Lillebror has a name!

Late last night we finally sat down to talk about names... I made a list and Alex made a list and then we crossed out names one by one.. We ended up with these three.......

Rafael Lucas August

Alex has always liked Rafael, since he was little (he also loved Ninja Turtles so maybe you can see the connection ;-). Lillebror looks like a little Rafael so I gave in this time ;-)

Lucas has been on our list since Marlee was born but we have always had friends with children named Lucas. However, this time it made it as a seconds name.

Like all the others, he needed a Swedish name and I was struggling a little with that. There are several names I consider Swedish but then they are actually not when you look into it.. I finally went with August (not pronounced like the month August in English but  like [ɑːuːgɵst]). I guess you can kind of consider it being a family name from by dad's side, too, from the 18-hundreds (Fredrik August Boltzius).

Looking back and ahead

We are doing really good over here. Little brother is doing good but needs to learn to sleep at night and not during the day... Right now his night starts around 6 in the morning. I guess he has figured out that he gets more attention if he is awake when his brothers are sleeping :-)

I am not sure that I have mentioned how much help we have gotten lately. But farmor and farfar got here a little more than a week ago and Aunt Jackie has stayed with us for a few days. They have all been helping us with the house, chickens, food, children etc. Kathy has made sure that we have dinner server every night!! I also have a friend who has set up a meal train online which means that friends of ours sign up to cook and deliver food. That starts the day after farmor leaves :-)

Farfar made breakfast

Last Sunday we all went to Alex's grandma's birthday party.  It was a lot of fun and very nice to meet all the family on farmor's side.

The birthday "kid"

The boys got balloon animals made.

Preparing school work

Did a second lice treatment after I found ONE live louse on Marlee! (now I have not found any since then but we will do another treatment tomorrow to be on the safe side.

The lice brothers getting treatment

 I could probably take an endless number of pictures of lillebror but here are a few from today. I will soon take some of all om them. They are so sweet together!!

And last, but not the lease. As a tradition, because I think we can call it a tradition by now, a new baby always brings presents for his older brother(s). So of course, this baby did, too.

 Our challenge for today is to decide the name(s) for lillebror!!!

We have been waiting but now "Lillebror" is here!!!!

Around 5:45pm today this little guy finally arrived. We have been waiting....

8,5lbs/3.86kg
21"/53.3cm

And absolutely perfect!!!

The midwife weighing him

And we got home before the boys were asleep so they got to meet their brother!

Gabriel is very fascinated!

Now all the big brothers are sleeping and soon I will, too. Tomorrow it is time to start thinking about names!

Quick update of the challenges we have faced lately :-)

Things keep happening around here and it keeps us very very busy...or some of them prevent us from being busy I guess... So my arm is still getting better and better but I am at the point where I need help to know what to do to improve it since the exercises I got from the doctor is way to easy now :-D And I am going to the physical therapist next week to get help with that, unless little brother decides to come, so that is all under control. But... 

Then Alex foot decided to start bothering him and he has been in extreme pain. The doctor could not figure out what it is, but it might be gout (we are just like an old couple!) and he has gotten all kinds of medicine for it. It has gotten better during the last couple of days and he can actually walk now (even if he walks funny and not for very long). 

Noah doing math. He is better at counting than writing the numbers.

In the middle of this foot pain I realized that me and the boys have lice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So, that has taken up pretty much all my time lately. It feels like the only thing I have done is combing hair and washed clothes, sheets, cushions etc... When going to the coop the other day I put on hats on all the boys in case they had anything left to spread and because we did not know where we got it so it would protect them, too. I hope that we are over the bad part and will just do a final treatment in a few days to be sure.

The "Liceman" brothers on the way to coop

Marlee having his weekly presentation (this week about what they did during the summer)

When I saw the midwife last Wednesday she thought that the baby might wait for all this craziness to pass before he comes. Maybe he can sense that the timing would be pretty bad right now :-) Anyways, I feel very very pregnant and ready for this little dude to show his cute wrinkly face so he does not have to wait for me! And since yesterday we have farmor and farfar here and Aunt Jackie, so there is plenty of help around! We have had all meals served since last night!!!

