10 year anniversary

We celebrated our 10 year anniversary by having a kids free day. We went to pittsburgh and saw the Hobbit in 3d, then we went to Chili's for dinner and discussed the past 10 years and the next 10 years. We made it home to put the kids to bed and then relaxed on the couch with the fire going. A great day and a great 10 years.

Nash family Christmas card

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Something is wrong here.

Christmas Eve

First Christmas

Sugar cookies

A buck!

Joe has been very busy at work and hasn't been out hunting too much. Today was the last day and we had a lot going on with swimming lessons and then I have a shower to go to tonight, so he wasn't going to go out. I took the dogs for a walk after swimming and heard four shots. So we went in and I told joe and he decided to take a stroll. In less than 10 minutes I heard a shot, and shortly thereafter he comes home with this 6 point. The boys seemed to like it, and we're asking many questions. They are currently on their way to donate the meat to a food pantry.

Graham and Madison

In trying to figure out who Madison looks like I stumbled across this picture of Graham.  They look very similiar and Madison likes to eat her hands just like Graham did.  Graham weighed 16 lb at his 4 month check up and Madison weighed 14 lb 9 oz.  It appears that she may be taking after her middle brother.

Boys Christmas tree

We put up a second tree this year. The boys have too many ornaments and with 4 kids if every child gets one or two ornaments each year we get a huge amount. So we put the tree upstairs in the loft. They helped arrange the branches. We put lightening McQueen as our train around then tree. Today after church we divided the ornaments into a pile for each boy. They were then allowed to put them where they wanted to. As you can see no ornament is above 3 ft tall. They all put them in their own section of the tree. Eli's is on the other side of the tree. We haven't found a star yet for the top as I bought one that was to heavy and it toppled over. So we will try again.

Happy thanksgiving

Legoland

Playing in water

Check on your child

I learned a very important lesson today. If your child has been in the bathroom for what seems like a very, very long time. Check on him and the toilet prior to having him flush the toilet. Luckily my son doesn't always like the sound of the toilet flushing so he came out to ask me if it would be loud. I could then check the toilet and realize that wasn't going anywhere. But with a little help from a bucket and rubber gloves, and 4 flushes later a major disaster was avoided. A new roll of toilet paper was needed, not sure what it looked like when this all started!

He got it

Eli and the nail

Last night I was at a birthday party for a friend and I got a phone call from joe. His words "we have a situation"

The situation was the question if Eli swallowed a nail or not.

Eli was sleeping in the boys room as he has been the last few nights. Somehow they were playing and knocked one of the small shelves off the wall, and exposed some nails that were holding the shelf up.

All joe heard was a blood piercing scream and Luke yell "it is am emergency" so he flies up the steps. It wasn't Eli screaming but Luke and graham saying Eli had swallowed a nail.

Joe turns to Eli and says did you swallow a nail, he opens his mouth.

Joe tries to find nails and finds 3- one in Eli's bed, one in the wall, and one outside the door. There was still a nail in the wall, so we think they are all accounted for.

However we try to logically figure this out. The boys don't usually do blood piercing screams. They may scream to get our attention if we aren't in the same room but not blood piercing. Why would Eli keep opening his mouth or say " mouth" when asked where the nail was? Was the one in his bed the one he was playing with or is there another?

So I decided to play it safe since the holidays are coming up and go to the ER. Everytime he was asked about the nail he would open his mouth.

After about an hour and a half it was determined he did swallow the nail and it was in his tummy! So we are just waiting and seeing and praying it will pass on its own!

4 months old

Madison is a few days shy of 4 months old. She is a happy girl most of the time unless she is tired, then she screams to be laid down to go to sleep. She enjoys being talked to and blowing bubbles! She also loves sticking things in her mouth including her fingers or a toy. She is making some cooing noises. She loves to sleep mostly thru the night, maybe getting up once. Her brothers have enjoyed talking to her and showing her the things they have built or colored.

Madison

Now that Madison will make noises at you when you talk to her, they boys like her a lot better. They want her to see the picture they are coloring, to take her for a ride on their back, to give her hugs an kisses, to sit by her, etc. here is Eli sitting on his Thomas chair and wanting Madison next to him.

