March 14th - April 16th, 2015

Hi Everyone!

Happy Spring! My favorite time of the year when everything is coming to life and there's more green than gray outside. Some of the highlights of the past five weeks were... saying hello to Spring, my trip to a women's retreat, celebrating Easter, planting blueberry bushes, and the surprise early arrival of cousin Clark Beeman! 

The annual Women's Retreat was two nights at the beach with about 48 other ladies from church. It was great to have some time with the ladies and as always, very spiritually refreshing. 

I'm getting a new perspective on the term "spring fever". The boys have been more energetic than usual and just want to be outside running around as much as possible. We put some of that energy to good use by planting ten blueberry bushes in our front yard. The boys were a bit disappointed to find out they had to wait about three years before getting any blueberries, but they still enjoyed helping. 

 Popsicle face  :)

 Owen is crazy about motorcycles lately and LOVES Pappy's! Whenever we are driving around town he yells "Motocycle!" when he sees one. He'll even try to get the riders attention by saying, "Hey Dude! Hey Dude!"  :)

 Spring is here at last! Here are some of the bouquets of flowers I received from the boys. Owen brought his offering and laid it on my lap too, as you can see. :)

 Neighbor's horse, Fred, likes to come up to the fence when we go walking by. He is super sweet and lets the boys pet his nose. We found out the other day that he is 38 years old!

 Owen and his "baby" seahorse. Practicing rocking for when the real baby arrives. :)

 Seth has been starting to "write" notes on his own lately and can often by seen at the craft table sounding out letters to try and figure out which one to use. He is doing really well and I'm so glad he's gotten more interested in learning his letters lately. Here is a cute note he wrote to Daddy the other day. Most of it is not eligible, but if you look at the last line on the paper you came make out the sentence "You are my favorite". :)

 Owen got his own hammer the other day and when I gave him a nail he immediately did what he saw Daddy d0... put it in his mouth to hold onto it. :) 

 Learning to hammer (with much supervision and cringing by mother) :)

Seth is learning about insects in kindergarten right now so we are reading about, hunting for, drawing pictures of, molding, everything having to do with bugs. 

It's so fun to have such a nice sized yard to go bug-hunting in! I like to just stand back and let them pick up the bugs while trying to pretend like I would be okay with doing it myself. 

 An average night for us.

 The boys were really excited about Easter this year. We worked on memorizing a passage in the Bible for several weeks and the boys were able to get up and quote it for the whole church on Easter Sunday. They did a great job! 

 Owen eating the rooster from the Bible lesson about Easter. :)

 Easter portraits! Blake is quite the handsome young man these days. 

 Seth is growing up too!

 This was the best we could do with Owen's picture, as you know, there are few moments when he is sitting still. :)

 Chocolate Easter Bunnies were part of their reward for saying their memory verses at church. Thanks Moms and Pops!

 Easter Egg Hunt at Grandmom's!

The most exciting news of the past month was getting an unexpected call from Uncle James on Monday that baby Clark was coming ready or not! About 5 1/2 weeks early, he is doing really well and has not needed any help breathing. He is still at the hospital and will hopefully get to come home soon. 

Sweet little munchkin! 5 lbs and 4 oz, 18" long at birth. 


In Other News...

I'm 33 weeks along now and only 7 left to go! Seeing pictures of a baby Clark makes me even more excited about seeing our baby for the first time. I can't wait to find out if we're having a boy or a girl! I know it sounds crazy to wait until the birth day, but for me it just adds to the excitement of the day and gives me even more motivation during the delivery. We are busy redecorating Owen's room for when baby comes to join him and doing a bit of furniture refinishing. I'll try and snap some before-and-after pictures.

I didn't get a chance to collect many funnies this week, but maybe next time!

Hope you all are doing well!

With love, 

Kari, Micah, Blake, Seth, Owen and Baby 

Feb. 14th - Mar. 13th, 2015

Hi Everyone, 

Hope you all are doing well! Some of the highlights of the past month were Valentine's Day, Owen's Birthday and a big snow storm...

 One of the first nice days in February was Valentine's Day, so we took some time to get out in the sunshine even though it was a bit (or a lot) chilly. 

I had the chance to take an overnight trip with the Fox ladies and some friends to the Biltmore House in Asheville, NC. They had a special exhibit featuring costumes from the popular TV show, Downton Abbey. It was fun to see the costumes in person and to have the chance to spend some "girl time" away. 