I will admit though that I am thankful that he did not arrive during these crazy crazy weeks that somehow did not drive us crazy and for the most part still let us have a rather positive attitude.

I managed to ignore all the things I should do and prioritized what I wanted to do... sew a hat for the baby :-)

 Gabriel loves the guitar and he absolutely loves when pappa plays for/with him! It is adorable!

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 Will say good night with this adorable picture of Gabriel from a birthday party lately.

School started and Alex won award in Bulgaria!

Busy busy past week!! Me and Alex shave literally stayed up to one every night working on different things. I have mainly worked on the classes I have on Fridays. It has been so much fun to plan so I have a hard time to stop and go to bed. I don't think that we have watched TV for a week, which is not very common :-)

I had no idea he was a pig!!!

Alex won an award in Bulgaria the other day!! I am so proud!! See translated version here: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.faktor.bg%2Fkultura%2Fartfaktor%2F81358-amerikanskiyat-zhurnalist-aleks-nyuman-poluchi-nagrada-na-imeto-na-georgi-markov.html&edit-text

He also got to go on Russia Today (RT) this past week so it has been an exciting week! The link to see the talk show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdxI-sKex8I. Apparently the show has about 30.000.000 viewers!!!!

Finally some rain to play in!

Last Saturday we all went to Daytona for dinner and game night. Had fun listening to a live concert, good food and fun games.

And the great happening this past week was the school started! Monday and Tuesday we did school work. Wednesday we had a date with friends at the park, Thursday and Friday it were coop days. A very intense week but so much fun!! At the Friday coop I am teaching Reading in Noah's class and World Geography in Marlee's class. I am so excited to do that, even if the first weekend was a but crazy! I passed out on the couch when we got home and Alex took all the boys over to a friend's house. That was so nice!

Home schooling means no dress code :-) and learn the way you want. US geography in the form of a puzzle with interesting facts.

Beautiful evening at the beach!

Play date at the splash park

Me and my boys!

Coop Thursday. Marlee with his class and teacher.

Coop Friday. Noah in his Spanish and playgroud class

Noah with his friend Jules

Both Marlee and Noah, and several of their friend do the Recycled Art class on Fridays

Today we finally made it to the beach during the day. The morning was very busy, Alex went to help some friends move while I was home with the boys. Well, that was my plan until Gabriel got hot oatmeal over his face and I went to the doctor. When we arrived to the doctor's office his face looked a lot better and we never had a to see the doctor, so we continued to get some food for the the people moving. After having some yummy lunch with them we went home and got some beach time. It was a long time since we were at the beach during the day and it was totally awesome!! Our new neighbors, who have two older daughters were down there, too, and the daughter that was with them love Marlee and Noah and they love her so they had a lot of fun. She is definitely a potential babysitter :-)

Tried to get them lined up in front of the camera... it did not work...

Noah surfing with pappa

We found this coconut with funny creatures on the beach today.

After I updated the blog last time my arm got worse and I had to visit the doctor again. That time the diagnoses was Frozen shoulder. I was not really able to move the arm at all the the pain was bad. Reading about it made me very sad since it seemed to take at lease several months to get better but either the doctor misdiagnosed me or I have been very lucky because the arm had improved a lot! I had two friends over who helped me for three days with the boys, cooking and cleaning, which was so nice!! I was able to rest the arm and do my physical exercises and suddenly I could wash my hands in the sink without hanging over it, I could touch my head, I could turn on the water tap with my "bad" arm, I could take off my t-shirt by myself and the constant pain was gone. I am still limited but I can do things by myself and the difference it incredible!!! I am so thankful!

Yesterday was my "first" due date but so far little brother has not decided to come :-)