I Caved

Shelly Shown

Create Your Badge

I finally caved in and joined the ranks of Facebook members. This despite the fact that Roz says Facebook is not for old people (old being over 20!). So far I prefer the depth of blogging, both in reading them and writing posts as well. But Facebook is where the people are and if you want to find someone that, apparently, is the place to look. It is fun connecting with people you haven't seen in ages!

There is a little learning curve when you try something new and my in-house Facebook expert is not very patient. Being a true nerd at heart, I tried to find some kind Facebook etiquette guide (fetiquette as Jer calls it) but didn't have much luck. So I'd like to ask those of who both blog and Facebook: Do you link to your blog posts on FB? Do you post the same photos in both places? How do you decide what to blog about and what to put on FB?

Free Book

Here is a very happy Wesley holding his free book from the Barnes and Noble summer reading program. If you have a child going into grades 1 through 6 they can earn a free book by reading eight. Just download the form from the B&N website (or get it from the store) and fill it out. When you bring the filled out form to the store the readers get to choose a free book. There's still plenty of time...the program runs through September 7th.

The NEW Zoo

To clarify and to avoid confusion, the zoo is not "new" it's the North East Wisconsin Zoo! Which is where the boys and I met up with several other families (Erica, Theresa, and Veronica) from the Green Bay Area Mother's of Multiples club. Wednesday evenings you can get into the zoo for free. Friends and free...two of my favorite words!

I don't really dress the boys alike anymore unless we'll be heading to a crowded place. Dressing kids in matching shirts is a large family tip that I highly recommend. We've done it for several years and it really helps me keep track of where everyone is when we're in a crowd. An added bonus...if by some chance someone wanders off, bystanders can usually tell where they belong. Or if it ever came to it, when asked what a missing child was wearing we can point to one of the other boys and say, "He was wearing THAT!".

The zoo qualified as a crowded place so I had them in their matching Phoenix Suns shirts. The bright orange was great! (Thanks AZ Showns!) When I'm out with the boys, especially by myself, I run a constant count in my head. If for some reason I didn't have FIVE orange shirted boys in sight then I'd have stopped to figure out who was missing. I didn't lose anyone but once I counted and there were six! Six?! One. Two. Three. Four. Five. SIX!?! Turned out a little boy, also in an orange shirt, had stepped into line with us. His mom offered him to me but I told her I was already stocked up.

We haven't been to the zoo in awhile so my boys thought it was a grand adventure. Despite the fact we had twelve kids in the group we moved pretty fast and got to see lots of animals! First stop was the petting zoo. JD called every animal "Duke" which is our neighbor's dog. He may not have known the names of the animals but he sure got excited when he saw them!
We headed to the giraffes next since it was feeding time and we were not disappointed...

ALL the kids were very well behaved and had a great time! Here is a shot of the whole gang:

Swimming Lesson Recap

This summer's swimming lessons are over for the Shown boys. And for the record, it was our best swimming lesson year EVER! Wesley did great. Although, he was disappointed to miss his very last lesson due to his most recent treatment.

Eli and Justus were like completely different kids than they were a few years ago. They fully participated and seemed to really enjoy being in the water. But the MOST IMPROVED award from first lesson to last goes to Hayden. He went from crying on the steps to this...
...in just three short weeks. He didn't even hesitate, he just walked right to the edge and jumped. His teacher was impressed and so were we!

On the cooler lesson days, JD just sat with me and either watched his brothers or played with a toy we brought along. But on the warmer days I got him in his little suit and let him play in the baby pool. He loved playing in the water and, surprisingly, didn't get mad when we had to leave each morning after the big boys were finished.

I can't say I'll miss loading everyone up in the van every morning, but it went well enough that we'll definitely be taking lessons again next year!

Happy Birthday JD!!

Today is JD's second birthday! He is the only Shown child that has been born during this blog's existence.

Two years ago today (above and below)

And now...

JD is our little copy cat. With four older brothers he has learned to do all sorts of stuff before the others ever did! He LOVES books and dogs and especially books about dogs. He always wants to put on his shoes and socks because he knows that means he's going somewhere. He's afraid of carwashes and flowers (no sniffing roses for him!). His favorite foods are cheese, beans, and yogurt...separately, of course.

He had curly hair before it was cut. Even though it's not quite as curly as it was it is still very blond. He is the fairest of them all. :) JD sleeps later than any of the other boys even though he still takes a pretty long afternoon nap. I think he has a pretty large vocabulary for his age, but then again just learning the names of his family members gets him several words!

Just like I did for his brothers, I typed up JD's birth story to put in his baby book. If you would like to read it click here. I know you will all be disappointed but he's just having a plain cake. Maybe next year he'll be able to give me an idea for a crazy cake! It will just be a small family celebration tonight. We will be having a more formal combined birthday party in August.

Happy Birthday little Jeremy!

On This Day...

...13 years ago!

Point Beach

I'm still catching up on posts from last week...