Owen turned two in February! Can you believe it? He had fun opening his birthday cards. 

 For part of his birthday we all went out to dinner together (something that's usually reserved only for Mommy and Daddy's date nights so it was a big treat for them). 

 Ice cream at Chick-fil-a! Funny story...as we were entering the kid's play area at the restaurant there was a very cute little girl holding the door open for us. She looked like she was about three. Without missing a beat, instead of walking past her, Owen stopped and threw his arms around her and was going in for a big kiss on the lips before I was able to grab him just in time. Where does he get these ideas?!? Luckily, her parents weren't watching. :)

 We had a family birthday party for Owen and it was like Christmas morning all over again. We always have a good time when we get together with our family. 

 Uncle Jesse freeing Owie's new toy, or trying to...

 Seth used his own money and bought Owen a gift of a star trooper outfit. Seth had to try it out for him of course. Here's Seth with Judah, Susannah and Hannah. 

 One of the few times a year he gets a cupcake...he enjoyed it!

Owen is REALLY into Superman right now. Everyday he asks for his Superman capes to be put on him. Of course, he has to wear all three capes at the same. More powers that way I suppose. :)

This is his "bad guy" hat and outfit. We are really enjoying him lately. He's talking a mile a minute and has full throttle energy. He loves to go outside and play super heros inside. 

A little over three weeks ago, we got a huge amount of snow overnight! It was the most I've seen at one time in NC since living here- about 6 1/2 ". It was so beautiful!

 Our backyard was completely transformed into a winter wonderland!

 The cedar trees were so pretty weighted down with the snow. 

 My Honey  :)

Hot cocoa and snow-cream!


Since the snow, the winter weather has been easing up a bit and fluctuating to some pretty warm days. We've even had a few days in the 70's and then back to the 40's. Spring is definitely on it's way though and the boys can hardly wait. 

Yesterday the boys were playing in the garage and all of the sudden I heard them all yelling for me in a slightly panicked tone. When I came out, I discovered them stuck in the recycling bin together. Once they calmed down and realized they wouldn't be stuck there forever, we were able to snap a quick picture. Sillies!  

In other news...

I'm 28 weeks along now and 12 (or so) to go! Other than suffering from "pregnant brain" (my current excuse for any typos you may find) I'm feeling pretty good. We are getting more and more excited about meeting the newest member of our family. I had two people yesterdat tell me they thought it was going to be a boy and another friend who said it was going to be a girl...we'll see! Can't wait!!

We have some rather sad news. Oscar has gone missing for several weeks now and it's looking like he may be gone for good. We've been checking the local animal shelter and went there once when they had a gray and white cat come in, but it wasn't Oscar. So sad! I was keeping it together pretty well, until we were about to leave the animal shelter and Owen said, "Where my kitty?". :( Who knows, maybe he's just hanging out at a neighbors and will come home some day. 

Our guys in the military are doing well. We get to talk to Scott once in a while and he's starting to get into the core of the program. Jonathan is doing well and recently got an apartment off base, which he's really enjoying. Will is doing well and working at Chick-fil-a and at other construction work. He has a new girlfriend that we are looking forward to meeting sometime soon. 

Seth and Micah have both came down with another round of stomach flu in the past few days. So pray for a quick recovery if you think of it. Twice in one flu season is no fun! We are hoping it stops at them and doesn't go through another several-week phase of cycling through everyone. :-/ Minor discomforts compared to that of many. 

Seth read his first book yesterday! It only consisted of the words, "Sam", "Mat", "on", and "sat", but he was really proud of himself and I was too. Big progress from not knowing his letter names or sounds at the beginning of this school year. 


Hope you all are doing well! God bless you!

Love, 

Kari, Micah, Blake, Seth, Owen and Baby

Dec. 25th, 2014 - Feb. 13th, 2015

Hi Everyone!


Christmas seems like a distant memory by now, but for the sake of consistency, here's a quick re-cap...

 We spent Christmas day this with the three Shoemaker brothers as the rest of the Shoe Fam was out of town. Scott, Blake and Will here. It's funny, but it doesn't seem all that long ago that Scott and Will were Blake's size. Now look at them, all grown up!

 Being that there were seven guys and only one girl, we had a very "Manly" Christmas. Complete with steak, potatoes, and a shooting contest.

 Me and Owen watching from a safe distance. Owen is rather worried about these earplug things in his ears.

 Owen even had his own gun. :)

We got to have Scott around for over two whole weeks during the holidays. The boys gave him a good roughing up.