Halloween

We had a cold and wet Halloween. Our neighbors met at the circle and passed out candy to each other, which was great to see everyone. Eli only got scared once which was pretty good! Madison stayed in her car seat in the car instead of in the rain! Our kings had no worthy opponents to fight, but they tried to battle folks!!

At the table

Finally I get to join the table instead of being stuck in the bouncer seat on the floor! Now is only they will start giving me food. . .

What a ham.

The babies of the family are supposed to be clowns and always wanting to get a laugh. The way they try to get attention away from the older, more serious ones. Well no one informed Eli that he isn't the baby anyway, as his first question is always "funny mommy" meaning am I funny, or he says "I'm silly" a lot!

Pumpkins

Mess free pumpkin decorating!!!! What a great idea and fun at grandma and grandpa's!!

Sleeping

Someone fell asleep while watching me fold clothes! I guess it wasn't entertaining enough!!

Soccer

Luke has one more game left in soccer! Despite not wanting to play at first he has become quite the little soccer player. He is very aggressive on offensive, going after the ball when on offense ad driving it towards the goal! Last week he had about 7 open shots on goal and missed them all either because he over shot, misses kicking the ball totally, or just kicked it out of bounds. Last night was different: he had 3 good shots on goal and made them all!! So he got his first hat trick!! One more game, parents v kids!!!

Colors

Luke wasn't really into coloring a whole lot prior to starting school.  He colored a little in pre-school, but he never sat at home for longer than 10 mins at home coloring.  Something has changed as that is now his favorite activity.  He has a ziplock bag with his special crayons( a pack he got from preschool).  That he keeps separate from our crayon container.  The other day he broke a crayon and wanted to sharpen it like you would do a pencil.  So the next time I went to the store I came home with the gigantic 64 pack of crayons with the pencil sharpener.  The coolest thing when I was a kid, as you got 5 shades or so of each color with cool names like periwinkle, burnt sienna, and Granny Smith green.  So he starts using the colors to color things and he says mom I need a blue.  So I look it he box and pull out all the shades of blue: light blue, periwinkle, robins egg blue, turquoise blue, and blue just to name a few.  He looks at them and says which one is blue, I said they are all blue. He says no, b-l-u-e.  then he proceeds to pick up each crayon and find the one the just has blue as a color.  He doesn't want the fancy color, just straight blue.  So I could have saved myself 3.30 if they just sold a crayon sharpener, but instead I have 8 crayons he will use (the basic colors) and 56 he won't!!!  Which is why we had 3 more kids because they will use them!  Graham likes the weird colors like melon and sea green!   Eli is more into markers currently and tries to see which has more marker, his hands (or other body parts) or the table!

Mini golf

Part of your admission to Dutch Wonderland was a free minigolf game.  Our Aunt Ann, Uncle Dave, and cousin James met us at mini golf, and we had 5 free games, so we shared some golf as the grown ups talked.  We then headed to Texas Roadhouse and had a good time eating and talking before going back to the hotel to go swimming and catch-up on each other's lives.  The boys enjoyed playing with Bubba , (James).  It was also the first time Madison has met that side of the family. 

Lancaster

 We traveled to Lancaster this weekend.  The main reason was to go to Sight and Sound to see Jonah, which was awesome and is highly recommended if you have the time!!!   Also we planned on going this weekend, because Thomas the Train was in town and is only there a few times a year.  Being the good Mom that I am, I figured let's go on a Friday, it will be less crowded, since I am off on Maternity leave, I can go whenever.  I forgot however, that Luke would have school!!  So his perfect attendance is ruined, but he didn't seem to mind.  The next reason was to eat at Isaac's Deli!!  Wonderful restaurant with Pretzel Rolls, again if you get to Central, PA you have to try their sandwiches!!!.  Lastly, we were going to go to Dutch Wonderland, a kid friendly amusement park.  We had a great time doing all these things.  The boys enjoyed Thomas and seeing him. They also enjoyed Dutch Wonderland.
                                                                                                                                                                                          
