June 17th - July 12th, 2014

Hello Everyone! 

We have been enjoying our summer here at the new house. It's feeling more and more like home and we are really enjoying having more space. 

Here's what we've been up to this summer...

 Owen is being integrated into Story Time at the library. As you can see, he is still learning the basics. Like who he's supposed to be paying attention to and who everyone else is supposed to be looking at. :) 

 Boy, if I know how much boys enjoyed gravel, I would have gotten them a big pile a long time ago. They love that stuff. Digging, throwing, shoveling...endless entertainment. 

 We had our horizons expanded with the discovery of a "Sprayground". It was so fun!

 Summer isn't complete without at least one Burlington Royals baseball game. 

 I guess Owen had enough baseball at this point. 

 You know us, always doing some sort of project around the house. We decided blood-red walls wouldn't be the best for our school room this fall. 

 Good bye red! Micah is such a trooper and willing to help me improve and beautify the house. 

Muuuch better. :)

 Outdoor concert in Downtown Burlington. Micah's brother, Jesse's, band was the main attraction for the evening. They did a great job!

 More gravel time... :)

 Had a neighbor join us for dinner. Yes, that's a tick I found crawling up MY dining room table! Ugh. We do have a lot of ticks and chiggers out here, but we've avoided all but one tick bite so far. We've been working on getting rid of some of the brush around the perimeter of our back yard hoping that will help.

 The view out my kitchen window. These guys show up most late afternoons to eat clover in the shade of the house. 

 Owen is slowly mastering the spoon! It takes a lot of concentration, but depending on the consistency of whatever he is eating, he manages to get most of it in his mouth. :)

 Had our propane tank buried. Goodbye ugly metal tank in the middle of the backyard! 

 Blake has really continued to amaze me with he reading. He has a stack of 1st and 2nd grade level chapter books in his arms that will take him about five afternoon quiet times to read. He's doing so well. 

 4th of July fireworks at the park. Owen was a bit concerned. 

 Special reading spot and cushion. 

 Here's a view of our house from the front. We are wanting to do landscaping this fall...we will see. I need to figure out what we'd like to do first. 


 We celebrated Blake's 5th birthday on Thursday! Hard to believe we are old enough to have a five-year-old. 

Started the birthday with a trip to the bounce around. Owen was in hog heaven. :)

 Blake was so cute. He got some money from Aunt Joy and Uncle James, so he taped it on the fridge for all his birthday guests to see. 

 We had fun playing pin the tail on the donkey. 

 Even Owen wanted to get in on the action. 

 Water balloon launching...this is serious folks. 

 Blake had a few of his boy friends over the day after his birthday for a play day. They did "man stuff" and sweated a lot outside. 

 Blake's expression in this picture makes me laugh. He is about to say "YES!" really loud.  :)

We had another "first" in our family. Blake lost his first tooth. Unfortunately, it is really lost. We still don't know where it is. Thankfully, the Tooth Fairy accepted a small token in place of the tooth and Blake found a little letter from her. 

Other News...

We are looking forward to celebrating Seth's fourth birthday in two weeks. 

Jonathan returns to the States from Afghanistan in about three weeks. He is able to take some leave to come visit so we're looking forward to that!

Family beach trips are coming up in August and September. The boys have been talking about that pretty much all year.

I know it's a shocker to most of you, but after weighing different options and praying for direction, we've decided to homeschool. :) We have been researching various curriculum for kindergarten for Blake, and boy is he ready. I vacillate between being excited and completely overwhelmed at the prospect of being responsible for educating our children in the academic realm. It's definitely the way God is leading our family and the best choice for us. It's kinda crazy to think that this fall will mark the beginning of us homeschooling for possibly the next 20 years! (Depending on how many kiddos we have). Whew! I know we won't do it perfectly, but I also know God will give us wisdom  and the grace to do it for however long He wants us to. It's neat to see homeschooling becoming so much more popular over the years and we are blessed to live in a very homeschool-friend area with many sports and co-op opportunities avaliable. There is so many more options for curriculum now a days than there were when I was a homeschool student. So anyway, we will have our first day of school sometime in September! 