 We spent the next few days after Christmas at the Fox's opening presents, staying up late, and eating way too much. Overall, had a great Christmas and are so thankful for a loving family.



Since Christmas, we have said good bye to Scott again as he headed back to the Great Lakes and Will as he went back to Virginia. We've been getting back into the school routine and started out a new year with new goals and things to look forward to.

Seth loves to draw monsters, superheros and dinosaurs. In one of his school assignments, he was studying the letter U and had to draw a picture of "us", as in, our family. Here's his depiction of our happy clan. Oh, that's him on the left. The one with only one leg. :)

Owen testing out the new baby bassinet. Hopefully, he won't be too distraught when he learns that someone else will actually be the real baby in the house come June.

Owen and I got the opportunity to go give Aunt Kate, Uncle Noah, Cousin Roger and the new baby, Cousin Bryce in Kansas.

 Owen thought he was pretty big stuff getting to go on a real airplane with Mommy.

 Baby Bryce! He's soooo sweet!

 Roger, Kate and Owen

 Aren't they sweet?

Kate and I thought it would be SUCH a good idea for me to bring Owen so that he and Roger could occupy themselves playing happily while she and I talked uninterrupted for hours on end.   Well, what do you get when you mix a sweet, mild mannered, newly-not-only-child-anymore two year old with a rambunctious, youngest-of-three-boys two year old? Poor Roger didn't know what to think of Owen! And I got to see a new side of Owen when he was no longer the littlest one in the house. It was kind of like the Precious Moments child meets Dennis the Menace on steroids. Here is a picture of Owen giving Roger a goodbye "hug" which was more like a kiss-hug-tackle. Sigh.... Most of their interactions had to be followed up with "Careful Owen!" or "Owen, don't grab Roger's toys". Lol, the poor things didn't have the most harmonious of times together like Kate and I had envisioned, but at least we can laugh about it now. Right, Kate? :-P

I had a great time visiting Kate and her family and seeing their new home located outside of Kansas City. They have done an "extreme makeover" to their house and it looks so nice!

Jonathan's four month post at Fort Bragg came to an end last week so our weekend tradition of having him visit came to an end. We spent our last weekend together before he headed back to Fort Meade in Maryland. The boys have loved having Uncle Jonathan around to play with!

My Little Stinker is turning two years old in a few weeks. Can you believe it?! He has been starting to talk in sentences much more lately. We can understand most of what he says. 

In other news...

Scott is no longer pursuing the BUDS training and has transferred to a military linguistics school in California to study Arabic. It's a fairly difficult school to get into, but he did well on the entrance exam and was accepted in. We're really proud of him! He will be there for the next year or shorter depending on how quickly he picks up the language.

Owen will be turning two in a few weeks!

I'm now 24 weeks pregnant and things are looking great so far. We had a routine ultrasound a few weeks ago, but decided we want to wait and let the gender be a surprise. The boys, however, say that it's going to be a boy because "the baby in the picture didn't have any hair". :) We'll see. I have a strange feeling that this one is not going to be a boy though. :) We are getting more and more excited as the weeks are counting down!

Funnies...

While Scott was still in pre-BUDS training, the boys were praying for him every morning after breakfast that God would help him avoid getting injured. Somehow it got translated into Seth praying. "God, please help Scott not to have any energy today. Amen." :)

We got to go on a field trip with other homeschoolers in our county to the local police and fire station. You can imagine how elated the boys were! They were completely mesmerized. On the way home I was asking the boys whether or not they would be scared of a fireman if he ever had to come to our house. Apparently, the fire station sometimes has trouble with children being afraid of the firefighter in all his gear and tend to try and hide from them. Seth said, "No. Maybe if we had a lot of fires at our house, the fireman could stay a while and babysit us."   :) I'm sure they wouldn't mind babysitting in their spare time. 

Seth is learning the letter D this week and we are studying about dinosaurs. They boys have been learning their names and how big they were and are quite fascinated by them. Well, the other day Blake states matter-of-factly, "Mom, you are like a brontosaurus. Look how much the bed sinks down when you sit on it!"  :)  Great. 



Hope you all are doing well! I'm hoping my next update won't be so long from now. We have been recuperating this week from a two-week stent of the stomach flu and then the cold. Fun times! But, it looks like we are finally turning the corner and on the mend! 

Love to you all!

Kari, Micah, Blake, Seth, Owen, and Baby