The Latest and Greatest from my kids

Every night, Wyatt prays that Jesus would give him a baby brother. But within the last week or so, his prayer has changed to "Jesus, thank you for my baby brother." I keep trying to tell him that it might not be a boy and he needs to pray that Jesus will give him a brother, but I've now given up. He just keeps thanking Him for his baby brother---we'll see what the prayer becomes if it is a girl!

And Sadie's latest----she'll ask me if she can do something or if she can have something and if I say 'no', her immediate response is , "Daddy lets me". Oh please!

Coming Home

We are finally recovering from our 2-week trip to Wisconsin, but I'm certainly not complaining. Taking a vacation always seems like more work, but it's completely worth it. The kids and I flew to Madison the day after Mother's Day--Matt had boards the following week and was studying all the time and we had some flight vouchers to use up, so the kids and I took off. We weren't looking forward to being away from Matt, but so excited to see our families and friends in WI.

The kids sat together on our first flight as we were on a smaller plane with only 2 seats on each side--I wasn't sure how they would do being across the aisle from me, but they ended up thinking it was so cool.

Wyatt was so interested in reading the safety instructions--but this quickly turned to "Mommy, why is this lady jumping out of the plane?" "Why are these people in the water?" "Why is the airplane in the water?" I could hear everyone around us listening intently to how I would answer each question. And interesting it was---the only question I was able to pass over quickly was the question about the lady jumping out of the plane. Wyatt just said, "Oh, she's jumping out of the plan like Lindsay did" (My sister went sky-diving awhile ago.)

We spent our first week in Madison at my in-laws, but unfortunately the only picture i took was this one. I guess we were just having so much fun that I forgot to take pictures. But Sadie loved sitting with Auntie Cam and playing with her phone--and Cammie loved it as well.

Then we were off to La Crosse the next week for a few days to visit our friends..

Wyatt and Drew

I love this picture of Wyatt and Drew--they were watching these kids playing in the area of resident housing that used to be 'ours' with this look of "Hey, what are you guys doing here?"

Wyatt had such great friends in La Crosse--and they are such boys! They both found these huge sticks/branches and had to see whose was the tallest. (You can see how interested Sadie was!)

Wyatt, Drew, and Caleb--these guys had so much fun when we all lived in res. housing

We stayed with our friends the Caldarella's--Leo and Wyatt are about the same age and Sadie and Jac were born just 5 days apart. So we had so much fun spending time with them.

Wyatt and Leo 'measuring' to see who was taller---who could it be?

Sadie loves babies--have I mentioned this lately? She had fun playing with the boys, but was much more interested in playing with AJ half the time. See pictures....

These two had so much fun....

Sadie's swing, after watching baseball a bit......pretty good, i must say!

Wrestling....

...wrestling.....

..and more wrestling...

We got back to Madison and the next day, Matt flew in. It had been almost two weeks since we had seen him and the kids were dying to see him. Unfortunately, we had to leave right away to drive up to the cities and look at houses. So once we got back to Madison, it was time to relax and spend time with family.

Family Bocce ball

A 'classic' Wyatt picture--he's explaining the game to everyone

I had to put this picture on here because the timing was so great. If you click on it, you can see Wyatt getting on Matt for his poor throw and Ty and Mary Jo celebrating their victory due to the poor throw--hilarious!

Auntie Cam stopped by and brought the kids a little surprise, which they always love.

T-shirts from the "T-shirt Deli" in Chicago
These are so cool--they come wrapped like this, as if there were sandwiches--in a deli bag complete with potato chips

..and a little surprise for the baby!

While we were at my parents, Wyatt spent just about every waking moment helping Nani and Pops outside--mowing the lawn, planting the garden, pulling weeds, fertilizing--all things my parents love doing and it seems Wyatt may share in that.

He was so proud of all his work in the garden and Nani promised to take pictures of everything and send them, so he can see how it's all growing! He actually spent an entire afternoon in this garden with my parents--when they started, it was a tilled-up mess and when they were done, it looked like this! Great work Wyatt.

We were so thankful for our time with family and friends. We also found a house in the cities and our offer was accepted. So we are now back in Columbus, finishing up our one-year fellowship and anticipating the next stage in our life which will begin shortly--new job, done with training, new city, new home, new baby, etc. Just a few changes, but we are so excited about it all!

The latest change

In our household, it seems there are always changes going on. And this year is no exception--moving, new job, new home.....



In case you didn't notice Sadie's shirt, here's a better hint.....

Familiar Faces

A few weeks ago, the kids and I took a trip to Pittsburgh for a couple of days. Some of our good friends from residency moved to Pittsburgh when we moved to Columbus last summer and we were so excited that we'd only be 3 hours away from each other. Unfortunately, our year in Columbus is almost over and we still hadn't seen each other since we all left La Crosse last June. We decided to make firm plans a few weeks earlier and the kids were so excited to see their friends. (Matt stayed in Columbus to continue to studying for his upcoming board exam---another reason it was great timing for the kids and I to get away!)

The kids travelled great and we got to Pittsburgh on Thursday afternoon around 3pm--just in time to pick Audra up from school and head over to that park. It was a beautiful day and the kids played together wonderfully! It was as if we hadn't even left La Crosse--they just picked up right where they left off.

(This slide was amazing! It's built in to the ground and there are scraps of cardboard
lying around that the kids just grab and ride down on!)

This was how Wyatt and Gabe walked the entire way home from the park--hand in hand! It was so precious to see them having so much fun together and reminded Steph and I of how blessed we were when we lived in resident housing in La Crosse.

Audra loved showing Sadie her 'Barbie' game on the computer

But Sadie was most interested in 'baby Kaden'--have I mentioned how much she LOVES babies?

On Friday, we headed to the Pittsburgh Zoo. The weather was perfect and I have to say, it never gets old seeing amazing animals LIVE and in person!

Amazing creatures!

Hand in hand again at the zoo---I can't even express how much fun these two had together!

....getting tired and waiting for the boys to be done riding on those scooter things.....

We got home from the zoo around 2pm and the kids crashed. They all took great naps and then as soon as they woke up, we headed to the Pittsburgh Pirates game (w/o Audra who wasn't interested in the baseball game and opted to go to a friend's house instead).

And lucky for us, it was $1 dog night, so we ate pretty cheap! I love the look on Gabe's face as he looks at Wyatt--mouths full of hot dogs!

Saturday morning, we told the kids we were going to go ride on the carousel in downtown Pittsburgh. But on our way, we surprised them and stopped by this super cute bakery with amazing cupcakes!

And I have to say it was our lucky weekend b/c the token machine was broken at the carousel, so the kids got to ride for free all morning long! And boy did we take advantage! I think they rode on every horse/animal on that thing!

Wyatt was a bit unsure of the carousel at first since this was my kids' first time on one, but after that first ride, he didn't want to leave!

We had such an amazing time in Pittsburgh seeing friends and seeing a new city! I am only sad that we hadn't gotten together more during this year. Neither of our kids have any great friends where we currently live and getting together made us long for our days in La Crosse when we shared a backyard and the kids played together daily! We had no idea how wonderful we had it there! But we are planning on getting together at least one more time before we move to the twin cities, so we are excited to have them here in Columbus!! Can't wait!