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

Jan. 24th - Apr. 24th, 2018

Hi Friends and Family!

This spring is whizzing by as usual. There is something about April. It's of those months that sneaks by and is gone before you realize it's there. Almost like it didn't happen. :) Here is a little catch-up of what we've been up to since January. 

We had a huge snow while Micah was in Moldova on a mission's trip. Quite an adventure. We also happen to be quarantined a home for the flu, so I suppose if you have to stay home for a week in the winter, you might as well have a nice big snow fall to help the time pass. 

Owen's hammock/acrobatic skills. 

Liza and "Smotey" as she calls him. 

We are finishing up the last book in the series "Little Britches" by Ralph Moody. It's a fascinating real-life account of a man born in 1900 who's father passed away when he was ten making him the man of the family at a young age. It's such a great series and teaches many great morals and common-sense.

We haven't been using the stroller much anymore. So Tink and Tigger have taken over.

Liza has definitely come out of her shell lately and we are getting to see her personality blossom. She is quite expressive, dramatic, (loud), and loving. She and Blake actually are a lot alike. 

Owen turned 5 in February! 

Owen has been doing a little bit of pre-school curriculum here and there and we are slowly learning out letter sounds. Our curriculum focuses so much on letter sounds, I'm not sure he knows his letter names yet at all, but hey, you have to start somewhere!

Guess Liza realizes she's a bit on the loud side. Found her taping her mouth shut the other day. :)

Owen and Liza are (finally) getting along better these days and after our reading and Bible memory time in the morning, the two of them are (usually) happy to play together while I do school with the boys. 

When you don't finish your breakfast before we have to LEAVE!

We had the pleasure of driving up to Maryland to visit Jonathan and his newly purchased home in February! It was great to see D.C. again! 

Jonathan and his ex-military-freedom-hair. :)

Wouldn't you know it, the one day we visited ALL the museums were closed because of a wind advisory. So sad! Thankfully, we were able to come back the next day to see a few of them, but we felt really bad for the the many families we passed who said they traveled all the way from Europe to and only had one day to see D.C.!

"My hair is tazy!" The trampoline has been SO much fun for the kids and a great energy outlet especially for all these boys! I wish we would have purchased one several years ago!

We had a bit of a shock when we came home from a friend's house on a Sunday afternoon in March. Our backdoor had been kicked in and several valuables missing from the master bedroom! Our neighbors who have lived on our street for 16 years said this is the first break-in they've ever heard of on our street. We were very thankful that we weren't home when they came and no one was hurt. 

You can't take any material possessions with you when you leave this life, so in the end, it's all just "stuff". Unfortunately for us, what the burglars thought was a fire safe full of valuables was really ALL our personal information like passports, birth certificates, you name it, it was in there. So, that made for a unexpectedly very busy several days as we scrambled to put our credit on hold, and begin replacing all the documents. We are super thankful that our insurance covered much of our loss. It was pretty surreal to see detectives and getting footprints in our living room, but I feel like God gave us a peace through it and I haven't felt fearful since then. 

Easter!

Blake and Seth are knee-deep in rehearsals this week for their upcoming show "Charlotte's Web". Blake plays "Fern" and Seth plays his brother, "Avery". They are doing an excellent job working on their lines and honing their voice projection and enunciation skills. They have a total of seven shows this weekend! I'll be sure and include pictures of it in our next update. 

Who knew Easter egg hunts could be so exciting?!

After getting past a rather dramatic episode when we thought "turlers" were painful, we finally listened to Mommy and got to experience the fun of trying out the spongy wonders. 

Quick update on some of the other Shoemaker family members....

Dad and Jonathan got to experience a weekend survival camp in...hmmm... can't remember which state, somewhere cold! They said they had a great time learning who to survive with their fellow campers. Except for the freezing rain, of course. 

Here is Joy and James Beeman with darling little Clark and Charlotte. Aren't they precious?! 

Kate's three boys, Roger, Bryce, and Ryan with their Daddy. How CUTE?!? I love being an auntie and feel certain that none of my nieces and nephews could ever do anything naughty. I could just squeeze them!!

And saving the best for last....We have an exciting announcement...Baby Fox Five is on it's way!  I surprised Micah with the announcement when we were at a restaurant several weeks ago. He was definitely surprised! :) We are super stoked and the kids are excited too. Liza keeps asking if the baby is still in my belly. And now she is saying that she has a baby in her belly too and Daddy has one in his belly too. :) Baby Fox Five is due to arrive sometime around November 2nd. Couldn't be happier!

Funnies

Micah was pretending to shoot a bear while playing with Liza yesterday and she said, "Daddy shot da bear as dead as a door nut!"

Owen saw an old couch on the side of the road the other day as we were driving the boys to their class. He said, "Mom! That couch was FILLED with dirty!"

Hope you all are doing well! Micah and I will be celebrating our TEN YEAR wedding anniversary next week! Can you believe it?!? I'm so very thankful for him. He's the best husband I've ever had! ;)

Take care!

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