September Happenings

I am rather behind on posting, so September is just going to have to be conbined into one post. "The Incident" however, will be it's own post on another day. If you don't know what I'm speaking of, be ready. It's a doozy.

Jonah started preschool! Here are the obligatory posed pictures. I just love his sweet closed-mouth smiles.

To Jonah's left, is Faith. Jonah talks often of his friend Faith and how much fun he has with her, and how he wants her to come over to play someday, and how she is really fun and beautiful. We need to learn more about this Faith.

We went apple picking again this year and Reed, Dana and the kids came along too. And also their neighbor friend, Kaitlyn, on the far left.

I'm a mom of three! So crazy.

These guys are buddies. They also love to wrestle and beat up on each other to the point of tears. Then they do this immediately afterwards. Oh, boys....

Look at that hair in Abby's face. Someone ought to do something about that....

Labor Day was an exciting day for us this year. The night before, we decided on a whim to get a hotel room in town on priceline and it ended up being a blast. We swam, had a picnic dinner and breakfast in the hotel, and Jonah and Abby shared a bed for the first time. They have been asking when they can do it again. :) The next morning we woke up and headed downtown to the Labor Day parade. We had never gone before and it was a lot of fun! It was also a beautiful day, which was great.

Getting a better view. Tall daddys come in handy for this.

All the floats threw candy and the kids would run and gather as much as they could. Jonah and Abby got quite the loot.

I don't know why Garfield and Odie made the parade. Does anyone really know who they are anymore? Certainly not my kids. I'm guessing these were the floats available in the parade bargain bin. :)

Jonah was very excited to see Iron Man, even though he has no clue who he is. Same with R2D2.

By the time we got home from our Labor Day adventures, Abby was ready to nap on the floor.

Another thing we did this year was go to the Hot Air Balloon festival. Once again, it did not disappoint!

This year they had a balloon on its side that the kids could play in. It was like a non-bouncy bounce house and the kids had a blast.

Bonus points for counting how many balloons there were.

Abby INSISTS on doing everything by herself... when she's with mommy and daddy. She loves, however, to let Emma do everything for her. And Emma loves to do it.

Can you see Levi? He's spent most of our outings hanging out in the baby carrier. Thankfully he likes it!

All night Brian was saying, "Should I get a funnel cake? No, I don't need one." After the third time of saying that, I suddenly saw him in line. :)

So beautiful! This is again proving to be one of our favorite family nights of the year.

Our no-napping Jonah is wiped out by the end of our nights lately. Finally a child that will sleep in the car!

And I haven't put nearly enough pictures up of Levi! I finally captured one of his adorable smiles on camera. They melt me!

He loves playing under his play mat these days. He's made a buddy in the octopus. :)

This is from today. What a strong boy!

What are you lookin' at?

Grandparents

Jonah is VERY into building things lately, which may or may not be egged on by Grandpa. Where else would Jonah get all of his sweet building stuff from? This project was a book shelf for Levi's room. We still need to paint and install it, but for now here it is in the early stages...

Soon enough big guy, you'll be joining in the fun.

Abby woke up from her nap and came in to help finish off the shelf.

Papa and Mimi also stopped for a visit on their way back home from a bus trip tour of the western US. Papa and Jonah had some stick sword fighting going.

They love playing with Papa and Mimi and I think they get as worn out by Papa and Mimi as Papa and Mimi are by them. :)

In the Last Week

In the last week:

• Last Friday, Levi was diagnosed with reflux and I limited my diet even more now, avoiding all forms of dairy, soy, egg (other than in baked goods), peanuts, tree nuts, tomatoes, and caffeine. Yes, it hurts my brain to figure out what I can eat.
• We spent two nights at my parents' lake house and hosted a party of 50 adults and children (happy 30th birthday, Brian!). One of the families got into a bad accident on the way home, totally wrecking both cars. Praise God everyone was OK! Brian spent the rest of Saturday night helping the family while a friend and I cleaned up the lake house.
• On our way home from the lake on Sunday, in a half hour time I went from feeling a little funny to INTENSE pain and heading into the emergency room. One hour later I was being taken by ambulance to another hospital and being scheduled for surgery.
• Tuesday, dazed and confused but feeling a bit better, I headed home from the hospital.
• Thursday, today, as Brian is driving into work, the transmission goes out on our car. Why not, right?

However, in the last week...

