On Saturday, we had the joy of hosting a baby shower for our dear friend, Laura. Laura and her husband, Aaron, had been trying to have a baby for over three years when they were told that it probably wouldn't happen - even with medical help. But our God is much bigger!

Surprisingly, in early May, she found out that she was pregnant. We were all on pins and needles during the first trimester because the miscarriage rate for her condition was high. Now at almost 31 weeks pregnant with a boy, we are all VERY excited that Baby Christian will be here soon! Isn't God good?!

Our pirst passenger is Henry. He's all ready for take-off.
















Now Jonathan is all ready for take-off.













Watch out, boys! There a lot of turbulance!

Our Care Group went camping last weekend at Frozen Head State Park. The park was appropriately named because we all were frozen! They boys slept in the tent this time - unlike our last camping trip that ended with all of us in our own beds at home instead of a tent. (I'm having difficulty with some of the pictures...hopefully more to come later.)

 

Rob and Robert assembling our tent.

 

Jonathan attemping to help!

 



Henry and the rubber mallet




Our fearless care group leader, Jason
Do you see Ara blowing bubbles with the boys in the background? That was the hit of the day!









The toddler formerly known as Baby Ada















Alexis and sweet Evan












Amy with Tim and Alexis' baby, Evan

On Wednesday, we are giving the boys' pacifiers to the "garbage guys." We've been talking about this for a couple of weeks in hopes of preparing them for it. Please pray for a smooth transition. They only get their pacis when they are sleeping, but considering that's 14 hours a day, they've become quite attached.

Let's take a stroll down memory lane:


Here's Jonathan (and Henry) around 6 weeks old already attached to the Soothie paci. I wasn't keen on the boys taking a paci. But as I quickly learned, preemies need to learn how to suck. So the pacis became a daily part of our lives.



4 months old - Henry (left) and Jonathan (right)





Henry and Jonathan - 8 months old











Very Tired Boys with Aunt Melissa at their 1st Birthday Party

Ally, Caden, Ada, Jonathan and Henry

My friend, Katie, has tagged me to attempt to define some made-up words. You can see the definitions to her made-up words by going here.

Here's my attempt:

papoot (verb) - the sound made when a father passes gas
Did Dad just papoot?

hockstrats (noun) - the small pieces of food that remain on your kitchen floor after you sweep and mop
Even after scrubing the floor, the hockstrats remained.

shart (phrase) - a Southern phrase for "Bless your heart."
Did you hear that I lost my earring. My friend replied, "Shart."

I challenge Jan,Kristie, and our blogless friends, Alison and Laura, to define the words below. My blogless friends can use the comment box to define their words if they'd like.

curratow
scarpetti
desman

We tried to get a picture of the boys with their nana, but what are they looking at?




Oh!! The tractor!



Handsome Boys































Everybody needs a helping hand.






Jonathan and Mommy




Rob explained how to find a good pumpkin - that is, one that's not smashed!


Look who we ran into there! Brian and Zerita!

(Attempting to get the pictures above)



Henry running off to see the picture in the camera.



No explanation needed


Not liking his hat




Jonathan smiles so big sometimes that I think his face is going to break.

We visited the zoo last week with our friends, Zeke and Lily and their mom, Elizabeth. We all had a great time! Hanging out with Elizabeth brings back fun memories of care group about 9 years ago when she was still a high school student and I was teaching elementary school. I never imagined that we'd be in the same season of life with three boys that are 17 days apart! What fun! You can check out Zeke and Lily's dad's blog here.






Three Wild Animals in a Cage



















Going different directions

1. You cut YOUR food into bite-size pieces.

2. You announce to your husband that you have to "go pee-pee."

3. Your fresh shirt has dried snot on it.

4. You are ready to go to bed at 9:00.

5. You spell words so the kids won't hear what you are saying.

6. You have a Sesame Street band-aid on your finger.

7. You have crayon marks on your wall.

8. You haven't gone to the bathroom alone in weeks.

9. You get lots of wet kisses every day! :)

There are SO many more! What can you add to the list??

Chick-a-way =







Fwifford =














jimmies=










Fwinky =

I don't even know where to begin this post....

We have a very nice family that lives next door. The parents are natives of Vietnam, and speak broken English. They have five children who are 12, 10, 9, 4 and 4 - obviously incuding a set of twins. For Easter, they gave their children nine cute and fuzzy baby chicks. Over the summer, we have watched those baby chicks grow into HUGE chickens - 4 hens and a rooster. Thank goodness there aren't nine of them. Keep in mind, we live in the CITY! There are 7 houses within a stone's throw. These chicken aren't in a coop. They just wander all around the fenced-in yard. The parents told us recently that they keep the rooster in the garage at night so he won't wake up the neighborhood. They have found themselves in a difficult situation: What to do with the chickens?

This weekend, the chickens got out of the back yard, and Rob helped round them up! I was in the house cooking dinner....if only I had the camera. The boys loved watching him help the neighbors run down all the chickens. I would have let the oncoming traffic take care of them. There nothing like hearing "Cock-a-doodle-doo" at 6 AM!


Since the parents don't want to kill the chickens, I've tried to offer suggestions on what to do - take them to the dairy farm at UT, maybe my sister-in-law, Rebecca, might want them on her FARM.

This situation reminds me of a post by Josh Harris a few months back.