I better wrap this up. The World Cup is almost over and the boys are beckoning me to join them in the living room. :) Hope you all are doing well! 

In Christ, 

Kari, Micah, Blake, Seth and Owen

May 17th - June 16th, 2014

Hello All!

It's been one month since our last post and a lot has happened around here. We are officially moved in and, as of today, we are online! Not sure how we have survived the past few weeks without internet service to our home computer, but somehow we've made it. :) Throw in the wedding of a close friend, (pretty much family), a reunion with old college friends, and a large paint job and you have one busy moving week.

Here are some pictures of our move. 

 Back it up, redneck style. 

 So many good memories at our old house. We were there for 4 years!

 Blake taking a break from his hard labors.

 Worn plum out. 

 Last night...sleepover in the front room with movie and ice cream. :)

 Said some final goodbyes the next day. It was a little hard to leave our lovely kitchen we spent so many hours remodeling. 

 Goodbye yard!

 Somewhere on another hard drive I have a picture of our family when we first moved in. It was just Micah, baby Blake and Me with my pregnant self expecting Seth. 

 All loaded and heading to Gan-Gan and Nanas for a few days. 

We were blessed to have wonderful family who let us stay with them for five days while a few things were being wrapped up at the new house. One of which being a huge painting job in the living room. 

 "Before" picture of the living room. As much as we love to Do-It-Yourself, this was one job we were more than happy to pay someone else to do! 

Goodbye yellow!

 Happy to have some special moving help flown in all the way from Texas!

 Our good friend, Amos, got married the same weekend we moved in and Blake got the privilege of being a ring bearer in his wedding. 

Micah also got to be part of the wedding party as a groomsmen. 

Moving In...

New room! Blake and Seth are sharing a room and Owen is by himself. Finally, easier nap times. :)

 New house! 

Met some of the neighbors. This is Fred. No really, that's his name.

A view from our front porch. The boys are running back from the mailbox. The gravel road on the right is our driveway. 

An "after" picture of the living room. Just pretend you are a fish on Finding Nemo.   =)       We christened our home by hosting a brunch (thanks to Joy and James' help) for our friends from out of town who attended the wedding. It was fun to have a group of people over the day after we moved in. 

We had so much fun with J & J while they were here. 

 Our first "normal" day at home in our new house. Micah went back to work, J & J were gone, time to dig into the kitchen boxes and start unpacking! The boys were a huge help...as you can see. Owen rearranged the tupperware while Seth and Blake practiced their baseball slides into the piles of newspaper. :) 

First reading time in the new house. 

Coincidentally, we are reading through the Little House on the Prairie series and our moving days fell on the part in the story when Laura Ingalls and her family moved in their covered wagon from "The Big Woods" to the "Little House on the Prairie". We left our very shaded yard in surrounded by trees to now living on over 2 acres of mostly open lawn. It almost feels like the prairie out here. I've gotten reacquainted with some of my old Kansas buddies- ticks and chiggers. We are getting into a habit of checking the boys for ticks when they come inside and doing quick baths in the evenings when they've been running around in the grass. Last night I saw a deer in our front yard and we see at least three large rabbits every morning. Our road is quiet and in the afternoons an hour can go by before you see a car pass. No sirens or highway noise out here, it's so quiet. It's awesome. We are so thankful God provided us with a newer home with few immediate repairs needed. Just needs some landscaping and maybe a few ponies running around the front yard. :)


Funnies...

Blake and Seth got to experience the thrills of eating cotton candy for the first time while we were at the park. Seth, being unfamiliar with such substances asked me on the way home, "Mom did you remember to bring my rotten candy?"