 

 The most memorable time for all has to be the Tilt a Turtle.  If anyone is a fan of the Tilt a Whirl, they would enjoy the tilt a Turtle.  Everyone wanted to go on it, well no one objected I should say.  If there are any Amusement park fans out there, they know that weight plays a good bit on the Tilt a Whirl and how good of a Tilt you have.  Well Graham just picked our Turtle out and Erin and I got in with Graham and Eli.  We were not trying to make it spin, despite Joe thinking that was the case.  But we must have had the weight just right with 2 little ones in the middle and us on the ends, because we were spinning very, very fast at times.  Eli started off by saying "I no like that", that shortly turned into all out screaming--AGHAGHAHGAGHAGH (which could be heard from miles around).  We were going so fast at one point, that he couldn't even scream because it just took the air out of him.  Erin and I were trying to be sympathetic, but there is nothing you can do, so we laughed.  I kept trying to reassure him, but I don't think he believed me as we kept going around and around and around.  Needless to say, Eli didn't go on that again, but Graham went back on it again!!!

 

Our Visitors

We had some visitors this past week.  Matt and Becky Preece came and spent a week with us as they are traveling around the US as missionaries. Becky was my friend from Texas and then went to Papua New Guinea after residency with Samaritan's Purse to serve as a Missionary there.  It was in PNG that she met Matt, a Mission Aviation Fellowship engineer.  They have been married about 11 months.

They are taking time in the US to travel around and see supporters, friends and family.  They got to experience life in the Nash household with 3 very active boys.  I don't think they were used to the 6 am wake ups (but we tried to keep them quiet and made up the whisper game!!)  Graham became Matt's buddy and was often found sitting in his lap as Matt did various things on his laptop-checking emails, playing a star wars game, watching his MAF videos.  Becky enjoyed the boys as well, but she had met them before.  After about 4 days we headed to Lancaster, PA.  We saw Jonah as the Sight and Sound Theatre, ate at Isaac's Deli, went to Dutch Wonderland, and then ate at the Texas Roadhouse.  Matt even got to go to his first MLB game, Brewers vs. Pirates.  All in all they had a good week with us.  They are off now for the rest of their east-west tour.

Washing Machine

About 2 weeks ago Erin mentioned seeing a water spot on her ceiling in her room downstairs.  We did some exploring and didn't find any source, just lots of pipes up above that went to the laundry room and bathroom.  Last Friday, I was doing laundry and when it was done I noticed that the machine hadn't emptied.  So I put it back on the spin cycle and we went to get Luke off the bus.  I didn't think about it until after dinner, and I checked and sure enough still water.  So I hit the spin button again and then went and n the washing got the kids ready for bed and came back, still water.  Not good.  So I decide to run the washing machine again without clothes in it to see if it will drain.  NOPE.  I send Joe downstairs to check Erin's room to see if there is any problems, and sure enough about 3 ceiling tiles were soaked with water.  We moved the dryer and washing machine away and found lots of water on the floor, but don't know where it is coming from.  So after cleaning up the water, getting the wet ceiling tiles down and putting plastic and storage bins under the pipes downstairs, we went to bed with visions of either a) having to call a plumber and fix the broken pipe, 2) having to buy a new washing machine, or 3) both.  Saturday was the day Joe ran in the 5k race and got 8th place (way to GO!!!), and then were was a festival in our town that the kids enjoyed.  So after getting the kids to nap, we went and saw that the floor was dry, there was no leaks from the pipes after running water down all the pipes.  So it had to be the washing machine.  Joe figured out it was a problem with the water pump (pumps water out of the washing machine). However, you  have to order this part and can't run to Lowe's and get it.  So we did some laundry at a friends house, and prayed the part would come and would solve the problem.  The water pump arrived on Tuesday, and while Joe was at work we had a Missionary Engineer who happened to be staying with us for the week put in the part, and it worked!!!!  So we have been doing laundry like crazy to get caught up before our trip to see Jonah and Thomas this weekend!!! 

Jonah