July 13th - Aug. 24th, 2014

Hello Everyone, 

It's been five weeks since my last update - time flies when you're having fun. We've had a busy and good summer this year. Here are some highlights of the past five weeks....

Seth turned 4! We are really proud of how he is doing in his life. He loves to be outside and is really into hitting baseballs. He is also really into the "Memory Game" right now. Mostly because he is better at it than Blake, so it's his favorite. :)

The present Seth was most excited about was a bow and arrow from Daddy. 

 So far, the rabbits in the backyard have evaded all arrows, but we'll see how long that lasts. 

Beach Trip

 The time came for the long awaited Fox family beach trip. We had a great time together at Holden Beach for a week. The first few days it rained so we spent a lot of time inside playing games, reading and coloring. The whole gang even got to hear a dramatic reading of "On The Banks of Plum Creek" by Micah. 

 The whole crew!

 There were some tide pools this year that were perfect for Owen and the boys. Owen was crazy about the water, he loved it and cried every time we had to get out. 

Good Ol' Uncle Judah will do anything for the kids. :)

A bit of mini-golf with these pros. 

We had a great time at the beach and, as always, it was over way too fast. I asked Blake the other day what he liked to think about and he said, "I mostly like to think about the beach". :) 

 We had some visitors waiting for us when we got home from the beach. Kate and Roger flew in for a friend's wedding and stayed for a few days. 

 Cousin Roger and Owen. 

Uncle Will with Seth, Roger, Owen and Blake. Roger is the sweetest little angel baby you've ever met. I'm serious! He is so calm and obedient that he makes my boys look like wild indians. It was fun to spend time with them and watch the boys play together. 

Kate was kind enough to help me decorate our bare walls in the living room. It was so nice to get that project going! Our before picture. 

After. Ya'll need to come visit us, okay?

Micah celebrated five years at Northstar! God has been good to us and we've been blessed to be a part of the team there. Micah is definitely a favorite among his co-workers and often comes home with stories of pranks he has played on them. :)

Days at home....

 Met another neighbor last week...  

 Blake and Seth LOVE Legos right now! They are able to assemble pieces using instruction books marked for ages much older than they are. They would probably play with Legos all day if they had the choice. 

Owen likes to think he can ride the bikes like the big boys and seems to get a thrill out of scaring me to death when he climbs up the seat alone. He's so proud of himself though, that's it's hard to be upset. 

In other news...

Our boxes of school curriculum came in the mail the other day and I've been spending some time preparing for our FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL! Pretty exciting and terrifying all at the same time. I have to keep reminding myself that it's just kindergarten and first grade, how hard can it be? Thankfully, God is more concerned about our hearts than He is about the facts that we know, so that helps keep things in perspective and (should) help me from getting to too stressed out. ;-) We start school tomorrow morning and I'm looking forward to the boys opening their bags with "presents" of school supplies. Our regular days at home about about to change! I'll let you know how it goes. :)

Since my last update, Jonathan has returned from Afghanistan and is safely back in the States. We are really proud of him and it sounds like the people he worked with were impressed with him too as he was nominated to be one of a group of possible candidates to go on a short-notice deployment to Africa. We are hoping to get a visit from him sometime soon.

Funnies...

Every once in a while I'll say things to the boys like, "Isn't is cool that God made____?", just to get them thinking about God. So the other day Blake was helping me fold laundry and said contemplatively as he folded, "Mom, isn't it neat that God made underwear flat so you don't have to fold them?"  :0) Yes, it is. 

Blake was helping Micah with a work project for someone in the church and Blake was doing some painting. After a few minutes of painting Blake got rather distressed and said, "Dad! The paint keeps running out!" Micah instructed him that the paint runs out of the brush because it's going on the wood and you have to dip it back in the paint bucket to get more.  :)

Well, hope you all are doing well and having a good summer!

Love, 

Kari, Micah, Blake, Seth and Owen

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