Spring Break and a Date

Yay for Spring Break!

Emmett's parents spent a week with us. They played tons of games with the kids, sat in on therapists' visits and doctors' appointments, babysat so that Emmett and I could go out, and took all the kids to the museum. It was great.

About a month ago, Emmett and I attended a video conference hosted by our church. It was called "Marriage on the Rock," led by Jimmy and Karen Evans. One of the recommendations from the conference was that couples should take a marriage vision retreat once a year. We've never really done that, so we thought this would be a good time to try it. We downloaded the kindle version of this guidebook, and took it with us on our overnight date. Our review: we liked it! The guidebook had some good questions, and definitely sparked some interesting conversation. We spent a lot of time talking about what we value, why God put us together, and what we *hope* our kids are learning. There are a couple of things that we say we value (like living simply), but practically, I don't know if we live it out. Or at least, we don't do it intentionally. :)

We are planning to have a follow-up date sometime, because we didn't get to talk about everything. If anyone wants to borrow the kindle book, I will gladly loan it to you! (I think I can loan it out for 2 weeks at a time).

Here's a quick look at Spring Break:

Papa loves to exercise with babies. :) When my other kids were little, Papa would take it upon himself to teach them whatever was coming up next - peekaboo, rolling, sitting, climbing stairs - whatever. So I had Papa sit in on Ben's PT session, and turned him loose with Ben. Papa helped Ben practice sitting up, crawling position, bearing weight on his legs, reaching, holding his bottle, and probably more.

Here's Ben trying to hold his bottle. Check out that hair!

Corrie is playing with some toys from a Burger King kid's meal. We ate out a lot while the in-laws were here. :)

Evan has played A TON of games this week. This is Pokemon. We've also played Tetris-Link, Hanafuda (highly recommend), Crazy Eights, Battleship, Sorry, Old Maid, Hullabaloo, etc.

Here's Emmett being an awesome dad. Pokemon is a LONG game and I refuse to play it. Emmett, on the other hand, actually bought some of the cards for himself so he can play with Evan. That's love.

We're planning some more fun family stuff for the next few days. Hopefully, I'll remember to take pictures and report back.

The Pendulum

Please tell me other people do this:

Two weeks ago, our family was finally done with birthdays and strep throat. I was so excited to get out of the house that I went a little overboard with the playdate-scheduling. I think we had four playdates in three days. Then we went out to lunch with family friends after church, too.

Last week, I thought, NO playdates. (Well, almost none. We did spend a couple of hours at the park with friends). However, that week, someone in our family had a medical or therapy appointment EVERY day. Monday: I had a pulmonologist appt. Tuesday: Ben saw the geneticist. Wednesday: I had allergy-testing done, plus Ben had a visit from Early Intervention. Thursday: I got a chest x-ray and attempted to take Ben to get blood drawn (the wait was too long). Friday: Corrie had her 4 year well child appt, and Ben received his second flu vaccine. Meanwhile, Evan's soccer season started up again, and Ben and I had two extra speech therapy sessions to watch the Talk Tools DVD.

Our activity level seems to swing on a pendulum. We'll have a week of intense activity, then I'll react by keeping us at home for a week. Or we'll have a period of doctor's visits and I'll counter with park time the week after. I have this vision that our life should be balanced, but it feels more like a see saw. Probably if I looked at a month or a year at a time, it would feel more even. But in the middle of it all, it's hard to see past a few days.

How does your family manage activities? It has been difficult this year to establish a reliable routine. Any advice?

This week (and next week) will be divided between family and doctors. :) My in-laws arrive tomorrow night; we are all excited to see them. Ben and I got the medical visits started by getting our blood drawn this morning. (I'm developing some kind of asthma/allergy so needed a blood test, and Ben needed his thyroid checked). In the next seven days, Ben will see a case manager, physical therapist, cardiologist, early intervention specialist, and speech therapist. All at different appointments!

Note: I should say that we are very thankful for the therapists and doctors that Ben sees. He's received excellent care and lots of support and encouragement so far. Normally, we don't have quite so many visits in a row!

Anyway, I haven't posted much because we've been in the thick of things. And I haven't taken many pictures lately for the same reason. Here's one of Corrie after we had a special Burger King lunch. I don't know about other kids, but the crowns really appeal to my princess-loving girl. :)