Rock Climbing

Luke took Owen to the community center last weekend to try out the rock climbing wall! I was proud of myself because I was prepared and sent the camera with Luke to get this "first" in pictures. So, off they went and Owen did great he made it to the top of the easiest wall several times and more than half way on the intermediate wall. Luke was very proud of him and the 2 high school boys working their were amazed at how well he did for his first time. Then when they found out that he was not even 5 yet they were shocked at how well he did. Turns out that you are supposed to be 6 in order to climb the rock wall. Oops we didn't know! So here are the pictures of him climbing...

...What? You are wondering where all the great pictures are. Turns out that I wasn't as prepared as I thought. The battery on the camera died after Luke shot this picture of Owen in his harness. So the next time he goes I will make sure that our camera has a fully charged battery in it so you can see our fearless climber!

We are Thankful

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and Owen couldn't be happier. He has been doing a Thanksgiving count down for quite a while now. We have been talking about what the word thankful means and discussing what it is that each one of us is thankful for. Also with all this "Thankful" conversation we have been having I explained why it is that we celebrate Thanksgiving. Throughout the week I have heard many answers from Owen and Ava about what they are thankful for. However, I decided to ask each person in our family earlier today so I could write down their answers and tell you them. So here are our answers with no altercations, well except not using the full last names of our families that Owen used.

What are you thankful for?

Every Thing! - Luke

I am thankful for a lot of things but here are some of the biggies in my life! I am thankful that God loves me and that I have a wonderful husband. That I have 3 beautiful children that I get to stay at home with everyday. I am thankful for the baby that is growing in my tummy and also for our cozy home. I am thankful for being blessed with an amazing extended family (both mine and Luke's). I am thankful for our church and the opportunity it gives our family to grow in our faith. - Jill

Ezra, and my whole family! The W's, The B's, The K's and The C's! - Owen

For dinner! - Ava

My white blankie, my thumb, and any one who is willing to snuggle me! - Ezra

(OK Ezra didn't say any thing when I asked him, but I am positive that if he could talk that this is would have been his answer!)

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my wonderful readers!

Wordless Wednesday

2:12am

This morning at 2:12 I woke up to see Ava standing at the edge of my bed. I asked her "what are you doing", and she said "I have to tell you a question". I said, "what is it honey" as I got out of bed I picked her up and headed back to her room. She said "I want to go to the park tomorrow". I said, "oh, we will have to see"! I put her back into her bed and headed sleepily back to bed myself.

Boots!

Who would have guessed that big Cowboy Boots could be so entertaining!

9 Weeks

As you probably gathered from my Wordless Wednesday post I am pregnant! We are excited for baby #4's arrival in June. Owen and Ava say it is a boy and Owen has named him Billy! Ava has been walking around the house with one of her babies inside her shirt! I love that both Owen and Ava understand what is going on with this pregnancy and feel comfortable asking questions about the baby. I had my 9 week check up today and all went well. They took lots of my blood and went over our families health history.

I find it funny how people react to us having a 4th baby. You can easily tell the people who are genuinely happy or excited for us and then the others who try to act that way or clearly don't and can't figure out why we would want another child. Oh, and the question of was this a planned pregnancy? Luke and I had a good laugh about all this the other night. I guess you can call us crazy because yes this was a planned pregnancy. Yes, we wanted 4 children. Yes, they are spaced closely. And, yes we know that is 4 babies in less than five and half years!

I have ALWAYS wanted to have lots of children. In fact growing up and into my high school years I always said that I wanted to have 10 children just like my Grandma Rose! I always laughed when my Godmother Debi would remind Luke of this often while we were dating, during our engagement, after we were married, and after each of our children's births because she knew I meant it. Will we have 10 babies probably not, so you don't have to worry. I knew I wanted at least 4 children so I am happy as can be that I am pregnant. Are we done? If you ask Luke he says yes. But, he also said that we were done after having Ava and then was the one to ask me if I was ready to have another one and of course I agreed and that is where Ezra came into the picture! He also told people we were done after Ezra but when I said I was ready for another baby he too said he was. So his "we are done" is very unreliable and he just says it to get a reaction out of me because that is who he is "my I love him to pieces, but drives me crazy husband". So if you ask me if we are done after baby #4...I say we will see!

I will end with this. I have never, ever heard parents who have said and meant I wish we wouldn't have had as many children as we did. However, I do hear quite frequently from parents who say I wish we would have had at least one more child.

Art Projects

Owen and Ava love to use markers, colored pencils, and paint when they do art projects. Ezra likes to EAT crayons and paper!

Wordless Wednesday

Morning Hangout

When Owen wakes up in the morning he loves to make a "nest" next to our heat vent in the living room! And, of course whatever Owen does you can be sure to find his little sister and baby brother right next to him doing whatever it is that their big brother is doing!

Thank You...

I know that this is late in the day and I apologize for that but as they say better late than never so...

I would like to give a ginormous Thank You to all Veterans. Thank you for all you have done to serve our Country. It takes strong, brave and unselfish people to commit their lives to others that they don't even know to protect our Country. It is a better, safer place to live because of what you did. Our family knows a several Veterans very well so an extra special Thank You to them!

Hhmmm...

Papa Harvey

We found out this morning that Papa Harvey went to be with Jesus. It is extremely sad to see him go, but yet at the same time it is comforting to know he is not suffering or in pain any more. It is bittersweet to know that Papa Harvey passed away on our Ezra Harvey's birthday. Papa Harvey was a great man and was loved very much by our family. Luke and his "Grandfather" (that is what Luke always called him) were very close. If you ask me part of that closeness comes from them being very much a like in personality! As for me, from day one of meeting Harvey over 10 years ago he took on an instant Grandpa role in my life which I loved. Owen and Ava talked about their Papa Harvey quite often and loved going to visit him. He made our children feel very special and loved in so many ways whether it be sharing Oreo cookies, going on a tractor or 4 wheeler ride, checking on the cows, or just by talking with them. Unfortunately Ezra will not have the honor of having a relationship with his Papa Harvey but you can be sure that he will here all kinds of stories about his Great Grandfather that he was named after. We will miss you Papa Harvey!

Happy Birthday Ezra

Our sweet little Ezra man is one! We had a small birthday party for him on Saturday. Unfortunately he has had a cold for several days now so he wasn't his happy smiley self. However, he was in a good mood at least and seemed to enjoy his party. Like most young children he seemed to enjoy the wrapping paper and boxes best! When it came time to try his first bites of his chocolate birthday cake he wasted no time digging in! He really enjoyed eating and playing with it! Happy Birthday to our "Little Man" we love you!

The Neighbors...

Luke came flying into the house late in the afternoon yesterday yelling at me to come quick. Of course the mother in me freaked out and with my heart beating extremely fast I went running from our room where I was folding laundry out to the entry way where I found Luke. I was waiting to hear something horrible about Owen who was outside, but instead I hear get your shoes on and come outside as fast as you can. So I get my shoes on and fly outside where I find Luke who was finishing getting Ava and Ezra into the stroller. I asked him "what is going on". Luke points across the road to a house that sits across the road and to left of our house. He said "do you see that, we have to go get it". So we walked across the road to find this...

...a beautiful black antique cabinet with a "free" sign taped to it! So, what did we do? We had Owen push the stroller back home while Luke and I slowly carried the cabinet to our house of course! I am so glad no one drove past us I'm sure we looked rather goofy walking down the road carrying this. We got it into the house where I washed it up and Luke did a few small repairs. I still need to do some more scrubbing on it, but I love it! (black furniture is hard to clean, and keep clean) It looks perfect in our dining room with our black chairs, and it was free! Luke's Dad, Mom and Aunt Rita stopped over to see it and John guessed its age to be between 1910 and the early 1920's.

So thank you to the neighbors for putting this curbside with a free sign on it, and thank you Luke for nearly giving me a heart attack in the process of getting me outside and across the road to get it!

Dominoes

One thing our whole family likes to do is play with Dominoes!

This was the out come of our game Mexican Train (I was not the winner)!

The boys

Ava liked showing Daddy which dominoes to pick!

Then we made a domino snake...

to knock over of course...

Owen and Ava love watching them fall down!

Owen building!

Halloween

Owen/Spiderman

Ezra the Railroader!

Sunday morning we woke up, got dressed, ate breakfast and were out the door to go to 9:00 church. When we got home we all got busy cleaning up from the party we had the night before. We ate lunch and then Ava and Ezra took naps. While they slept Luke, Owen and I went outside to rake and mow up all of our leaves. Luke also organized all the junk in our little shed and put away things like our patio set, hoses, sprinklers, and our lawn mower. As soon as Ava and Ezra woke up we got the kids dressed in their costumes and left our house to pick up Grandma Ruth and headed up to the hospital. (Luke's Grandpa Harvey was in the hospital for almost a week. It was decided that stopping further treatment for Grandpa's cancer was in his best interest. It was a quality of life verses quantity of life decision. Grandpa is now staying in a nursing home close to their home) At the hospital we got to visit lots of extended family. Grandpa was doing lots better than when Luke and I saw him Friday night. When the kids got restless we said our goodbyes to everyone and off we went. On our way home we made a quick stop through the McDonald's drive through for dinner. We dropped Grandma Ruth off and then went to a few of our friends houses to go trick-or-treating. By this point the kids were getting tired and cranky and were getting upset with the fact that most of the places we tried to stop at no one was at home. So we called it a night and went home to put the kids to bed! As I'm sure you noticed that I don't have pictures of our little Ava who was a Bee. That is because she wouldn't let me. I should have known to take pictures before we left instead of trying to do it when we got home.