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

April 11th - 30th, 2014

They are just so sweet!   (If I do say so myself)

Hi Everyone!

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

Hope you all had a Happy Easter! It's become family tradition to take pictures together (or at least make an attempt to)while everyone looks nice.

 Since we can't make a fairy house, (apparently boys don't pretend fairies) we decided to make a house for a frog the other day. 

Strangely enough, a few days after we constructed our reptilian shelter, the first frog of the season showed up. He was caught straight away and forced into his new abode. He was gone by morning. Can you say ungrateful?!

 We tried our hand at paper mache for the first time as we made a minature of Jesus' tomb for Easter.

I wanted the boys to have a memorable visual of the Easter Story, so on Easter morning, Daddy read the Easter story while the boys "acted" out the scenes. Here they are wrapping Jesus' body for burial. The boys played with the little stick figures for a while after we were done reading. I heard Seth holding the angel and talking to Jesus' disciples saying "Hey guys, do you want to come to my house and watch a movie? I'm taller than you because I'm standing on playdoh."  :)

 Owen tried to keep up during the Easter egg hunt, but he gave up after a while and sat down to take on the job of opening all of them. 

 Owen loves his uncles! It's fun to see him play with them. 

 The boys participated in two different Easter egg hunts and made out like bandits. I've been slowly rationing out their huge stash of candy. I'm actually hoping that they will forget about their bags of candy altogether. :)

Blake got measured for a little tux yesterday. He was asked to be in a wedding this June as a ringbearer. He told me he was worried about it because he might "get distracted". I finally figured out that he meant to say embarrassed. :) He's going to be so cute!

Other News...

We had an offer on our house a few weeks ago and are now under contract! Yay! We had the results come back on our inspection and there are several (not so inexpensive) items the buyers are asking us to pay for. If you'd like, pray with us that we would have wisdom to know how to best negotiate what we will and won't pay for. Our realtor is very experienced, has been excellent to work with and has been a big help so far.

On the flip side, we've found a house we really like! It's out in the country and sitting on a little over two acres, which should give the boys some room to run around. We're pretty excited! Our projected closing date is June 2nd, so that means we have a little less than 5 weeks left in this house. May will be a busy month for us! 

Micah and I will celebrate 6 years of marriage this weekend! Can you believe it?! I know I say this every year, but he really is the best hubby a girl could ask for. :) 

We get to go to Virginia Beach this weekend to see Micah's younger sister, Hannah, graduate from college. The boys are looking forward to seeing the beach again and Micah and I get spend some time together for our anniversary too!


Funnies...

On the way back from the tuxedo fitting session, Micah told Blake that sometimes people call tuxedos a "tux" for short. Blake replied, "Well, I guess you could call it "zeedo" for short too."



That's actually the only one I can think of right now. :) I need to do better about writing them down when they say them. 

Love to you all!

Kari, Micah, Blake, Seth and Owen

March 2nd - April 10th, 2014

Hi Everyone!

The past five weeks have been pretty eventful. Here's what we've been up to...

We had a significant ice storm come through in March. The power was out for about two days at our house. But, we were really lucky compared to others who were out for over five days.

 I had to share this picture. We were praying that God would protect our house from branches falling (especially since we just put it on the market) and look how these branches landed! Perfectly between the railing!

 All around town for the past several weeks folks are clearing branches and fallen trees. There have been piles of branches in front of almost every house waiting to be picked up. Blake and Seth got to help the big boys when Micah took them to go help clear at a friend's. 

 Even Owen got into the action!

 A highlight of the past month was when I got to travel up to Maryland for the day to see Jonathan off before his deployment. Scott and I drove up and picked Will up in VA. We spent the afternoon together and had a great time. 

 Jonathan arrived safely in Afghanistan and says that he's doing really well for the first week. We are so proud of him!

 Big Stuff. Our little "Owie" is doing great! He's 13 months old now and gaining weight and growing, albeit slowly. He has gone from walking slowly to running and even climbing the kitchen step stool. He is so expressive and is making all kinds of a baby talk lately. He has learned how to point with one finger and say please "peez", bye bye and "Wow!". :)

 Last weekend I was able to attend a women's retreat with our church. There were about 50 ladies attending this year. It was great to get away for a few days. Although, it was hard to leave my Owie! :)

 Tuesday of this week we took a tour of a local dairy along with some friends. Made me miss my days in Kansas. 

 Blake found the peeeerfect place to sit on the hay ride. :)

 Owen was not too sure about the animals there.

 Serious playtime around here. 

 Look at those lashes! Owen gets more compliments on his eye lashes than I ever have. He gets it from Micah's side of the family. 

 What is it with boys and sticks? Blake loves to carry this stick around the use it to help him jump off the deck. 

 Blake asked me this morning if his shirt looked good tucked into his pants. Suuuure. Who am I to cramp his style? Typical homeschooler look... here we come.  :)

 Seth is 3 1/2  now and doing really well. We are about three months into a strict gluten diet and it seems to be helping his overall disposition. He still maintains his reputation of "Sethy Sethy Quite Contrary" around the house, but we are seeing a lot less outbursts. He has a very sweet and caring side that comes out when he is taking care of Owen. He is learning his colors and some of his letters. He doesn't know what they are called, but he can write some letters. Probably just because he's trying to keep up with Blake. He does not like to learn them right now which is fine. He has plenty of time. He'd rather be out playing a sport of some sort. Everything is a competition with Blake. Whoever finishes their food first gets to boost "I beat you!". Seth may not be in the lead academically, but he seems to be more coordinated when it comes to physical activity. 

Blake is 4 1/2 now and is our typical first born around here. He is learning by leaps and bounds. He's reading and writing. He likes to sit down and write stories, just asking for help with spelling. Here is one of his stories: "A fox ran into a chicken house and ate all the eggs and chased the chickens away."


Other News

Scott has signed the dotted line for 4 years in the Navy! He is hoping to qualify for training in the SEALS program which would mean at least a 6 year commitment. He is hoping to be shipped out to boot camp sometime in October.

We have had 7 showings on our house in the past six weeks! We heard yesterday that we may have someone who is seriously interested in making an offer. Should find out soon if that materializes. Still on the lookout for our next house. There are a lot coming out on the market, but so far we don't feel like we have seen "The One". You can be praying that God brings along just the right place for us and we are confident that He will. :) 


Funnies

Sitting at the table after a meal, Blake announces "I like football, basketball, soccer and baseball" Seth immediately chimes in with his favorite things, "I like football, basketball, soccer and Julia."   Ever since we had a playdate with some friends of ours and their daughter, Julia (12yrs old), Seth has been quite taken with her. On the way home from church he whispered to me, "Mom, I said hi to Julia today".   Oh dear...3yrs old?? 

Blake on when we move: "Mommy, will we dig up the grass around the house and take that with us too?" :) Let's hope not!

Blake has been struggling with the realization that most people older than him know more that he does. We were at some friends house for dinner and their dad (who happens to be a high ranking officer in the Navy) saw Blake bringing his plate to the trash, he thought Blake was going to throw the plate away and said something to him. Blake told him that he was just scraping the plate and then bringing it to the sink. The dad he was sorry and it was no problem. Blake replied, "It's okay. You were confused."    :)


Hope you all are doing well! 

Until next time, 

Kari, Micah, Blake, Seth & Owen