Oct. 14th - Nov. 20th, 2014

Hi Y'all!

Hope you all are having a wonderful fall season so far. We are looking forward to celebrating Thanksgiving next week and are blessed to have many things to be thankful for.

Here's little of what we have been up to since our last post in October.

 We celebrated Micah's BIG birthday in October. :) We had a corn hole tournament, which I'm sad to say didn't turn out in favor of the birthday guy, but nonetheless, we had fun. Micah wears 30 well and is still my hero and the love of my life. He is one of the best parts of my life and is such a blessing to everyone he is around. 

What a man! 

On to other things....It's been a dream of mine for a while now to go camping as a family. We got to go for the first time for two nights during the peak season for color in the trees. It was so pretty out there. The trees were brilliant with color. Overall, our first camping experience went better than we expected even though the first night was a bit on the frigid side, the boys handled it well and we all had a good time. The enjoyment outweighed the work. :) 

 Ready at a moment's notice with the lighter. Owen carried that thing around for hours. 

 Becoming a real man. 

 Got a visit from Pappy the second day we were there. The boys always enjoy having their Pappy around. :)

 Something about watching a fire blaze is so mesmerizing....

Found a friend along the way. 

 Headed out for a hike up the "hill" which turned into a two-mile excursion to the top of the mountain! Thankfully, we had some uncles around to help haul the boys up the trail when they ran out of steam. 

 Quite the view!

Made it! Whew!

 The past few days the highs have been in the 40's so we've spent a lot more time indoors lately. Good preparation for the coming months of winter...gulp!

 Owen has learned how to put together a board puzzle. He is very very busy on an average day. I'll explain more below...

 Outing with Daddy to a work meeting. Every once in a while Micah will have an evening meeting and he will take one of the boys with him. This particular evening he decided to take both boys. You know that old saying "Two boys is half a boy, and three boys is no boy at all"? Well, we learned that the boys do better when it's just one of them at a time when it comes to meetings with Daddy. :) The temptation to make the other one laugh during the session is just too great. 

 So more on Owen's "busyness". Now that we are doing school for a few hours during the weekdays, I've noticed just how busy Owen is. I'll usually do school with Seth in the morning while Blake occupies Owen and then I'll do Blake's school in the afternoon while the other two are sleeping. Working out well so far. We also do reading time with Blake and Seth in the morning and that is Owen's golden hour to wreak havoc on the house. The little cutie. While reading to Blake and Seth I will see him out of the corner of my eye darting here and there while I read and I try not to imagine what he is getting into or doing. Normally, he does pretty well at not getting into things he shouldn't and usually happily occupies himself by going from one toy or activity to the next and the next. He is so funny, he'll just keeps going and going and going. 

The other day I decided to just write down some of the things he did during his average morning "busy time". Here goes... looked at books, colored in coloring book, got out toy cars, played with tower stacking activity, went through house flushing toilets, got out train set and played train, pushed laundry basket around house like it was a car, got out coffee server and hot pot and played "coffee" in living room, took clothes off, dumped out and played with blocks, played with toy guitar, got out and put on Seth's tennis shoes, etc... You may think I'm exaggerating, but this was over the course of maybe an hour or so. It's fun times! He almost never sits down. :) He is hilarious though, makes us laugh, and we love him to pieces!

I just keep thinking that I'm so thankful God gave me three younger brother who I used to think were SO weird and annoying when they were little. But, I think growing up with them has really helped prepare me for life with three boys of my own! So, thanks bros for being just the way you were. :)

 Learning tower stacking! 

That's all for now folks. :)

Funnies: 

Seth- "I put it on the coughing table in the living room"

Blake - "Seth, guess which hand I put my vitamin in. You can pick two."

Seth- "I wish I could ride a bonking bronco someday"

Other News:

Scott graduates from bootcamp on Nov. 26th. He is doing great up there. We have gotten a few letters from him and it sounds like he really enjoying the structure and the environment. We are proud of him and I know his recruiter is confident that he will do really well. He begins his next phase of training around the first of December. 

We are enjoying weekends with Jonathan for the past month or so. He is stationed close enough so that he can come up and stay with us Saturday afternoon through Sunday evenings. He is doing well in his "spook" job. :)

Hope you all are doing well and are ready to celebrate the holidays. 

Love to you all!

Kari, Micah, Blake, Seth and Owen