Goodbye, Dad

Mark's dad, Gregory John Knapp went to be with his beloved Savior on July 11th, 2012 at the age of 65.

He passed away at his home, surrounded by his family. Greg dedicated his life to sharing the love of Jesus Christ with all he knew. If you'd like to learn more about this love, you too can learn how to know God personally.

He is survived by his wife of 45 years, Linda; his son Matthew and daughter-in-law Cameron; his son Mark and daughter-in-law Autumn; six grand-children; his brothers, David Jr. and Jonathan, his mother-in-law Irene and his brother-in-law Richard. 

We miss you so much, but we know we'll see you again someday. We find joy in knowing that you are with Jesus right now, whom you loved so much in life.

Santa Cruz

This weekend we went "camping" in Santa Cruz. It wasn't really camping, it was more like "crashing in our trailer at the end of a really fun day at the (park) or (beach)". Truth be told, the first day was pretty rocky. Baby B was a big ball of fuss, the boys were extra... energetic. And we had forgotten a bunch of things for our trip to the beach. And I had forgotten how difficult it is to bring a small baby to the beach. But the boys had fun, and that's all that matters, right?

Doing tummy time with the big brothers in the trailer. The only way we've found to survive with two kids in a small trailer is to bring along lots of favorite movies for those times when Mark and I are both occupied doing other things. Here they're enjoying Robin Hood while I'm making breakfast. (And just for the record, I don't make a habit of propping Baby B in front of the TV - this happened to be the only flat surface in the trailer for her to hang out on. And the big brothers were really entertaining her.)

Baby B did a great job sleeping in all sorts of places. She napped on our bed when we were in the trailer and took her naps in the jogging stroller while we were out. She is such an easy baby!

On our second day of "camping" we went to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. The kids had an amazing amount of fun. Ben was our little daredevil and wanted to go on all the scary rides, most of which he was too short for. Tommy was content to go on the tamer rides. At one point he remarked, "Mom, my way is better because the rides I like are the safest." It's been so interesting to see their different personalities come out during our trip to the park. Tommy often tried to figure out how the rides work, while Ben sought out awesome thrills. We were exhausted by the end of the day, but it was worth it!

Baby B at 4 Months

A perfect three-quarter roll!

This month hasn't brought too many changes for you. You're still sleeping well. You're still only able to stay awake for an hour at a time. You're still eating every 2-2.5 hours. You're still a mellow and happy girl! 

You did have two milestones (or maybe one and three-quarters). You laughed for the first time this month, when I was simultaneously making raspberry sounds and tickling you. You really made me work for that laugh! Now I'm guaranteed to get a giggle if I tickle your neck. Oh, the joy of baby giggles! You also started rolling over from back to tummy. I'm not sure if it counts though, since you haven't exactly made a full roll. You always get stuck on your shoulder. If I nudge you a bit, you'll finish the roll. I think I'm counting it. 

In the past few days you started doing this high-pitch yelling, screeching thing. It's seems to me like you're practicing your voice just for fun and you really like listening to yourself. It's really cute for the first ten minutes. Then around the twenty minute mark, my ears are ringing, and after thirty minutes, I've got a headache. But make no mistake, it is very cute!

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For those praying for our family and for Baby B, would you please pray for God to give wisdom to those who are in charge of making decisions on Baby's behalf? While we're not able to give details online, we can say that things are getting a bit complicated. There is a greater chance that she will move to another adoptive family sometime in the next few months. Of course, this is foster care and we've seen that just about anything can happen at any time. But our hearts are growing quite attached to her and she is becoming a daughter to Mark and I and a little sister to the boys. Please pray for our hearts, that we would continue to give our love freely to this little girl, and that we would trust in God's goodness and in his perfect plan, no matter what happens.

Preschool 2012 Wrap-Up

Our preschool year is done! I am pleasantly surprised at how well the year went. There were so many times I felt guilty that I was wasn't doing 'enough' with the boys, at least compared to what I imagined their brick-and-mortar preschool peers were doing. Last summer I made a list of what I wanted each boy to have learned or accomplished by the end of the year. Just the other day I looked at that list for the first time in many months. To my amazement, they hit each one. In many cases they far exceeded my expectations. 


Some of my goals for Tommy were: learn basic addition/subtraction up to 10, count to 100, get through Bob Books series, learn to empty the dishwasher, do laundry, and clean his bathroom. Ben's goals were to learn all his letters and numbers and to work on coloring and drawing (a year ago he wanted nothing to do with drawing and coloring). He also learned the same household tasks that Tommy did.    


