*sigh* We did it. It may be a good 4 years since our last family photo, but at long last, we do have a family photo worthy of hanging on our wall. And photos of each child. And even a few photos with Grandma H.! Whew. Yes, Eve’s first portrait studio experience may be at the ripe old age of 2, but I’m just rollin’ with it. We do have lots of photos taken by yours truly, but to be honest, ever since I stopped using my “old-fashioned” SLR I’m not thrilled with most of the pictures I take. They just lack…something. At any rate… here we are! In all our glory. I’ve not posted ALL of them, but some of the better ones. And some of the worst. A HUGE thank you to Grandma Heiselt, without whom this was not possible!

The whole shoot took about 30 minutes and I think by the end every grown-up in the studio was exhausted! But the kids were happy, they had a good time (for the most part) and Grandma took them all 2 doors down for ice cream while Mom & Dad deliberated over the purchase. I was thrilled.

Here is my ultimate fave:

Much better. Though still my crazy kids.

This one is my favorite, actually.

This is one we ended up framing. I know. But Everyone’s so happy! I love it.

The boys. So SO handsome!! I love it. I told them just one day out of the year do they need to dress to please me, and comb their hair the way I like it. Every other day they can do what they want. Conan was okay with that. Some of the others had issues!

The photographer kept wanting to take the stuffed animals away at the last second for a “clear” photo. But seriously, can you beat that face?? Nah. Not worth a sobbing child picture. And this is SO her.

Neils cracks me up. He really REALLY wanted this cloud background. It looked a little odd with him just floating in space, so she added this little cloud pillow… umm… okay…. isn’t that usually for little baby cherub shots? *shrug* Neils loved it. He looks like he’s having a moment of deep thought.

Here’s my pick. In retrospect I should’ve had him take another one with a white background, but we were getting to the end of the shoot and Eve was getting out of hand, so we just went with it. He’s a handsome kid!

Burke was awesome. Sat so perfectly still with this calm, happy smile plastered on his face… you couldn’t even tell the difference from one take to the next. At all. He’s got this down.

Again the stuffed animal issue with the monkey here. Who cares if it’s not significant or symbolic…Wait… isn’t that a monkey? OK, well, either way. Happy faced kid? Two thumbs up.

Eve was a little live wire and would float around the picture taking place, plop down for a snap or two, walk around back behind the backdrop, giggling and laughing, plop back down for a snap or two, and run back around… she was hilarious! So, unfair, I know, but here are a few of her:

She picked her own props, though the boys insisted on the #2 block.

So sad her little nose has a sore from being runny & blowing it all week or this one would have made the wall. They couldn’t do touch-ups. I know! Crazy, right?

Just passing through…

Good smiles, but again, with the nose! So sad! I wish I’d thought to use make up. Ah well.

And this one’s my favorite. It’s just SO… Evangeline. Always on the move. Absolutely adorable.

There you have it folks. It was crazy, but worth it. At least my kids will now know from looking at our walls that they are important to me. *sigh* So in love. My family is the best.

And some awesome, but inconvenient projects like these:

We decided it was high time we re-do the Lego room. (Well, that and the Legos had to be confiscated due to a little incident with throwing the Legos out the window…) But “craft room”? That just sounded way too… Mom-ish. So Conan invented his own moniker:

Now we use that space to create all kinds of things! So much fun! It may be a constant disaster area, but I love finding Burke busily at work creating a dozen paper bag puppets; or Neils making paper airplanes for all the kids; or any number of creative projects that come out of that space! It’s awesome. Thanks, Conan.

Neils is such a joyful soul. He is enthusiastic about life, and I love that. He is starting to grow into his role as big brother, which is wonderful  when it means he finds ways to help and care for his siblings. Not so wonderful when it means he’s just plain bossy and rude to them, but he’s learning. I cannot believe just how grown up he is these days. He’s as tall as my shoulder, I can almost wear his shoes, and so much fun to talk to. He is loving Cub Scouts and earned his wolf last Wednesday. He went backpacking for the first time with his Dad and some friends this summer, which was awesome, but I’ll let Conan post about that.

I got to be at day camp with him a couple of days this year and it was a riot. They had a climbing wall, and those who got all the way to the top got to sign their names up there… Neils did it his second try and signed in cursive! He was so proud. He had a lot of firsts there, including bb gun shooting, and archery. By the end of the week he got a bullseye!

Neils LOVES electronics and his Dad is only too happy to help him along. He has a small R2D2 he’s been building since last year, and is closer to finishing it than ever. He likes to use Scratch to learn programming, and now that there is a programming language for arduino that mimics  it, we’re going to have to get him hooked up and watch that kid fly! I can’t wait to see what he comes up with once we show him how to put those things together.

Neils also LOVES watching and making movies. He LOVES to watch the “making of…” bonus features on any genre of film, and is always scheming a new method to try. He has an idea for a Lego-mation (similar to clay-mation) movie he wants to make. We just need to get him the right equipment to make that happen. He’s now officially taken over my old imac, and I’m happy to see him put it to good use. He is familiar with imovie, itunes, and garageband after only a few forays. It’s amazing to watch him progress! He also LOVES to read. I am SO happy to be able to say that!! His favorite books so far have been the Fablehaven series, and the Percy Jackson series.

