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I found this little video on my camera that Isaac took.  I had no idea that he had taken my camera and made a video.  The video shakes constantly, so if you’re prone to motion sickness, you might want to just listen to it rather than watch it—I’ll admit that I had to close my eyes because I couldn’t handle the shakiness of the camera work.

It’s funny listening to Isaac interview Charlotte.  He tries to think of questions to get her talking and some of his questions are a little strange.  They also turn on the water during the video and they know that they aren’t allowed to do that without my permission so if you listen closely you’ll hear the kids say, “now turn it off so mom doesn’t know.” 

My other favorite part was where Charlotte described her invention as “a boomer, but it doesn’t really boom.”  (Boomer was Isaac’s word for gun when he was little.  We liked his term so much that we tried to avoid letting him know the real name for as long as we could—they still call things boomers sometimes instead of guns).

Isaac is only 7, but he is already starting to eat like a teenager sometimes.  He often eats more than his dad at dinner time.  Last time I made burgers, Zach and I each ate one and Isaac ate 2 and ¼ plus chips (the ¼ came from Nicole).  At McDonald’s he can eat 10 chicken nuggets and 2 cheeseburgers.  I wish I could think of some non-burger related examples, but burgers are easiest to describe because the portion size is fairly standard.  He did eat more pasta than the rest of the family combined last night, but Zach and Nicole were not home and Ila didn’t eat any.(Notice the 3 burger patties?  He picked that one out himself.)

When I started potty training Nicole, she decided it was also time to start getting herself dressed.  Underwear has been an interesting experience.  Every time she sat on the potty, she thought she needed a new pair of underwear.  Most of the time she put the underwear on the wrong way and if I tried to help her get it on the right way she’d just pull it off and run upstairs for another pair, which would also likely be put on wrong.  It didn’t take long before there were piles of her underwear everywhere.

In addition to the regular underwear changes, she has also been changing outfits constantly.  It seems like her inclination is to put pants on backwards more frequently than she puts them on correctly. Several times I have found her crying in frustration because she put a PJ shirt on her legs and could find no place for her head in the bottoms. Charlotte’s PJs are among her favorite things to wear and she usually wears a mismatched set of them.  One day she put on a blue shirt and some black tights and announced “I’m wearing naughty, naughty socks.”  I’m not sure where she got the idea that they were naughty, but she wore them with no underwear and refused to take them off or put pants on over them.  Unfortunately, I wanted to go pick up a prescription at the store that day, but we couldn’t leave the house until the next wardrobe change happened naturally several hours later.  Another day she put on some pants that were too big for her and fell down every time she let them go, but instead of changing, she wore them for hours, eating and playing with one hand holding her pants up.

I know one day I will be glad that she passed through this stage because I have one less child that I have to dress, but for now I find it exhausting picking up the remains of wardrobe changes throughout the house each day. 

Charlotte:

Isaac was jealous that I took a video of Charlotte and he wanted me to record something he learned:

Nicole has officially started potty training.  We’ve had some early attempts to train her whenever she has shown some interest in the potty or underwear, but each time it quickly became clear that she was not really ready to start using the potty everyday.  Sadly, all of my children are late potty trainers.  So far each one has been a struggle.  I don’t really know who would want all the details (maybe some family members or friends who are into potty training right now), but if you do, then click below.

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Today was Isaac and Charlotte’s first day of school.  It was Charlotte’s first day ever and she was super excited.  She got up as soon as she saw the first glimmer of sunlight through her window.  She made her bed and got dressed before anyone else was even out of bed.  Over breakfast Isaac explained, “There are two kinds of teachers:  nice teachers and mean teachers.”Isaac and Charlotte picked their own clothes out the night before.  Ironically, Isaac choose the same shirt that he wore for the first day of Kindergarten.  Charlotte choose her clothes based on what she thought the kids in her class would like.  She picked this shirt because she thought the boys would like the blue on it and the girls would like the pink.  It also has hearts and apples and other fun things.Isaac loved his new shoes.  They are air-cooled, which means they have a little pocket of air that blows over his feet each time he takes a step.They both had a great first day and loved school.  They both said that they had really nice teachers.  Here they are at the end of the day:Charlotte looks really tired here:The following video is of Isaac and Charlotte telling about their first day of school.  It’s a little long and Nicole and Ila are noisy in the background at times, so I expect most of our blog readers to skip the video—but grandparents might want to watch it, so here it is (also they are eating the remainders from their lunches):

