July 4th - Oct. 13th, 2017

Hello All! 

It's hard to believe I have not done a blog update since July! Not sure where the summer went, but it's long gone and here we are smack-dab in fall already. :)

Here's a little of what we've been up to...

I found Liza had put her PJs in my drawer the other day. So cute!

Micah took an 8-day trip to the country of Moldova in July! It went really well and it was a big blessing for him to be there especially as part of a father/son team. Many of the young people of Moldova end up leaving the country in search of better jobs, so it meant a lot for the people there to see a father and son serving together and both following the Lord. 

Blake and Seth's baseball team ended the season with a bang in July. They got to run onto the field alongside the players of a minor league baseball game here in town! They stood there during the national anthem and then came back. They were walking on air after that! 

At the airport waiting for Daddy's return from Moldova!

So adorable!

Liza made sure he had lots of rest and food as soon as he returned. She's feeding Micah her plastic food and she brought him all her dolls. :)

Our lovely garden was yet again an (almost) complete loss due to the very healthy population of deer around here. :-P However, the tomato plants did survive. Apparently, the  deer don't like the actual plants, but will eat the tomatoes off the plants. Next year...  :) Liza is standing in our "tomato tunnel" here. 

Blake and Seth began taking theatre classes this fall with Alamance Fine Arts Academy here in town. Micah and I have been helping the studio get off the ground by assisting with marketing and social media campaigns over the summer. It's been so fun to have a part in helping it get going!

We are sad to say that we had to bid goodbye to our sweet Blue Belle this summer. She developed some sort of arthritis and was rather miserable, so we said goodbye and had a proper burial in the backyard. :(

We had a visit from Uncle Jonathan in September! The boys are always super excited when Bro comes because fire and strange science experiments are almost always involved. 

Micah sporting a shirt of chainmail made by hand by Jonathan! 

Owen lost his first tooth the other day. He's only 4 1/2, so a little early for losing teeth. I guess he just wants to catch up with the boys. 

Speaking of catching up with the boys, Owen begged me to start school this semester, so he has starting doing Kindergarten with me a few days a week. 

Really big stuff! 

Sweet-Ums! Liza is 2 and a half now, is Mrs. Independent, and is talking up a storm. She is a full-steam-ahead kind of kid and is definitely our loudest child! She screams when she's excited, screams when she's mad, and screams when she's happy. Our little skreecher!

Nightly routine. We have really enjoyed the Jesus Storybook Bible over the years and recently finished our fourth trip through the stories. The way it's written is inspiring and I love that each story points to the awesome miracle of Christ's redemptive work on the cross.

Micah finished his term as president of our local Rotary Club this July. He enjoyed the opportunity to serve, but is also relieved to have a little more breathing room in his weekly schedule.

The kids and I got to join Micah at a convention in Myrtle Beach this September. The kids always get psyched about getting to sleep in a hotel room. It's amazing how much fun they have playing hide-and-seek in such a small room. 

Visiting Broadway at the Beach!

See the red dot on the plant? It's Owen's hermit crab with a Spiderman shell. Each of the boys bought one while at the beach this summer and they've been living in our plant pot ever since. They are exceptional climbers and for the most part have stayed in the pot. There was one early morning when Micah walked into the kitchen to found Spiderman making his way across the vast expanse of our kitchen floor in an attempt to escape. :P

Me and Lizy at Iseley Farms

Owen has graduated to a Big Boy Bed and boy is he proud of himself. He's almost as proud about his bed as Liza is thrilled to have a roommate! 

We got to visit a local Revolutionary War reenactment site this week and got to see many different exhibits showing how people lived and worked in the 1770's. So fascinating. Those people spent 99% of their waking hours just doing what it took to survive. No social media distractions or extra curricular activities needed back then to help keep them busy!

Owen swabbing the canon! 

Funnies...

Well, I've been saving up a few Funnies the last few months for your enjoyment, so here they are:

Liza -"Will you diaper change me?" You know you should already be potty trained when your child is able to articulate a complete sentence like that. 

"What time is it, Owen?" He looks at the hour hand and the minute hand both pointing to 12 and says "It's nothing o'clock". 

Seth, during a movie "Liza, do you want to sit on my lap?" Liza - "No, I want to sit on my OWN lap!" She pronounces it "yap"   :)

Owen, "Hey Mom, I like the part when the really big octopus gets that boat on the movie called 20 Leaves Under the Sea."

We joke with Liza once in a while, "Liza, do you need a little spanking?" the other day she smiled really big and marches off saying, "No, I will spank myself!"

