Spring!

We have had a beautiful spring! We were able to go camping the beginning of this month with the homeschool group I'm a part of. This has started to become a twice a year thing and the kids love it! It's so fun when the kids start to remember things you do as a family. The anticipation builds as they look forward to whatever it is, camping in this case. It is so wonderful to get away from all the busyness and noise and enjoy God's beautiful creation. 

 Landon's favorite thing was helping build and tend to this fire. He's really growing up and it's so fun to see him mature and grow.

 These two just bummed around. James loves to have his "bear-bear" wherever he goes. It's so fun to see how he treats him like his baby. Tonight I was reading to him a look and find Thomas the train book and he was grabbing "bear bear's" hand and having him find the items with a squeaky voice (talking for bear bear). He's at such a fun stage, he loves puzzles, Thomas and our marble works set. 

Olivia buddied up with sweet Samuel. They had a great time playing together and I found them holding hands quite a few times :)

 I just liked this picture of our "cool" boy :)

 We've been trying to spend a lot of time outside. The homeschool philosophy that I've adopted is the Charlotte Mason method. A part of her philosophy is spending a lot of time outdoors, taking time to notice God's creation. We do nature study which at this point involves drawing pictures of whatever they find that is interesting and writing a few words about it. The last few days have been so much fun - lots of caterpillars, slugs, worms, birds, and watching our garden grow. I didn't realize how much fun our small backyard could be...

 It's these four that make it so much fun. I love to see the world through their eyes. I love to see their excitement over the many things I take for granted. It makes me slow down and watch that caterpillar and be amazed at the Lord's handiwork. 

 We've had a lot of rain over the last few weeks. Last week I decided to take them to the park and let them splash around in the puddles. They had a blast!

Olivia with her little "Sheila" dog. "Bumpa" (my dad) gave her this puppy when she was 18 months and she loves her. I just loved this picture because I don't know how much longer this phase will last, but I am thoroughly enjoying it right now. She says the funniest things as she is trying to figure out the world around her. 

We had a great Mother's Day together as a family. I am so thankful for our sweet mothers that the Lord has blessed us with. I know it is such a rare thing to have amazing moms like we do. They have both been such an example of selflessness, always putting others first. Their love for the Lord is evident from their lives. I am so blessed and thankful for them.

I always like to go out to the cemetery on Mother's Day. It's the closest I can be to having my five kiddos together. I remember my first Mother's Day. My arms were empty. I didn't feel like a mother, even though my heart was so full of love for my sweet firstborn. I longed to hold him and love on him. I remember singing, "Jesus Loves Me" at church and the phrase, "Let the little child come in" catching me totally off guard. I couldn't sing that phrase, it was too hard. A beautiful reminder that my little Samuel was able to go into Heaven's gates to meet his Savior. I felt so torn, so happy for him and yet aching to be with him.

Anyway, I still ache for him. For my little 8 year old. But I am so thankful. My arms are full, I never would have imagined to be where I am at today with these sweet four children that I have with me today. I know all too well, they are not mine and tomorrow is not guaranteed, so we treasure the time we have and look forward to eternity with our Savior. All things will be perfect there with our perfect Savior and our perfect home and our sweet Samuel. Cannot wait.

May Happenings

I had a wonderful Mother's Day. Seth and I are so thankful to have two amazing mother's. We are so blessed to have such a wonderful example of love and self-sacrifice. So thankful that they taught us about the Lord Jesus and lived out a genuine relationship with Him for us to see.

. 

2 Timothy 1:5 "I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also."

For my Mother's Day, we had a nice picnic at the park. After some fun on the swings and slides, we headed for Cherry Berry - I love that place! Then, we took a trip out to the cemetery to visit Samuel. I really wish I could have all my kids together, so, for now, this is the closest thing. It was sweet that the kids picked out the smiley face balloons :)

Olivia was heaping dirt and grass on James... He didn't seem to mind!

Here we are watching the balloons fly away.

James is now eight months old! This month: He got his first tooth! He is also getting around really well. He loves to tip the trash can over, pulls up on everything, and said, "dada" and "ball." He is sleeping really well - 10-12 hours most nights! He's such a happy baby and loves to smile and wave at everyone he sees. He started clapping when we sing to him - he just loves music. He really likes to sit on my lap while I play the piano, it melts my heart. He brings us so much joy!

Here are the other two that bring me so much joy :) We're so excited that it's warm enough for slash pads! They are both growing up so much. Olivia's still really into anything princess and pink. She loves to wear dresses and always carries a purse. She also still loves her "bear bear." She's been treating her bear like her baby. Cheering her bear on when she stands up, trying to feed her bananas, and buckling her in next to herself. James loves his bear too and immediately snuggles and chews on it when I lay him down.

Landon is so much fun. He loves to create art projects that he imagines. I love seeing what he comes up with! We've been trying to spend a little more one-on-one time with each of the kids, he really likes to go on dates with me :) such sweet memories. He loves to dress up like super heroes and always talks about being just like daddy when he grows up.

I'm so thankful for this family the Lord has so graciously blessed me with!

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving in Kansas this year with Seth's family. We have so much to be thankful for and it was good to be reminded of all of the blessings in our lives. The cousins had a great time together. I got to take my nieces Black Friday shopping. I can't believe they're already at the age that gets excited about shopping! I had so much fun with them and got some great deals too.

