two lil punkins

i know... 2 posts in just a few hours! well i figured i'd better share these pumpkin patch pictures before thanksgiving, huh? we had such a fun evening at the pumpkin patch a few weeks ago. unfortunately, in our town, we don't get to drive out to the country to an actual pumpkin PATCH... we drive through 4 stop lights to a small patch of grass in between a restaurant and a bank on the main road where a church has brought in a bunch of pumpkins that they probably bought from sam's club. and this year, there weren't even an abundance of pumpkins... so please ignore the used car lot in the background and also ignore the lack of pumpkins. i tried to gather about 25 pumpkins to make a good little photo area, but i failed to consider the necessity of filling up the background as well. but boy have i learned my lesson for next year. :) maybe i'll scope out a place in the country for next year...

jeff & kristie met us out there with karina, and heather brought avery & savannah, too. nana also came to help make the kids smile. ethan and avery had so much fun running around the "patch", which was very easy to do since there weren't very many pumpkins in the way! we failed to get very many pictures of ethan because he was just enjoying himself waaaay too much to settle down, but we did manage to capture a few group shots. and we even got one with all 3 cousins actually sitting and looking at the camera. i think that is a first since caroline's newborn days. and i'm not exaggerating.

enjoy the pictures of our little punkins. we have so much to be thankful for during this thanksgiving season. boy do we ever.







"cheese!"

"if we smile, do you promise to stop singing?"

"yay! they stopped!"

heather and me and our 4 punkins

"please don't make us sit still one more minute!
there's a field to run in!!!!!!"



"this is one heavy pumpkin!"

oh how i love this picture...
i can just imagine these girls talking
to each other like this in a couple of years.
they look like they are in one serious conversation!

stairsteps: karina- 14 1/2 mos.,
caroline- 11 1/2 mos, savannah- 8 mos.



this one is a momma's heart-melter...
he is getting way too big.

it did not take ethan long to find his
"eee-beeee" (itty-bitty) pumpkin.



since this was caroline's pumpkin patch debut (and really since she was sitting surprisingly still during the photo shoot), we have the most pictures of her... it was hard to just choose a few favorites, so just humor me.



this picture is ONLY adorable if you have seen caroline make this funny face...
she scrunches up her whole face and grunts to imitate dogs, cars,
and pretty much anything. i'm so glad brian caught it on camera...

this is precious to me because of this picture of ethan last year. caroline signs "please" with more precision than ethan did... i guess she is slightly dainty after all! :)







i love this last picture of our family... not exactly a portrait-perfect pose, but it's pretty indicative of our family in motion... my mouth is open, ethan is 2 seconds from escaping, caroline is trying to fling herself backwards, and brian is... sitting still. :) haha.


i hope you are enjoying the fall as much as we are these days! i can't believe that caroline's birthday is this week, and then thanksgiving is right around the corner! have a great week!

well i deCLAIRE, it's a girl!

sweet baby claire was born tonight around 10:30 pm to our dear friends, jonathan & tammy! what a blessing it was to greet this tiny precious baby just a little while after her birth. kristie & i had just visited a seriously-in-pain tammy around 8:30, and she had been at 4 cm for several hours. so it seemed like she had a long night ahead of her, and we were all praying that things would pick up for her. when we left around 9pm, we headed over to wal-mart to pick up a few things and to prolong our time together with no children (i know... wal-mart...sad....). only 30 minutes later, brian called and said in his most-urgent tone (which i rarely hear!), "where are you? jonathan called! she's at 9 cm and she's about to push!" OH WOW! that was one productive half hour for my friend!! i ran to get kristie out of the bathroom, and i shouted the news as i opened the door. i'm sure it was more information than the walmart cleaning lady wanted to hear, but i was excited! so we bolted out of walmart and got to the hospital just as jonathan's sister dabney was arriving w/ natalie & joseph. they were so excited to be meeting their baby sister soon! not too long after that, natalie was rushed back to wait outside her mom's room. as soon as claire was born, natalie got to watch her dad cut claire's umbilical cord. then joseph got his turn to see his baby sister... and we all waited for all the weighing and the wiping off while we chatted and drank our starbucks, courtesy of the proud papou!

and then it was our turn to meet baby claire! how tiny she was at 6 lbs, 9 oz and 19 inches long! she has a little hair and the prettiest, long fingers. she was so alert and content the whole time we were visiting in the room! i never heard her cry, but i was told that she's got quite the lungs on her... which she will need as a third child! tammy was feeling pretty good and looked great, of course. you wouldn't know that she'd just delivered a baby, but the infamous green hospital gown kind of gives it away. :)

i joked that tammy should have waited 45 more minutes, and claire could've been born at 11:11 on 11/11... tammy didn't think that was too funny. but as jonathan's dad pointed out in the waiting room, somebody can shoot for having a baby on 11/11/11 in 4 years!