It's amazing to me that the boys learned so much without me trying very hard to push a set plan on them. I just read them a lot of books, we had conversations about anything and everything, worked together with them in the house, and mostly just followed their interests. At times it felt like we weren't doing very much. But now that I look back at where the boys were a year ago, I can see that we did a lot. I'm so glad I heeded the advice of experienced homeschool moms to just take it easy and read. It really works!





Even though we are "done" for the summer, not much has actually changed. Since we were doing just the basics every day - Bible, catechism, reading lessons, and read-alouds - I can't really stop doing anything. We are still doing our reading lessons because Tommy is progressing really well with learning to read and I don't want him to take a break from it and forget everything. We're also still having our Bible time. But for my own sanity, I want to make a way to distinguish 'school-year' from 'summer break'. So what's different?


For one thing, I'm trying to get out of the house with all the kids a lot more. I'm a homebody and love the comfort of being home and having nowhere to go. So it takes a lot of mental energy to get me and three kids out of the house, even for a few hours. So we all made a list of fun places to go, and I hope to hit them all this summer. The best part is that all of them are free and within 15-45 minutes  away from our house. Some of our future outings include going hiking at local parks, visiting some awesome out-of-town playgrounds, and maybe even a beach outing (though the thought of taking three kids to the beach by myself is still daunting!)


I'm also trying to be more relaxed with our schedule. Normally we would have School Time right after breakfast. But now I'm letting the kids play whenever the mood catches them, even it if means playing in the sandbox at 8 o'clock in the morning or wandering next door and playing with cousins for a few hours after breakfast. I try to fit our learning in later in the day, whenever we get a chance.


I used this preschool year as a practice run for "real school" so I could test out different ways of doing things and get a feel for how I'd like to conduct school for our next year. I've learned that we all do best when we get everything done right after breakfast, and then the boys are free to play the rest of the morning until lunch, or we are free to run errands and get home in time for lunch. I've also realized that nap/quiet time is still non-negotiable. I experimented for a few weeks by letting the boys skip quiet time a few days a week. It wasn't pretty. They got pretty cranky and wild by 5pm. They need that time to just  be quiet and look at books to give their minds and bodies a rest. I don't think that will change anytime soon!


I'm already getting excited about planning for next year, and I'm having fun figuring out how to turn our dining room into a school room. I see a trip to Ikea in our future. :)

Check out these handsome students. The picture on the left is from September 2011, the right one is from June 2012. It's funny to me that Ben happens to be wearing the same shorts in both pictures!

Woodshop Project

Over Memorial Day weekend Mark and the boys worked on making treasure boxes together. The idea of the treasure box is for each boy to have his own space where he can store interesting objects he finds and wants to keep that are only his, and not to be touched by his brother. 

Mark has been working long hours at his new job these past few months, so the boys were deliriously happy at the idea of doing something with with him in the workshop. It took them two half-days to build the boxes. Tommy and Ben loved using their dad's tools and just hanging out with him in the workshop. (I won't lie - I loved having some peace and quiet in the house so I could get things done!)

I should add that the boys have experience using and have had instruction in the proper use of the tools they are shown with. We only allow them to use tools we are confident that they are comfortable with and can use safely!

Step 1: Sand down pieces of the boxes (which Mark had prepared beforehand).

Step 2: Adhere sides together using wood glue.

Step 3: Once the wood glue is dry, hammer nails into each corner. This makes sure the boxes are extra strong (and kid-proof).

 Sadly, sometimes thumbs don't fare so well when 5-year olds are wielding hammers. But the tears dry quickly and the little builders move on with life. And they learn to be more aware of their thumbs!

The remaining steps in this process aren't in pictures because the kids didn't help with the rest: Mark finished them off with the sinking of nails, staining, and final sanding.

Final products!

Ben's treasure: rosemary from our yard and some interesting rocks he found.

