Mother's Day

I love being a mother. Though it is certainly more difficult than I ever dreamed, I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. Raising my 3 little boys is one of the greatest joys I have ever known. This year on Mother's Day we were still in Branson with the extended family, but we had a great time together. My boys made special cards for me and Daddy helped them give me a gift certificate for a pregnancy massage in the very near future. Totally looking forward to that! Here is a picture from that day of the wonderful reason I get to celebrate Mother's Day!

Branson

We had a great vacation in Branson with my husband's family the first week of May. Sorry I'm just now posting pictures. I have great intentions and all kinds of posts in my head to put on this blog, but alas. So, here is the incredible house we stayed in for the week. It was in the mountains and was just a great place for us all to stay: 7 adults and 8 kids (6 who are age 5 and under). Fun times.



We went to this butterfly palace where you could enter a room with literally thousands of butterflies flying around you. It was very cool. They had these cute little safari hats, binoculars, and magnifying glasses for the kids.



Here are the boys doing their best not to fall in this fountain, though I'm sure they would thought that was great fun. We had a good time visiting Ben & Shauna and their 3 kids down at Branson Landing one evening.



We spent a whole day at Silver Dollar City - so much fun! They had great rides for the kids and Daddy got to ride lots of roller coasters with the bigger cousins. Pregnant mommy was not allowed on any rides, but I had a great time watching the kids enjoy themselves. :o)




And, last but certainly not least, we just had a good time being all together in the house. Lots of late night games for the adults after the little ones went to bed. And LOTS of fun times with the cousins and grandparents. What great memories for us and for our boys!

Catching Up (Again)

So, I guess the fast-paced American life makes it more difficult for me to keep up with this blog. We're doing so many fun things and the boys are having so many new experiences that I want to record it all, but there never seems to be any time to do it. Today is Mother's Day and I've had a wonderful day so far. Because my terrific husband is letting me laz around all day, I actually have a few moments to at least catch up a little bit...

After our fabulous trip to New England and week in Richmond, we've been pretty much home for several weeks. Daddy had to make another 5 day trip by himself, but my parents came up from Plano to hang out and give us a little help while he was gone. We had a fun week with them! We've also been doing some catch-up homeschool every day. Joshua has shown great progress in his writing ability and his reading is incredible. Luke has enjoyed working through some pre-K workbooks with Mommy. One day each week we've gone to the library, which is only 4 blocks from our house. That's been a really neat experience for the boys and I to have together. You don't really get to take your kids to the library when you live in foreign countries. :o) It really has been great to just be in our house and have a normal routine every day. We've had meals with friends around town and from our church, and just been being a normal American family while we can.

This whole past week we've been in Branson, MO on vacation with my husband's family. Two grandparents, 2 aunts, 1 uncle, 5 cousins, and our family of 5 have been here since last Monday and we've had a blast! We're heading back home tomorrow, but I have lots to write about from our week here. When I get the pictures off my camera, I'll be sure to post about our fun week! More to come soon...

Forgetful Fireman

Okay, this is my last post for tonight. We are trying to start a new family routine and I'm already supposed to have gone to bed. But I'm on a roll, so I'll go ahead and finish this last story up now. Last week Joshua was in a class with other friends his age and the fire department came to visit them. This was Joshua's first time to see a real firetruck and fireman up close, so he was pretty stoked. After the fireman gave his fire safety chat to the kids, he started to take them out the back door to see the firetruck up close. Somehow he realized that the firetruck wasn't parked in the back, but in the front of the building, so the whole class had to turn around and head for the front door. The teacher told me later that when they turned around, Joshua put his hands on his hips and said, "You think he'd remember where he parked his firetruck!" The teacher and the fireman heard him and got a kick out of his outspoken comment. You really just never know what that kid is going to say these days.

Punishment

Can you tell that I'm trying to catch up? This is my 4th post tonight. Just trying to get it all down before I lose the memory somewhere in the recesses of my pregnant brain. A funny thing happened today. Luke was about to be punished for doing something (as often happens when a child is 3). As soon as Daddy pronounced the punishment Luke began to say, "Okay, Daddy, I'll do it now! I'll do it now!" So, Joshua is standing there and he pipes up saying, "Daddy, remember when the Israelites were wandering in the desert and started to disobey God and God punished them and then they decided it was time to obey, but then it was too late and they had to be punished because they had already disobeyed? Remember that story? Maybe you should tell that to Luke now." Thank you, Bible teacher Joshua. :o) He really was trying to be helpful. Of course, Luke did get punished for the crime he had already committed. I'm sure that Joshua felt as though justice had been served.

Get-away

Another thing we did while in New England was leave the kids with GM & GF while Daddy and I stole away on a little get-away. We stayed 2 nights at this great hotel on the beach in Maine and were close to a huge strip of outlet malls. We got to shop, watch a movie in the theater (which we hadn't done in 2 years), eat every meal by ourselves, and have uninterrupted conversation for like 48 hours. It really was a wonderful and much needed time for us. Thanks again to GM (who was terribly sick while we were gone), GF (who endured more than he bargained for), and Aunt Stacey (who pitched in unexpectedly when needed). We will remember our get-away forever! Here are a few pictures of the beach we stayed on. It was pretty cold, but at least the beach was deserted and allowed us a peaceful stroll the morning we left. We had a great view from our hotel window and balcony too, as well as being able to hear the waves at night. Very nice.

Home Again, Home Again

We finally made it home from all our big travels. There are still a few places Daddy needs to go without us, but for the most part, we are home for a while! Whew! We have been everywhere it seems. But both our older boys exclaimed yesterday how much they like being in our OK home and how glad they were to be back. It's nice to have a place to call "home", even if it is only for a little while. Part of our travels included 3 weeks at Grandmother and Grandfather's house, which was a great time. But from there we did a little bit of traveling around New England and even all the way up to Niagara Falls. I'd like to include some pictures from that here...


This was taken our first morning as we walked down to the Falls, about a 10 minute walk from our hotel. It was so beautiful!


The boys were trying on silly hats in the gift shop while we waited for the shuttle to take us downtown.


One of the boys favorite things about going to Niagara was that we ate at the Rainforest Cafe' for lunch. They loved it! It was stinking expensive, but the boys had a great time nonetheless. It made for a great memory.


I took this picture from our hotel window. One of my favorite things about the trip was our view from the hotel. It was absolutely magnificent.

Thanks to G-mother and G-father for taking us up there and enduring the long drive (about 8 hours one way) in the van. Only one of our kids threw up once and he was fine after that. :o) We discovered that Luke doesn't do so well sitting in the back. We had a great time and made lasting memories as a family.