All This For A Bird & My Gift

So when I was at the end of my pregnancy with Anna and waking up all of the time on my own from just being uncomfortable, a bird decided to perch in our front yard tree every night and sing to us.  At night.  I'd wake up for my regular potty break at about 3AM and wouldn't be able to get back to sleep because of the loud singing of this bird.  Seriously, it had at least ten different annoying tunes that it'd sing.  After about a week of me going crazy from this bird, it just left.  At least I was more appreciative of the sleep that I did get after that.
Fast forward to the day my baby turned four months old, which was yesterday.  Anna woke up at 3:45 to eat last night.  Yes, the whole sleeping through the night thing only lasted about a week.  Anyways, who should I hear singing again but that darn bird.  Had it been just me that the bird was keeping awake, I probably would have just thought something mean about it in my head and covered my ears and eventually fallen back asleep.  But no.  I put Anna back in her bassinet when she finished eating, and the bird still singing outside of our window, and who else should start to sing but a certain little four month old.  At four o'clock in the morning.  Just cooing away like the sun was shining along with the singing bird. 
So what else could I do other than run down the stairs, open the door and throw the closest thing I could find at the tree...a little plastic shovel.  The bird stopped and I went back to bed. 
It started singing again and all the while, Anna was still awake in her bassinet, although getting more fussy about her cooing.  I ran down the stairs, opened the door and picked up two softball sized rocks sitting on our front porch.  I hurled them both into the tree and heard the flutter of bird wings. 
Back in bed, with no more bird songs to keep us awake, Anna and I both fell back asleep. 
I'm hoping that there were no neighbors awake to see a crazy haired momma in a t-shirt and undies throwing shovels and rocks into a tree.



In other happenings, we are still studying Japan and took the kids to Kobe Japanese Steakhouse for dinner yesterday.  Oh so yummy as well as oh so expensive and oh so fun.  The kids were startled when the first fire rose up from the stove.  But they were excited about it after that.  They all tried the soup but didn't care that much for it.  Matthew ate the salad with whatever Japanese dressing it was that was on it.  Christopher and Matthew both tried the tuna sushi roll.  Christopher liked it and Matthew spit his out.  The kids all had teriyaki chicken and steamed rice with veggies and they all ate it, even Gabriel who rarely eats dinner because he "doesn't like it."  Leah's even getting to be pretty picky lately and she chowed down on the chicken and rice.  It was a fun evening and the kids all behaved so well.  Unless if you cound Anna, who was really tired and wanted some cuddle time. 

I was totally bummed that I could not find my camera to take pictures with.  I tried with my camera phone but it was dark and they were blurry so I gave up.

I do have these to show that I took with my early Mother's Day gift today.

Christopher doing math.  He's at the end of Singapore Math 4A and is learning about angles.  He seriously goes around the house measuring angles.

And I wanted to try it out outside and see what my new camera can do.  I love it.  L-O-V-E it.

Many, many more to come.