ok i'll shut up now and get on with the pictures. brian and i will take the kids up there tomorrow to meet "baby care", as ethan already calls her. so hopefully i will be able to share more pictures soon.

thank you, Lord, for a safe delivery and healthy baby claire. we praise You for she is fearfully and wonderfully made.

natalie & joseph trying to get a peek at their baby sister

joseph was pretty quiet after he saw baby claire...
i think he realized he's not the baby anymore!

here is baby claire!
isn't she sweet? she looks so much like her brother & sister!

mom, dad, & baby

she was starting to get hungry, but she never cried...
she just sucked on those fingers!

i LOVE the expression on her face in this one! :)

it was so sweet to hold a newborn again...
wait till you meet your friends tomorrow, baby claire!

another priceless expression! such a cutie!

i love this picture...

one more close-up...get used to the flash, kiddo!

proud nuna
(and my kids' aunt kristie)

proud auntie rhema

proud grandpa!

proud yia yia & papou with their first daughter and sixth granddaughter!

congratulations, jonathan & tammy. we are so blessed to call you friends and to be like family. another celebration to share...so many more memories to come with these kids growing up together. we are truly blessed.

cute pictures coming soon!

caroline says "please" stayed tuned because pumpking patch pictures are coming soon! i was hoping to post them tonite, but it is already entirely too late... so they will have to wait until another night- maybe tomorrow if i get my act together.

ethan had a great day today-- he held down 2 bland meals for breakfast and lunch, so we got brave and had sonny's bbq for dinner! haha! we were a little worried about this because usually ethan eats anything he can find on the table at sonny's (or anywhere else for that matter!), but he stopped after some applesauce and 1/4 of his sandwich... pappy, he didn't even ask for any beans! so obviously, he is not feeling 100%, but i am thankful that he knew that and stopped eating vs. stuffing his face and then sharing it all with us later. thanks for your prayers for his recuperation and our rest today. we were able to all take a great afternoon nap, and the kids were great the rest of the evening.

i'll be back in the next couple of days to post those pictures. see you soon!

the doorframe really hurts. and throw up really stinks.

1:45 AM

we just got home from the ER tonite. whew. i'm tired. of course this would happen on a day when i skipped a nap to get things accomplished...

ethan was just about to go to bed tonite and was running from the living room to the kitchen. he turned back to look at me and slipped in the hallway and slammed the right side of his face into the door frame of the kitchen. he immediately threw up, but i associated that with his expected fit of tears after such a hard hit. he acted fine other than a banged up face and was walking and was chatty as usual, so he went to bed about 30 min. later (9pm). at 9:30 he threw up all in his bed, so we called the nurse, who told us to wake him up every 2 hrs and if he threw up again to take him to the ER. well.... while i was cleaning up his bed, he threw up again on brian. so off to the ER we went at 10:00 tonite. we were seen at around midnight, after he'd thrown up in the waiting room, and then he threw up 2 more times before his cat scan. the cat scan came back normal, praise the Lord, so now we are supposed to wake him every couple of hours to make sure he's ok. he has thrown up one more time since we've been home, but they said that is normal w/ a head injury. he was throwing up just about every hour, but the last episode was 1 1/2 after the one before, so maybe this is progress. i'm praying that it is.

so please pray that he can keep some food down tomorrow. the only reason i'm awake right now is that i'm waiting for caroline to go back to sleep-- her teeth are maddening, poor baby girl. so i have a feeling we're all gonna be zombies tomorrow. brian is staying home, so that will be a big help. i am definitely making up for two days' worth of naps tomorrow!

we are thankful that God protected ethan's head from serious injury, and we are also thankful that the PA we saw in the ER is a friend of my family's. it was nice to know we could trust his word! thanks for your prayers. i'll let y'all know how ethan is doing tomorrow. and maybe i can post a picture of his poor little face. if you ask him if it hurts, he says, "yes. right heeee (here)" and points to his face. it's so cute. it reminds brian of a tommy boy scene ("right here. not here or here so much, but right here..."). ok you know when i start quoting tommy boy, it is TIME FOR BED. see you in the morning sometime....

this busy season

no, i'm not talking about the thanksgiving and christmas season that will be soon upon us... i'm talking about this busy season for our family. it's actually for 3 seasons. a school year. i feel incredibly blessed, tired, and torn as i think about what's going on in our family right now. since august, i have been working at a middle school two mornings a week, providing speech therapy services to 13 students. how this all came about was no doubt the work of God because i would have never thought of this myself. so here's a little background without just spreading out the budget for you to see. :)

brian and i were both blessed to attend wonderful christian universities, and while our parents provided as much financial help as they could, we both ended up with a somewhat significant amount of school loan debt. for reasons still beyond my comprehension, we are unable to consolidate all of our loans into one loan, so for the last 3 years, we have made THREE student loan payments each month. yikes! now with that hefty student loan (and free graduate school, thank you Lord!! and mom, who paid my rent!), i was thankfully able to end up with a very useful degree in speech-language pathology. since ethan was a baby, i have worked a couple of days a month testing pre-school children while one of the grandmas had spoiling-duty. this paid more than brian getting a job on the side, so it was the smartest way for our family to make some extra money. this extra money each month helped to pay off the first loan (praise the Lord!) and to make our monthly payments, but on paper, we could see that it would be a long while till we were free from this debt.