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Sunday we loaded the van with picnic food and sand toys then headed to Point Beach on the shores of Lake Michigan (click the link for some interesting lake facts). The weather was perfect. Warm but not too hot, sunny and not too breezy. The lake level was high and the water was cold but not freezing. The water was quite clean and clear too. It felt like we were in San Diego except the waves were small.

Best of all the boys had a BLAST! I think they would have played all day if we let them!

Unfortunately, I didn't think I'd want to get in so I didn't even bring my swim suit. In hindsight I should have. We didn't let the boys go in very far since none of the adults had on swimming suits. I don't know that they would have gotten in farther if that was an option but it would have been interesting to see what they would have done given the choice.

We would like to go back sometime soon. We'll probably take a day and head back yet this summer. But they have a campground there as well and maybe next summer I can talk Jer into a short camping trip.

The boys digging away in the sand

Grandpa helped build a sand castle

Yikes! The water is cold!

We played awhile then took a break for lunch. After our tasty picnic we headed back to the beach to play a bit more before heading home for naps. We arrived back on the beach just in time to witness a lake-side wedding. While we tried to look like we weren't watching, I'm sure we didn't cover our surprise very well when we noticed the bride and groom (dressed only in swim suits covered by grass skirts!) getting incense swirled around them.

I didn't think to take a picture but it just so happened the wedding party was in the background in a shot or two I took of the boys. I zoomed in and cropped this one, the quality is terrible but you'll get the idea:
The shirtless, tattooed fellow in the middle (with the black knee socks) officiated the wedding. You can see the grass-skirted bride and groom on the left.

Park Fun

We had some time to kill between the parade and lunch so we headed to the park. We did a little swinging...
a little sliding...
ran up a hill...
so we could roll down...
stopped for a photo opp...
walked along the river...

and headed home for lunch.

Pink Flamingo 2009

Saturday morning we were up and out the door early to be in front of my grandma's house for the annual Pink Flamingo Parade. The PF is a charity softball tournament and the teams each make a float for a short (but very sweet) parade. The PF floats are very generous with their candy tossing. We filled two (5 qt) ice cream buckets and the parade isn't even that long!

Waiting for the parade to start

In addition to helping the local dentists out, the parade is also a moving water fight. We like the candy so we stay in a dry zone. My nephew Carter, however, enjoys the water fight part so each year he can be found with his squirt gun or my grandma's hose getting soaking wet!

Carter...the one man water fighting machine

I'm not sure how that tradition got started but somewhere along the line we realized grandma's hose reached the road and her house has been a known target ever since. I have to admit we have the unfair advantage of an unlimited water supply. Sometimes a guy will jump off the float and sneak through the neighbors back yard and turn off the hose. This year a neighbor did...and it's always fun to see who ever has the hose (Carter this year) realize they are suddenly without ammunition!

We try our best to stay dry (and keep from getting soggy candy) but it doesn't always work and at least one little kid ends up crying when they get wet. It was a lot easier to establish wet/dry zones when we lived across the street and had two sides of the street to work with. It's always a good time though...wet or not.

Grandpa (Jerry's dad), me,
Abby (my sister), and Carter (my nephew)
in our PF shirts

Each year the PF has a new shirt design. In addition to the "official" shirt several of the teams (usually sponsored by a local bar) make their own shirts as well. It's pretty easy to start a PF shirt collection. I had a spare that I loaned to Jerry's dad, so he too was dressed in appropriate PF attire. Although he had to wear a sweatshirt over it since it was a bit chilly!

We don't really watch the games but we did head down their for dinner. Brats, burgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob...all the necessary food groups...eaten in the company of a thousand friends and neighbors!

Company Picnic @ Bay Beach

Jerry got off a bit early on Friday and we headed to Bay Beach for his annual family company picnic. Thankfully, despite threatening skies we didn't really get rained on. Just a few sprinkles here and there.

After eating our fill, we headed over to ride the rides. The boys always have a great time at Bay Beach. This was the first time J.D. really rode the rides. He didn't look like he was having too much fun but when he wasn't allowed to try the new little swing ride he got really mad! He figured out that the ticket was what got him admittance to the ride. So he would take a ticket from Jer and run over to hand it to the ride attendant all by himself.

The new little kid swing ride



J.D. enjoys a ride

No trip to Bay Beach is complete without a ride on the train

Roz invited her friend Allison to join us. So Wesley talked Roz and Allison into taking him on some of the "big kid" rides. The twins were disappointed they still weren't tall enough to ride on the bumper cars. But since it wasn't too crowded we said we'd take them on the ferris wheel. They had never been on it before and thought it was pretty cool. Grandpa rode with Justus and I rode with Wesley and Eli. Roz and Allison rode as well but Jer stayed with Hayden and J.D. on solid ground.

Roz and her friend Allison up in the cloudy sky

Wesley, Shelly, and Eli

Justus and Grandpa

We didn't leave Bay Beach until about 8pm which the normal bedtime for the boys. A busy day with lots of fresh air plus a late bedtime meant that the boys slept in later Saturday morning than they have in a long time...it was almost 7am before they started to stir!

