April 25th - Aug. 4th, 2018

Hi Everyone!

Seems like it's been a long time since our last update (as usual). :) It's been super nice to have a breather from school and enjoy the outdoors more this summer. 

Here are some of the highlights of what we've been up to since our last update in April...

Blake and Seth finished up their theatre class at Alamance Fine Arts Academy in May with a charming performance of E.B. White's story of Charlotte's Web. In the play, Blake and Seth played brothers and had several scenes where their extensive experience in sibling banter came in handy. 

Some of the biggest news since our last update is that Blake and Seth have both come to us to inform us that they want to surrender their lives to God and become a follower of Christ. Micah and I have been very careful not to pressure them in this direction, but have been praying and waiting for God to speak to them directly about their personal commitment to Him. It seems that He has and we have seen a difference in their lives lately as they show more of a desire to please the Lord and do the right thing. We are so proud of them and thankful to the Lord for speaking to their hearts. 

Micah and I decided to splurge a little to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary so we left the kids with Nana and hopped aboard a cruise to the Bahamas! We had a blast and mostly slept, ate (a lot) and laid out on the beach or balcony on board. So fun!!

May came with one of our favorite things of the year...strawberry season!

We graduated from trays to buckets this year. The kids have turned into pretty efficient pickers lately. I may have gone slightly overboard this year in my fruit hoarding in the freezer...we picked around 54 pounds altogether! 

Micah and the boys got to go on a father-son camping trip in May to Grandfather Mountain in NC.

Climbed a mountain...

Slid down some waterfalls, and did other manly things of which I still have not been privy to. 

We celebrated Liza's 3rd birthday in May as well! She was so funny to watch when it came time to open presents. Just a liiiiittle on the hyper/dramatic side to say the least! Shouting "Oh I YUV dis!" about everything!

A visit from Pappy in early June! How many kids get to say that their grandfather takes cross-country trips on his motorcycle? The kids think that's pretty cool. :)

Fireworks are soooo cool!

4th of July!

Blake turned 9 this July! Can you believe it? He's really growing up!

Seth turned 8 just a few weeks later!

Birthday hugs :) The kids are so funny. When they were really little and there was a birthday coming up, we would take them to the dollar store so they could use their own money to pick out a present or two for whomever was having a birthday. They have loved this little traditions so much that we've kept it up. They get such a kick out of not only picking out presents for each other at the dollar store, but the dollar store gifts they receive on their birthdays are also some of their favorites even though they rarely last out the first day. :)

Bowling for Seth's birthday. We're all showing off our "bowling ball". :)

Some friends of ours bought a farm that had 100 established blueberry bushes on it, so they have invited friends and family to come picture however much we want! (never say this to a fruit hoarder like me because we DID!)

The aftermath of pancakes with blueberry syrup. 

Micah took the kids to the office one Saturday and they played Hide'n Seek. Here was Liza's hiding place... LOL

The boys have had a strange fetish with Monopoly lately. Totally Micah's doing. Maybe it's because it's the one board game I refuse to play (who has time for a four-hour game!?!) so that makes it a special man-time thing to do. Who knows?!

We reached a new milestone at our house last month! Blake has officially started helping with the push-mowing! 

Liza announced she was ready for work at "da office" like Daddy. :)

Ah...summer days!

Owen practicing his "scary face"...or something?

In anticipation of baby Fox Five coming in November I've been working on alphabet and reading skills with Owen over the summer. He was quite excited to read his first "Bob Book" a few weeks ago. Slowly but surely we are working on getting him to good reading level so he can read to me while I take care of baby this fall. (that's the plan anyway, we'll see what happens!) :)

Liza likes to "pretend" she's angry sometimes at the table by putting on her angry eyebrows. This is also what she looks like when she's not pretending. :) It's hard not to laugh when her eyes are barely showing from under her lowered brow. 

All good moms do painting projects with their kids, right? I put it off until summer claiming we didn't have time during the school year, so we've painted twice and... I think I'm good until next summer. :D

Have to brag on Blake for a minute...he has really excelled in his math this past year. Going at his own rate with homeschooling has been such a good fit for him. He finished his 5th grade math book and is ready to start a 6th grade math level book this fall! Go Blake!

Susanna Fox (Micah's sister) and I entered in a little cake-decorating contest with the Women's group at our church last weekend. We won! It was really fun and I learned quite a bit about cakes that I didn't know before. Thanks, Kate for all the tips!

Baby Fox Five is growing (or, I should say I am growing :-/  ) like a weed lately. Maybe a watermelon plant is a better analogy... Liza is completely in love with my belly and is always giving the baby a kiss goodnight and talking about what the baby likes and doesn't like. :) Hopefully, the excitement of having a baby to hold take care of will eclipse the realization that she is not the baby of the family anymore. We are super excited about baby although occasionally have moments when it hits us again...are we really doing this again?! We are at 27 weeks along already!

We are getting some work done this week! We've been talking for several years about opening up the walls between the kitchen and school room to make more room for our dining room table and we're finally making the plans a reality. This time we decided to hire the job out. ;)

What do you think?! I'll have the finished "after pictures" in our next update Lord willing. 

Curled Liza's hair for the first time last Sunday...as you can see she was thrilled.  :-/

Guess this is more her style...

Funnies...

"Hey Owen! I have ten fingers that are located and ten toes that are located. When they are DISlocated they are crooked." -Seth 

Owen was looking through a hunting and fishing catalog the boys received at a 4H class the other day. When he saw the pictures of the hunters sitting next to their kill holding the heads of the deer up like they do, he exclaimed, "Mom! Look at all these people who have a pet deer!"

Liza came inside from playing and I saw her go into the bathroom and get some toilet paper. I asked her what she was doing, she said, "I didn’t wipe myself when I went potty in the woods." ...oh dear...

While playing frisbee with the boys outside when Daddy had to work late, I made an apparently rare play and actually caught the frisbee. Owen declared in amazement, "Wow, Mom, you caught. I’ve never seen you like that before." LOL

Owen- "I want to be a policeman"

Liza- "I want to be a policeman" 

Owen- "Well she can’t ride in the same car as me. She talks way too much."

"I feel like my head is turned around because I’m thinking about things I haven’t done yet." -Owen   ...no idea where that one came from!  :)

Well folks, I think that's it for now. We heading to the beach soon with the entire Fox side of the family and the kids can hardly wait! Liza has literally been talking about the beach since January. In September, we get to host a mini-Shoemaker family reunion here at our house! It's going to be a blast!!

Hope you all are doing well! 

With love, 

Micah, Kari, Blake, Seth, Owen, Liza, and Fox Baby Five