Baby B at 3 Months

Happy 3 months, Baby B! Here's what you were up to this last month:

- You are getting more snuggly. You like to nestle your head in the crook of my neck and curl up there. This is usually how you fall asleep in my arms.
- You weigh 11.5 lbs. You fit into some of your 3 month clothes, and are starting to fit into 6 month clothes. 
- You are still sleeping through the night. For most of the last month, you would wake up anywhere between 3-5am and need a diaper change or simply a pacifier. But for the past week you've been sleeping straight through the night without waking up. Yay!
- You are tolerating tummy time for longer periods, especially if someone is on the floor with you talking to you. You're under doctor's orders for more tummy time; apparently, your neck and back muscles aren't as strong as they should be, so we're working with you to make them stronger. 
- You are having 'conversations' with us. We'll go back and forth babbling and smiling at each other for a few minutes. It's been amazing to see the difference between my boy babies and you as a girl. They weren't 'conversational' until much later. It makes me eager to see if you'll talk earlier than they did too. You have gotten really smiley this last month.
- You've just recently discovered that you have hands. You will move your hands around and stare at them while they move. When I'm holding you, you'll study my shirt intently and open and close your hands while you move them around, like you're trying to figure out how to grab on to something. The other day you were staring at the base of my neck and scratching around at it, like you thought there was something to grab onto. Ouch! 
- You are no longer being swaddled for sleep times. I just lay you down and tuck a light blanket around you and you go out. Often, you don't even have a pacifier, you just put yourself to sleep. You are definitely the easiest of my babies in the sleep department!
- You rolled over (from tummy to back) for the first time just this last week. 

We love you Baby B, and we can't wait to see how you grow this next month. 

(Photo by Ben)

The Family That Reads Together

"Children are made readers on the laps of their parents."

— Emilie Buchwald

Critters

Tommy and Ben have entered a new phase of catching critters and keeping them in jars. I've been saving jars of all sorts for the past few years, hoping that they would be useful some day. I never thought they'd be useful as a house for various creatures like insects, lizards, frogs, and poisonous spiders.

We let the kids keep the critters for as long as they're safe, then we make them release their little friends. One day Tommy caught three frogs and put them in the same jar. He discovered that if he rolled the jar slowly, the frogs would jump along, kind of like a froggie exercise wheel. This kept him captivated for quite awhile, until I made him give the poor frogs a break.

I was the hero the day I caught a black widow spider and popped her in a jar. I eventually let her go, far away from the house. It was really interesting for us to be able to watch and study this spider up close, without worrying about getting bitten.

This new phase has me saying things I never thought I'd say. Like, "Please take the frog outside. Why? Because I don't want frogs jumping around my house." and "No, you cannot keep the black widow forever." 

Each new day brings a new set of critters. I can't wait to find out what tomorrow brings.

Cherry Picking

Each year the first of the trees in our orchard to ripen is our cherry tree. For the past two years, our cherries have always been full of bug larvae (gross, right?), rendering them inedible. But this year we finally got wise. We put tanglefoot around the base of each fruit tree a few months ago when our trees were flowering. Tanglefoot is tar-like sticky stuff that is supposed to attract harmful insects away from the fruit. It looks like it did the trick because we didn't have any larvae this year. 

Figuring out what to do with a tree-full of cherries hasn't been that difficult. We picked three quarts of cherries and served them at a party, where they were devoured in an hour. The next day we picked another two quarts, and they were almost all gone by the end of the day just from our family eating them. 

In another week, we'll have another ripe cherry tree. And in another month or so, we'll have peaches. I love summer!

Tommy at Five and a Half

You are a bit older than five and a half now. I still haven't quite gotten used to having a five year old, and in (what I know will feel like) just a few months I'm going to have a six year old!


As you get older, you are becoming a more concentrated version of your younger self. I suppose this is true for all people as they grow up, but it seems like it's more noticeable in you compared to Ben. For instance, you've loved cars since you were a baby, and you still really love cars. Every time we go to the library I'll ask you what kinds of things you want to learn about so we can get books about it. When you were three you would simply say "cars". You still say "cars", but add, "Actually, I want books about how cars work. Like how the engine and the motor works, and the brakes. And I want to learn about rally cars too. Because they're really cool." It's amazing to me that you've held on to your love of cars for so long, and it makes me wonder if they'll have anything to do with your occupation when you grow up.

You are such a good big brother to your foster-sister. You are always asking to feed her, touching her, talking to her, and asking how she's doing. One Sunday morning when I was getting everyone ready for church, you fed and and held her for about forty-five minutes while I got stuff done around the house. It was such a big help!


You have a dichotomy within yourself: you have a serious side that makes you ask thought-provoking questions like, "Why didn't God kill Satan right after he tempted Adam and Eve? Wouldn't that have made everything better?" But then two minutes later you'll be bouncing off the furniture or rolling around on the floor with your brother saying unbelievably silly things. It must be a 5 year old boy thing. 


