Catch-Up post

 For the regular readers of our family blog, you may have noticed greater gaps in-between posts...you can probably guess the reason.  But, John is asleep in the swing and we have about 20 minutes before we need to leave for an appointment, so here we go.  I apologize that these pictures are in no particular order, but they are a montage of the last couple of months.  The above being 4th of July.  We introduced the kids to the attack of tanks!  In the future, the race car fireworks were way cooler. 

 As I had about 3 minutes to scan a couple hundred photos, I'm not sure entirely what all I picked.  The above though caught my eye as the look on Will's face was great.  John is regularly surrounded by his siblings.  This morning they even had a short quarrel over who would get to sing to him.  They all took turns eventually. 

 On the morning of July the 5th, I awoke to the sounds of Paul Sherwen and Phil Liggett calling the Tour de France.  As I had hoped, our immersion into the world of cycling got Dom back on his bike.  If you are on facebook, you have seen his latest tricks.  Yesterday, I unfortunately did not have my camera as he busted out a move Peter Sagan did crossing the finish line a couple of years ago. 

 We have been to the beach several times and John is getting to be quite the beach bum.  He really enjoys sitting in the shallow water and have waves roll up to him.  I know he will be a force next summer when he is mobile.

 Dom regularly requests I print out various team logos or national flags to color.  However, I put these on hiatus until the kids had finished coloring a USA map I purchased last summer.  I was afraid they might rush through it and do it sloppily, but I was very pleased with the result.  They dutifully got it out several mornings and afternoons and colored it together.  Now, Dom gets 5 print-outs every Wednesday.  We are investing in ink.

 As cycling re-awakened Dom to his love of the bike, watching hours of World Cup matches awoke a sleeping giant in William.  For hours, he and Dom would play in our front yard.  At the end of the season, Will's coach told Eric that Will had been a dark horse and was a wonderful surprise when he showed up half-way through the season.  Even now, he will play by himself in the front yard as Dom races up and down the block on his bike.  Though, Will joins him for that as well.

 Earlier in July, I got around to going through the kids drawers and re-arranging clothes.  As a result, Molly now had Will's Thunder t-shirt.  She has a lot of cute girly clothes, but something about this outfit melted my heart.  Someday I will look for a picture of Will wearing the same thing.

 As with the other two, Molly has taken to swiping our camera and loading it with hundreds of shots.  Agnes is featured in several of them. 

 For Will's birthday, we went to Postal Point on base and a couple of paddle boards.  They were a big hit.  Eric now has it in his mind that he would like to purchase one.  Where we would keep it is only one obstacle to this purchase.  The other being the hefty price tag.  Maybe he should just make a raft with all of the sticks and limbs that fall in our yard after a rainstorm...#homeschool

Will, knowing or not knowing my limited cake decorating ability, requested a Germany flag for his birthday.  This was to celebrate Germany's win at the World Cup and also to honor his recent German lessons.  I splurged and got the Ghiradelli brownies.  They were delicious.

 It was a happy coincidence the Will's birthday fell in the week the Reddigs came to the area.  We had spent the week going back and forth to Destin to spend time with them at their beach house.  It was so fun to see all of the cousins play.  And it was really neat to have them here for Will's birthday.  This marked the 4th birthday (5th if you include Eric's) that we were all together this year.  Crazy!

 William got a lot of really neat gifts.  His identity as being the 'science kid' was a major theme in the gift giving.  He received the book "Inside the Human Body" from Katie and Robert and the smile on his face was huge.  We gave him Snap Circuits Jr., which was not as impressive, but once we started working on it he didn't want to stop.  He also got blast rockets form Grandma and Grandpa which are pretty amazing.  Though, he arms aren't quite long enough to really battle it out with Dom...yet!

 William loves directions and figuring out how things work, so the Snap Circuits was pretty much the perfect gift.  And Eric loved expanding on the short explanations after each project.

 Nana and L'Opa also gave him a water table.  Though, it is generally believed that these are for a younger child, there are some nice physic experiments one can do with this one.  That is a catapult that Dom is using.

 A couple of pictures of John.  He has found his thumb off and on.  But, more than that, he has found his smile.  He beams up at me whenever I look at him.  And he loves his siblings.  Though, they can get a little overwhelming.  Lately he has become quite vocal.  The other day he laid on my bed as I folded laundry and told me story after story after story.  He has also started taking his morning nap in the Florida Room as the other three play around him.  I even put him in there yesterday afternoon and found him fast asleep despite Dom and William loudly battling with their lego weapons.

And I will end this here as I need to get the kids out the door.  See you in a couple of weeks!

Happy Birthday, Will!

 William T. Buschelman turns 6 today.  Incredible!  He has had one crazy year.  A year ago he couldn't ride a bike, couldn't read, couldn't see, had all of his baby teeth, didn't have a baby brother that smiles every time Will sings to him, and had never heard of Ninjago.

 Will has had an amazing year.  To say the least.  His biggest accomplishment this year is learning to read.  Regularly, one can find him looking at a book and reading it to himself or a sibling.

