39 weeks with The Intern

Oh, little dear Intern, when would you like to graduate? We would like to extend to you a full-time position as a newborn in our organization. Our compensation package is competitive and we have amazing growth possibilities for you, especially in the first two years of your stay with us while we will nurture you like no one else can.

We're ready when you are!

Our little rat!

This past weekend, Cymbre danced as a rat in The Pied Piper with the CARE Conservatory of Ballet. (See http://www.careballet.org for more information about this great organization!) She had a great time, did a wonderful job and we're very proud of her!


Here she is in costume. The rats also had a full head mask (hence the half face make-up job) for the show but I didn't get any pictures with it on. Since she danced as a rodent in Carnival of the Animals two years ago, she is a little concerned about being type-cast... but we have confidence she will move on from the rodents in due time.

Here is Cymbre during warm up with some of her CARE friends.

And here are some of her devoted fans. =) Cymbre gave Harmony, Destiny and Noah a tour of the cast so they could get autographs and meet lots of dancers as well.

This may be the biggest fan of all. Eli enjoyed the show so much on Saturday that he asked to come with me on Sunday as well. I kept him busy during warm ups by letting him tidy up the theater: putting seats up and throwing away bits of trash. After the show, he got all the autographs he wanted (save for the Mayor, who apparently doesn't like to do the autograph bit and disappeared before we could catch him) and then wanted desperately to help the parents who were in charge of striking the set. He removed a good deal of the tape from the dance floor so it could be packed away for the next show - and he LOVED it. Plus, once he was helping, a bunch of other little boys showed up and wanted to help as well! It was adorable.

Getting ready for the Wedding!!

Matt's brother Tim is getting married this weekend and the girls are SO excited to be matching flower girls. We practiced today to get their hair to flip out (Cymbre's idea - and a good one!) and then they wanted to try on the whole ensemble. I love it!

Allegra always says, "I look like Cymbre - only smaller" and she extends it to everything. My shoes are like Cymbre's - only smaller. My hair is like Cymbre's - only smaller. She's very in touch with her smallness.

Cymbre is 8!

Here's Cymbre, her *8* candle, and her Bright Sky Rainbow cake. We saw the recipe in the mini American Girl magazine that came with Cymbre's Kit doll and I found it online here: http://homepage.mac.com/baroose/iblog/C1523793326/E20070513202546/index.html I made yellow cake batter from scratch instead of white cake mix. I also made the frosting from scratch. I saved white frosting to do the clouds but was too tired by the time I assembled the cake so I went with a "cloudless sky."
Eli and Destiny are in the background waiting patiently for their cake.

Here's the cake in all its glory! It's pretty to look at but, in my opinion, not all that tasty. Everyone else seemed to love it, though!

Here's Cymbre with Harmony, Eli, and Destiny and the rest of the cake.

And here's our little Shiloh, just because he's getting so big!

If you need me, I'll be moving off-grid!

Watch this! NOW! It's long but seriously, watch the whole thing and open your mind! It makes a whole giant heap of sense out of so much insanity.

Christmas pictures by Devon!

Here are our 2008 Christmas portraits, done by my friend Devon of Photography by Devon!
http://www.photosbydevon.zoomshare.com/


I love these two shots!

This was the best shot of the whole session - unfortunatly there were no corresponding
stellar shots of the little ones together...
still a GREAT picture of C and E!

Here's our little family! Merry Christmas from the Scotts!

Our silly pictures!

We all got very silly at the end of our photo shoot with Devon. Personally, I love these!
I know my mom will think they aren't that nice... tongues out and all...
But when I am old, and the kids are busy with their own lives,
I know that these will bring me genuine joy and a plethora of memories.

Coincidence?

Last night, Shiloh took his first steps. Finally. We were all very excited to see it happen. Cymbre picked Shi up with glee. He was pretty thrilled with himself too. It seems like walking should be no big trick after all these months of Knee-Walking he's done. He is also free-range on the stairs now, which is a huge comfort since we do a lot of up and down all day and our stairs are wood.

