1st Day {Take 2}

On February 1st Sawyer and Nora had their 2nd 1st day of school this year!

The consensus after the first week was they missed their old school and friends, but they were having fun at their new school.

Nora began preschool M-W-F at My Lambs

Sawyer started Pre-K at Bethany Early Childhood Center

They were both pretty excited!

During Sawyer's 1st week of school the teacher realized they had just missed his birthday so he got the birthday bag. That included the Broncho Monkey for the weekend, special treats, picture show-and-tell, etc.

2

Happy birthday to my favorite 2 year old! We are so excited to celebrate with you! You're our little Easter bunny this year because your birthday falls on Easter, so we're going to celebrate a little early!

Stats:

Height: 32.87 inches (3%)

Weight: 25 lbs. 2 oz. (3%)

Here's a few of your favorite things!

• Loves to dance
• Has very polite manners (please and thank you for everything)
• Says lots of words including: football, ball, cow, moo, doggy, Elmo, pup, Batman, please, thank you, KoKo (what he calls himself), Nora, mommy, daddy, come here, milk, juice, catch…actually I started this list a while ago and he can now say pretty much everything (animal names, colors, foods, etc). So I'll list the one word he can't say…Sawyer. I think the "S" at the beginning gets him ;)

• Favorite animal: cow
• Favorite show: Paw Patrol (Seseame Street is a close 2nd)
• Favorite food: applesauce
• Great eater...he will pretty much eat anything or at least try it

• Least favorite food: green beans
• Favorite character: Batman or a pup
• His favorite thing is a ball. If there is a ball within sight he must have it. Even if it's a football the college kids are playing with. He will stand in their way or run after the ball until he succeeds.
• Is showing signs of being ready for potty training.

• Still sleeps with his pacifier (baba)…though that is going bye-bye soon
• Can climb up and down the bunk bed.
• Loves to give hugs and kisses.

• He tries to do everything big brother and big sister do.
• He doesn't love sweets.
• He loves to read books, especially about animals.

Kolter's security blanket…he often sleeps with a large ball…silly boy

0-3 in a flash

Now that the news is out there I'll give you a little recap of the last 3 months...

• 1/13 Sawyer's birthday and I found at baby #4 was on the way
• 1/14 Girl's night where I told my close friends in OH because I had to tell someone and Kyle was in OK
• 1/23 Kyle returns to OH to move us to OK, I tell Kyle the big news...he was happy and very shocked
• 1/25 We arrive in OK to begin our new adventure at SNU, the exhaustion and nausea begins. The next several weeks were tough as we adjusted to living under the same roof, figuring out a new town and school and meeting new people all while I could barely get off the couch. My energy level was very low and I was not myself. Thank goodness for Kyle! Nearly every night he came home to a dirty house and jumped right into caring for the kids and making dinner.
• 2/12 I had my first ultrasound and found out there is 1 little baby with a strong heart beat (172 bpm) and my due date was determined to be 9/21/16.
• 2/13 & 2/14 We visited KS for the weekend and told many family members. We also made calls to the siblings to tell them the good news.
• 2/15 We told the kids about the new baby. I told Sawyer first and he didn't believe me at first, but once I convinced him he got very excited and yelled to Nora across the house. They are both very excited. One of Sawyer's first questions was, "Is it a boy or girl?" I told him we didn't know. His response, "You never know until you see the balloons!" This made me crack up because that is how we found out Kolter's gender. Almost 3 years later and he still remembers!
• 2/21 Starting to see the light at the end of the nausea tunnel and slowly telling our new friends/co-workers about the impending football season baby ;)
• 3/17 2nd doctors appointment went well. The babies heartbeat was 166 bpm. I am now feeling better and pretty much back to normal most of the day. I also haven't gained any weight, yeah!

That's a quick overview of baby #4 thus far. The news was bit of a shock, but we couldn't be more excited. It was such a blessing that during my time in OH alone with the kids I was still feeling well. While I hate being sick, it was a huge relief that the sickness didn't start until we were all back together. Now here's to getting my energy back during this 2nd trimester ;)

4

Our new home...for a time

When we moved to OK we decided to move into a rental house so we could get acquainted with the area before buying a home.

There weren't a whole lot of options in our desired location, so we took what we could get on a month-to-month lease. While it is quite small (1.5 bedrooms) we are thankful it is in a great location and it is clean (well before we moved in ;)

Here's a little look at our home for the past few months:

The view from the front door 

Another view of the living area

A look at the entry way 

 The kitchen

 This is our multi-purpose area…our dressing room, office, dining room (notice the card table box), storage and library

The parents room with no closet, thus our dressing room is in the dining room

The bathroom 

Thankfully the kids room is quite spacious and has a closet 

They have made themselves quite comfortable ;)

While it's not ideal to be living amongst boxes we are so thankful for this place to call home. The simpler living has allowed us to spend more time together and getting acquainted with our new city. We've been doing lots of exploring to fill our days. That also includes house hunting…we are closing on our "new" house on Friday!

iPhone Unload {February 2016}

 

 

 

 

Pictures (top to bottom, L to R): sleeping beauty (love it when she takes a nap), someone learned to crawl onto the top of Sawyer's bunk bed...a little scary, but the brotherly love is adorable, introducing our newest dishwashers #startthemyoung, family selfie because we're finally reunited, Kolter loves to steal Mommy's green smoothies, everyone loves a happy hour #startthemyoung, morning snuggles in Mommy and Daddy's bed, this is what our house looks like every evening...jump on dad time, my pretty girl with her hair curled, Dr. Kolter, when did my baby get so big?, Nora enthralled with Downton Abbey, morning snuggles with Mommy, Kolter finally decided to like a show...Paw Patrol, my baby being his cute self, just relaxing during a diaper change.

The move

Moving day was a bit of blur, but here are some snippets. My Dad, Uncle and Kyle all arrived in OH on Friday afternoon/night. Saturday we awoke and the fun began...

The day started off right with our final run to Peace, Love and Little Donuts!

On moving day we not only had to pack the boxes, but we had to make some house repairs discovered during the inspection. Thankfully, we had lots of help from family, church friends and Kyle's former football players.

After a little scare that the moving truck might not be big enough these big guys did a great job loading it all in. After all the work we enjoyed some pizzas.

After lunch the fun part began…cleaning. Once again I am so thankful for the help of friends who came over to clean up the mess!

After the trucks were packed and the house was clean (we were literally cleaning as we walked out the door) we headed to a farewell party thrown by our church. At this point we were a little weary from the move, but it was soooooo nice to see our friends one last time. It was such a nice event. One thing I will always remember is a moment when we were saying goodbye to one our friends and she said "We love you and I want you to know when you moved here it was God ordained that we found you because Parkside needed you." And my instant reply was, "I we needed Parkside!" Isn't it crazy how God orchestrates those events and puts you with the people you need and the people that need you!

a few of my favorites

I'm going to miss this friend, small group leader, ESFJ ;)

And the boy besties

We left the goodbye party (at 9 pm) and hit the road. We made it until midnight and stopped in Dayton, OH.

the boys were excited to be together!

We spent Sunday driving from Dayton, OH to Joplin, MO. We were so close, but the kids were done! We woke up the next morning and finished the journey making our way to Bethany, OK.

The kids were so excited to be out of the van and at their new home…well maybe not Kolter, I think he was excited for a nap ;)

Soon after we arrived the football team came over and unloaded the truck in record time (it maybe took them 15 minutes). We still had lots of transition ahead, but at least we made it to OK and were all under the same roof again!