We just received a call that a neighbor reported some vandalism to our house on Monroe Street. Michael is on his way over to see what happened.

This isn’t how I planned to spend today. I was going to help the children with their school work, make carrot cake, start a pot of chili, and in general enjoy Michael’s day off.

I’ll report back here once we know what’s going on.

Update: Praise God, the vandalism was very fixable. One of the teens from across the street had come over and spray-painted his name on the glass on our front door and the back storm door. Amazingly, he was caught doing it last night, so there’s no question about the guilty party. Michael talked to the police and made sure everyone was on the same page. Michael and Isaac used a razor blade and scraped off all the paint and the glass looks as good as new. I’m amazed the paint didn’t get on to the wood parts of the door. All in all, it could have been a lot worse.

Now we have to decide what’s next with our house. Should we just plan to move back in? Or should we lower our asking price and try even more aggressively to find a buyer?

I’m home now and taking care of all the little details that need my attention. Maybe I’ll get the carrot cake made after all.

If you’d like to see a sample of what Laura has been drawing lately, you can see the gallery we created today.

Enjoy!

Tonight we celebrated March Birthdays at the Walsh house. It has become tradition to celebrate my Dad, Michael, Todd, Miguel and Judah.

You can see the photos in my gallery.

“Blest be the tie that binds!”

I haven’t posted an update on Lillian lately, so here is the official update, so far.

Seems like she’s gaining weight and doing the things she’s supposed to be doing. If our UPS scale is to be trusted, she’s right at 13 pounds.

I’m glad to report that Lilly is a happy baby, and so content these days. I didn’t realize how fussy she was before until she started getting enough to eat and she became so happy!

Lilly smiles readily and is even starting to try to giggle a little bit. She is learning to grab onto toys and bring them to her mouth.

Lilly is 3.5 months old, and is still the center of attention much of the time that she’s awake. Usually the kids are loving and gentle with Lilly, although today Judah got into big trouble with me after hitting Lilly hard with a baby doll. Fortunately, after Lilly’s and Judah’s tears were dried, he was back to his loving self, sticking his big ol’ face into Lilly’s face and saying in a sing-song voice, “Hello Baby Lilly!”

Lilly is still drinking almost all of her meals from a bottle, which is a little sad to me, but the great benefit is that I can hand her to her father or a sibling and they can feed her if I’m not able to sit down right then.  Fortunately Lilly is very willing to still nurse, so we enjoy those special times either right before bed or in the night when she wakes up needing a little extra nourishment.

Lilly’s next doctor appointment is early next month, so I’m eager to get a good report.  I keep hoping we’re on the right track.

Thanks to all of you who have walked alongside us on this journey with our Little Treasure.

Miguel has been counting the days to his birthday for many weeks now. Finally, today arrived, and Miguel was beside himself with delight and anticipation. We baked his birthday cake in two heart-shaped pans. I told him we could make a layer cake. So when we opened the oven to see if his cakes were done, Miguel peered closely and said, “Where are the layers?” I explained to him that we would make the layers by stacking the cakes on top of each other later on after they were cooled.

Miguel and I agreed that we would have hot dogs and mac & cheese for lunch, and I decided that supper would be meatloaf, mashed potatoes and veggies.

By supper time, the cake was in its layers and frosted, and Miguel was seated in a place of honor at the table. He was so excited, he couldn’t stop chattering, and his ears were bright red.

After all this excitement, I’m guessing Miguel will be exhausted. But for now he’s playing a video game with his brother and looking forward to the chance to “stay up late”.

Happy Birthday, Miguel!

Lillian is still at the age where being wrapped tightly helps her to settle down to sleep.

Even though I wrapped up Lilly’s feet, she must have wriggled around just enough to get her feet out.

I’m amazed by how tiny her feet still are.

“Sweet dreams, my Little One.”

Tonight Laura and Amelia had a piano recital. It’s been my privilege to be their daily piano nag, and to watch both of them learn so much at the piano.

Here are two photos from tonight’s performance:

I can’t wait to see what the girls learn next.

Michael sent me a link to an interesting article he found while reading his daily news items online. It’s about a physics professor at MIT (Walter Lewin) who makes his lectures come alive for his students.

After reading the article and watching the accompanying video, I went and looked on iTunes for the free lecture series’ available for download. After downloading all 36 video podcast lectures from Physics 8.02, I started watching the first lecture after midnight last night. Even though I really shouldn’t have been up so late, I couldn’t help but be fascinated by such interesting things as electricity and electrons and positive and negative charges and silk and cat hair.

Today I showed the lectures to Isaac and he watched most of the first one. He was very interested, and probably didn’t realize how educational his “entertainment” was. And I have to confess, after hearing about the electrical energy in static, the next time I combed my hair, I turned off the bathroom light, shut the door and unplugged the nightlight. I was so curious to see if the sparks were visible. Judah could NOT figure out why I was standing in the dark, and I realized I couldn’t really explain it to him.

Anyway, I hope you check out these lectures. Seems like it would be a great way to fit “science” into a homeschool day.

When we added a new family member a few months ago, we knew we were in for a treat, but we didn’t know exactly what things would change.  Now that Grammy has left us for the next month or so, we know exactly what we will miss while she’s gone.

First of all, we’ll miss having tea in the morning. Grammy is so patient with the children who flock around her every morning. She pours tea, spoons in sugar, stirs in the milk, cleans up the spills, solves arguments about who will sit next to her, and somehow manages to hold up her end of the conversation the whole time. I lose patience with the whole thing just watching it all! I’m happy to stay behind the counter and serve the breakfast. Sometimes I even escape for some peace and quiet while Grammy is keeping everyone occupied. But now that Grammy is gone, what will we do? Maybe I’ll make tea, but I know I won’t serve it quite like Grammy does.

The other thing we’ll miss about Grammy is the reminder to celebrate things. Last Saturday the girls had a piano performance for which they have been practicing since right after Christmas. After it was over, Grammy bought doughnuts to share with everyone in celebration of the girls’ hard work and accomplishment. What a joyous time! Silly me… I would have just come home after we were done with the piano thing. But Grammy knew better, so we celebrated.

We’ll miss Grammy while she’s gone, that’s for sure. And now we know what to look forward to when she comes back.

Just in case you’d like to stop by… there will be an open house at our Monroe house this coming Saturday, March 15, from 1:30 – 3:00 pm. So if you have been keeping up with our adventures over the past few years as we have worked and remodeled, you can come see for yourself what all the fuss has been about.

1009 West Monroe Street,  Bloomington

See you there!