1st Visit with Santa

When we arrived on Saturday in Arizona my Mom and Brother took the kids with them down to Tucson for two days so Chris and I could have some quiet time away from them. One of the adventures my mom had planned was to take the kids to see Santa. Jake is nearly 7 years old, Brenden nearly 5, and Rylan 16 months and this would be the 1st visit for ALL of the Eby children to see Santa at the mall - GASP! I know everyone takes their kids to see Santa every year and I've seen tons of the cute baby photos where the kid is screaming in terror on Santa's lap. As cute as all of this is I have never had the desire to partake in this holiday tradition. And quite frankly the kids have never asked. In there defense, they may not have known until now this was possible. Its just that I hate the mall at Christmas and avoid it all costs. I have found that I prefer to do most of my Christmas shopping online. Now I'm not a completely awful mother, the boys have had Santa come to their preschool to give them books so its not like they were in some state of shock to see a Santa at the mall. I was told the adventure went well, they got to do some clothes shopping to keep them distracted while Uncle Chris waited in the long line. Now to see if this will become a new tradition or if they'll simply forget about it next year, fingers crossed its the latter ;)

We are having a wonderful time out here in Arizona and hope that everyone has a safe and happy holiday!

Merry Christmas!

Craziness x4

Remember in August when I was sad that Rylan was turning one and there would be no more babies? Well, the Universe this fall said SURPRISE! in a big, big way. That's right folks, Eby baby #4 will be arriving sometime this summer. The official due date is July 10th, but so far all of the kids have been early, Jake 10 days, Brenden 14 days, and Rylan 19 days, so this one could easily be a June baby. Of course Chris is already trying to madden me by telling me this is the one that is going to go past its due date, not sure if I'll be able to handle that. No matter, there will be a baby this summer!

So far everything has been going well. Hormone levels early on rose as they should and an ultrasound at 8 weeks revealed our newest peanut. This pregnancy has reminded me more of Jake and Brenden's than Rylan's. I have been super tired, TONS of cravings already - especially salty or spicy foods, only a little nausea which has already gone away for the most part, and the hair is already getting super thick. According to old wives tales it appears to be another boy, which is what I think. The Chinese gender predictor chart has predicted a girl - both boys were predicted to be girls and Rylan was predicted to be a boy - so to me that also suggests boy. We should be able to find out for sure sometime in February at the 18-20 week ultrasound.

This obviously came as a bit of shock to us, but we are thrilled none the less. The kids are all excited, well Rylan not so much since she doesn't quite understand yet :) We have told our families and are slowly leaking the news to friends. With this being my 4th the pooch is already in full swing so its going to be pretty hard to hide soon. Officially I am 11 weeks 3 days and I look closer to 4-5 months, how quickly the body remembers! I'll try my best to keep people updated throughout the pregnancy.

The Craziness that is The Eby Family is about to go up a notch!

Thanksgiving

I've hijacked Chris's computer again, this time to bring you the highlights from Thanksgiving.

This year we would host our first Thanksgiving. Since being married we have either done Thanksgiving at Chris's parents or at my mom's house. Not this year, with our crazy life we decided we really didn't want to go anywhere so we invited Chris's family - Pete, Ginger, Meredith, Todd, and Dylan.

Now I've made a Turkey before, but only once, so I had been chatting/emailing with my mom for a few weeks to make sure that I would have everything I needed and for all of her helpful hints to make sure the Turkey and fixings turned out just right. And I have to say, between the two of us I cooked one heck of a good meal - Thanks again mom! Ginger and Meredith also brought lots of goodies to add to the feast and all credit goes to Ginger for the gravy - I'm not a gravy person at all and figured I'd just screw it up. It was a wonderful meal created by a wonderful family from near and far :)

Everyone arrived in the afternoon a couple of hours before dinner time so the kids had lots of time to play and the adults had lots of time to catch up. The boys - Jake, Brenden, and Dylan - had lots of fun playing and it looks like they'll be creating all sorts of mischief for years to come. Even though Rylan is the only girl - for now, hopefully Meredith will be changing this - she was happy to be chasing the boys and had fun "reading" books with Dylan. It was a lot of fun to watch all of the kids together since it's not often they're all together.

Peter, Ginger, Meredith, Todd, and Dylan stayed the night at a nearby hotel and we all met for breakfast the next morning. It was a short, but very nice visit. Since we're moving and have a lot going on next year it'll probably be at least a couple of years before we host again, but I look forward to it! Hope everyone else had a happy and safe thanksgiving!

I'm back...sort of

Well I didn't get a new computer when Chris went to Cleveland, but Chris is out of town right now and left me his so I'm hijacking it and putting up a new post finally :)

Where to begin, where to begin... I guess I'll go to my camera and see what I can recall from the pictures I took.

