Micah the Adding Machine

FIRST, you need to check out this video of

Micah the Adding Machine...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSm0e_DQCyg

THEN, the following pic will make more sense. This is what he was looking at when he said, "Twelve hundred."

Falls/Tree Day

Saturday, the weather again was beautiful-- we couldn't have ordered a nicer Thanksgiving weekend.

We took a lovely hike at Cunningham Falls. Enjoyed by all, I believe.

The reckless ones among us braved climbing the rocks, in spite of the "climbing is not advised" signs... and all lived to tell about it.

On the way back, Claire stepping into the water-- see the wet pants? She really had a great attitude about it, tho. Took her socks off and hiked back to the car with bare feet in her crocs.

Back at the parking area, we had a great picnic lunch-- probably our last til spring!

Wingerts, guess what Micah's doing here!

After the hike, we went to a Christmas tree farm owned by some Grace people. Micah was sleeping in the car, so mom stayed with him, and the rest of us hiked all over the mountain to find the perfect tree. And it's a nice one! Even nicer because the nice man that owns the tree farm ended up giving it to us for free!

Friday's Fall Fun

So, what exciting activity did we take my parents to do on Friday? We went up to Mechanicsburg to rake Chad's parents' leaves. : ) Mom and dad both helped rake leaves for a while, then mom and I had to take the Grand Prix for a drive so it could get some exercise. :) While we were gone, Chad/Dad/Katie/Jenna just about had the whole yard finished.

Gorgeous weather and we had fun doing it. The ride was also nice-- listened to a CD about the first Thanksgiving.

Even more exciting, probably, was what we did in Chambersburg on our way to the W's leaves-- we stopped at a Verizon store and Chad bought an iPhone! Now he's happily figuring out how to use it... with a bit of help from Katie. :) And I'm happily the caretaker of a cell phone again-- I'm using Chad's old one.

Oh, we also had a good meal at Bob Evans. Pregnant waitress who told us about her family, and remembered orders for all 8 of us without writing it down! I would probably have trouble with ONE order. She got it all right, too. Better than the girl at Hoss's Sunday, who typed it right into the computer as we said it and still got 2 orders wrong.

Evening activities at home-- we played some games! Jenna beat Papa/Daddy/Katie at Chinese Checkers twice.

Our Thanksgiving

Lovely Thanksgiving Day! Mom and dad were here (arrived Wed pm) and the Michaels came as well. They were on their way out to the Creation Museum-- was a lot of fun to have them here as well. Danny was along, and George and Cheryl had grandson Tommy (Boden's exact age) for the long weekend as well. Micah and Tommy had a GREAT time playing in his room. Neither one of them was real thrilled with the turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes like the rest of us were. :)

After we ate, Chad had everyone mention a couple things for which we were thankful. We are very blessed!!

In the afternoon, we took naps :). After supper, we watched home videos and Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

Turkey Trot

George and Danny Michael invited my dad and Chad to do the Turkey Trot with them Thanksgiving morning. 5K run at Hagerstown Community College with 1,200 other people. Gorgeous day for it. And they all did well!

Dad hadn't trained at all for 5 months (too busy farming, etc) and wanted to get back to it for the winter, so this was a good jumpstart. He ran the 5K in 31 min 27 seconds.

Chad has been running just a bit here and there the past few months, and he did a terrific run! 30 min 4 seconds.






The funny part was that George finished first, and then Chad, so they were waiting for my dad. Somehow they missed him and were waiting, and waiting. Starting to get worried something happened to him. George started running backwards on the track to find him. Then Chad found Dad drinking coffee at the end.

Track

The cool car track Daddy and Micah made

SleepyHead

This is what Micah did during the Talent Show. Next year, I go without Micah and Claire. They were not at all interested. (Well, to be fair, Claire was interested in Katie and Daddy's parts, but she fell asleep for those, since they were near the end.) And they were a big distraction for me. However, Micah fell asleep about 1/3 of the way thru the show, and slept soundly, at least until the worship band started up. Then he woke up, shaking, and crying, and saying, "Too loud, too loud!" I agreed. :)

Oh, BTW, you see Micah sucking his thumb in this pic. He's making a real effort not to suck it much. Today while I read him a book, he almost stuck it in his mouth probably 3 or 4 times-- caught himself and put his hand down. For a little while I had him fold his hands. It's such a habit with him, that he doesn't know what else to do with his hands.

AND, he's starting to be dry at nap and nighttime, too, so he's really on his way to being a Big Boy. :)

Talent Show

Last week, Katie was in our school's Talent Show again. It was fun to see her sing a duet with one of her good friends, Elizabeth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB8XtPtXcu0

Also a lot of fun was Chad's involvement in the Talent Show. The teachers did a lip sync from Sister Act II, with Whoopi. My video of this is not the best, but you can see Chad clapping and swaying with the best of them (front right).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WklrpTCylQE

Science Center videos

Katie on the harp...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRoqOFP8pZk

Jenna on nails...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzHAyJvo1UU

Claire in the clouds...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoQvxQQCqJE

Micah's contraption fascination...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9LfRsUFrHk

Maltibore

Yesterday was our family day in Baltimore. Claire had her heart check-up with her cardiologist, so we made a day of it again. Full day, but really fun.

Here we are at the top of the parking garage at Johns Hopkins. Actually will probably be the last time we park in this garage-- the new Children's hospital part will be completed in April, so we'll be in a different building next time. Next appt-- Nov 13, 2013. :)

This is a beautiful view of the city-- and, if you look really closely, you can see a helicopter in the upper left of the pic. We saw several. It was a GORGEOUS day. Perfect day for our excursion.



