Happy Birthday to Naomi!

One year ago, this little peanut was born....

...and yesterday we got to celebrate her first birthday!

We had a very fun day celebrating Naomi's first year of life. We invited the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins over for swimming, pizza, and birthday cake. A fun time was had by all...here's some pictures of the festivities.

We love you Naomi!

We're moving...twice!

A couple months ago, we were looking forward to a very peaceful summer. It had been a very busy and exhausting school year (adding a surprise baby one week before school starts really turns your world upside down!) and we were really looking forward to a break. We were picturing a summer of relaxing and recuperating a bit from our busy year. I was envisioning lazy days by the pool, lots of down time and just enjoying the days at home with the kids. Plans have changed A LOT over the the last couple months, and while we're really excited and thankful for these changes, my vision of a relaxing summer has quickly faded away.

It all started Easter weekend. Our neighborhood had a couple new homes being built, and I jokingly said to Luke that Saturday night, "We should see if the builder would want to swap us homes." (We had been thinking about moving but didn't really want to go through all the hassle of listing and showing our home.) I'll never forget the expression on Luke's face when he said, "Yeah, we should!" I thought he was joking. But he wasn't, and the next night (Easter Sunday) he left the realtor a voice mail. Monday night we looked at the house, and on Wednesday night we signed the papers. In less than five days we had bought a house! A week ago moving was nowhere on the horizon and now we had to be out of our home in a month. But we were so excited because we loved the home and really saw God's hand in providing it for us at such a great deal.

Our summer was starting to look a little bit busier, but I was excited to be in the new home by the end of May and then have the summer to get settled. I still thought we would have a pretty laid-back summer, even though we would be settling into a new home. (Moving is a lot easier when you are just moving around the corner.)

Things got really interesting two days later. On Friday, Luke left for the Men's Retreat and I took the boys to my parent's house. Naomi and I went shopping and while I was in the Target fitting room I got a phone call from Luke. He informed me that his boss just called him and offered him a two-year expat assignment in Krakow, Poland! This was completely unexpected, but after much discussion and prayer we both felt like it was an opportunity we couldn't pass up.

So here's our new summer plans:

A few weeks ago we moved from this house......

down the street to this house........

and then in September we move here.........

So do you think we're going to get that nice, relaxing summer we had been dreaming of? Obviously not, but we're trusting God that this is what is best for our family. So far He has blown us away with His provisions, and we know that He will continue to guide us through this wild two-year adventure we are about to begin. I hope to get this blog rolling again, and post lots from our experiences in Europe.

(And in case you're wondering, we will be leasing our new home while we're in Poland.)

Luke and I will be traveling to Poland sometime in July to find a home there. Our tenth anniversary is in August, so we're counting this as our anniversary getaway as well. We weren't planning on Europe for our anniversary trip, but we're not going to complain!

It all sounds crazy, and I can't believe how quickly all of this has happened, but we know God's plan is perfect. If I wasn't trusting in a Sovereign God, I would probably be a basket case right now!

Szczęść Boże!

The Big Race

Most little girls play with dolls and have tea parties. But when you have three older brothers, you learn how to race a backhoe.

Andrew's 2nd Birthday

Last week was Andrew's 2nd birthday. His birthday was Tuesday, and we had a big family birthday party planned for him on Saturday. Luke and I had expected Andrew to relish being the center of attention, opening his presents and, of course, eating his birthday cake. Boy were we surprised by what really happened...

The party started out fine. We ate dinner (lasagna, one of Andrew's favorites) and he was having a great time playing with all his cousins. After dinner, we decided to open his presents before diving into the birthday cake. This is going to be Andrew's favorite part, right?

He started out a little hesitant. Luke helped him open up a drum set from Uncle Nathan and Aunt Kelly. He liked it and played with it a little bit, but he wasn't really sure what was going on.

We tried moving on to the next gifts, and as you can see below, he wasn't really sure about these presents...
Then....complete meltdown! He wanted nothing to do with the gifts. Every toy someone handed him he pushed away. I was flabbergasted. Crying...over presents? Nothing we tried would settle him down so we decided to move on to the birthday cake.

Every kid likes their birthday cake, right? Can you tell how much Andrew enjoyed it when we all sang to him?
(Isn't this a great picture of me laughing while my child is traumatized? Another one of my "Mother of the Year" moments...)