when i returned from my whirlwind trip in july, this opportunity to work part-time was presented and i immediately dismissed it. there was no way that i could work 10 hours a week. i did not want to be away from home that much, and i knew i could not ask one of the grandmas to commit to watching the kids that much each week (though i know they would love it if they had the time!). but i will say that the hourly rate that was offered was a good one. i thought about it some more and did some calculations, and i realized that we could pay off the second student loan in 6 months if i took this job. SIX MONTHS vs. closer to 2 years! ok, so then i started praying, "is this from you, God? or am i being greedy?" everything within me wants to be home with my kids, but oh Lord! to have this loan paid off! so quickly! so i prayed that God would shut this door smack in my face if this was not from Him... well, He flung the doors right open, including working out a flexible schedule for brian at work so that he can be home with the kids while i'm at school. brian and i stepped out on faith that God was providing this opportunity to pay down our debt so that we would have more to give to Him and to others in need. and on our anniversary, august 28, i left the house at 6:45 in the morning. now that was definitely stepping out on faith!

i am home by 11:15 on the mornings that i work at the school, so it is nice to have the early afternoon with the kids before naptime. on the other days, i try to balance my housekeeping with mothering, though i discovered this week that going into monday with a clean kitchen floor and laundry done sure does this girl some good! i am still testing pre-schoolers a day or two a month, which can really make things hairy schedule-wise, but i knew this school arrangement would not be a permanent thing, and i also did not want to sever my previous commitment. SO on some weeks, i am gone 3 mornings a week. whew!

some of you might be reading this, thinking, "so what's the big deal?" and others of you are probably thinking, "she's nuts!" well, some days i do feel nuts, but i am reminded of something that my sweet friend heather told me as i was anticipating my first week at school. she told me that once i've prayed about something and made a decision, don't keep questioning my decision. go on faith that God will use this decision for my good and His glory. that was huge encouragement to me! so yes, things are pretty busy around here. some weeks have honestly been pretty stressful, but a lot of that was due to lack of planning and efficiency on my part during my free time (um, can you say ebay?). i am learning various little ways to simplify my life and to be more disciplined with my time at home since there is less of it these days. my heart is definitely at home, and being away at least 2 mornings every week makes me see how important it is for me to be at home with my children.

i was telling another friend that i worry about looking back in may and thinking, "gosh, caroline is so grown up and i missed it!" and she replied with, "emily, it's just 8 hours a week." so for the last few weeks, i've been asking myself why this is so hard if it is just 8 hours a week... and the other day i think i figured it out.... it's not the time, though i do miss being home. it's not the actual work at the school-- the students that i work with are great, and the teachers and staff are incredibly supportive. the challenge for me is that my mind is divided one more time. does that make any sense? my heart's desire is to be at home, taking care of my family. i will admit that i have never been a great housekeeper, even with 5 weekdays to get it done. 2 years ago, i threw in a little pre-school-evaluation-thinking into my head, and i adapted to that. i really can say that i don't think ethan or our family as a whole suffered as a result of my testing on those days. but now throw in IEPs that need to be written, planning for therapy the next week, thinking about parents that i need to call, all on top of the reports for my pre-school testing that need to be written, and i haven't even mentioned the needs of my children, husband, friends, other family, or this house!! or my quiet time and Bible study!! oh wow, just seeing that all written down is overwhelming!

so with this divided mind of mine these days, i am sure that things are falling through the cracks. i am sure i am forgetting more and sleeping less. but i know my God is with me, even through these busy days. He has ordained these days, and He is bestowing upon my family His wonderful provision. i must remember that every single day. God is with me. my mind may be divided between school and home and evaluations, but i must make sure that i am worshipping God with a single mind and a single heart that cries, "Father, may You have the glory in all things!" 1 Cor. 10:31- "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God."

so if my posts are few and far between, it's because i am striving to enjoy every possible second with my two babies right now. there's not as much time for pictures, and even less time for loading them and editing them and writing about them... but you can be sure that we are still playing ball and reading and dancing to the radio and counting "stars-es" and "peoples-es". we're headed to the pumpkin patch this weekend, and we are most definitely going to mrs. tammy's garage sale to buy cookies and lemonade from natalie. and maybe i'll eventually post pictures...