On Father's day we woke Micah up with cards and coffee in bed. I asked Blake and Seth to tell Daddy something that they liked about him. Blake gave a response, but Seth was silent. Finally, Seth smiled and admitted he was too embarrassed. After trying to coax him and tell him how much it would mean to Daddy to hear Seth share, I ask Seth how he would feel if Daddy was too embarrassed to tell him he loved him. Seth said with a smirk, a shrug, and a long sigh, "I'm about to cry right now".      It was so funny, he reminded me of a teenager. And no, we never did get to enjoy hearing from Seth about what he appreciates about his Daddy. Maybe someday. :)

Blake was very concerned about the used mower Micah was looking at buying. Blake said, "Daddy, does the mower turn?" Micah- "Yes, of course". Blake "Well, you said it was a ZERO TURN!" 


Hope you all have a good week. Thank you to those would have prayed for us the last few months about all that went into finding a house and moving. God is good!

Love, 

Kari, Micah, Blake, Seth and Owen

May 1st - 16th, 2014

Hello Everyone!

An update on our house transition is below...

But before I get into that, I've thought for a long time of using one whole blog post of what a typical weekday at home is like for us. But, since our routine is going to be changing I decided to take some time to post some things that we do at home to keep ourselves busy and learn. The boys learn about the world around them and I learn more about what it means to be a mom. :)

We swing on trees...

We take care of our kitty and play with him...

 We get to attend Story Time at the library... (last time we went to the fire station)

 We play in the sand...

 We do puzzles...(and make weird faces)

 We do activities...(like practicing our scissor skills) 

 We ride our bikes (a lot) up and down the driveway).... and we pretend to mow the lawn (a lot) :)

 We eat oatmeal...almost every morning...(not usually with chocolate chips) 

 We do more mowing...and work on our tan...

 We go swimming on our deck...

 We sometimes give the babysitters a hair cut in exchange for babysitting...(yes, he is holding his own hair I just cut off!)

 This week we went strawberry picking...

 Blake and Seth have asked at least once per week for the past year when it's time to go strawberry picking. Their dream finally came true. They can eat one for every two they put in the basket. Thankfully, the farmer doesn't mind the kids "grazing" as we pick. I offered to weigh the boys before and after we did our picking and pay for the difference, but they declined. :)

We picked over 40 pounds this season!

 After we fall asleep at night, Daddy checks on us every night and we are very tired...  :)



News

The past two weeks have been a whirl wind around here. Along with deciding on and going under contract with our next house, we have done some traveling. We've been to Virginia Beach and Newport News, VA and Dayton, TN and points in between to celebrate two graduations and one anniversary...ours! Six years! The happiest of my life. 

Me and Owie at Regent University where Micah's sister, Hannah, graduated.


House update....We have found a house! If all goes as planned, we will be moving out of our little house on Gurney St in 15 days!! 

 We have officially started packing! 

Sometimes I wonder why we keep toys at all. Between, dirt, sticks and cardboard boxes the boys can be perfectly happy for a long time. :)

I'm excited about moving to a some more space and yet going to miss our little place a lot! So many memories. I have so enjoyed it these past four years. This will likely be the last post I do while we are still in our Gurney St. house. Maybe next time I post I'll have pictures of our new house and probably more moving pictures. Did I mention the new place has 2 acres?! I'm looking forward to telling you more about it in our next post.


Funnies

While strawberry picking Seth announced after about 15 min of the pick-two-eat-one policy, "Mom, I have an idea. How about you pick and I eat." :)

I wish I could post the video of this, but at one of the graduations we went to Seth had a funny incident. After we were seated a man came around with a bucket of candy. Seth picked out a nice big piece in a wrapper. He opened it and popped the whole thing in his mouth. Suddenly, he got a shocked look on his face and spit it out as fast as he could...turned out to be a pencil eraser! You should have seen his bottom lip drop. Poor fellow, had never seen such a colorful eraser before. :) Luckily, Daddy had a spare piece of candy at the ready.



Thanks again for your prayers for us about our house transition. We still have a few more steps to get through (inspections, appraisals, etc.), but we are getting closer and things are looking good. Thank you, Lord.  

Have a good weekend!

Kari, Micah, Blake, Seth and Owen