Yummy Stuff!

Andrew enjoying the leftover ketchup. He LOVES to dip food into ketchup or dip, whatever the case may be. After the food is all off his plate, he has started picking it up and trying to lick it off. Unfortunately, his nose is bigger than his tongue so he gets more on himself than in his mouth.

Christmas Tree set-up Part II

Here is Andrew, breaking out the box of Christmas decoration goodies! Here he's giving a go at the ribbon - what fun!

Caleb & Joshua with their stockings that I sewed last year.

Here is the cardboard box fireplace I made last year and the 3 little trees that the boys have for basement decorations. At this point, Andrew still hadn't torn off the decorations on the paper stockings.


Joshua posing under the Christmas tree. The boys have been asking me non-stop this year if they can crawl under the tree. I don't know what the appeal is, maybe because this year we put it in the corner of the living room and have the couches around it to try to protect it more or less from the Little Tornado. Maybe it seems a little more like a fun play area, all dark and small. It'll sure be a busy Christmas, just keeping the decorations on the tree and keeping the boys from pulling it down.

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas!!!

Well, I seem to be limited in the amount of pictures I can upload right now, so I'll post twice today. Last night, we set up our Christmas tree, and as you can see, the boys were very excited! Caleb and Joshua did a great job hanging the ornaments, and Andrew did his best to remove them just as fast as they went up!

Growing Up

Here are some pictures of Andrew practicing being a "big boy." If there's a chair pulled out anywhere, he climbs up on it and sits there...sometimes getting himself into trouble! He has not yet climbed up on the table, but that probably will be happening shortly. Down stairs, I have to put away my chair by my crafty table, otherwise Andrew creates masterpieces from the things I'm working on! He sure keeps us busy these days! Right now, I need to go wipe his runny nose...again!

Canada Flag Balloon

Yesterday as we were enjoying our pancakes at breakfast, Joshua spotted this Canada Flag hot air balloon flying by. 3 other hot air balloons followed. I can't imagine flying up there in the open on a cool fall day!

Today, Caleb is having his worst cold day. Last year as we watched the Grey Cup, he also had his worst cold day - that one was his very worst ever, and we didn't know it at the time that it was asthma. This year, we know what the problem is, and just knowing that makes it a little easier to make it through his tough days. The plan is to fill him full of ascorbic acid (pure Vitamin C) and hopefully avoid the worst of it, if possible. Hope you enjoy the Big Game!

Play Time

Here is Joshua in one of his "get ups". He likes to put lots of stuff on and run around the house playing. After supper yesterday, he added a hooded sweatshirt and Caleb's drum from last Christmas to the mix. He kept his hood on, then put the helmet over top. It was very...interesting!

Andrew's getting over a bad cold, and lately he's been into hugging stuffed animals. Here he is hugging a little bunny he got for Easter. He also likes to talk to the little animals that he finds. I ended up giving him a puppy I had bought him for Christmas, hoping that it might help with some of his attachment issues. He's not particularly attached to anything in particular, besides me.

Peeping Andrew

I can't think of where Andrew learned this from, but if he's shut out of a room (most recently, we've had to keep the bathroom doors closed because he's "discovered" toilet paper), he'll lie down on the floor and try to see what's going on by peaking under the crack. Here you can also see one of the boys' fingers. Andrew & the boys all thought this was very funny!

Caleb Colours Himself

Yesterday was a wonderful day for me. I got to spend the day with my boys at home, no running around doing errands, no house cleaning, no laundry, no baking or cooking...and my Stampin' Up! order came!!! I figured that someone else should benefit from my good fortune, so I shared my extra paper with Caleb. He lay down on it, I traced him, then he cut himself out & colored himself. He called it a "Gingerbread Boy". I wanted to title this entry "Gingerbread Caleb" but he seemed insulted by that. So there is Caleb colouring himself!

Bad Little Andrew?

From the looks of this picture, you might think that Andrew's being punished for doing something bad. That's not what happened! Let me explain...