We are very pragmatic when it comes to our children’s educations. We’ve decided to send Neils back to public school this year, and it’s been really good for him. He thrived at home when it was time for him to be home. Now that he’s in school, and in the right school for him, he’s doing wonderfully well. His teacher is very patient, and he loves her. He loves meeting new kids and is enjoying all the new friendships there. He’s excelling in Spelling and Math, and while Writing isn’t his favorite subject, (read as:  ”excruciating torture”) he still got a “B” on his first assignment, so I’d say he’s doing GREAT!

I am realizing, now that Neils and Burke are at school how overlooked my Keane Beane tends to get. His brothers are very vocal, thrive on attention, and are very good about asking for it in appropriate ways so I try to reward that by offering it when it’s asked for. Keane is my mellow child. The ONLY mellow child, I might add. So I am purposefully posting his next, when my first impulse was to post all about his big brother and his latest adventures. So here’s more about my little boy who is perfectly content to remain a little boy.

Keane is my most tender-hearted boy, which is really saying a lot since all of my boys are quite tender-hearted. He LOVES cute little animals and all the cute little Pokemon, and frequently chastises me for killing his “cute little pet fly,” and cannot understand why I don’t want him to leave food out for a cute little mousie, or any ants that may have wandered in. He loves his Mommy, and loves to be right by her side helping and snuggling and just being wherever she is. He loves to be silly, in fact I am not sure I have a single happy-faced, non-silly photo of that boy. He is a fantastic climber, and often gives the other moms at the park heart-attacks.

But I am quite used to it and I know he is careful and sure-footed and perfectly safe even in the highest perches.

He loves to do “stunts.” Here are some of his latest:

He cracks me up!

He is very smart and knows his alphabet and the sounds they make and is interested in building words. It’s so refreshing to have a child who WANTS to know this stuff! He loves to do “school” with me and will start a preschool co-op in a few weeks to help with classroom etiquette. I’m still in denial about him being in Kindergarten next year.

All that said, Keane loves to build and play legos, and sword fight and play video games and heroes.

That’s our Keane!

Burke has grown SO much this past year, in every way possible. He is much better at resolving conflicts in an appropriate manner. He knows that the more he does things that are hard, the better he will get at them. He can climb like nobody’s business. And he is really good at figuring out how things work.

Burke loves animals and babies, and is a loyal, protective big brother.  He loves helping his Mommy.

I love his imagination and how expressive he is. He is hilarious. I love that he loves to use big words, like “apparently,” and “frustrated.” He struggles with expressing himself sometimes, but when we had him evaluated for speech the pathologist said she was pretty picky and he still scored as having the vocabulary of an 8 year old.

I LOVE MY BURKE!

]]> http://conan.heiselt.org/blog/2010/08/26/all-about-burke/feed/ 2 http://conan.heiselt.org/blog/2010/08/23/pleasant-lake/ http://conan.heiselt.org/blog/2010/08/23/pleasant-lake/#comments Mon, 23 Aug 2010 20:08:23 +0000 melissa http://conan.heiselt.org/blog/?p=1337 Oh the happy industry of youth….

Yes, she is eating straight through the rind. The ones that are a little over-ripe in my opinion have nearly no skin at all and Eva just loves them!

Here’s our one meal (so far) that was all either from the garden or the pantry:

Yes, that is homemade artisan bread there on the table as well (more on that and other birthday gifts in another post!) and lovely fresh green beans in the skillet. *sigh* How I love fresh garden produce!

I have also been participating in the Gleaning Project with the Lansing Area Food Bank. It’s brilliant. Primarily MSU’s agriculture department, but also local area farms as well donate all (MSU) or a part of their produce to the local food bank. They still need people to come harvest the food, so we volunteers do that, and in exchange we get 10-20 pounds of the harvest that day. So far the efforts have ranged from green beans, to corn, to apples and occasionally peaches. This is great news for me as I am learning to can and am in need of vast quantities to make the effort at all worth it!

So far we’ve made these lovely green bean dill pickles, as well as 17 quarts and 9 pints of canned green beans.

And I really struggled to use up all these lovely fallen apples we gleaned from an MSU orchard. Since it was the first harvest we wanted to be sure as much as possible went to the banks, so the only take-homes were what we could pick up off the ground or fell as we were picking. Despite the enormous batch of apple butter that I burned and the fact that several jars of apple pie filling didn’t seal properly and one jar even broke in the process, we got lots of yummy use out of that produce that would have just been wasted on the orchard floor. My favorites: 1 pie already eaten, 1 huge batch of apple crisp currently being enjoyed, and 1 in the freezer.

Needless to say, she’s grown quite a bit since then… sheesh.

How ’bout this instead?

She got into a marker (where the heck does she keep finding those!!??) and watercolors.

The world is her canvas, apparently.

That’s our Evangeline.

Hi all.  We’re working on a new company but need a name.  From our list of over 30 ideas, we’ve narrowed it down a bit and need some feedback.

Could you take 5 minutes and tell us which ones you like most (and why)?

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/344835/Help-us-choose-a-company-name

Thanks!