 Within a month of his 5th birthday, he was sporting some nice spectacles and he ended up being a wonderful example for his sister when it turned out she needed glasses 6 months later.  He was so disciplined about it that for the first few weeks he refused to open his eyes unless he was wearing his glasses.  As odd as it was at first to see him wearing them, now they are part of his signature look.

 Will is also very helpful.  Along with sweeping duties, he empties the dishwasher with no complaint or attempt to get out of it.  He also makes his bed quite well and picks up his toys when requested to do so...something I hope a couple of his siblings will also learn to do.  He has also recently started making his own lunch...Awesome!

 Will started and completed his kindergarten year.  He did an amazing job.  I mainly just gave him a book to work on and he would do page after page after page.  He worked so quickly that he finished his phonics curriculum before Christmas and his Math a few months later.  He's been working on 1st grade material for several months now.  He loves to learn new things and particularly enjoys science experiments.  But, we've known that for a while.

 Although Mario is still dear to him, he has also discovered the world of Ninjago and likes to visit there frequently in his imaginative play. 

 Here is his picture from the Saints' Day Parade at our church.  The glasses were the perfect prop for him to be St. Josemaria Escriva. 

 Will has wonderful problem solving and spatial skills.  He is quite methodical and works on a task until it is completed. 

 Therefore, it was no surprise that he embraced his father's lego collection and worked on it diligently...even during KU basketball games.  He'll come around eventually.

 I also taught him Set and though this was more momentous for me, I'm sure he'll thank me eventually.

The last several months, Will, along with everyone else, has experienced a lot of changes in his life.  Eric was gone for 6 months.  During this time, we did a lot of traveling and Will was always helpful and good spirited.  He made my time as a single parent very easy by growing more and more independent. 

During the World Cup, Will embraced soccer as a sport he loves.  He played last fall, but we could tell his heart wasn't in it.  This is no longer the case and his hard work was rewarded last weekend when he scored two goals for his team.  The first goals he had ever scored. 

Finally, in April, Will became an older brother again.  A role he cherishes.  He sings to John and tells him stories and does his best to calm him down for me.  And he is successful the majority of the time. #winning!

I love watching Will play.  I love hearing his stories and his singing.  I love feeling his little hand in mine as we take a walk around the neighborhood.  I love everything about our son. 

Happy Birthday, Will!  You've made our world better and much more fun!  I cannot even begin to imagine what all you will accomplish in the next 12 months, but I look forward to seeing it happen!

World Cup Super Fans

 The day we drove back Florida was the first day of the World Cup.  We have been watching a lot of soccer/futbol ever since.  We have also been doing a lot of coloring.  Dom and Will colored all 32 nation flags of the participants in the tournament.  Dom taped them together in the groups A - G and then as teams qualified for the round of 16, he quickly taped those to the bracket in our living room and dutifully placed the losers in his binder of national flags...just like every other boy in America.

 We also dressed appropriately for every time the United States competed.  Just like every other family in America.

 Watching the World Cup also renewed the boys' interest in their coloring book of the Nations of the World.  One day, Will decided to start coloring the nations as their flags.  Unfortunately, I cannot find Will's book to show you his pictures, but Dom was inspired to do the same for Italy.  (Don't worry, Will's book will turn up, I spent about a minute looking for it)  I thought this way of coloring was quite clever.  Japan was the first country Will did this with (I suspect in order to finish it quickly).  However, after I oohed and aahed over it, he completed several others.  Canada's Maple Leaf is pretty neat!

 As with the elimination of teams from the group stage, Dominic very quickly updated his flag bracket on our book shelf.  I caught myself reading the qualifying teams in a ticker on the television and thinking "Doesn't everyone know this?" and then realized not everyone has a son regularly updating their living room decor.  Their loss.

 Back in May, Eric brought home the Panini World Cup sticker book.  He was quite proud of the fact they only cost $2.  My cheapness thriftiness is rubbing off on him after 9 years.  However, there were over 640 spaces for stickers and with a pack of 7 costing $1...you can do the math.  Never mind the fact that doubles and triples and quadruples are guaranteed.  We'll know for next World Cup, though...which Dom is already planning for.  You can get a box of 100 packs for about $60 on Amazon!!!  Last night, Dom finished up the last of the packs we bought (I will not disclose how much we spent...mainly because I don't want to think about it), and he had filled 500 spaces.   He's really hoping his cousins may have some extra stickers for him.  I told him it is good to have dreams #klinsmannquotes

As much as I love that now my sons recognize national flags (more than I can...which isn't saying much, honestly) and as much as I love watching the games as a family and cheering on the US, my favorite aspect is that the boys literally play soccer together for hours.  Dom has had an interest in soccer for a few years now, but Will has become a crazy man.  He develops plays and wants to practice them.  He is quite the goalie and has speed on the ball...though he does decry someone stealing the ball from him as he thinks about what he wants to do as 'unfair'.  We're working on that.  At any rate, they go outside in the 90 degree heat and run around and get sweaty and come in for water talking about their awesome plays and when they will play for the US National team (we are aiming for 2030)!  Just like kids all over America.