While Claire and I did all the medical stuff, Chad and the other kids hung out in the Outpatient Center. Looks here like Micah was about to fall from the 7th floor!






We arrived at 10:30am, and left around 1pm. Girls had books along, and there are some toys/fish in the waiting room. Brought some food.






Claire was excited and a little nervous about the day. She wasn't very happy about the first blood pressure check or about the removal of the stickers after the EKG, but otherwise she was OK with everything. She enjoyed watching the Little Mermaid video while they did the echo-- they have the room dark and a warming pad on the bed so it's VERY comfortable. After the technician finished the echo, she did several BP checks on Claire's arm and leg, and Claire hardly even noticed that was happening.

Doctor's report-- everything looks super! She still has a slight narrowing of one valve and a leak in another... both things they've known about all along but decided they weren't worth fixing... both things that are "trivial", according to Dr. Thompson. The repair they did on her aorta still looks great, and he sees no reason why it should ever have a problem. Claire gave Dr. Thompson a picture she had drawn, and he really enjoyed it.




We went to the Inner Harbor for the afternoon. Claire LOVED the harbor. Kept commenting on how beautiful it was and wished she could live there, etc.









The weird erector set thing above is in front of the Science Center, where we spent maybe 3 hours. Fun place, and better because we almost had it to ourselves.











See how scared Claire and Micah are??















This was Micah's favorite part of the Science Center-- the ball rolling thing that you got to help control, and the balls made music as they hit bells and a xylophone, etc.

Claire said her favorite part was the planetarium. Perfect timing because just last week we had been talking about finding different constellations. This planetarium show was all about identifying the main constellations and planets we see.

This thing was fascinating-- I don't know if you can tell very well in the pic, but Katie's on one side and I'm on the other side of the glass. Depending on how you adjust the light, it acts as a mirror or a window... you can adjust it slowly to combine your faces. So, here, Katie is checking out how she'd look with my glasses and hair.

In this one, I'm checking out how I'd look with Katie's hair, sweatshirt, and earrings. I think I may get my ears pierced.

Claire tried out this comfy bed of nails.

Sorry to say, Jenna lost a hand to one of the dinosaurs there. There goes her piano playing future...



I think Jenna said her favorite part was the harp without strings-- used laser beams instead. And Katie's favorite part might have been the beach ball that was held above a blower by the changes in air pressure.

Micah is at a really great age to enjoy something like this. Plus, he's potty trained, so the rest of us enjoyed it, too! :) All day, even with 2 hours in the car each way, he stayed dry! Woo-hoo!

Another interesting fact about Micah on the car ride-- he read his entire Bible from cover to cover on the way to Baltimore. Probably took him more than a half hour. Went page by page (thick book, too), talking about each page. The other day when he was "reading" it, he picked out the word "Mommy", but mostly he just talks about the pics.

We saw the moon at dusk over the harbor, as we were leaving to get back to our van. Funny, that
parking garage didn't want to let us leave. We had a little trouble finding our way out and figuring out where to pay, etc. But, did they get our $20? Yes, they did. Man, I think for my retirement, I'm going to own a couple parking garages in Baltimore!

On the way home, we stopped at a Burger King, besides our other food, we had some free cones and a free chicken sandwich, so the meal was all the better. Made it home by 8:30 and everyone was very tired.

Something Important

And this is our most important news of all... Micah is finally potty trained! And we are all happy about it. :)

Fall Fun

Weird that we've already had some winter, and now it's time to rake leaves. Actually, there are

a lot of leaves on the ground, but there are still a lot in the trees, too.

Jenna's Handiwork

This is the cross stitch Jenna designed and made for Claire's birthday.

October Snow

Saturday we set records for the heaviest snowfall in October. Sure surprised us! According to records in Hagerstown, there were 3.7 inches. We felt like there was a bit more, but it was really hard to tell because it was so wet. Under the trees, there was hardly any accumulation-- the leaves held up so much snow and it just dripped underneath.

In this pic you can see the beginning of the snow-- and the beginning of the destruction of my flowers. Usually they might have lasted a few weeks longer...



This is what Chad did on his snowy day-- learned to make an omelet. You have to know that he makes almost nothing in the kitchen (does very good dishes and heats things up, but that's it), so the kids were all pretty amazed. And a little amused because I had to stop him from some potentially disasterous mistakes. :)









It turned out very well! Very tasty-- sausage and cheese.

In this pic, not only can you see me shoveling (really just pushing slush), but you can see how sad Micah's tree (small one in foreground) looks. Repeatedly during the day, we went out to knock the snow/slush off the small trees. Micah's and Jenna's definitely looked the worst, but they both perked up rather well after the almost 60 degree weather on Sunday. They look great again.

Here you can see Jenna's sad tree. We really were worried about it-- it's MUCH taller than that. Like nearly as tall as our house (and taller than the neighbor's house you see).

Now we have seen several trees and large branches down all over the area. We actually lost electricity for about an hour and it blinked off 5 or 6 other times, but we know several people in the area who still didn't have power last night (Mon). Some of them were being told it would be at least Wed. Some schools in the area cancelled yesterday. All the Washington County schools already had a day off, or they may have cancelled, too.

And this is how we dress during snow storms...

This is what Micah did...


Turned out to be a nice day of being at home, and we still were able to go out to Bob Evans (celebrating good report cards!) and to help set up chairs at church that evening. Because it was such a wet snow, the roads weren't bad at all. At least til morning, when some of the water had frozen.