Your reading has really taken off. You are doing well with your daily lessons, and you are getting more fluent with your reading. You are finally starting to see that being able to read helps you understand the world around you. You are noticing that you can read things like road signs and book titles, without me having to prompt you to tell me what they say: "Mom, look, that says, 'Now Open'!". 


I'm looking forward to seeing how you grow from now until your sixth birthday! 

Water Balloons

Now that the weather is warmer, the latest fun thing to do around here is to play with water balloons.

Ben was throwing balloons at Tommy, and got two of them to burst square on Tommy's back. Tommy wanted to returned the favor. Obviously, turnabout is not fair play in his book.

Then we decided that the tiny water balloons weren't enough. We started filling up the party balloons. This particular balloon was a tough one to pop, and Tommy didn't actually get wet when Mark threw it at him. Bummer.

Spring/Summer Garden 2012

This is what my garden currently looks like. Most things were planted back in January. Every January since we've lived in this house (this is our second so far), we get a heat wave. I convince myself that it's going to be a warm season and that it's okay to start planting seeds. Inevitably, the cold and rain starts back up, and it's winter as usual. This year was no exception. Luckily everything survived, even if a lot of things were slow growing during the cold season. As soon the days grew warmer and the sun came out, everything sprang up and started growing very quickly. 

I'm at the point now where I know what my family likes to eat vs. what is easy to grow: carrots, lettuce, snap peas, chard, tomatoes, spinach, leeks, and asparagus. Then we planted some new things just to see how well they would grow: pumpkins, butternut squash, and basil. Then there are the things that only I eat, usually juiced and added to the blender for my morning veggie drink: kale and beets.

This gardening thing is going so well that I'm starting to fantasize about expanding it even more. This isn't a reality right now though; it will take a small bulldozer and a few weekends of work to make that happen. But someday.

Baby B at 2 Months

You are two months old already! This last month has really flown by. 

Here's what you're up to:

- You started smiling earlier this month. Usually when I'm singing a silly song, but also when I engage in your 'babble'. Which brings me to...

- You coo and "talk". You make the cutest little baby sounds and are delighted (see "smiling", above) when I answer your sounds in 'conversation'.

- Your naps and schedule have solidified and have remained consistent this month: you are very awake and alert in the morning, then you have a nice long nap in the afternoon right after lunch, and then you're awake a lot in the evening because...

- The evening is your fussy time. You take a quick catnap in the late afternoon and then are awake (and not too happy about it) the rest of the evening. This can make dinner prep rather difficult, but usually you're happy to be my sous-chef in the Ergo.

- You weigh 12 lbs and you're still in 0-3 month size clothes. 

- Your cries have changed from last month. They have more character and definition now, so I can tell your "Feed-me-right-now!" cry from your Noises of General Complaint. When I come to the crib to answer your Complaining Cry, you're all smiles and happy to see me. Sometimes you'll even stop your Feed-me-right-now! cry and change into a Complaining Cry when you see me. It's so sweet.

- Your limit of awake time is still about 1 hour, though in the evening you are awake a bit longer because of your fussiness.

- You are still a very good daytime sleeper. I swaddle you and lay you down and you go right out. 

- You've been (begrudgingly) doing some tummy time. I'll prop you up on the Boppy pillow, but your limit is about 5 minutes before you start your Complaining Cry.

- We recently started napping you at least once a day in your little PeaPod tent to get you used to it. You weren't a big fan for the first day, but now you seem to feel at home in it because you go right out, just like in your crib.
- Just this past week you started to sleep through the night. For the past five days you've been sleeping from 7pm until 7am, with a dream feed right before I go to bed, around 9:30 pm. (A 'dream feed' is where you simply pick baby up while still asleep and nurse or give a bottle. It fills up their tummy and keeps them satisfied for a longer period at night. We did this with each of our boys and it was wonderful!) For the first two nights I gave you some 'encouragement' with sleeping through the night - you would start stirring and breaking your swaddle between 5-6am, but I re-wrapped you, gave you a pacifier and you went back to sleep until 7/7:30. For the past two nights you've slept straight through without waking up!

Your foster brothers continue to adore you. Tommy loves to hold you and feed you, and almost every day he asks, "Can't we keep her forever, mom?" It's safe to say you are loved very much, Baby B! We can't wait to see how you change and grow in the next month!

