beautiful day.  And even though it was cool, we both got a lot of sun.  After the game was over we walked around the city exploring for several hours.  We went to the public library ( yes, I am my father's daughter) and got a map.  We wondered down to the river and watched the boats go by on swings for a long time.  Then we wondered over to Grater's Ice cream and had a banana split.  Then we walked to the theater to watch Ghost.  It was wonderful!  Awesome musical. 

 The next day, we did NOTHING!  That was wonderful too.  We stayed in our hotel room the whole day.  We watched Ghost the movie and compared and contrasted.  Then we watched Duck Dynasty for around 5 hours straight.  We went to go eat at a famous Cincinnati restaurant, but I can't remember the name now..... Then we went back to our room and did more of nothing.  It was a fabulous day.

The next day we drove to Louisville so we could go to the temple.  We were going to go to Columbus but they were closed for cleaning.  ( Good thing we checked!)  After the temple, we went out to eat at Ruth Chris for the first time.  The food was SOOOO Good.  That one meal cost about a week and have of groceries but It. Was. Awesome.  (if you were wondering we had gift cards.  I am not sure if I would have been able to go other wise)

 

It was wonderful time.  It has been a wonderful marriage.  I have come to realize that I have this awesome talent/flaw ( depends on how you look at it) that I only remember the good things.  I can only remember happy times in high school unless someone reminds me.  I also can only remember happy times in Lebanon. Again unless someone reminds me.  Luckily I have no one to remind me of the bad times in my marriage.  I only remember the good.

 

Greg is my best friend.  We hang out every day and the whole time he is home from work.  Sometimes, ( ever since we have moved here) I can go days without talking to another adult.  But I don't mind.

Sometime, I am not sure when, but we got to the point were our marriage has synergy.  Greg knows what I like and how I like things.  Like wise, I know what I can do to make him happy.  If he is happy, then I am.  If I am happy, he is.   It has been a wonderful few years.

 

Also we do choose to "not sweat the small stuff" and sometimes the "small stuff" isn't "small". But what good does being mad about it do?  If it happened, it happened.  We let it go, and move on.  If the problem needs to be fixed, we decide how to fix it with out resentment or finger pointing.  We really are a team working on our goals. 

I love you more than I thought possible. I am sad when you are not with me. 

I am.  I am.  I am the luckiest . ( one of Greg's favorite songs)

.               

My favorite thing of 2013- Sibling Stations

My favorite thing about 2013 was Sibling Stations.  Sibling Stations was an idea I read in a Friend magazine years ago.  Ali and Shad were both very little.  I realized that they were too little to do it and that I only had two kids so we could really do stations.  So I put it on the back burner in my mind AND actually remember it.  In 2013 we had church at 1:00.  The idea came back to my mind.  I think we did sibling stations around 90% of the Sundays.  The kids loved them.  And so did the parents. 

 

Each child is assigned to play with another child for a set period of time ( we did either 20 min or 30 min depending on how much time we had available)  Then you switched to the next sibling.   The activity the siblings do needs to be something they both like to do.  If they can't agree, one child picks three things they want to do, and the other child picks one of those three things.  We discuss all of the stations activities before we start. 

Ali and Liam are playing with Zoobles.  They were supposed to play with dolls but after 10 min. they decided to switch.  Liam is the hardest one for these stations.  He still likes to do his own thing.  At the beginning of the year that station was Liam/Chewy.  This meant you played with Liam for the first half of the station, and then you played with our dog for the second half.  Slowly we added more Liam time.

Shadrach and Enoch are playing imagination.  The don't use any props or dress up.  I think most of the time they are pretending to be Pokémon, ninjas, superheroes, or bley blades.  Whenever I ask them what they are playing, they get really mad/annoyed.  I have learned to stop asking.  :)

 

Here is our list that we make before we start.  Nothing fancy.  I have learned I don't have time for fancy.  This just helps me remember who goes with who next and what they should be doing.

 

Now we have church at 9:00.  Today we did stations but without Liam. ( He was taking a nap. One kid played by themselves.)  I think next week we will try doing it after Liam's nap.