Vacation time

Went to Hiawassee and Dollywood. Kate's favorite ride was probably the Dizzy Disk. Drew's favorite ride was the Smoky Mountain River Rampage. Drew through the largest, most random tantrum about going to the bathroom. Don't even really need to blog on it, let's just say Sherri will always have that burned into her mind.

Hello Captain Haircut

And, Ben has now had his first ever haircut. Boy, did he not enjoy that one little bit. All camera work (pictures and video) done by Kate. Hands and head held by Chris. Cutting by Sherri. But, dude looks good as a junior executive.

His first haircut was a little less eventful than the other kids. Kate's was at Amanda's buzz day and involved mass quantities of hair going in front of a giant crowd. Drew's was at Disneyworld with the parade going by. Sorry Ben, you're the third kid. You get gruel and you'll like it.

Benzing Norgay

So Ben was able to crawl all the way up the stairs today. Sherri was behind him letting him test his mettle. Made it with no issues, other than some random distractions from shiny objects.

Kate's future

Kate and I were talking about how she would still have to take hard classes
and classes she didn't like when she chose a major in college (because she
was whining about learning to add by 8s). She said, "Mommy, I can be more
than one thing, right?" I said, "Sure." She said, "Then I want to be a
dentist and a dog doctor and a doctor that gets babies out of Mommy's
tummies and then a coach." I said, "Wow. You sure will need a lot of
school to do all of those things." She said, "That's ok. I don't mind. I
would be so disappointed if I couldn't do all of those things."

Ben has a drinking problem

No, not really, but he did his most obvious deep thinking communication so far. Sherri and I were in the dining room, Ben was working his way around the kitchen floor. He went to the drawer with the kid cups, grabbed one, crawled over with it to the fridge, got on his knees and held the cup up towards the water dispenser. Looked at me with a big smile on his face.

Drew's new girlfriend

While he still says he will marry Katie (when he is five), he also says he'll marry Barney the dinosaur, a chair, and the house. So, I think it's safe to say he has no clue what he is talking about.

However, he really does have a blast when he sees Courtney, an upcoming junior that plays for Sherri. She's a tiny point guard who Kate loves to follow around and I think Drew has picked up that habit as well.

And the first two people to see Ben pull up are...

Chris and Drew. Ben pulled up to a standing position for the first time yesterday in the afternoon, though no one actually saw it. Sherri looked over and he just happened to be standing. Last night with the girls gone at basketball, Drew and I saw Ben actually pull up right in front of us. He had no clue what to do after that.

Ben appears to like plain avocado. Ugh.

Kate is in basketball camp this week with kids somewhat her age. She's two years too young, but fits right in size wise.

Drew's future

Sherri: "Looks like Katie's birthday present has shipped in the mail."
Drew: "My Katie?"

And, in the bathroom at Moe's last night: "I'm going to marry Katie when I am 5 and a half."

And vacation is over

Or it was a couple of days ago. Sherri and Chris did the Siler Bald hike which is 5 miles in and 5 miles out of mountainy terrain with elevation change of 2400 feet, rated strenuous. Made it in exactly 3 hours.

Kate and Drew got to enjoy the new pizza place in Hiawassee as we reloaded all of our lost energy. Ben enjoyed it 3 hour later.

Drew currently likes to randomly sing the "Alvin and the Chipmunks" theme song. Although, in his world it is Almon, Syndom, Feodore. Close enough.

Basketball Camp

Kate is back from her first overnight high school basketball camp. She worked very hard with Sherri's team. Did the fundamental stations as best she could, "won" a dribbling game with her group, and did a super job with lots of physical activity and little sleep. Read way more books than we initially estimated. Her current favorites are the Junie B. Jones series. Hadn't heard of those til Amanda but Kate is quickly pouring through that pile.

Ben survived his time without Sherri around. Drew probably got a little too comfortable as the lead child of the house so he has been under a bit stricter eye the last couple of days.

The race is still on to see if Ben crawls or stands up first. A backward seal walk is definitely mastered.

Drew is funny. And, other stuff.

While walking down the stairs last night, Pophank was going into his tendency of over-managing a situation and telling Gram something to do that she had well under control.  Her response to him was "Dick, still 61."

Followed immediately by Drew, "Pophank, still two and a half."

The other stuff.  Ben is on the verge of either crawling or standing up and taking off.  A bit of a race to see which happens first.  Gotta do video of it.  Or pictures, or something. He can kind of move himself around backwards, the inefficiency of that movement is perplexing.  Kate is having a blast at VBS with Sherri as her teacher.  Sherri has to keep reminding herself that the rest of the class is not quite where Kate is when it comes to reading/writing ability which is throwing some kinks in the progress of the class activities.

Updates

It's not a dereliction of duty, the kids just haven't had any ridiculously cute moments recently. More like run of the mill awesomeness.