So here is the weird thing: We have 4 children. 3 of them have started walking at EXACTLY 15 months and 1 week. Cymbre did take a few steps at 13 months but sat down and did not take up walking as a means of conveyance until 15 months, 1 week. Eli preferred to crawl and would not walk and hold hands or stand on his own until 15 months, 1 week. And now Shiloh, who has been knee-walking for quite a while, not willing to stand on his feet or do the hand-holding walk thing either, just started cruising for real a few weeks ago and has now taken steps at 15 months, 1 week. Seems like a really strong genetic predisposition, doesn't it?? Nothing else about all the children has lined up like this - not gestational age at birth, not rolling, crawling or standing, not age of wanting first solid foods, not weaning age, not age of first using the potty, not ANYTHING that I can think of - just the walking.

Allegra walked before she was a year. Every family has to have a wild card and she is definitely ours.

Don't you love it when they give you something to think about??

We've got PERSONALITY!

Just some cute pictures of the kids at a recent trip to the Children's Museum.

Shiloh with a spoon he is evidently thrilled about, Allegra dressed as a bee and feeling very cranky because one of the friendly volunteers tried to talk with her, Eli and Allegra dressed as firefighters and ready to save the world, and Cymbre learning to play the piano - with a helper in the background.

Fall at the zoo with friends!

Shiloh is still my sweet buddy in the sling.
We headed to the zoo to meet up with a long time friend and his kids. We had a great time in the lovely fall weather.

Mini Chad and Mini Matt become friends!!
Okay, so Eli doesn't look THAT much like a mini-Matt but this guy is the spittin' image of his daddy and I just couldn't get over it. Eli has requested to play with his new friend again soon. =)

Our wild bunch was curiously resistant to the group picture.

Halloween!

Here's Allegra - as a tree,
Eli - as a knight in shining (duct tape) armor,
And Cymbre - as a princess.
This year Matt and I went to a costume party fundraiser for the Holland Area Arts Council. For that reason, the kids got to have fun with their babysitter while we went out dressed as The Incredibles.
We took Shiloh along since we did not know if he would be happy that long with the babysitter. He normally nurses twice during the time we planned to be away. And it ended up being really fun since we designed all of our costume ideas around having him along.

Here is our baby super hero. He loved having the mask on and for the most part he didn't even grab at it. When we showed him in the mirror, he just giggled and grinned. He's such a fun little friend!!

As it turned out, we won a prize for our costumes: they said it was for sweetest but the trophy says funniest. Matt was incensed that they did not take our crime fighting seriously. Actually, we spent much of the evening laughing at his silly foam muscles.

Shiloh was THRILLED with the costume trophy and claimed it for his own, clutching it in his car seat all the way home.

Cymbre's big show!

Cymbre was in the CARE ballet "Tales of Hans Christian Anderson" last weekend. She danced as a Lily of the Valley in the tale of Little Ida's Flowers. It was a great experience and a great show!


Cymbre with some of her loyal fan base. =)

Cymbre with her friend Rose (a daisy).
They were both rodents last year in "Carnival of the Animals."

A special part of performance week with CARE is the warm ups the whole cast does together. This is one aspect of the CARE experience that really cultivates a feeling of being a close family or team between the kids.
http://www.careballet.org

Fall fun at Meijer Gardens

Trying to get a picture of my kids has become harder than it used to be... but here's one attempt!

We visited the gardens this week with my parents and my little sisters and brother. This outing was actually in celebration of Noah's "gotcha day" or the anniversary of his adoption. He's been in our family for two years now and what a blessing he has been!
Happy Gotcha Day, Noah!!

All the big kids thought these stepping stones were just fabulous and used them as running and jumping stones... until Allegra got knocked down. Such is her lot in life...

Here they all are!
Harmony, Cymbre, Allegra, Noah, Shiloh, Destiny, and Eli
Cute as bugs and just as wiggly too.

Shiloh wants to say...

thank you to SaSa for the cozy Hanna suit,
and thank you to Aunt Stacy and Uncle Justin for the stylin' Hanna hat.
He feels that organic cotton is appropriate apparel for optimal comfort while carrying out all of the mischief he's been planning.

=)

Our deck!!

All the men in the world who love me. =)

These pictures show the deck ALMOST DONE!
It's actually done now (in real time) and it's fabulous!!
THANKS, DAD!!

