Of course, it’s not always calm in our house. The kids are starting to go stir crazy, for lack of a better term. It seems less appealing to spend long days at home, playing “hotel” in the playroom with a few breaks to color upstairs or go outside. Everyone seems a bit anxious for the school year to begin.

William’s vocabulary has grown exponentially in the last few months. I attribute that to the twins. They never exclude him from their playtime. Lily is determined to sit on her own, talk, and take in all of her surroundings, though she won’t actually reach those milestones for a while.

Micah has been working so hard for his company. Everyone is proud of him! I haven’t known many people who were so dedicated to their job and family. We haven’t made any plans, but our 9th wedding anniversary is in a few weeks. I told him next year is a “big one”, so we need to plan to celebrate it! A quiet dinner at a restaurant or a night’s stay alone would be perfect, but this year, we’ll keep it simple as we always have.

Will and Gabby were due only one day apart, so they couldn’t get much closer in age. It was so cute just listening to them talk in the car while we drove to the Berkshires.

We drove for twelve hours in two days! Our first stop was Niagara Falls on Monday. Lily and I weren’t feeling well, so I wasn’t able to enjoy the day as much as I had hoped. We went to the Berkshires on Tuesday, since it was en route home for everyone else. We had a chance to take our first Grant family photo in many years.

(Shown: Mom, Dad, Carol, Eileen, and myself in photos dated 1984, 2001, and 2010)

We brought the kids to Revere Beach. Will had never stood by the ocean before, and the twins had no recollection of it.

(Follow-up from 2004 and 2007)

Our visit took place at the peak of a heat wave. It made up for the cold, rainy weather we found there last year. We spent hours relaxing by the pool. My Dad found a frog to show to the kids.

We returned home to find that my hydrangeas had wilted, a bird had died on the back patio, and the thermostat inside read 90 degrees. We unpacked slowly, then tried to get back into our old routines. Once again, we left our old lives behind us. We miss everyone back there, but somehow, we always know it was the best choice we ever made for our family.

I am not a fan of summer. I hate the heat and humidity. I do, however, enjoy seeing the kids have fun. The twins will be out of school in a couple of weeks. I’m sure we will spend a lot of time in the back yard running through the sprinkler and blowing bubbles. It’s a time I want to make special for them, since summer vacation brings some of the best childhood memories.

I continue to have technical woes. I seem to be cursed. The hard drive on my desktop downstairs has some problems, and I hope I’ll actually be allotted some quiet time to work on it in the near future. I back up frequently, but it still would be an annoyance to have to replace the drive and start over. I don’t use that computer much (I’m almost always on the laptop), but I have important files on there.

It’s hard to believe that I have four children now! Micah and I remember, all too well, a time when we weren’t sure if we’d ever have a family. We are in awe of all of them. I want to soak up every moment and remember how this feels forever. It sounds so trite, but this is the best time in all of our lives.

We celebrated birthdays today. Molly and Mia went to Build-A-Bear. They also got their first digital camera, a pair of binoculars (weird request on their part), and some new clothes. Will got a big bulldozer and a water/sand table. That gift was a hit with everyone. I even found blue sand for it!

Lily’s arrival is scheduled for May 28th. That’s a mere 27 days away. I still can’t believe it! Micah already has a special bond with her. Every night when we’re in bed, he leans over and talks to my belly. She always seems to kick in response or bump his hand. She’s also very responsive to Will.

I’ve been really overdoing it when it comes to housework, so I need to slow down. There were so many things on our to-do list for Spring. It’s finally all done. We will be able to sit back and relax once the baby is here.

It won’t be here until next month, but I have to start early: Birthday Week. The first week of May in our house is a whirlwind of cakes and themed paper goods. The twins are turning 6 on May 3rd. On May 7th, Will turns 3, and I turn 30. If that isn’t overwhelming enough, I will be headed to the hospital about 3 weeks later to deliver Lily… Another May baby. Poor Micah. He must feel so left out, having a September birthday.

We decided to bring the twins to Build-A-Bear and Cold Stone Creamery, in lieu of a party. Of course, we will follow our cake-and-decorations party at home. We just couldn’t have a party with kids this year. Molly and Mia are in separate classes, which have a total of almost 45 kids. Their school discourages having parties that exclude certain classmates, so it became apparent that we’d have to wait until next year. They’ll be moving on to first grade in September, and we decided to have them together in the classroom. Things will be a lot less complicated next year!