All of Rachelle's family joined us as well, it was a lot of fun! Here's a shot of the table during our Thanksgiving feast. My was it a feast!

Landon was so excited about his special blueberry pie. He was telling everyone about how he was going to have blueberry pie on Thanksgiving. This started by reading the Olivia the pig Christmas book that had blueberry pie in it and he asked me in a sincere voice, "mommy, is blueberry pie good??" I told him it was, and since I have him on a gluten free diet right now, I asked him if he would like me to make him a special one for Thanksgiving. Of course he did, and apparently it was pretty good, thankfully he's not very picky ;)

 Camryn holding James for the first time

Landon and Miles holding James - sweet boys!

Spring

I can't believe my last post was about Christmas and here we are four months later! A lot has happened. I'm almost 20 weeks pregnant with our fourth little one. It's been so fun to recently be able to consistently feel this sweet one move. Seth just started feeling the baby kick too! It's such a comfort and I treasure each kick. I pray the Lord will continue to bless this pregnancy and we will be able to meet this precious baby mid-September. This time we won't know whether this little one is a boy or a girl until that time, we're excited to have the surprise!

Life has been crazy, but I feel like I've started to be able to get back into somewhat of a routine after feeling sick and tired a lot of my first trimester. Landon and Olivia are growing so fast, I sometimes wish I could just pause time and enjoy them longer at each stage, but time just keeps going. Landon will be four in ten days. I can hardly believe it! He is becoming more and more independent, and being able to help around the house. He just learned how to swing all by himself and is out on the swing almost every chance he can get. Olivia wants to do everything Landon is doing. She loves to read books, especially Good Night Moon, "Goodbye Moon" as she calls it :)

We have been enjoying spending time with Seth's aunt Donna. She was diagnosed with ALS last summer and came to live with his parents here in Tulsa back in November. She has such a joyful spirit through this all and we love her so much. Pray for her if you think of it. She is now bed-ridden but is able to communicate via iPad, but it is getting more difficult for her.

We had an eventful month of March as we had termites, rotted wood under the toilet, reconstruction in the bathroom (that we are still doing... cant't wait to get our toilet back in there!) and two sets of visitors. I'm so glad our visitors weren't deterred by our construction mess - we had so much fun! First, my sister, two good friends, my sweet niece and my friend's two boys came to visit. They did so much work while they were here, it was so sweet of them! We redid my fireplace which totally makes my living room look like a new place! They also helped paint our bathroom which was also in desperate need of attention. I so appreciate such good family and friends and it was so sweet to spend time with them as I don't see them often enough.

Our next set of visitors was my brother, Alan, sister-in-law Lauren, and darling nieces Nora, Gillian, and Aubrey. The kids had a blast playing with each other and we even got to celebrate Nora's 6th birthday together. I so appreciated Lauren's help with picking out tile and ideas for decorating. We had such a great time together and sweet memories were made.

We had a nice Easter this year. The kids had a blast Easter egg hunting. They also loved learning about the resurrection story using the Resurrection Eggs.

Enjoying this spring and looking forward to this summer :)

Catching up

I can't believe it's been two months since my last post! December was quite a busy month, then I spent January trying to catch up and now it's February! Every time I have sat down to try to blog I usually have ended up doing something else because it felt too daunting. I will do my best to recap all that has happened these past couple of months...

1. We had a Christmas Party for the neighborhood kids and Sunday School kids. It was a lot of fun. We had 11 kids from the neighborhood and 11 from church. I pray that the Lord would be working in each of these little hearts.

2. Olivia turned 4 Months old



3. We got new windows



4. We went to a local Christmas tree farm to pick out a tree.





5. We had a nice Christmas in Iowa. I actually got to stay for an extra week with Landon and Olivia unexpectedly. We had a really nice time. Landon got a battery-powered Thomas train which he was very excited about and Olivia got a teddy bear "from Samuel."




6. Landon is out-growing his nap... and I am not. One day I was so tired I let him play while I slept (obviously I was not thinking). He finished off the cornbread muffins (I think there were five) and ate a little of the wrappers too.



...then he emptied the wet wipe box and made this artistic design on his train track.


7. Olivia turned 5 months old



8. Celebrated Christmas (in January) with Seth's side of the family



9. Kids got RSV, I got strep throat - were cooped up for a little over a week

10. We celebrated Seth's 28th Birthday



11. Got the biggest snow storm Tulsa has ever seen- cooped up for almost another week so far...


Here is "Snowy Olivia" as Landon calls her in this outfit...



10. We celebrated my 27th Birthday



11. Landon's prayer the other night, "Pray for Carlos, and for Gregory, and for Daniel, and for Potipher's wife, A-men"
Carlos, Gregory and Daniel are from Joshua Club and he has a movie about Joseph, so that's how he thought of Potipher's wife. I have no idea, however, why he associated them together - silly boy!


(Kids from Joshua Club. From left: Gregory, Carlos, Meme)

Anyway, we have had quite the busy last couple of months, but hopefully things will start to slow down and I will be back to posting more regularly. Hope you all are staying warm and enjoying your families!