Welcome little Ryan Joseph

Ryan Joseph Burkhart was born on October 17 at 3:29 pm, weighing 8 lbs 10 oz.  We are so thrilled to have him with us - what a blessing he is!

Time to get him out!  5 days late...

Just born... and finally breathing after a very tight cord wrapped around his neck!

I'm not so sure about all this!

A few hours old and he gets a visit from his big brothers and sister and nana!

Old enough to hold him all on her own... wow!

Pierce is so proud!

Grant kept saying, "New baby!  Hi, baby Ryan!"

First car ride - on the way home.

Nothing better than a newborn snuggle.

 

 

 

Fall Fun!

Last weekend we were lucky enough to have perfect fall weather.  We took advantage of it by spending the entire weekend outside - in the back yard, on the back porch, on the soccer field, down by the river, at the park, and so on.  On top of the great weather, we really had no house or yard work to do and no social commitments.  It was so invigorating and relaxing to just enjoy time together as a family and enjoy the beginning of fall!  Great way to rejuvenate before baby boy arrives and wipes us all out!!! :)

We painted pumpkins on the back porch.  Great messy fun!  Grant went the abstract route, Pierce stayed true to his passion for superheroes and Sydney went coordinated, girly, and symmetrical.  All three perfectly predictable and perfectly age-appropriate! Ha!  The kids had a blast and it was a good reminder to me that I need to get the paints out more often - its been too long since I let them get really messy and paint.

For a year now, I have been taking each of the two older kids on a "special outing" once a month (they alternate months).  This month was Sydney's turn and with baby due this Sunday, I decided we'd better squeeze her outing in before the due date.  We went downtown to the Wilmington Tea Room for tea.  The restaurant sits right on the river and we seriously lucked out with the weather.  We enjoyed a full service tea out on the boardwalk overlooking the river, the boats and all the passers-by from this weekend's Riverfest.  She (and I) loved it!  What a fun treat and memory for both of us. If you are in Wilmington and have a daughter I highly recommend it.  It's not particularly cheap, but for a once a year outing, it is so fun.

Hopefully my next post will include pictures of an adorable baby boy.  In spite of the full moon and lunar eclipse I did not go into labor last night!

Happy fall, ya'll!! :)

Teacher Workday

We are enjoying some seriously fabulous early fall weather right now.  The kids had a teacher workday today, so we spent the morning at the park and the late afternoon at the beach.  It was really delightful.  When I suggested we hit the beach this afternoon after nap I got the usual push-back from Sydney and Pierce, "I don't want to go to the beach!"  "Do we have to?"  This totally cracks me up.  It is a perfect fall day and we are lucky enough to live 10 minutes from the beach and the kids don't want to go.  Well, as ALWAYS, once we got there, I heard no complaints, and all the kids played in perfect contentment until I told them we HAD to leave to get home and start dinner.  "Do we HAVE to?  Already?"  They are so predictable.

Cousin Addison and Nana joined us and made the adventure that much more fun.  Life is good.

Sydney found a hardened piece of sand in the perfect shape of a heart!

 

 

A little game of soccer with Nana before heading home for dinner.

Progress

Since we moved in to our new house in November, we have been slowly but surely making progress on all the many little projects that remained unfinished.  Brett spent a lot of time this winter building closets, and most recently bookcases in our “library.”  We’ve been slowly purchasing light fixtures and hardware that weren’t done in the original remodel.  We’ve been trying to hang some pictures, buy rugs, and make the house look and function the way we like.  It’s a journey.  And in my experience, a house is never really “done,” so I’m not holding my breath for this place to be perfect or finished anytime soon, if ever!  That’s ok.  It’s fun to have a project and to try new ideas.  After reading “The Nesting Place,” I did some major furniture rearranging and picture hanging.  Lots was accomplished by just working with what I already had.  Anyway, here are a few of the little and not-so-little things we have accomplished.

First of all, I realized I never posted pictures of our completed master bath (which has been done for 9 months). The only thing STILL missing is hand towel hangers.  I know, this is a totally ridiculous thing to have not yet purchased or installed, and I have no real valid excuse.  But, I’m picky and have very little time to shop, so I’ll buy the right ones when I find them!  Otherwise, we love the bath.  It is clean, classic, functional and the materials are good quality and should stand the test of time.  The bathroom was already a great size and layout with three really great skylights, so all we did was update.  It cost a lot more than I had predicted (of all the projects, this is the one where my estimate was the furthest from accurate!).

