MN HERE WE COME!!

The day is finally here and we are ON THE ROAD!!! MN here we come! I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am to be going home for my "little" brother's wedding. We are so ready for some R and R on the farm and some good quality time. I'M SO EXCITED!!! (And so is Myles!)

This is my new favorite picture of him. So happy and free.

Boys and Ticks

Myles has officially joined the ranks of "Adventure Boy" with the acquisition (and subsequent removal) of his first tick. I am assuming he got it while playing in the backyard, but let's be honest, I really have no idea. I was just loving on Myles and rubbing my hands through his hair and felt a bump and thought he had a cut. Not exactly what I was expecting to find! Myles was a real trouper with getting it out. It's a good thing I've taken out many o' ticks from our dogs on the farm. Never did I imagine at those times this skill would come in handy with my sons, but if I knew half the things I would do as a mom, I may not have been so eager to join the mom club. :-) 

Nat checking to see if I got it all.

The beast!

Easter 2011

Easter has now come and gone and we are slowly trying to come off the sugar high of all the peeps we have eaten. Here are a few pics of all the fun we had!

Loving the chance to decorate eggs and make a mess.

As surprising as it is, Nat is really good a decorating Easter eggs. He also likes to add creative sayings to his eggs like "Laura smells". I feel so loved!

Do you think Ty is excited for the Easter egg hunt?

Nothing like an Easter egg hunt in your jammies!

"Out of my way. I've got eggs to find!"

Here are all the boys after a little fun in the mud. I don't know what we would do with a girl!

THIS is how we do it in Kentucky.

Easter Blessings!

This Easter is one we are SO excited about. For the first time Myles is starting to understand why we celebrate Easter. He knows that Jesus was on the cross with nails in his hands and "pricklies" on his head. He knows that mean people did that to him. He also knows that Jesus saved us and when I asked what that means he said, "If I was falling off a cliff he would save me". Awesome!!!! We will work on the details a little more each year. I am thankful beyond words this Easter for SO many reasons. Easter symbolizes new life for all. Jesus died so we could have new life. New life is something we are SOOOO very excited about this Easter because we have new life in our family. We are celebrating this Easter at 15 weeks pregnant!!! Baby Mitchell #3 is on the way!! We could not be more thankful of ALL the blessing we have received this Easter and hope you are all feeling just as blessed! 

Puppy Love

NO we did not cave and join the millions of other families who have a dog. Even better, we got to dog sit for the day and then give her back. :-) It was very much like when you get to hold a newborn and you LOVE it and then at the end you get to give them  back to the parents for the middle of the night feedings. We got to play with Koda and have a blast and then at the end of the day, we got to give her back and not worry about anything else. We do hope that we can do this more often because the boys enjoy it and it takes care of any "we should get a dog" ideas that pop up into our heads. :-) Kids are MORE than enough for us right now.

Ty thinking he can outrun Koda.

Puppy Kisses

Meeting our neighbor's dog.

Ty acting all big since he has the window to protect him.

How can you not LOVE that face?

Fun with Friends

Last week we had our sweet friends Landin and Lauren over for two days and Myles was in HEAVEN. The boys played until they were exhausted and loved every second of it. With the weather being so amazing we decided to take out the jumping castle and invite our neighbor's granddaughter Reese over. Add a freeze pop to the mix and you have 3 VERY happy little kiddos.

One More Job....

This weekend was one I was really looking forward to sitting around and relaxing. Once again we had a "house project" come up. We recently found out that we have a "radon issue" in our house that we need to get taken care of. Long story short, if we don't get it taken care of it's like smoking a couple packs of cigarettes a day. Not so much what we were hoping for. :-) In order for us to get that taken care of we need to get a ventalation system put in our crawl space. In order for that to happen we have to have a clean crawl space which we don't. Nat and I got to spend our Saturday bonding under the house cleaning up an insane amount of trash. It just drives me CRAZY when people decide to be lazy when doing it right the first time is so simple yet saves so much time. (Pretty sure I sound like my dad right there.) Here are pictures of what Nat and I got out of our crawl space in one day of work. I was in pain for 2 days and never plan to be under the house again.

Seriously people...Don't be lazy! It makes me cranky!

Say Please

Today I had the opportunity to hear MY words coming from Myles' mouth. It reminded me in full force that even though I think he isn't listening a lot of the time, he really is. Here is how our conversation went.
Me: "Myles come into the kitchen."
Myles: "No I won't until you say please."
Me: "Myles PLEASE come into the kitchen."
Myles: "Sure, because you asked so kindly I will."

Are you kidding me? I had to leave the room then and get a good laugh out because that was awesome! The thing that made me laugh the hardest was how serious he was. He wasn't being sassy or rude, that's just the rule. Always a good time!

Diaper Boys

The other day I was taking a look at some pictures of Myles when he was Ty's age and just comparing and came across one that made me smile. The funny thing is that I'd just taken a similar picture of Ty!! I had to put them both up so you can see it. I am amazed daily at how much they are different, but how much they BOTH make me smile!!It also reminded me how quickly time flies!!

Bubbles and Baseball

With all the amazing weather we've had lately we have been spending most of our mornings outside. The boys were lucky to get to play with Landin and Lauren last week. I was reminded just how much fun bubbles really are for all ages. We played with the bubbles literally until they ran out.

