ONE

This love bug, our rainbow baby, turned one this week.  ONE!  

That was a fast year.  He is all over the place-standing, climbing on things.  Not quite a walker yet though.  Soon, soon.  I was hoping he would be walking to start up the new co-op year, but looks like that is not going to happen.  

He is eating regular food, he skipped baby food completely, and still nursing.  Sleeping pretty well, but sometimes still likes to wake up for a snuggle.

He says a couple of words (uh-oh, more, and hi) bur communicates pretty well without words.

He adores his biggest brother and sister (he loves everyone else too, but its extra special with them), pretending to talk on the phone, and The Wiggles.  He's got a bit of mischief in there that is starting to come out more.  I'm sure that will make it extra "fun" when he does start walking!!

Happy Birthday!!  We thank the Lord for the gift of you!!

PROJECT 4TH

This year we had a "work day" on the 4th of July in preparation for the big "13th" birthday party!

A small garden in front of the porch..

It was so disgustingly hot outside...

But we got it done..

And then were super thankful for the pool to cool down in!

How did you spend the 4th of July?

(fireworks were on the 5th this year, so we did that the following day)

TAKIN' A TRIP (part 1)

Hey, ya'll!

 It's been quite a break I've taken and lots going on in the meantime.

I certainly won't be catching up on it all, but I do want to document the trip we just took.

Co-op finished on May 16th and we headed out May 17th.  Lots and lots of packing took place between those two days just due to the craziness of the season that didn't allow for any extra time.  It worked out though.

We left a little after noon on May 17th and headed down to Maryland to visit with Mike's twin and his family.  We arrived around 5pm and had dinner with them before heading out around 8pm. Unfortunately, I don't think we took any pictures while we were there.

We were heading for Western Kentucky.

Suffice it to say, it was a really, really long night.

I would not do the overnight trip again, it was really rough.

You might be thinking it was the kids--nope!

Kids were perfect travelers the entire time.  We swapped on and off driving when one of us got tired, stopped briefly a couple times for bathroom and a quick shut-eye, but it still was really rough.  West Virginia was full of fog..super thick crazy fog.  We drove through some torrential rain..but thankfully, by God's grace, we arrived shortly after 7am in Western Kentucky.  We went for breakfast at the Huddle House (more about that in another post) and arrived at the Crick place around 9:30am.

We spent the day with them.

It had been many years since we had last seen each other and the kids had never met.

Lots of wide open space!

We had a nice day visiting and catching up.

We headed out after dinner sometime between 5:30 and 6pm to travel another hour or so south to our home for the weekend.

Since, these pictures are taking a pretty long time to load this morning, I'll end this post here.

Thanks so much for your hospitality, Joanna and Curt!

AGE

Once upon a time I said I wanted to be done with child-bearing by the age of thirty.

I had visions of being a young (er) parent, like the generations before me.

However, I married later than they and thus got a later start...

Plus, Mike and I have never really experienced married life "alone" as our oldest is a honeymoon baby.  I thought it might be nice to have that "alone" time later on and still be "young" enough..

So much for MY plans, huh? 

It is true in a sense that age is just a number.. our youngest was born well into my thirties and we wouldn't trade him for anything.

As I look at things now, I see huge blessings in having the age gap from the eldest to youngest.

People often will say things to the tune of "Wow!  It must be so hard" etc. etc. etc. but to be honest, as the older ones get older, the baby years get "easier" as I have more helpers around to do various tasks.

(Notice, I did NOT say everything is easier..whats the phrase?  "Little kids, little problems" and vice versa).  No longer do I have to do EVERYTHING by myself.  I can have one of the big kids run and switch a load of laundry or get lunch together or rock the baby as necessary.  

It is beautiful to see the older kids interacting with the little one.  It is truly a joy.  I also hear about all these empty-nesters who mourn the loss of the noise and chaos and people...With a bigger age span, it is highly unlikely we will have the fast and furious mass exodus that my parents had, for example.  Even if the all the big kids move out within a couple of years of one another, I'll still have the littles around for a bit longer to get us used to the idea.  God's Word calls children a gift.  So, while we may never get that alone time while we are yet "spring chickens," we are surrounded by tangible gifts and olive plants round about our table.

HALF A YEAR

We've been blessed to have this guy for 6 months(yesterday)!

6 MONTHS!!

Where has that time gone?

He is such a happy little one..two weeks ago I would have said a great sleeper..AHEM!

I'm sure this is just a phase..growth spurt or whatever, but not such a good sleeper these past two weeks.  (We love you anyway!)  When he takes a bath nowadays, you can count on the bathroom being soaked...no joke!  He is serious about splashing.  We don't have a huge bathroom, but from toilet to the door gets wet! And he loves it! The infant carrier is getting increasingly heavy, but I'm not quite ready to give up its convenience.  He is rolling every which way and is pretty steady when sitting, so that is just a matter of time.  Everything--toys, clothes, feet, hands etc. still goes in the mouth! But no sign of teeth yet..by six months, all the other kids had teeth already!  I'm not worried.  We started using the exersaucer for strengthening those chubby legs!

Happy six months!

2019. YEAR OF CHANGE.

In another post I mentioned there being a lot of change coming up this year. 

 I'm not ready for sharing everything at this point, but even just over a month into this new year we have experienced a lot of changes. 

 My childhood home was sold and my parents are planning on moving out of state when the time is right.  The holiday season was very different as our usual locale for getting together is no longer an option.  In the grand scheme of things, this is not really an obstacle..just .. different.

  Mike finished up his third year as a deacon in the church we had attended for the past eight years and we made a commitment to begin attending a church plant/outreach.  The services are expected to start up around Easter of this year, but a weekly Bible Study begins this week!!  We chose to do this for various reasons, I'm not sure I want to get into that now.  The past couple of Sundays we have been traveling down to the church I grew up in, and it has been nice to be there for this time of transition.

Two of my relatives have been diagnosed with alzheimers.  It is hard to see. With age come a host of issues, we are all aware of that, this disease seems particularly cruel.  

Our co-op director and founder is leaving at the end of the school year.  This is huge!  Something that came out of the blue, but was of course directed by the Lord and it is what is best for their family.  They will be sorely missed though.

Lord willing, there will be a teenager in the house in a few scant months!  MJ is already bigger than I am and fast catching up to his father!

This is a short list...there is so much more..Big stuff.

All is good time.

We're praying for wisdom and direction.

Would you join me?

FOOOOOOOOD

This guy has been getting pretty excited at mealtimes--

watching the fork go to someone else's mouth rather than his.

At five months, I was in no hurry to start "real" food, but we were at lunch the other week and there happened to be slices of avocado (which is what I had planned to start with when the time came)...so we mashed it up pretty good and Mister got his first taste off of Daddy's plate.

He looks pretty pleased with himself, doesn't he?

He literally gobbled it right down.

I ended up picking some up at the next grocery run, for now we're taking it slow though.

5 MONTHS

This is what five months looks like!

Yes, I'm a bit late.

Five months has brought us some rolling over..

Lotsa smiles..

and everything in the mouth!

CROSSFIT

Dad joined a local crossfit gym quite some time ago with a lot of success and is now loving the whole gym culture and results. When the gym offered a new teen class--(ages 12-15)

we said why not give it a try??

This is MJ's second six week session and he is enjoying himself.

I won't lie, its a bit of a hassle running him back and forth twice a week, but I'm glad he is having fun and working on some muscle and health

NYE 2018

Happy New Year to all!

GROWING

December brought us 

4 months of this guy!

He is such a love..happy, friendly, snuggly...

He just had his 4 month check up today and weighed in at 17.10lbs and 27 inches long!

Everything goes in the mouth!

While he hasn't rolled over yet, he is right about there, it could be at any time!