After being the only in-law for more than 11 years, Zach’s youngest sister is getting married.  Most of my family will not be able to attend the official ceremony in California on 9/10/11, but luckily we got a chance to see Bethani and Dan at an open house in Winlock, WA over the weekend.  Here are some pictures:

We went to Lake Meridian Park on Monday and had a lot of fun with our friends, the Pettibones and the Daytons.  The park was great with new and interesting play structures.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures where you can really see all the neat things to play and climb on.Nicole and Ila’s favorite thing to play on was the merry-go-round which had netting all around it.

They also had a waterfront with ducks and a swimming area.  We didn’t bring swimsuits, but the kids decided to get wet anyway:

My sister Sarah and her family came up from Portland for a visit.  They spent a week in Seattle and split their time between my family and her college roommate’s family.  While they were here they celebrated both their anniversary and Sarah’s birthday.  Here are some pictures from our visit:Sadly, I didn’t have my camera out as much as I typically do, but I’m glad I got at least some pictures of everyone.

We’re not entirely sure how George is related to us.  Here is what we know about him:

He bought the plot where Stanislawa Paukstiene, Julia Brindza (our great-grandmother), and Julia’s daughter Amelia are buried. Stanislawa died in 1927, just a couple years after Korst (our great-grandfather) died, so we assumed they are of the same generation, and since they share a last name, we assumed they are brothers. It’s possible that they are cousins, we just made the easiest assumption.

I found a Petition for Naturalization for George Pauksztis which was signed by our great-grandfather (Korst) and which contains a wealth of information including the name of his wife (Stanislawa).  It also names the ship he came into this country on and several other facts about him and his family.

I only have a trial membership to ancestry, so I don’t know if these links will stay visible, but here are links to the documents that I am posting below ( page 1 and page 2)

Click the more link to see my screenshots of the document.

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Charlotte wanted me to put curlers in her hair today:

Her curls reminded her of her Fancy Nancy book, which she then wanted to read.  Also, If I’m going to be the mother of 3 girls, I need to get better at curling their hair—I was always more of a curling iron hairstylist.

I found something interesting this week as I was stumbling around trying to find some information on our family tree.  I was looking on a page that had a Marriage Index from Pittsburgh Area Newspapers and I found the following listing for my paternal great grandparents:

PAUKSZTYS      Korst          BRINDZ            Julia          Pitts  Allegheny         License        1903-01-07     Pitts Press

It is particularly interesting because I had always known my great-grandfather’s name to be  Constant (Konstantas) Bird (Paukstis).  I was told that at some point he Americanized his name.

My sister found his gravestone and said that his name was spelled “Constantine Pauksztz” and that he was buried in the poor part of the cemetery (I thought they had carelessly misspelled his name—it would still be misspelled according to my research, but less misspelled).

I have had very little success finding any information by searching Paukstis or Bird, so I decided to try the new spelling and I was able to find the census records which had previously eluded me:

This record shows a Stanley Pauksztys as the head of the household which I thought was odd.  It also lists my grandfather and his siblings as children so I am sure this is his record. 

As I continued to research, I found some interesting records that at least partially solved the mystery about why he was listed as Stanley on the Census Record.  The following are listings of Naturalization records in Western Pennsylvania where a Korst Stanley Pauksztys was a witness (there is a fee to look at each record, so I didn’t pursue that farther):

The listing shows the name of who was being Naturalized and I wonder who these people were—are they friends or relatives?

My best find so far was a petition for Naturalization which included a letter written from his boss.  In this paperwork you can clearly see his name written and signed as Korst Stanley Pauksztys multiple times.  There may be a slight discrepancy between our records and the birthdate listed on the form (same day, but it looks like a different year).  Also, of interest is his place of landing and date of landing which may lead to finding more information on him and hopefully a listing of his parents.(the next two pictures are the top and bottom of the same page)

And I found this in a similar search, it must be the sign in for the above petition because it lists the date of his petition (oddly the text on my search listed him as from Italy, but Russia is clearly written on the actual document).