Photos for Daddy

Mark used to work from home every day for almost seven years. When we had kids, he was able to pop out of his office now and then to see what they were up to: to see their art projects, a story they just made up, or a cool building they made. Now that Mark works outside the home, he misses an awful lot of the fun stuff going on at home. So I use my phone to send him photos throughout the day of what the kids and I are up to. He loves receiving random photo texts when he's at work because it makes him feel more connected to what's going on with us. Here's a sampling of the last few weeks of "Daddy Photos":

Feeding Baby B 

Tommy working on his reading lesson, Ben working on writing his numbers. Don't be fooled by the tranquility of this scene; it only lasted for about five more minutes before both kids decided they'd had enough of it and wandered outside to find bugs.

Somewhere in San Jose. On Tuesday afternoons we drop Baby B off at the Social Services building for her visitation with her mom, and then explore the park across the street. The kids had fun playing hide-and-seek in this statue.

 This is one of the many things that occurs when you give children free access to scissors, tape, and string: they make beards for themselves. Among many other things.

"Shirts" made out of shopping bags. At first, the boys were using the shopping bags to sack race each other around the house. But when their legs popped through the bottoms, they decided to use them as shirts. 

 A lizard that Tommy caught and wanted to save until Dad came home to see it. He named it John. He asked me to find out what lizards eat. My best guess based on a quick Google search was that they eat bugs, so we spent a lot of time digging up roly-polies to feed to John. He didn't touch them.  

If you know our youngest, you wouldn't be surprised at this one. But a word of explanation: while playing hide-and-seek with the boys one afternoon, I thought would be funny to climb the tree when it was my turn to hide. The boys thought it was so cool that I got up there, and they begged me to help them climb the tree. Being the cool boy mom that I am, I obliged. And then sent a picture of it to their father.

2012 To Do List - April Update

At the end of 2011 I posted a To Do List for myself. I made my list public in hopes that it would keep me accountable, and of course, help me remember my year-long goals. So here's how I'm doing so far:

1. Run a 10K - Check. I actually completed this somewhat by accident and with no planning on my part. I was originally scheduled to run a 5K with a friend in early March. My friend wasn't able to get a spot in the 5K, but she found out that there were plenty of spots open in the 10K (to be clear, a 5K = 3.1 miles, a 10K = 6.2 miles eek!).There was no way I'd be able to run a 10K, but I reasoned that I'd rather walk most of a 10K than run alone in a 5K. So we both signed up for the 10K. We figured we'd run a bit and then walk the rest of the way. To our surprise, we actually ran most of the way. Which was shocking to me because I had not been able to train very much since we'd had a 3 month old just a few weeks before and currently had a one-week old - doesn't leave much time or energy for training! I'm going to count this one as my 10K for the year. I haven't run since that race, and don't see myself having much time for running anytime in the near future.

2. Spend at least 10 minutes one-on-one time with each of my kids every day. Pending. It is no easy task getting these boys away from each other! They have the same sleep schedules and otherwise play together all day. Occasionally one will sleep in while the other one is awake, and when that happens I'll purpose to spend time with them; we may read a book or we'll make breakfast and chat together. I saw one idea that I'm going to try to implement, which is to have one day a week for each child where they get to stay up past bedtime for 15 minutes. I'm thinking that's the only time I can make sure to get them alone with me!

3. Commit to eating only real food. Fail. I just looked back at what I wrote for my plan to cut out all processed food and sweeteners and I had to laugh at myself. These days, I'm lucky if I get something, anything, on the table each night. I have been trying to get a lot more veggies into our diets, especially after watching Forks Over Knives. But "quick" usually wins over "real". We'll tackle the switch to real food some other time.

4. Read the whole Bible again. Pending...possible fail. Having a newborn is really hard. I don't know how anyone who has a newborn finds time to read anything, let alone have a quiet time. So I've been taking short-cuts on my Bible reading. My reading plan wants me to read a few chapters from an Old Testament book (like Deuteronomy), one Psalm, a few paragraphs of a gospel (like Matthew), and a chapter of one of the letters (like James). Normally all of this takes about 20 minutes of reading. Now, instead of reading all the passages assigned for the day, I've been reading just a few paragraphs of a gospel and a Psalm, since I find those the most encouraging for the short amount of time that I have before someone starts crying or fighting. If I have more time, I'll read from one of my favorite books, like Philippians or Ephesians, even though they're not part of the plan. What I need most these days is comfort and encouragement. I'm probably not going to get through the Bible this year, and that's okay. 

Happy Easter