So after all this crying over presents and birthday cake, we adults all speculated as to what his problem was:

"Was he tired?" This was a possibility because he hadn't gotten much of a nap that day.

"Were his molars bothering him again?" Maybe, he's had some grouchy days lately because of his 2-year molars coming through.

"Was he overwhelmed by all the attention?" Not a problem we anticipated Andrew having, but maybe that was it. Could too many people watching him have freaked him out?

I spent the weekend wondering what made him so unhappy, and I think I figured it out today at the orthodontist. I had to take all four kids to Isaac's orthodontist appointment, and when Isaac was done the kind receptionist let Caleb and Andrew pick a toy out of the toy box with Isaac. Caleb and Isaac got their toy, and then the receptionist asked Andrew what he would like. He took one look inside the box and...another meltdown!!! He started wailing because this lady had asked him if he wanted a toy car! I couldn't believe it. I had to drag him out of the office crying because someone wanted to give him a toy. I've heard of kids throwing fits because they couldn't get toys, but I've never seen a kid cry because they were given a toy.

One of my friends joked that maybe Andrew is afraid of becoming too materialistic. Or maybe he's going to be a neat freak and is afraid of his room getting too cluttered with toys. Who knows? But for whatever reason, our son does NOT want anyone to give him any presents. Christmas is going to be fun this year. :)

Happy Birthday Andrew!

Our big boy turns two today! We'll be celebrating with cake and presents and all the other fun birthday stuff, but most importantly we are thanking God for Andrew's life and that He chose to bring this precious child into our family. What a great two years it has been!

Giggles

Isaac, Caleb and Andrew love to make Naomi laugh. She usually smiles as soon as she sees one of them, and then they will break out in a silly song or dance to try and get the giggles going. Here's a short video of Andrew getting her to laugh last night:


The quality of the video is horrible, but her giggles are priceless!

Yes...we're still here

I know it has been a really long time since I have posted on here. Honestly, I have wondered at times if I should even keep this blog going since I just don't have the time to post much on here anymore. I don't think I need to explain why I don't have much time to write on a blog, but I do have four good reasons. (And if you want to know the names of the four reasons, you can look at their adorable pictures over on the left sidebar.)

But even though my four adorable reasons don't allow me much time to sit down and write blog posts, I've decided to keep this blog going. Luke and I enjoy this blog, and it's been really fun to scroll back through the archives and see how God has worked in our family over the last few years. So even though it might be a while before I get back to posting regularly, I'm going to try my best to stick with it.

The last time I posted pictures, Naomi was barely a week old. Now she's three months old and totally adorable:


She is smiling, talking, and sitting up in her Bumbo like such a big girl! We have all just fallen in love with this little gal.
Andrew is almost two(!) and growing in leaps and bounds. He is saying a lot of words now and tries to copy everything his big brothers do. He loves Naomi, and gives her dozens of kisses every day. Here he is in his stylish new glasses:
And here he is trying to "do school" like his brothers:

And last, but not least, here are the big brothers of our crew. Isaac and Caleb have been very busy this school year with their 2nd grade and Kindergarten work. They have also been on lots of field trips and stayed busy with our homeschool co-op. Their last soccer game was this past Saturday, and they were very sad to see the season end. They're quite a pair, and (most of the time!) are great buddies.


So even though our four kiddos don't allow me time to do much blogging, I wouldn't trade them for anything. The past few months since adding Naomi have been soooo busy, but I love being the mother of four. God has been very kind to us, and I'm thankful for the privilege of being a very busy wife and mom.

Pictures, pictures, pictures

It seems like lately all I really have time to do with this blog is post pictures. I love to write (really write, not just put captions on photos) but I have really struggled with finding the time to do that lately. So until I find that time, I'm just going to keep posting pictures. Luke and I enjoy the pictures though. It's been fun for us to go back and look at pictures and stories from the past couple years. It's kind of like an online journal for our family.

This first round of pics comes from our field trip last week to the Shatto Dairy Farm. It was a great trip, although I spent most of my time walking around outside with a fussy, molar-cutting, sleep-deprived little boy named Andrew. I couldn't be upset with him though--his poor gums are so swollen. I think he's handling the pain much better than I would. But despite Andrew's fussiness, Isaac and Caleb enjoyed themselves. Here's a few shots from the trip:

The boys posing in front of the Shatto Milk truck.