On the drive home....Owen- "Mom, look! There's a boy deer out the window! It's a buff!"   =)

Other News...

We are back into the swing of school now.  The boys love their acting/theatre classes and are having fun getting to practice their monologues on us during the week. It's getting Seth outside of his comfort zone and giving both of them increased confidence in public speaking. 

The church leaders in Moldova that Micah and Mark met with in July want them to come back again and speak to a larger group of church leaders about fathers being loving leaders of their homes. So it looks like Micah will get to return there this coming January for another week long trip!

We spoke with Scott the other day and he has returned safely to Okinawa, Japan after his four month deployment at sea. He says he loves the Asian culture and is enjoying his current job. I think he has another year left in his current enlistment, but is praying about whether to reenlist for a few more years. We are very proud of him!

Hope you all are doing well! 

Kari & All

April 8th - July 3rd, 2017

Hi Friends and Family, 

Happy summer to you! The blur of summer has officially begun and we are delighting in the bliss of the warm season festivities. That and, experiencing lots of bug bites, sunburns, occasional boredom, and other less-than-blissful things of summer. :) God is good though and we are striving to become more like Him each day through the grace He gives us. I say "striving" because we will never completely arrive at Christ-likeness, we can only keep our eyes fixed on that ever perfect example of Christ's life on earth and hope that we will in some way exude that God-love onto those we come in contact with. That's what it's all about, right? 

Here's a little of what we've been up to lately...

Our big home improvement project this year was to landscape our front yard. It's crazy how being a stay-at-home-mom can sound so limited in your exposer to various fields of work, but really as a home-maker, I get to dabble in all kinds of work. Not doing any one of them expertly by any means, but it's fun to try our hand at new things once in a while. Anyway, here's the "before" picture...

Our slave labor...I mean, cheerful helpers...

After! Micah did a great job and was so sweet to be willing to do almost all of it ourselves. Micah's brother, Caleb, did the lion's share of finishing the sidewalk for us. Thanks Caleb!

I think we are done with any more big projects this year. Whew! Seems like the more kids we have (or maybe it's the older we get) the more the thrill of conquering a DIY challenge begins to fade. Lol. Yup, our DIY itch should be satisfied for a while....at least until fall? ;)

Easter!

 One of the highlights of the boys' year is the Annual Homeschool Field Day every spring. Races, tug-o-war, bouncey houses, etc.. so much fun! I think they had a little over 200 kids from our county this year.

These next two pictures were just too funny not to include. This is a glimpse into my days at home... 

Finally sunny out after three days of rain...let's go outside...hmm...can't find Liza's coat...oh yeah, I just washed it...okay, have fun out there!...5 minutes later...(Liza's comes in looking like this)...apparently found the only puddle on the whole property and did a total face plant into it! Freshly cleaned coat and all. Sigh... 

...5 minutes later...all smiles...just being that dirty was the most traumatizing part. :P 

Speaking of Liza, she turned two! She's so much fun lately and is talking up a storm.

Being lazy parents, we decided to combine Liza's birthday with a end of the year piano recital with Blake and Seth. Maybe someday they'll forgive us for the pictures of their recital with pink streamers in the background. :P Blake and Seth have been doing a great job practicing the piano this year and it's cool to see them go sit and play something just for fun and not just when they are supposed to practicing. 

Liza...anything you can do I can do better...

Got a special visit from Dad as he was traveling through participating the "Ride for the Wall" motorcycle rally in D.C.. Here Owen is owning him in the matching game. :)

I've just decided this post is going to be waaay to long if I include every out of the ordinary activity that we've been up to the last three months. So a quick summary...we went camping with Uncle Jonathan in May in Virginia, had a great time! Liza was had a bit too much nature and preferred to spend large chunks of the time in the safety of the tent. 

Blake and Seth had a blast being on their first baseball team this summer. They won some and lost some, but enjoyed the game and getting to make new friends. 

I had the pleasure of flying down to Texas to visit Joy, James, Clark and Baby Charlotte a few weeks ago! She is just precious and it was so fun to spend more time getting to know my nephew and sitting and talking with Joy. 

Random pictures....bed time with Liza, baby and rabbit tucked in there too. So cute!

The Garden...

Our blackberry vines are in full production mode this week. So awesome to enjoy the rewards of our labors and harvest our own fruit from our property. Must be the Kansas side of me...

A meager offering, but maybe next year...

Owen at a butterfly farm we visited a few weeks ago. He's really growing up. Taught himself to ride a bike for the first time the other day.  :)

One of Micah's Father's Day cards from Blake. An accurate depiction I'd say!

Okay, I'm going to stop here. Liza and her "gasses". She is frequently heard wandering around the house saying "Where my gasses?"