Kate/Drew/Sherri went to Six Flags with Andrew/Shari. Drew did some of the bigger rides for the first time. Kate is tall enough to do the rides with the 48" height limit, but Andrew wasn't. She handled not going on those well so as not to make Andrew jealous though. I think their days of being size twins are rapidly ending thanks to wildly divergent genetic heritages.

Drew appears to now be motly good with anthropomorphic, life-sized characters. The Chick-fil-a cow has received hugs a couple of times in a row. As he did it he said "I'm going to do something great!" "I'm gonna come see you cow!"

Drew also apparently had his first experience with waking up in the middle of the night, realizing he needed to potty, and doing the whole process on his own and heading back to bed.

Kate got her new mattresses and proclaimed it her best bed ever.

Ben is getting vaguely into crawling position, though no movement yet. He'll also hold onto fingers and pull up. Only a matter of time before I have to start chasing him around the gym during basketball.

Random stuff

Hiking around Stone Mtn today, we were fairly deep in the woods and Drew asked if we were on "a secret package". The other day while exercising he asked if I was slimy. I had to inform him it was sweaty.

Ben has realized that when he does things, he gets attention and smiles from people.

Kate said she wished she was a parent because "they get to stay up later. They get to eat more and they get to be parents and have kids."

While at the thrift store, Sherri told Kate and Drew they could each pick out a book to buy, something that looked interesting. Drew picked this one.

Journey Walk results

Every 15 laps equals 1 mile and we had about 40 minutes to do this. Kate pounded out 47 laps and would have been able to hit a few more if not for the fact that a good portion of the parents and younger kids walked so slowly as to clog up the track a bit. Ben also went the same 47 laps, though he was little more than ballast strapped on to Sherri

Drew made it 35 laps with me. I had figured 30 laps was a wildly optimistic target. I think he could have had a few more, but the arrival of the Chick-Fil-A cow (Drew considers him completely evil) managed to wreck our pace a few times.

So, between the two of them, I think they managed to raise $61 for the Indonesia mission trip.

Drew and letters

Pulling up to Stevi B's Pizza to eat lunch Sunday

Drew: Stevi B's! I see a B up there.
Sherri: Where?
Drew: Next to the S.

So, he's starting to figure out letters.

Kate's future, Drew's apparent turkey obsession

Kate with me at the vet today
I was thinking I could be a veterinarian. I could be a doctor. I could be a veterinarion. I could be a doctor. But I really think I should be a veterinarion. I wanted to choose now so I don't have to think about deciding later.

Earlier in our kitchen:
Sherri: Drew, do you want a piece of cookie?
Drew, from across the house: OK.
He comes wandering in to the kitchen
Sherri: Here you go
Drew: That's not turkey
Sherri: No, I said cookie
Drew: No, I wanted turkey
Goes stomping off

Running with Scissors

Well, something safer than that.  Drew got to use scissors for the first time ever.  Controlled environment, directed by Sherri.  But, he did well which is little surprise since he seems unusually gifted when it comes to the mechanics of making things work.

Blah

Well, it is a rainy day which is good because it knocks the pollen out of the air. It is bad because it precludes walking/outside play. Kate got her $1 from the tooth fairy. She was far more concerned about being unable to find her tooth when she lost it yesterday than about the nice flow of blood down her face from the now gaping hole at the bottom of her smile. We assured her a note to the tooth fairy would suffice. She did a good job spelling words she probably has no business knowing how to spell yet.

Drew seems mostly over the sickness. Unfortunately, we now know far too much about just how much volume his stomach can hold. Awesome.

Ben? Probably riding the sick train a bit.

Sherri? Definitely on the sick train, at least around 2 AM so that was awesome for her.

Chris? A-OK so far.

The Beginning

I'll be honest, should have started this long ago. Sherri and I have intermittently kept up journal stuff about Kate since she was born and folded in Drew and Ben as they came along but, like most parents, really busy lives means there are probably some cute, funny, eventful, or somewhat horrifying stories now lost to the mists of time. Oh well, we'll just have to catalog them from here on out. I assume this blog may help. A little more immediate, a little more centrally located. And as long as the vast series of tubes, bells, whistles, and wires that make up the internet keeps working we should have a long lasting record of Phelan kid activity.

I won't bother too much with setting up who we are. If you are reading this, then you probably already know us pretty well. If you don't know us pretty well, then wait for a few dozen more posts and you'll have us pegged soon. My goal is not to document the kids lives to the utmost, that would probably be unhealthy. Plus, you'd get tired of reading about their awesomeness and my bias. Just fairly big events, stories most people would consider cute/funny, and probably some other random stuff here and there. Heavy on the light stuff, light on the heavy stuff as it were.

Events to note:
Kate
Lost her first tooth on 4/1/10. Got her $1 from the Tooth Fairy (the economic times are tough even for fairies). She woke up in the middle of the night freaked out she swallowed another one but all was good.

Drew
Continued success away from diapers. Superhero underwear is a potent motivational tool.

Ben
Tooth #1 makes an appearance. Let the biting begin.