Jenny's Market - Well I've always seen everyone's pictures of their kids in a pumpkin patch and so I thought maybe I should get in the action, this would mean I would actually have to GO to a pumpkin patch. Anyway, we needed to get out of our house for a few hours a couple of weeks before Halloween so we decided to take the kids to Jenny's Market to pick out pumpkins. We had and ok time. Actually, everyone except Brenden had a nice time and Brenden didn't like the smell from the animals so he was pretty grouchy until the very end when we got some cider. Both boys chose one pumpkin each and Chris and I decided that would be enough since we have to do the majority of the carving still. All in all a successful trip to the market and I finally got some pictures of the kids among pumpkins!

Two peas in a pod - Lately Rylan and Brenden have been doing some bonding. Since Jake is in school everyday, its just Brenden and Rylan together on Tuesday and Thursday when Brenden isn't at DK. Its been quite interesting to watch. I see a lot of similarities in the way Brenden and Jake used to interact when Brenden was one. There is a lot of copying by Rylan and a lot of not sharing and taking things from Rylan by Brenden. Overall, I think they get along pretty well and I think that when they are older they will likely be good friends as they are both complete goofs.

Tomboy - Every time I let Rylan outside the first thing she goes for is the hockey sticks in the garage. She's also a fan of the soccer balls and just running after the boys. She may not end up a total tomboy, but she'll certainly be able to hang with the boys whenever she needs to.

Halloween - I honestly don't know why kids go trick or treating any more. Both boys came home from school with FULL bags of candy and other goodies! Its unbelievable. Anyway, I guess a lot of the fun is getting dressed up and running around like a bunch of crazies with your friends in your neighborhood, which also decribes an average Wednesday or any other day around here :) The boys decided this year to be Transformers again. Jake would be Ironhide, which was a new one for him, and Brenden would be Optimus Prime for the 2nd year in a row. Unlike last year though, Brenden was quite willing to wear his Optimus mask for my pictures and trick or treating. I did not dress Rylan up in a costume, but I did have a Halloween onesie for her that my mom had sent. I know a lot of parents dress up their infant/toddler kids, but is my feeling that they need to be able to ask before I will spend the money and/or have the fight to get the costume on, you can think that's mean or wrong or whatever, but that's the way we roll around here. The boys had a lot of fun in the neighborhood and came home with more than enough candy and Rylan and I had a nice time handing out candy to the kids that came to our house. Another successful Halloween with enough candy to last us months once again!

Michigan Ladies - Now that the boys are older and pick out there clothes on their own I can rarely, if ever, get them to wear their Michigan gear on game days. Generally it only happens when they get to go to the games. But Rylan on the other hand, she still lets me pick her clothes out so its Michigan gear on game days! I decided this week I would pull out the jersey in honor of the 1st Michigan/Nebraska game as Big Ten opponents, and I have to say she made it look good!

So that's it for the pictures, but here's the other stuff:

Brenden is doing great in DK. Chris had his parent/teacher conference last week and the teacher had a glowing report. He is doing very good at learning to write/spell his name and has made a lot of friends. He only had a couple of areas to work on, like counting, but all in all he was exactly where he needs to be in order to be ready for Kindergarten in the fall. His teacher also noted how different Brenden was from Jake since she had Jake a couple of years ago. We already knew that, but its always funny to hear how surprised people are by how different they are :)

Jake has been doing well in school. He had a very good stretch of 2+ weeks of not missing recess for getting in trouble. That of course changed last week with him missing it 3 days in a row, but I'm trying to focus on the positive. We have his conference on Monday and I expect an overall good report with any issues being related to listening and being disruptive. He seems to be doing really well with his reading and math skills, he can read an entire book by himself, so I would be surprised if there were any academic issues, but who knows there's almost always a surprise or twist when Jake is involved ;)

Rylan is a nut. She may very well be the craziest of all the Eby kids. She is really enjoying life and growing like a weed. We have her 15th month check up on Monday so we'll see how she's doing in the stat department. She's not talking quite yet. She's trying to parrot us and does have a few signs, but its pretty hard to understand what she's saying still. I don't think she will be delayed as Brenden because she seems more interested in talking, but I think it'll still be a bit before we can really understand what she's trying to say. She does understand almost everything we tell her or ask her which is helping to reduce the tantrums and frustrations on both our parts.

Chris and I are pretty boring. He works and I coach. Right now he's in Hilton Head for a wedding for one of his cousins. Next week we'll be hosting Thanksgiving with Chris's parents and his sister and her family. Chris has a lot of work/travel over the next few weeks and then we'll all head out to Arizona to spend 10 days with my mom and brother for Christmas - SO excited for warm weather!