I certainly can’t complain, or feel left out. Micah’s “early present” to me was a 3D ultrasound that we did sort of on a whim. He also let me buy a JVC Everio. I’ve owned 4 camcorders in 10 years, all of which either broke or became outdated too soon. My family didn’t have a camcorder when I was a kid (just a Super 8 camera, and those reels are scarce), so I’m sort of obsessed when it comes to documenting my own children. Back to the Everio… I just wanted something cheap (but good quality) that would let me easily record and archive videos of the kids. That needed to include getting video onto the computer easily. Here’s what I had to do with my last camcorder:

- Charge the battery again (because it never holds a charge, and often dies while filming). Low battery = choppy, useless footage.
- Spend way too much money on compact DVDs, which are quickly becoming antiquated.
- Shoot video, spend 15 minutes or so “finalizing” each full disc (which had to be done on AC).
- Use 10-year-old video wires to import low-quality video into 7-year-old computer with XP (no USB option, didn’t work on newer computers).
- Spend 15-20 minutes cutting, arranging, and rendering videos in Movie Maker.
- Copy finished video to Flash Drive.
- Copy from Flash Drive to newer computer.
- Watch depleted quality video on computer, or attempt to find a DVD player that actually recognized the compact DVDs.

That process is pretty frustrating when you’re trying to upload, say, a 45 second video of your kid singing a song or pointing out shapes and colors. I would always have to go through this after the kids were in bed. Otherwise, it took twice as long with all the interruptions.

But my Everio. Oh, how I love you, Everio. The quality is at least as good as it is on the aforementioned DVD monster. It’s adorably tiny, and saves magnificently formatted video files onto an SDHC card. I have been editing video content for the internet for over 10 years, and I never imagined something this simple could exist. Happy Birthday to me. Someday, the kids will thank me… or so I like to think.

My father is Russian, and he was born in China. He was forced, along with thousands of others, to flee to the Philippines (you can read more on that here) until he was able to move to the United States. His father, who had been a colonel in the White Russian Army during the revolution, was too old to enter the country. He moved to Paraguay, where he remained until his death in the 1970s. This was by far the most fascinating aspect of my family’s history, but records from the countries involved are scarce. My dad still has a lot of letters from my grandfather, so I hope he will bring them the next time he visits with my mom.

My mother’s family background is also mostly overseas. Her relatives came to the US from Ireland and England. One interesting person I learned about was George Chainey. He was my mother’s great grandfather. He started out as a minister in the Boston area, then began writing books and lecturing around the country. I am trying to find a first-edition copy of his book “The Unsealed Bible”. He was also very good friends with Walt Whitman, and they mentioned each other numerous times in writing.

I hope to learn more soon. I have been able to look at so many documents, from ship passenger lists to passport applications. Some included the original handwriting and signatures of members of my family.

The battery on my laptop didn’t hold a charge anymore, and the AC adapter was held together by electrical tape. It was like this for a couple of months before I finally figured it was time to find a good deal on a battery. Then, I’d replace the adapter a few weeks later. This turned into a disaster.

I bought the battery on eBay. It arrived, and the first thing I noticed was that it was incredibly bulky. I assumed it would be bigger because it was a 12-cell battery. This was ridiculous, though. The laptop sat at an angle on the table and was lopsided. I couldn’t even type with it. A few hours later, I planned on removing it to request a return. That was when it crashed. I spent more than 15 hours over the course of two days working to fix it. Luckily, they were Micah’s days off, so he helped with the kids. I was able to backup my files by use of an Ubuntu live CD and a flash drive, which was just in the nick of time. The hard drive since has stopped functioning properly (lots of bad sectors). I tried to replace it, and that didn’t fix the problem. I’ve concluded there is most likely damage to the motherboard and possibly the memory. It’s not an easy fix, but I haven’t given up on it entirely. It is going to take a lot of new parts and time, and I need to find the cheapest parts possible to make it worthwhile.

Meanwhile, I ordered a new laptop. I didn’t want to do this for at least another year or two. I really struggled with the decision because I don’t let myself buy things very often that are only for me. If we do have a little extra money, I’m always buying clothes for the kids or doing some work on the house.

It shipped on Monday and will be here tomorrow! With 3 kids running around the house, it’s a lot easier having a laptop that I can move around.

Winter is always a quiet time around here. It won’t be quiet for long. The twins have February vacation soon, and Lily will be here in less than 4 months!

Santa’s work was overwhelming this year, but he finally arrived with everything the kids wanted. The biggest hits of the day were William’s firetruck and Wonder Pets Fly Boat, and the twins’ puppet theater and dollhouse.

We woke up to a beautiful sunrise on Christmas morning. It was so early, but no one wanted to wait to open presents!

We have so much to be thankful for this year. I can only hope that 2010 will be filled with as many blessings.

We started a tradition last year of visiting the tree farm on Thanksgiving day. The owners are so nice, and there is just something about the smell of a baking turkey mixed with the smell of a freshly cut fir tree. The kids get candy canes and sit by the fireplace at the farm while we wait for the tree is baled.

I love this time of year.