Wildlife Sanctuary

In case you weren't aware, Jerry's dad is visiting so we have been keeping plenty busy the last week. We couldn't do anything on Thursday morning (or this morning) because of swimming lessons so we crammed a lot of fun into the weekend.

Friday morning we headed to the Wildlife Sanctuary. It was cool and cloudy. I guess the animals didn't mind because they were very active! I also didn't think the ducks and geese would be hungry...boy was I wrong! They swarmed all around us and ate the corn as fast as we could toss it. (Speaking of corn...$1 a bag...is a little steep don't you think?! It used to be a quarter!)

Grandpa the Goose Guard

After feeding the geese and looking at all the birds we headed over to the larger animals. The otters gave us quite a show! The boys really enjoyed watching them swimming all over the place.
We didn't really get to spend too much time in the nature center because there was a very large (noisy) group of some kind taking up pretty much the whole building. So we just did a quick run through and headed home for lunch.

We took it easy in the afternoon so we would have plenty of energy to head back to Bay Beach for Jerry's company picnic on Friday evening.

We Went Bananas

Yesterday after J.D. got up from his nap we all loaded up to go visit Roz at work. Grandpa John is here visiting from Arizona so he came too. Jerry wasn't home yet so he wasn't along, but he stopped by to see her on his way home.

Why in the world were we all excited to see Roz at work? Because she was dressed as a banana that's why! We couldn't miss the opportunity to see her in a BIG, yellow banana costume! The store she works at was having a "truckload fruit sale" and she volunteered to dress as a fruit character for her shift.

We're not the only ones who were excited to see "living" fruit. Here's Green Bay Packers linebacker Nick Barnett with Banana Roz and two of her co-workers:


Nick was driving to go work out and was so excited to see the Pig and his fruit friends that he stopped his car to take this photo which he then put on his Twitter account. And just in case you don't live in the Green Bay area...ANYTHING can be a breaking news story around here if it includes the Packers! Yes, even fruit! :)

Only one person was more excited about the Pig & friends than Nick, and that was J.D.! He loved the costumes. The twins were actually a bit scared, and kept back, even though they knew it was Roz inside. But J.D. loved it and was giving everybody high fives. When we left, and I'm not exaggerating, he said "Bye, Bye Piggie" the WHOLE way home!

*Note: This is Nick Barnett's photo. I have a few from my camera but they weren't nearly as good! Maybe I'll post them later...

Ever Heard of Squaric Acid?

We've been having quite the medical adventure thanks to this little chemical known, for obvious reasons, as squaric acid. Wesley developed a pretty bad case of warts on his hands and wrist over the last year or two. These are stubborn...nothing we tried over the counter helped...so we decided to take him to a dermatologist.

The way the doctor explained it is that the warts are living just below the surface of the skin and just above where Wesley's body would recognize them as something to fight off. Warts do have a lifespan and will eventually go away but he keeps getting new ones and she basically said he would have them his whole childhood if we just let them run their course and didn't do something about them.

After discussing our options we decided on a treatment called squaric acid immunotherapy. The S.A. is similar to poison ivy. By sensitizing him to this chemical we are basically forcing an allergic reaction. As long as his body is there fighting off the "poison ivy" it should notice and kill the warts too. Of course, nothing is guaranteed, but we are hopeful.

On our first visit a test spot was applied to Wesley's inner arm where there are no warts. Just as a test she also painted a few of the warts and froze one with liquid nitrogen as well. We left with instructions to call with his reaction in 10 days. I kept waiting for something amazing to happen. They said I would know when it was working but...nothing. Not one bit of change. (The one she froze wasn't affected either.)

Now, I thought I learned in school that it is the second time that you are exposed to something that you are allergic to that you have the reaction. But the doctor seemed to think he would have some kind of reaction right away. He didn't.

So after a few phone calls I got us in sooner than our next scheduled appointment (the end of July). They decided to up the S.A. concentration and try again. They just carefully painted it on with a cotton swab and we were on our way.

Well, he had a reaction this time! I've never gotten into poison ivy and from the looks of Wesley none of us ever want to! (I would share a picture but he asked me not too so I won't.) He developed a hot, raised red rash not just on the wart but also for several inches around each one. The second time she treated them all so he has, for lack of a better word, welts all over. He must have rubbed his cheek following the treatment at some point too because the rash is up on his cheek, even though he didn't have warts anywhere near his face.

This is supposed to be the least painful option but he is still pretty miserable. I have been giving him Benadryl and we got a prescription strength hydrocortisone cream from the pharmacy. The meds help some but he is still pretty itchy. I feel kind of bad knowing that we did this to him intentionally but we hope it will be worth it if we can get rid of the pesky warts once and for all!

Just for fun, here is what the chemical in poison ivy (aka urushiol) looks like: