Balch Family Blog

Camden is showing a lot of interest in words, what the beginning sound is, and he is even picking out words within words. Today on our drive home he was asking me a lot of questions, as he usually does on our drives. We drove by a group of homes in the process of being stuccoed. He was asking me how it works and I explained that the workers put on the stucco and it hardens and becomes really strong. He said to me, “So it just sticks to that stuff (chicken wire and Styrofoam).” I answered, “Yes.” Then a few seconds later he starts giggling and says, “So when the stuff sticks on the wall it becomes STUCK (pause) O.” He was laughing so hard and I just started to crack up as well. It was very cute!

Easter is almost as commercialized as Christmas, but we feel it is important that our children know about the sad days before Easter and how Jesus had to suffer for our sins. That is why we do a Resurrection Egg Hunt each year. The eggs contain items that illustrate the week before Jesus rose from the tomb. They are really a good way to teach children. This past Wednesday we had 3 friends over to do the hunt with us. The kids just love it each year! I taught in the church nursery this morning and used them as my lesson. Below is a picture of the boys with their friends after the hunt and before the story.

This Easter we kept the kids out of church. Camden’s allergies were awful the later part of the week and he began wheezing on Saturday. We didn’t want to risk him catching any nasty bugs. We had an egg hunt when Mark got home from church. The candy in the eggs even melted. I am sure that wouldn’t happen in Kenosha, with the foot of snow they just got!

Mark’s parents came over later and we enjoyed a nice dinner, another egg hunt, playing with Grandpa’s N-Scale electric train, and making homemade ice cream. The boys went to bed early to get ready to return to our normal schedule next week.

Here are the boys on Easter.

Egg Hunt in the backyard. The weather was beautiful!

A few weeks ago I was watching an episode of Supernanny. I don’t watch it often anymore because it seems that she does a lot of the same things with each family. On this particular evening, she was going to help the parents break their son of pacifiers. She talked about the Paci Fairy. The little boy went and gathered all of his pacies and put them into a large envelope marked To The Paci Fairy. Then they mailed it. That night he went to bed without pacies an no fuss. In the morning he awoke to find an envelope with his name and feathers, and streamers and glitter. Inside the envelope were little plastic animals. I decided to give it a try. We changed a couple of things. We placed the envelope full of pacies under our big tree. We came inside and ate 2 M&Ms. Then went back outside. There was a package for Carsten and inside were plastic animals. Carsten got to put them in the box were we used to keep pacies, and before bed he picked out two to take with him. He went to sleep without any problems. Today at nap time we did the same thing. It worked great! We are now DONE with pacies! Hooray!

We celebrated Carsten’s second birthday at a local park on Saturday. We had a great time. The weather was so nice. The kids got to jump in the bounce house, fly kites and take a ride on the train. Carsten was a little grumpy to begin with, but we think he was just hungry. After some cake he was in a terrific mood.

Tomorrow is his true birthday and we will celebrate with pizza, leftover cake and presents from Mom, Dad, and Camden. He is taking cupcakes to his babysitters house too.

There a 3 pages of pictures in our gallery, but here are a few of my favorites:

The Cake

Mommy and the Birthday Boy

Jumping in the bounce house

Ready to ride on the train!

Fun day, but exhausting!

Camden starts Kindergarten this Fall and we have been unsure of where to send him. We had settled on our neighborhood school, where he attends preschool currently. In January we heard about another school. This is a charter school that looks like it has a great focus on children and education. Last night they had the lottery. There were 86 students that wanted Kindergarten and 50 spots available. Camden was drawn as number 84. That means he is 34th on the wait list. So we will wait and see what happens. If he doesn’t get picked before August then he will attend San Tan. When you begin this parenting roll you don’t realize all the decisions you are going to need to make that will affect your child. I will keep you posted.

On a side note, Nathan was also on the lottery and I don’t know if he got in or not. I am hoping he did, because Carrie didn’t really know where to send him if he didn’t.

…Knock on wood! We all seem to be doing better now. Carsten really seems much better and Camden has been doing well since starting the antibiotic. Mark and I still have some sinus issues which are either left over cold symptoms or possibly allergies.

We are getting back into our routine. We have a birthday party to go to on Sunday. We are planning Carsten’s party, which is next Saturday.

Last night we went to the new mall and ate at Johnny Rockets. That is a great restaurant to bring kids to. It is so loud in there that nobody could hear Carsten screaming for his dad. Then we all went to Cold Stone for some ice cream. Mark works today and has softball tonight, so we are going to hang out this afternoon as a family. Things are good.