The tub is by Victoria and Albert; the vanity was built by our local cabinet makers (who are awesome!) at the Artisan Studio; the faucets are Moen; the mirrors and sconces are from Lowes (or Home Depot – I can’t remember!); the counter-top is Carrera marble.

Pierce and Grant’s closet turned out great!  Plenty of room for two boys to share for years to come.

 

Brett built a fabulous set of bookshelves in the room we are now calling the library.  It is what most people would call the “formal living room” and we had so many names for this room since we moved in, but have now settled on the “library” since it is full of all our books.  We wanted it to be the opposite of a “formal” living room.  We wanted to use that square footage daily, get it messy, live in it, enjoy it - NOT walk by it daily and dust it once a month.  So far, mission successful.  The kids love to go in there and read or play and now that we have a piano we are babysitting for a friend who has no room for it at her house, they enjoy playing music pretty regularly.  This picture was taken on the day I got to unpack all our books that had been in storage for over a year and the kids were “helping” me organize and shelve the books.  They were somewhat helpful, but really they just wanted to read all their books.  The bookshelf is still missing the top board, so I’ll post another picture when it is complete. 

 

We also recently bought a small settee for the library from World Market.  I got it for a great deal on sale and with a coupon (and there is no need to ever buy anything from World Market full price, because everything goes on sale eventually and they often have decent coupons).  It is big enough for me to read to all three kids at once, or perfect for a single reader to stretch out and put his or her feet up.  I walked by the other day and caught Sydney and Molly moving in to the space!  So funny!

 

In other news, we finally hung a light in our breakfast nook after almost a year of just a single light bulb screwed into the ceiling (for the exact same reasons that I have not yet purchased hand towel hangers in our master bath!)

 

I also had a small victory over a charming little dresser that I’ve had since I was a little girl (that came to me from my grandmother).  I’ve always disliked the knobs on this dresser (and there were 12 of them on a very small piece of furniture).  Actually, there were supposed to be 12, but 2 were missing and 1 was broken (and had been for who knows how many years!), and the dresser looked like such a mess with all those missing knobs.  It has always bothered me, but I guess for those same reasons I haven’t bought hand towel holders yet, I just hadn’t gotten around to getting the right knobs for the piece.  And with 12 knobs, I know it could get expensive quickly. Well, I read an article in a home decorating magazine about using sisal rope as drawer pulls.  So I copied their instructions, spent $5 at Lowes on the sisal rope and transformed this dresser.  I love the result and it cost almost nothing.  The boys have a much easier time opening the drawers now (which house many of their little cars and trucks).  Success!

 

We have lots of other little projects in the works (and are praying to get a handful of them done before baby #4 arrives in October).  I’ll post pictures as we complete some of them.

Great Reads

As a family we are trying to read 100 books this summer (with Sydney carrying the bulk of the weight on that goal, I have to admit!).  As part of my contribution to our goal, I have read two really great books lately.  Again, both nonfiction.  I seem to read a lot of nonfiction, but for now that is what I am enjoying.  The first is called “French Kids Eat Everything” by Karen Le Billon.

This book is awesome!  I have actually read it before, but enjoy rereading books.  The book follows one family’s year in France and how the mother (and author of the book) learned the French secrets for raising kids of healthy weights with excellent table manners and an open-minded willingness to try just about any food, as well as an ability to appreciate, savor and enjoy all kinds of food – not just junk.  After living in France, I have witnessed many of the same differences she outlines between French and American children and their relationships with food (and the differences are EXTREME).   The book breaks down the formula for healthy French eating habits and for raising kids with lifelong healthy food relationships.  If you are struggling with “picky” eating or with bad table manners, with constant demands for snacks, or a general refusal to try new textures and flavors in your house, read this!  You will be so glad you did.  Even if you only implement a few of the 10 basic “rules” she outlines that are the key to French eating, you will see big changes.  Although our family already eats a lot like the French, there are a few areas where I had sort of forgotten some of the tricks.  Rereading this book and implementing a few changes has improved my kids’ attitudes and our overall dinner experience as a family in just one week.  [As a side note... do not be fooled by the author's last name.  She is an Anglophone Canadian married to a Frenchman.  She was raised with horrible North American eating habits, and her year in France was truly an eye-opening, educational experience.  Reading from the perspective of a North American probably makes this book more relatable to the average American reader because the author can understand our own struggles with implementing healthy eating because of the way we were raised and the way our culture relates to food.]