When it comes to food and mealtime in our home, probably the most anxious person waiting for his meal is little Andrew. He wanders around the kitchen and makes unhappy sounds (not crying, usually) while I prepare breakfast, lunch or supper. He goes to his favorite cupboard door in the corner and opens it up, checking for...I'm not quite sure what, an unexpected meal? You can see it's all canned food back there, my baking supplies, mixing bowls; nothing very exciting. Well, I guess yesterday he had enough of waiting, because he decided to sit in the tiny opening & suck his thumb, while he waited for his gourmet supper to be served. Maybe that's why he was disappointed with pizza yesterday - not the high quality meal he was expecting after ALL that waiting!

Daddy's Little Helper

Yesterday, Mike came home for an hour while I left for an appointment. When I came home, this was the scene I saw. Caleb was helping Mike get our monthly prayer letters ready for the mail. He was sticking stickers on the envelopes, and doing a really good job too!!

Is Weirdness Genetic?

Well, Family, have you ever wondered, is weirdness genetic? It seems that today was just "one of those days" at our house. Caleb was crazy-funny (saying crazy things that only he thought was funny, then laughing like a lunatic), Andrew was unstoppable (falling and hurting himself several times, usually because he was doing things that were beyond his ability), and Joshua was just plain bad - but not that he was trying be bad; he just forgot to think and he had TOO much energy (don't we all have those days...where we don't think, not the energy part). It's one of those days, that now that they're finally in bed, I can laugh about it, but during the day, there were so many moments when I thought to myself, "WHERE DID THESE CHILDREN COME FROM?!?!?!" If only the answer wasn't..."from us!"

Yesterday, Mike & I got a peak into the life of little Baby Bergmann. An active little individual, that's for sure! During the second part of the ultrasound (the part where it's supposed to be comfortable for the Mom because I FINALLY got to empty my bladder), the little Peanut was kicking up a storm, not too happy about the intrusion he/she thought was over. For those of you who haven't experienced this, a baby kicking against an ultrasound probe is quite uncomfortable! After a few minutes, he/she just gave up and turned his/her back towards us. All looks well from our untrained eye - one head, two arms, two hands, two legs, two feet, etc. All the body parts you'd normally see on a human being in the normal quantities. Not that we were worried about stuff like that, the child will turn out strange enough just growing up with these three older brothers, just waiting for the day to share their strangeness with another little sibling! Oh my, life will never be dull here!

Counting Candy

Yesterday was spent counting candy and making charts. Joshua's chart, in green. Caleb's chart, in red - look closely, on the lower half of the entries, Caleb took over and did it all himself. It took him an hour to do it, but he didn't seem to mind. We worked together on the first half, and I got him to spell out the letters as I wrote the "candy description", then he counted the candy and colored in the appropriate number of boxes. After we had a disagreement, I decided it was better to leave him alone, but he had no problems finishing up on his own!

The picture of Andrew was taken when the older boys were watching a video and sitting in their chairs. Andrew sat in his chair and watched for a few seconds, but every time he saw the camera flash, he would look and smile. He is so funny - as soon as he sees me with the camera, he runs at me & smiles. I have some really nice pictures of him smiling over the last couple of days.

The other picture was one Joshua drew at church. If you're at all familiar with Veggie Tales, you might recognize "Larry Boy" - Larry the cucumber dressed up as a super hero. I thought it was a pretty good sketch!

Halloween Fun

Caleb's snow sculpture in the first picture. He played outside yesterday afternoon, and on his own, took a large pail that had been sitting in our front yard and packed it full of snow, turned it upside down & decorated it with sticks & stones.

Halloween evening was cold! So, Andrew wore his red snowsuit with a Mickey Mouse costume over top. Joshua changed his mind several times. At school, he was a Mickey Mouse fireman; for trick-or-treating, he decided he wanted to be the clown. Caleb, of course, was the pirate. You can't see his boots too clearly in the picture, but I got them at MCC for $1, and so many people commented on how perfect they were for a pirate costume!! I was so happy with how his costume all came together.

We only trick-or-treated our block, and we ended up with more than enough candy!! The boys had received LARGE Unicef treat bags at school which are half full and quite heavy, especially for small little boys! I took a small bag for Andrew too, and even though we only got candy from about half the houses the boys did, he still came out with a lot of loot. Fortunately, he's not obsessing about his candy like the 2 bigger boys!!

Today's an inservice day for the teachers, so the boys are at home all day. We're going to be sorting, counting & charting their candy. Right now, some refereeing is being required of me, so I hope you enjoyed your Halloween and let's get ready for Christmas!!!