No Soul Left Behind

Here are some great pictures of us this fall….

Here is the Naturalist after his third beekeeping class with his friend Joseph.  The Naturalist loved learning about bees.  We loved hanging out on the farm during class.  In the spring class, we saw baby pigs only a couple hours old.  They still had their umbilical cords!

Isn’t this photo adorable?  Here we are inside the Santa Maria, listening to a presentation about early maritime medicine. This man gave explicit details about amputation and other gory facts, and he had plenty of tools and implements to help us visualize his descriptions.  The Naturalist and The Dancer were a little disturbed by this presentation.  They often hold hands when one or both of them need comfort.

Our friend Jocelyn just moved to a farm only a couple of miles from our house.  My kids love nothing better than to visit her farm, gather eggs, and observe the animals. In fact, The Naturalist has fallen in love with her chickens.  He picks them up and begs me to buy chickens for our backyard.     

Here they are, right before we began trick or treating.  We had such amazing weather!  We haven’t seen trick or treating weather this nice since we left Houston.

The Naturalist joined Cub Scouts this year, and he absolutely loves it.  He loves the meetings, the events, the uniform, the whole thing.  Doesn’t he look adorable in his uniform?

Here are a couple of pictures of him during the rain gutter regatta.  He won first prize for his den.

In November, he will get his first badge:  The bobcat badge.  He is so excited!

Nothing is better than a visit from Grandma and Grandpa!  Here are some pictures from their visit this past weekend.  We took them to a local museum. 

Smiles is 3! 

She’s adorable, and she knows it!  In fact, recently I was reading her a book, and the book contained the word “adorable”. When she heard the word, Smiles got all excited and shouted, “Adorable!  I’m adorable!” 

Here are a few pictures of Smiles on her birthday.

Where do you take a horse lover on her birthday?  To Heritage Days at Malabar Farm, of course!  This is our second year in a row attending the event, and it is fabulous.  Pony rides and horse-drawn wagon rides are the big favorites for Smiles.

Of course, Dad’s favorite are the Civil War demonstrations and historical reenactors. 

Smiles, you are adorable!  Happy birthday!

Here are a few cute pictures of our first days in the new house.

First, a picture of Smiles eating – or sleeping  -  through her second dinner at the new house.  Moving can sure make a toddler tired!

Also, another picture from Day 2:  I caught The Dancer alone reading on the back porch.  One of the things we loved about the new house was the huge, screened-in back porch that runs the entire length of the house.  What a great place to read a book!

Another plus:  we have a huge, wooded backyard.  Our lot is 1.1 acres, and it is filled with nature!  This is our first glimpse of deer, discovered standing where our driveway meets the road.  There are five of them, but unfortunately I don’t have a zoom on my cheap camera, so they look far away (but they actually aren’t).

Last but not least, my hero:  My cousin Greg.  He and my Aunt Sue drove all the way out here to do three days of hard labor.  Aunt Sue helped me remove some ugly wallpaper in the living room, and Greg mostly removed overgrown bushes and hauled trash to the curb.  Here is Greg with an overgrown shrub that died.  He removed the roots manually (he had no choice, they were right by the water line), and the roots/stump was about 250 lbs!  Greg, you are my hero!

Forgive me for my long lapse in posting.  We’ve moved to a new house!  We got a great deal selling our old house, and an even better deal buying our new house.  We live in a very expensive neighborhood now, something we could have never afforded without the housing market tanking (and also a little bit of divine intervention).

I can’t believe how smoothly everything went.  Our old house got an incredible offer after only 26 days on the market.  In fact, we only had five showings.  Then we got an even more amazing deal on the house we bought!  Then, everything else fell into place too – even moving day went well!  And, it just seems to be meant for us to be here.  It is all amazing.  In fact, when I told my husband’s colleague the entire story of our move, he said he found it “hard to believe.”  St. Joseph, thank you for your prayers on our behalf!

The above picture is The Naturalist amidst boxes at our old house.  The kids actually enjoyed packing and unpacking, and even Smiles transitioned easily to the new house.  Funniest of all was the kids playing “Moving Day” with the Barbies.  For weeks on end, they would tell their Barbies it was Moving Day, then put all the Barbie furniture in the Barbie Corvette, drive around the house, then unpack.  Luckily Barbie didn’t complain!

Here are some random photos of the fun we had this month.

The Dancer cowered in the car during the fireworks, but the rest of us had a fabulous time!

The Dancer and our friend Maggie after a presentation by the Turtle Lady.

Here are two pictures from our trip to Egypt (Actually, it was only a trip to the science museum, COSI).

Dad took the kids to many places (including the zoo)the week I was in training to be a catechist for the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program.

The Columbus Symphony Orchestra has the most incredible summer concert series for kids.  Our kids love to dance to the music!

Smiles loves the CSO’s summer concert series too!  She likes to dance, the free popcorn, and the face painting.

No, buying and selling a house aren’t the only things we’re doing this summer.  It just seems that way….

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from Vacation Bible school.

Music is always a lot of fun!

This year was Smile’s first year to participate in VBS!

The other day, my husband was outside with the children.  He was in the front yard doing some yardwork, and the kids were helping him.  I was inside the house.  My husband set up the sprinkler in the backyard to water the grass, and the Naturalist asked if he could play under the sprinkler.  My husband said yes, and the Naturalist ran inside, got his swim trunks, and ran under the sprinkler.

His sisters wanted to play in the water too.  The Dancer was in a panic because the other two kids were having fun under the sprinkler, but she couldn’t find her swim suit.  I helped her find her swimsuit, then went to the backyard to see what was going on.  My husband was still working in the front yard, and he thought I was watching the children.   The below picture shows how I found the Naturalist and Smiles. 

Apparently, Smiles didn’t care about finding her swimsuit.  She didn’t want to miss out on any of the fun. 

When my husband and I found Smiles like this, we both said to each other, “I thought you were watching the children!”

A warning to all unmarried women out there:  At first, it may seem great that your potential spouse has a fabulous sense of humor.  But, think ahead eleven years:  You may have a son with that same sense  of humor. 

Case in point:  The Naturalist is always trying to make us laugh.  He knows that we check on him before we go to bed every night.  He thinks it is really funny to fall asleep in strange ways to surprise us.  We have found him sleeping in strange ways dozens of times.  This has been going on for months. 

First, as you’ll see in the above picture, he started sleeping on the floor.  It is obvious that this picture is three months old because he’s wearing winter pj’s.  Why exactly do we spend money buying him a nice bed when he’d rather sleep on the floor?

Then, as you’ll see from the above two pictures, he started sleeping among his train set.  This seems very uncomfortable to me!

Now that it is summer, he’s not only sleeping on the floor, but his pj’s are gone!  (Also, note that his teddy bear is with him in all these pictures.  He’s had that bear since he was a baby, and he is so attached to it.)

This picture is the strangest one yet.  This picture was taken a couple of days ago.  Why did he put his backpack on before he fell asleep?