• We praised God for the little life of Levi and his blessing already in our family. I'm thankful for the opportunity to nurse him, regardless of the sacrifice.
• We were able to witness Levi smiling in response to our interaction with him for the first time.
• We had a wonderful time of fellowship with many dear friends from our church.
• We were able to witness firsthand God's protection as our friends and their three children were able to walk away from a deadly accident with just bumps and bruises.
• We were able once again to see God's protection and sovereignty that the kidney stone, which has been there for years apparently, did not become a problem during my pregnancy, the majority of my postpartum recovery, or while we were out of town.
• I was safely operated on and am recovering with minor difficulties.
• Brian was approached by a man in the hospital whose wife and the mother of his four children is dying of cancer about where he finds his source of hope- faith in Christ alone!
• We were able to see God's provision for us in a very tangible way in regards to our home and a wonderful refinancing solution for us.
• We were served immensly by friends and family with kid-sitting, meal providing, and prayers.
• We were reminded that our car is just a thing, money is just money, and God is the provider of it all. We will never have no more or no less than what God has for us and what can be more financially comforting than that?

"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation."
(Romans 5:1-11 ESV)

Hot and Cold

It has been amazingly hot here, but this week we were able to cool off on Friday and Saturday at an FCA hockey camp. Jonah and Abby were even able to get in on the action this year too. A couple of FCA volunteers who help run the camp brought skates to fit both of the kids. Jonah was a little afraid of the ice, but Abby went ahead and jumped right in.

Jonah's hockey jersey was a bit big, so he opted to wear his football jersey instead and he also brought along his fisher price hockey stick. :)

Abby didn't mind the large jersey. Or the ice.

Abby in action...

On the hot side of things, while Brian was mowing the yard, Jonah decided to be like Grandpa. When we're at the lake my dad will rake the sand with a rake pulled behind a 4-wheeler. Jonah decided to help daddy by making his own rake to pull weeds in the yard. He tied a shovel to the back of his scooter and went to work. He cracks us up.

Kitchen Remodel: Complete!

Finally, pictures of the kitchen! We are so happy with how things turned out. We literally finished up with the remodeling about four days before Levi was born. Although it about twice the time and twice the money we anticipated, we believe it was a worthwhile investment and we have already greatly enjoyed it. The bat and paint spill also added some much needed (haha) drama to our life along the way. All that being said, we are not planning on another major remodeling project anytime soon. :) So, the completed project:

The view from our living room. I don't like paint cutoff by the pantry, but we have no idea where else to make the line. Oh well. Would it be noticable if I didn't point it out?

The view from near our fridge. Please note my kids are in most of these pictures. They like being in front of a lens. My brother did the backspalsh of marble subway tiles. We're so happy with it!
I got the stools off of craigslist, but Brian's not sold on them. :) He's not a fan of the swivel (more like the kids swiveling into the counter and wall non-stop). I was planning on painting them, but I think I will resell them and craigslist shop for some more.
I love my ovens!!!

And cooktop.

And my girl :)

The living room (take two). We had an incident where a touch up painter spilled a half gallon of paint all over our room. It ruined our couch and splattered some other items, but for the most part we were able to salvage everything. Including our beautiful new floor! Anyway, here is our new couch. I need a table cloth for the table on the left, but other than that the room is mostly complete.

I also want an ottoman for below the picture. Hello, Jonah. :)

A giant sized doorway. Not that we expect to have tall children or anything.

Now, on to Levi's room.... Poor Levi. Other than the chinese lanterns, he just got Jonah's room exactly as he left it with baby furniture put in it. Something tells me that he doesn't really care. :)

Jonah's new Husker room with SEVEN, I repeat, SEVEN coats of red paint. No, we did not prime the walls first, but they were a orangish yellow. We thought we'd be OK. We learned our lesson.

Brian's hardwork and paint was worth it though. Jonah absolutely loves his room.

And for good measure, Abby's room. We painted all of this furniture that we got off of craigslist. I'd rather do seven coats of red paint. We won't be painting six pieces of furniture again anytime soon.... :)

So, that's the latest changes in our house. I know I left Levi out of this post, but to be honest, there aren't any new pictures of the little guy as of late. He's in the baby acne stage, so until that passes there aren't going to be too many frame-worthy pictures. :) Plenty of updates to him coming in the future. Other than that, we're surviving with three and if I wasn't amazingly tired, I'd say we were doing great. Can someone remind me what three hours of consecutive sleep feels like? I vaguely remember it feeling wonderful... :)