Hopefully this opens some doors for research.  It looks like the name he preferred to use for legal documents in the US and possibly the name he went by (per letter from his boss) was Korst Stanley Pauksztys.

We opted for something simple and close to get back on our Saturday adventure routine.  Luckily Renton has a great Park nearby with just about everything you’d want in a park.  We went to Coulon Beach Park.

They have several sets of nice playground equipment which includes slides and swings and everything you’d expect at a park.It also has a duck pond:And it has a beach with a swimming area which is separated from the duck area:

In primary today Isaac drew this picture of our family:  Lately I have been trying to improve the friendship between Ila and Nicole.  It’s been a slow battle.  Nicole likes to growl/yell Ila’s name and when she does, Ila instantly starts to cry.  Several times a day Nicole will yell “Ila” and then Ila will stop what she’s doing and cry.  Given that scenario, can you tell what is happening in our family picture?  Nicole is the one on the end with a word bubble that says “Ila!” (I was impressed with Isaac’s use of the !) and Ila is in my arms crying “wa wa,” presumably in response.

The family is also surrounded by temples.

Just a few more that I never got around to sharing.This is an angry Nicole trying to climb up and get some cookies from the top of the fridge:Grandpa showing Nicole some Quail:I celebrated my 33rd birthday in Utah (I can’t imagine ever being sensitive about my age, but I remember right after I turned 30, someone asked me how old I was and then apologized for asking when I told her I was 30).Ila tried to sing along, but her little happy birthday was so cute and funny that it made everyone laugh.And here is my awesome new birthday gift.  I’ve wanted a KitchenAid mixer for a long time.  Zach collected some donations from family members and was able to get me the 6 Quart Professional 600 series mixer.

We’re not the type to keep a pregnancy a secret so I thought I’d post our first look at baby #5. My doctor’s office has it’s own ultrasound machine so it’s common practice to see the baby on your first appointment.  This was a special treat since I only got one ultrasound for 3 of my children (I had 3 ultrasounds with Isaac).

I love ultrasounds, it makes the baby seem more real.  I actually got to see my little one wiggling around and hear his/her heartbeat.  By now, I can even identify most of what I’m seeing—at least when they show me the profile.  The baby’s head is on the right side of the picture with a little arm sticking up at the end of his/her nose.  You can also see a little foot sticking up on the opposite side.

The technician measured from rump to head a few times and looked at my ovaries (Did you know that they can tell which one I ovulated from last just by looking?  I didn’t until today, I also don’t know why they would want to know). On the day of my appointment (7/26/2011), I was 10 weeks and 1 day pregnant.  The baby measured exactly 10 weeks so he/she is right on track in terms of size/development.

Life is funny.  Two years ago Krista and I lived in Provo and Orem, Utah.  Last year we lived in Kentucky and Tennessee.  This year we live in Texas and Washington.  Unfortunately, we’ve been moving farther and farther apart and distance makes it hard to see each other.  In fact, we didn’t know when we’d see each other again—until she mentioned that she was going to Utah in the middle of July.  We didn’t get any pictures of us together, but we did take pictures of our kids together.Isaac has a few things to learn about baby holding.  We were trying to tell him to put his arms around Michael, but he didn’t understand what we meant.

Here are some pics of our youngest kids together.  Ila is 19 months old, Michael is 5 months old.Ila liked giving him kisses.She even planted one right on his lips!

I spent most of this trip feeling the effects of morning sickness.  I suffered from nausea, headaches, and dizzy spells and it seemed like I was taking every opportunity to lay down and close my eyes.  It meant that I probably didn’t take as many pictures as I would have and I wasn’t a very fun houseguest.  I also thought I’d get a chance to sit down and write more, but it seemed like I could only use my computer in short bursts of a few moments at a time before I’d start to feel dizzy and sick.

Here are some pictures that I did take:

Nicole enjoying some one-on-one time with Grandma (who for some reason she referred to as Great-Grandma)Ila dancing to Zach playing the guitarIsaac building with constructs.Charlotte with catnip that she harvested with Laresa.Zach trying out his grandfather’s accordion and explaining how to play it.Learning about Laresa’s music box:

I started packing for our trip to Utah today.  Nicole decided to pack herself.  She even buckled herself into her suitcase.

Also, I took Isaac in for a haircut this week.