Photography lesson??

The only way to get a picture of Allegra on her carousel tiger (with Shiloh, of course) was to let Cymbre take the picture. We have some work to do.

Public Museum Field Trips

We've been frequenting the Public Museum of Grand Rapids lately. They have a "Whodunit?" exhibit right now that the kids really like. You get to take a close look at some tools of forensic crime labs and be the detective in a "murder." Cymbre likes the computer that lets you choose individual features to try to come up with composite sketches. We tried to make one of Shiloh but it was really difficult, especially since there were really no baby features to choose from. Eli likes the fingerprint demo. He has simple loops on all his fingers. Cymbre has some whorls. Allegra particularly likes the blood spatter comparisons. Go figure.

We watched a documentary about Apollo 13 recently so this Apollo command capsule (once used for search and recovery drills) was very interesting to the kids. They desperately wanted to go in it.

The gorgeous antique carousel is always a hit. Allegra has even started to enjoy it this year and likes to ride the tiger.

Here they are in "Olde Grand Rapids" with their imaginary provisions from the shops. Cymbre has a crate of milk. Eli has a bag of groceries. Allegra, who loves all things cake and cake related, has a handful of candy.

One Day Pet

Last week on a library and playground walk, we found a grasshopper. It hopped out of our way and I pointed it out to the children. We studied it for a bit. Then came the inevitable question: Can we bring him home??
Well, sure. He can be a One-Day Pet.

And so home he came. First Cymbre tried carrying him in her hands but found it better to carry him in the fabric of her dress. All three of them made a soft spot for him in our "One Day Pet Jar."
They showed him around the house (in his jar) and watched him all day.
This is the wisdom of the title "ONE DAY Pet," that since it is in the name, they can't possibly forget how long he's staying for.
Right?

After they had gotten to know him, I asked what his name was.
I thought perhaps they wouldn't have thought of naming him.
Ha.
I thought perhaps they would go with Grassy, Hop, Hoppy, Hopper, Greenie, Buggy - something like that.
Ha.
Without missing even a beat, they answered, "We named him John,"
Okay, then!

Farewell, John! May you live long and hop much!

Deck project!

Two years ago we had my dad put vinyl siding on our house. We decided to tear off our old deck because it was, well, old and poorly built. We wanted the new siding to go all the way down and to take care of any rotting at that time. Well, we are finally getting the deck put on with the amazing and generous help of my dad, who knows more about the right way to build stuff than pretty much anyone else we know. Thanks, Dad!!! The entire project is a two level deck with a pergola over the high deck. So far the high deck and pergola are almost done. We also have one new basement window and a real dryer vent installed in conjunction with this project - instead of the old window with one of the panes removed and the dryer vent wedged in with just some insulation and an old shirt!!! Why a colony of chipmunks hadn't taken up residence, we can't say since nothing was actually stopping them. This was a serious upgrade! Watch for updates!!

More camping highlights!

We had such a great time camping this year! This was our only trip
and in truth I was nervous about it.
We've often camped with our kids very happily - my struggle was more logistical!
We camped two years ago for more than a week in the UP and loaded out van so completely that I just didn't know how we could possibly go now that we have one more child! We settled on a "short trip" plan: to go just a little drive away for three nights and then come back! We went to the Whispering Surf Campground http://www.whisperingsurfcamping.com/ in Pentwater, Michigan. It was quiet and relaxing. They have a nice little playground that the kids could go to *within sight* of our campsite so that was a huge help for us. They also have a great "lodge" kind of rec room that would be great if you happened to camp during a rainy spell. The campground is between Bass Lake and Lake Michigan and there is a sweet spot you can play in the outlet water of Bass Lake that is shallow and warm but on the Lake Michigan Beach. It's fantastic, beautiful and perfect for kids.

Matt really loves to cook while camping. Suits me. It probably has something to do with lighting stuff on fire... but any reason to be cooked for is a good one in my book. He appointed himself to make bacon and eggs for us every morning - but we decided to eat all the bacon the first morning since it was easier to cook it once than to cook a little every day. Yum!

Eli enjoyed his breakfast and enjoyed feeding some to his brother too!!