I managed to get one smile out of him.

Isaac petting a baby calf. (Thanks Marcy for this photo.)

Sampling some of their flavored milk. (Thanks again Marcy!)

At the end of March, Luke and I took a trip to Boston together. He had to go for work, so I flew out to join him for the weekend. We had a great time! We dearly love our sons, but it is so nice to get to have time alone together.

Here's Luke posing with the statue of John Harvard. (At Harvard's campus, of course.)

We loved visiting all the historical sites. It was fascinating to see the actual places where so many historical things had happened.

On the home front, Isaac and Caleb are becoming master builders. Here's a few of their latest masterpieces:

This is one of my favorite recent pictures of all three boys. This was taken Easter Sunday.

I also tried to get individual shots of each boy. Isaac is always the hardest one to get a decent picture of. That's because when you ask Isaac to smile, this is what you get:

Isaac is a super-smart kid, but he just can't quite figure out how to smile for a camera and look natural. His "smiles" always look like he's in pain. I've decided to quit asking him to smile for pictures. I'd rather have a serious face than this crazy grimace he comes up with.

As for Caleb, he is extremely photogenic, but I always get the same comment from people who see his pictures. Everyone always says, "He looks ornery." In this case, looks aren't deceiving.

And then there's Andrew. Andrew's at a difficult age to get pictures because he is always on the move, and doesn't always look at the camera. But every once in a while he'll slow down enough and I'll be able to snap pics like this:

Andrew managed to keep himself clean for a few hours. But then after church we went to Luke's cousin's house where someone decided to leave a box of cupcakes sitting on the patio outside. Andrew found that box, and then he looked like this:

April 22 was a day Isaac was very excited about. He had been counting down the years until he was old enough to attend "Take your Kid to Work Day" with Luke. He was finally old enough to go this year. He told Luke that it was one of the most exciting days of his life.

Next week, we'll be posting a big announcement on our blog! I don't want to reveal what it is yet until everything is official, but check back next week to see our latest news. We're very excited about it, and can't wait to share it with all of you!

Birthday, birthdays, and more birthdays

The months of February and March are filled with birthday celebrations for us since Caleb, Luke and Isaac all have their birthdays in those months. Isaac's birthday was last weekend, so now we can finally slow down a little (and quit eating so much birthday cake!).

We decided this year for all three boys' birthdays not to buy them presents to open. Instead, we decided to start a new tradition of putting that money towards something we can all do together as a family. This year we decided to try out the Great Wolf Lodge. (The Great Wolf Lodge is a large hotel near us that has an indoor/outdoor waterpark.) It was a lot of fun, and I think the boys agreed that making memories together as a familiy was much better than getting another toy. Here's some shots from our time there:

Caleb splashing around with a basketball

Isaac standing amidst the sprayground

Andrew splashing on the stairs

Our trip to the Lodge was not without injury, unfortunately. When we were getting ready to leave, Andrew fell in the changing room and cut the inside of his mouth wide open. We almost took him to the doctor to see if he needed stitches, but decided against it. It looks much better now, so I'm glad we didn't put him through the trauma of stitches. The Great Wolf Lodge staff was really nice about it, and gave us a free day pass for all of us to come back since Andrew got such a bad injury. They also gave him this stuffed wolf to comfort him, which we thought was really nice. We decided to name the wolf "Ouch." Ouch has become Andrew's little buddy, and he likes to carry Ouch around and give him hugs.

Then Isaac's birthday came on Friday. Friday night we celebrated (just the five of us) at home with Isaac's favorite meal. Our tradition on the actual birthday is to have the brothers exchange gifts they pick out for each other. This year Caleb decided to surprise Isaac with a big box of Ramen noodles and Hubba Bubba bubble gum. (Isaac loves Ramen noodles, but I won't buy them very often because they're so unhealthy.) As you can tell from the photo above, he was very excited about the gift.

The next day we had our extended family over for the big birthday meal. Here is Isaac's Indiana Jones Lego cake.

Opening presents while Caleb looks on

Andrew cheesing it up over Daddy's shoulder

Uncle Mark was very generous and gave Isaac a tool bag filled with really nice tools. He's very excited to get started building stuff with his daddy!

Our birthday fun for this season is done, but we enjoyed every minute of it. Celebrating the lives of the children God has given us is such a joy!