It is so nice that he can blow the bubbles by himself now and I can chase after them. :-)

Landin was a pro!

Ty had fun playing baseball for the first time. He was really getting into it as you can see from the pictures.

Getting it all set up by himself.

We obviously need to work a bit on WHERE to make contact, but not too bad. :-)

Where did it go?

Running the bases after a great hit.

SWING SET FUN!!

We finally caved and stopped looking for a used swing set and bought a new one. I think in the end it was the best choice since our boys are the "active" type and the sturdier the better. Nat worked all day with the help of our friend Matthew and they got it almost completely done. All we have to do now is put up the tarp, some pegs for the rock climbing wall, and the monkey bars. I'm ok with waiting on the monkey bars for a while since Myles isn't quite big enough to use them on his own and it will require a lot of extra work from me (Yes, totally lazy parenting, I know). Myles can climb the ladder with ease and is just a little rock star on it. He loves the swing but loves to swing on his belly and not his bottom which is fine with me. He has flipped head over heels a few times but now finds it funny. Ty on the other hand is a handful. I thought he would love the slide so I put him up there. What he loves to do is climb up to the next level and try to get in a spot I can't reach him and laugh at me, try to step off the top level to the next level by himself with will for sure result in stitches or a concussion, or act like he is going to just go right off the edge to the ground. He has now been banned from the jungle gym portion until next year. :-) I don't know why it surprised me at all to be honest. :-)

The Hard Workers

He's got skills.

One happy little man.

First slide down!

This is fun!

This is my office! Honestly, how could this not make a person smile!

Destructo Ty

Honestly there are just some days I can't keep up with Ty. I don't know how he does what he does so quickly, but my goal in life is to teach him how to use is talents for good and not evil. :-) Last night Nat and I had to surrender ourselves to him and just laugh. I couldn't get the DVD player to work the other day and asked Nat to take a look at it. It is a DVD/VHS combo and I couldn't feel anything jammed in it. I did think of that right away since I know how Ty is.....After Nat opened the player up this is what we found......

Yep....I am pretty sure that sticking the entire dvd case into the vhs side is not how it was intended to work. The funny thing was that when showed Ty the case and said "no no" he laughed as if to say, "Hey you found it. Nice work!" Never a dull moment!

Chillin

THIS is why I love my husband. He reminds me to have fun and enjoy life!!

Exciting Times

Things have been pretty busy around here the last week and a half and I am SO excited to share why and where we are today. As of yesterday Nat and I got word that we are officially approved as foster parents!!! Shocking right? We have been taking classes every Thursday night for the last ELEVEN weeks and 1 week ago we had our final visit and found out yesterday that we've been approved! It has been a LONG and EXHAUSTING journey for our entire family (And my sweet friend Adrienne who has taken the boys almost every single week while we attended class. :-) Talk about a blessing), but one that we cannot be more excited about.

When Nat and I first got married I had always thrown out the idea of wanting to adopt at some point and he thought it sounded like a good idea. Then we had two crazy boys, moved to a new state, and renovated a house and  it kind of seemed like our hands were plenty full for a while. That's were God laughed at me. Through my mom's group at church he put me in contact with three wonderful women who all had a hand in the foster care system in some way or another. For the first time in my life I really saw it as GOD telling me this is what we should do. I was really nervous though that just because I thought this was what God wanted I needed Nat to be on board as well. He was slightly hesitant about it at first simply because he wasn't sure how it would affect the boys, but said he would go to the first informational meeting and go from there. 11 weeks later and I can tell you I am more impressed and in love with my husband that I ever thought I would be. He has been by my side through it all as we went through it together. I never felt like this was "my cause" or that he was doing it just to please me. He has embraced it and shown me a whole new side of him that I just adore. I am so excited for some child to get to see and experience the dad and role model that he is.

So after 11 weeks of answering the most personal questions, letting complete strangers have total access to every aspect of our lives that you could think of, doing more homework than I have done in a LONG time, and putting locks on anything that we could possibly see as even a slight concern we are officially certified. Right now we are going to start out with respite care which means we will be on call to help other families who need a someone to look after their foster children for a night or even for a couple weeks if they are going to be gone. We figure this will give us a chance to meet some other foster families and really have a support system for when we get totally into it. Our biggest concern is how to explain to our boys what we are doing. Not knowing how long a child will stay with you is hard enough for Nat and I to accept, but if we have a child with us for a year and then they go back to their parents, which is always the ultimate goal, how do we explain that loss to Myles and Ty. That is the reality of foster care. So that's why we are going to try to get a little network of people in place first and get some of that knowledge before we do anything too quickly and then regret our pace.
So that's what we have been up to the last 11 weeks. We feel like the last couple nights we've been able to breathe again and just relax a bit for the first time in a long time. We want to thank ALL of our friends who have supported us and given us encouragement through this journey. We are very excited for all that is to come and know that it will not be an easy road all the time, but we also KNOW that God will never give us something that we can't do as long as we depend and trust in Him.

When Daddy's In Charge

When daddy is in charge things run a little differently than when mommy is in charge.

Koala Style

Daddy thought Ty could go without a diaper for a "little while" Not so much!

Supervision is slightly different when daddy is in charge.

Pizza is considered the perfect diet.