Hope you all have a wonderful 4th of July tomorrow! So many things to be thankful for as we reflect on the uniqueness and freedoms we enjoy in this country. 

Love to you all!

Kari & All

February 17th - April 7th, 2017

Hi Everyone! 

It's my favorite time of year again when the trees turn into beautiful blooms that make me think of a fairy land and grass turns a deep green. Everything feels fresh and new and we can hardly make ourselves stay inside long enough to finish school each day. 

Here's some of what we've been up to...

Our kittens have grown! They've also wised up to the fact that being picked up by anyone smaller than 12 is going to mean being squeezed, thus they've gotten hard to catch. They are now 100% outdoor cats...much to Micah's delight.

Liza being slightly less than precious at our mid-semester picnic with Archway, the boys' co-op classes. Just a few weeks until summer break!

Micah and the boys installed a railing in the front of our house last month - yay!

Owen turned four! He is a delight and comes up with the most random and hilarious things.

Playing Duck-Duck-Goose at his party. 

Secret Selfie during church...shhh...don't tell Gan Gan we were using the phone. 

We attended Reptile Day at the Life and Science Museum in Raleigh last month and saw all sorts of creepy crawly creatures. One of the handlers was explaining how a large salamander can actually regenerate a lost limb and had a strange blank stare when we said, "Wow! God is so amazing!". 

Touching a huge iguana!

Less than perfect backdrop for a family photo at the museum...wait, I take that back...I just realized Liza didn't make the picture...sigh, oh well!

Every morning around 9:45am Liza somehow gets her blankets and passy out of bed (passy is supposed to be just for bedtime) and drags it around the house until snack time at 10:00am when she shrieks with delights and throws them all down on the floor in exchange for a banana or cashews. 

I went with Micah to his main event this year as president of our local Rotary. It was reverse raffle fundraising event for a local summer program for troubled youth. He had a lot to organize and did a wonderful job facilitating the event.

Liza in awe at the fantastic play made by one of the famous Tarheel team members.

Railing finished! On to some landscaping!

Liza has a friend down the road named Lincoln. Lincoln is 17mo old and is about an inch taller than her. He is a BIG boy! Liza was delighted to have a handsome driver. She was so funny. She kept climbing into the car, calling Lincoln to sit next to her and then she would just sit there and smile really big.

Part of school each day is Seth reading to Owen a library book or two. 

We've a few gorgeous days of weather the last few weeks and one of the days we hit our favorite Putt-Putt place. Can you guess who wasn't the winner?

Pops (my grandfather on my dad's side) sent the kids a hand-made jigsaw puzzle! I just think it's super cool that they have something made by their great-grandfather.

The church hosted a women's retreat last weekend for the ladies in the church and I got to spend four days at the beach! It was totally refreshing as usual. I even got to finish complete sentences when talking with my friends!

Pops, this picture is for you. Seth loves his truck and was glad to join the ranks of large truck owners around here. 

April showers...

Attempting to make squid models for a school project. 

Here is a lady who has become special to us. Mrs. Nadine used to live next door and had to move last year because of declining health. She pops in every once in a while when she's back in the area. I like the old-fashioned "just stopping by" ways. The house was a di-saster and I had to literally dig the couch out from under a pile of books and laundry to offer her a seat, but that's the small stuff and shouldn't keep us from enjoying impromptu company. We Americans need to "just stop by" more often. 

Funnies...

"My mouth burps when I tell it to...most of the time." -A proud exclamation from Owen.

"I like spring and winter, but I haven't tried summer yet." -Owen

Owen - "I want to be the president when I grow up."    One of those moments when you just stop what you are doing and smile and think of all the wonderful possibilities his future might hold, until....   "or superman, or batman, or..."   

Driving in the van and listening to Google Maps speak the directions, Owen says "Alexa sounds tired." 

Other news...

Scott is doing well in Japan and getting ready to be deployed on a ship this summer for four months. 

Business is moving right along for Dad in Manhattan Kansas. He is really enjoying his work and sounds like he's doing a great job as well. 

Joy and James are expecting baby #2, a girl, in June and Clark is enjoying the bliss of being an only child for just a few more months. 

Blake and Seth start baseball practice next week! They are super excited and I'm excited to be starting our first year organized sports as a family. 

As always, I hope you all are doing well! I better run, Liza and Owen are making a mess as Blake and Seth are simultaneously trying to tidy up, so there is undoubtably a squabble about to erupt. 

Love to you all! Happy Easter!

Love, 

Kari, Micah, Blake, Seth, Owen and Liza