Nothing new to report on the moving situation. We have had A LOT of showings and some interest, but alas no offers. I'm hoping something will happen early in the new year, but I'm not holding my breath....

Computer problems

So a few weeks ago we had a random power outage and when we finally got power back the computer wouldn't turn on. Chris took it in to be looked at, but no luck. The computer was too old to be saved without spending about the same as a new computer would be. So I have been without a computer except for using Chris's at night.

So I have lots of great pictures and stuff to share, but I have to wait until we get a new computer before I can put it all up. Chris is going to Cleveland soon and they have some old computers in his office there so hopefully one of those will work for us until we can figure something else out.

Until then I'll leave you with this, we took the kids to Jenny's Market a few weeks ago to get pumpkins to carve and other yummy treats and the boys were Transformers (again) for Halloween and Rylan was her cute self :) As soon as I can I will post pictures and more!

Big House Big Heart Run

A few years ago after my Dad's law partner was diagnosed with ALS and my Dad decided to start a race, The Big House Big Heart, to help raise money for ALS research. The first race was held in 2007 just weeks after my dad's partner passed away. It has been going strong and even grown over the past 4 years. It originally began as just a 1 mile fun run with the finish line being the 50 yard line of Michigan Stadium (The Big House) and 2 years ago they expanded the race to add a 10k and 5k race that also finishes on the stadium field.

2 years ago I ran the 10k with my friend Linsey. It was my first race ever. It was a bit of a struggle, but the feeling of accomplishment at the end was worth all of the pain. I didn't run last year because I had just had Rylan 6 weeks earlier. And this year Linsey and I decided to do the race again, but we would do the 5k so that Linsey's daughter, Eilan, could run with us. Chris was going to be out of town on race day so I decided to run with Rylan in the jogging stroller as well. So it was Me, Linsey, and our daughters to run a 5k.

The race was this past weekend and it went great. We had beautiful weather for the race, I think it was around 65 degrees at the race start. Eilan did great, she ran over half of the 5k with only a few walking breaks, pretty impressive for a 6 year old! The race was much easier for me this time as well. I'm sure I owe most of that to running while I was pregnant with Rylan.

After the race I met up with the boys and my dad to run/walk the 1 mile fun run. The boys have done this for the past 3 years. Last year Chris took them down and did the 1 mile race with the boys, my brother, and my dad. This year Jake and my dad ran together and Brenden, Rylan, and I ran/walked together. Jake and my dad crossed the finish line first and then came back to run through it again with Brenden, Rylan, and me.

It was all a lot of fun and I hope to be able to come back after we move to do it again. And maybe next year Jake can run the 5k too!

Fall Funk

So I know I usually use this blog to post about the kids and family and how we're all doing here in Michigan, but I need a bit of an outlet right now and I'm going to do it here. I'm in a fall funk and I don't know what else to do.

Last week we thought we were going to get an offer on the house. Our Realtor called us to find out if we'd be able to do a 30 day turn around on our house and that we were the top of the list for the interested buyers. As you can imagine, this caused quite a stir for us. Could we do a 30 day turn around? We could, but it would mean a lot of work to get it done. I would need to go down to Cincinnati ASAP to find a house, we would have to pack and move 3 kids, I would need to get Jake out of school here and registered down there, etc, etc. Our agent told us that the buyers had one more house to see and then would make an offer on our house or the final house they were to look at. Well, they went with the other house and now I'm in a funk.

I was in a bit of a funk before all of that, but the ups and downs of the possibility of it all sent me over the edge. I don't know if its not working as much, not knowing when this move will happen, not having any "me" time, or what. Most likely, its just a combination of it all. I love fall, but for some reason this funk likes to pop up pretty regularly this time of year. And for some reason it is a lot worse this year.

For a lot of years this was the way it was. Fall would roll around and my depression would get worse - for those of you that don't know I suffered from depression for years and was on and off meds for about 7 years for it. Once I had finally decided to take control of my life in 2002 by leaving school and moving back to Michigan, I finally started to really understand myself and how to deal much better. I didn't need meds anymore and for the first time in years there was no fall funk. Sure I've had moments of it popping up, but nothing even close to what I had gone through in the past. But this year? This year it seems to be rearing its ugly head in an almost forgotten way.

The unknown doesn't sit well with me and being in limbo is even worse. And right now I'm dealing with both and I don't like it. I really wish I knew when this move would happen. And I wish I knew what I was going to do once we do move. I know it will all work out the way its supposed to, but I'm having a hard time keeping that thought in the front of my mind as this drags out longer and longer.