 

The other book I wanted to share is called “The Nesting Place” by Myquillyn Smith.  It is a home decorating book (although when you go to look for it at Barnes and Noble, be warned it is not in the home décor section, it’s in the “inspired living/Christian” section! – I almost left without it because I couldn’t find it!  And, if you’re in no rush, it’s $5 cheaper on Amazon.  This is a newly released book, so it may be tough to find at your local library…)  From a decorating perspective, the book has some great suggestions for creatively using what you already have, being ok with your house not being “perfect,” shopping secondhand for furniture, and rethinking purposes for rooms, furniture pieces, etc.  She tells her own life story of moving 14 times (!), and of many years of being a renter when she really wanted to be a homeowner.  Her story is inspiring, and she does a great job of reminding readers to embrace where you live and make your current house your “home” even if it is not your dream home.  By placing contentment and gratitude far above visual or organizational perfection, we free ourselves to love our homes and the lives that take place inside that structure in spite of the inevitable imperfections that will always exist for those of us not living in a home being photographed for a home décor magazine (that would be just about all of us!).  She encourages readers to stop waiting for that “dream home” and start enjoying and decorating our current homes.  Her tips are very budget conscious and practical.  “The Nesting Place” is a fun read because it is partly an interesting personal story, partly very practical decorating advice.

Let me know if you try either of these books and enjoy them!  I need a few more to hit my goal, so if anyone has a book suggestion for me, PLEASE leave comment!  I'm looking for another good one to enjoy!

Update

I haven’t blogged in a long time for numerous reasons…mainly because I tried this crazy thing called working last semester.  With three young children to care for, teaching three undergraduate courses, and the queasiness and exhaustion that go with first trimester pregnancy… there was no time for blogging.  Yes, we are expecting baby boy October 12!  Yay!

So, I’ll just post a very brief recap of our spring/summer here and maybe I’ll get back into the swing of posting every so often!  We’ll see!

Some of the highlights included:

Pierce playing soccer for the Y.  Watch out soccer world.  Pierce is quick and fierce! J

Snacking spectators!

Sydney’s first communion.  A beautiful girl, a beautiful mass, a fun celebration afterwards.

 

Pierce turns 5!  Pirate party!

Pierce loves Legos!

The map to our treasure hunt!

Fashionable pirate Sydney.

Papa John arrived at the party in full pirate gear (eye patch missing in this photo).  The kids LOVED it!

Leading the treasure hunt. The kids were way too smart for my map and "hunt" - they wanted to go straight to the "X", but I made them play along and follow all the dotted lines to get there!

Pirate booty at the end of the "hunt"!

It’s a boy reveal "party"!

 

Last day of 2^rd grade for Sydney and pre-K 4 for Pierce.

 

Grant turns 2!  Elmo party!

 

Grant loves his new water table.

Summer fun: "Camp Cromer" for the kids, rainy day tea parties and beach time are among the few of the things keeping us busy.

Camp Cromer with cousin Addison.  Yes, mom and dad had them all spend the night at once - brave people!

When it rains - tea party for snack time!

Family beach time at Wrightsville.

A wonderful visit to the Outer Banks to kick start our summer, which included...



the consumption of a ridiculous quantity of Duck Donuts!  YUM!

Daily beach play.

The consumption (by some of us) of a little too much sand!

Hiking up and running down the dunes at Jockey's Ridge.  A little hotter this year than last, so our visit was brief, but fun.

Lots of boogie boarding - the big kids loved it!

A visit to the aquarium (the glasses are only decorative - a fashion statement at St. Mary in 2nd grade).

Shark viewing.

And a little celebration for our sweet 2-year old Grant!

Summer has been really good to us.  We are happy to be here in Wilmington.  The kids are enjoying camps and the freedom and relaxation of summer.  I am thrilled to be back home, and not working anymore.  Baby #4 appears to be healthy and growing just like he should.  Life is good.  God is good.  We are so excited about baby #4, but just enjoying our three as we have some free time in the summer until #4 arrives.