Introducing...

the newest member of our family! I know, I know this post is long overdue, but we've been adjusting to busier days and sleepless nights once again.

Our little Boy Blue was born on September 18th--four days after his duedate. He was 8 lb. 4 oz. and 21 inches long. What fun it's been to have a baby in the house again! I spend all my spare time just holding him and staring at his perfect little face. How could I have forgotten how cute those little baby squeaks and coos are?

It's been fun to watch FarmDad with this little guy. Apparently, the third time's the charm, because although FarmDad loved holding and playing with Miss Smiley and Tractor Boy when they were babies, he is so totally at ease with Boy Blue. As soon as he comes in from work, he swoops him up and starts talking to him. So precious.

Brother and sister absolutely adore baby, of course. Usually, they have to be told that he has gotten enough kisses and hugs for a while.

Bathtime...

One month old...

In other Farm Family news...

Miss Smiley started soccer this year!

She loves it and has improved a lot since starting. At the beginning, she would run and hop randomly around the field kicking the ball whichever direction she was already facing. Now she understands the basics and she has gotten much more aggressive and competitive (thanks to lots of pep talks from Dad the coach!) She has even made a couple of goals in the last few games. Way to go, sweet girl!!

We have also started homeschooling--a little late because of baby's arrival, but better late than never!! Miss Smiley is in kindergarten and Tractor Boy is in preschool, but so far I've just been teaching them together. Today we had fun working on writing the letters of the alphabet in chocolate pudding...

The taste test...

The letter C...

Summer, birthdays and more...

Summertime is flying by and it seems like it barely started. It's been a cooler one this year and we had a cold spring, so it feels like we've been short-changed. :) I don't think we've had a day over 90 degrees yet and it's already feeling like fall. We were all in sweatshirts yesterday. Normally, we get four cuttings of hay in every summer, but we haven't yet put in third cutting, so I doubt we'll get that much this year. The kids and I helped FarmDad bring in a few loads of hay from a field on Saturday, but the field was only half cut because the rest of it hadn't grown tall enough yet.

We've had a busy summer, and here are a few of the highlights:

Birthdays!!!

Miss Smiley's birthday was July 14th and Tractor Boy's birthday was July 19th, so we had a fun combo celebration for them both with grandparents and a few cousins.

5 years old!!

I made a butterfly cake for Miss Smiley with lots of candy...

Big boy 4 years old!

Tractor Boy got a hot air balloon cake. It turned out very cute!

Miss Smiley got a butterfly net from Grandma and Grandpa H. and she spends hours in the backyard catching butterflies...

Tractor Boy was given a hoe to help in the garden. He spends hours digging holes and making roads around the beans and corn. Miraculously, the beans have (mostly) survived the construction zone...

Meanwhile, we are all counting down the days until Baby joins our family...

We're all ready for you Baby...you can come anytime!!

Another fun event we had this summer was our family reunion with FarmMom's family. We spent three days camping with everyone. It was a fun-filled time of eating, talking, laughing, swimming, playing games, and sharing memories...

My brother and his girlfriend came up for a day and went caving with us. Tractor Boy wasn't too sure about going into a dark, cold hole in the ground, so the kids and FarmMom picked huckleberries while the others went through the cave.

The Rathole

The Shelf

The dirty cavers!

All together at the campground!

The boys building a fire.

Celebrating cousin's birthday!

Enjoying the hammocks...

We'll need a bigger hammock next year!!

The belly bulge at 8 months and growing!

Besides the arrival of a new baby, FarmMom is also looking forward to starting Kindergarten with Miss Smiley this fall. Homeschooling may be a bit off and on with a new baby, but hopefully it will be a fun experience for all.

That about sums up our summer adventures so far!

Easter fun!

After an unusual winter with only a couple of snowfalls for us here at the base of Mt. Adams, we were surprised to wake up to 6 inches of fresh snow a couple of days before Easter. The snow kept falling throughout the day until we had about a foot on the ground. Unlike the nightly skiffs of snow we had been getting all week that melted away by noon, this snow decided to stay. We still have patches of snow around even after the sun peeking through today. This made for an interesting Easter egg hunt on Saturday. The annual community Easter egg hunt will always go on--rain or snow or shine!! Kind of like how school is never canceled here in our valley because of snow. The only time it has ever been cancelled in the last--oh...thirty-some years was on account of it being so freezing cold the buses wouldn't start. Yep. We're real die-hards here. Gotta make the most of it when you have snow six months out of the year--typically.

Saturday's Easter egg hunt was anything but typical. The eggs looked as though they were tossed here and there and everywhere in the snow by a frozen-toed Easter bunny eager to get inside and get warm. You wouldn't think that finding brightly colored eggs in a white landscape would be hard, but when they are half buried it is! The kids still had a blast...

Frozen hard-boiled egg? Anyone?

My little Easter bunnies helping to make cookies...

I was super excited and pleased with how Miss Smiley's Easter dress turned out. I found two adorable patterns--one for a dress and the other for a hat--on the website youcanmakethis.com. I recently researched and bought a new sewing machine and was anxiously awaiting its arrival by mail, but it didn't make it before Easter. (It arrived on Monday, wouldn't you know it!) So...I was working away on a borrowed clunker machine (and I mean CLUNKER!!--FarmDad could barely sleep all the way on the other side of the house when I stayed up late to finish.) Thank goodness it clunked it's way through without giving up on me and I got 'er done. I thought about making a matching tie for Tractor Boy and maybe a matching shirt for me, but...maybe for Mother's Day. =) Thank goodness I only have one little darling to dress frilly for Easter. My friend, bless her heart, made THREE adorable twirly dresses for her little girls. I'm not sure I could ever keep up with that!! Here are my little sweethearts ready for church...

Our church puts on an annual community Easter breakfast, complete with huckleberry pancakes, fruit and ham--Yum!! The trick every year is to keep the kids clean until church. Especially when they eat like this...

After all, the syrup is the best part...

Miss Smiley loves to sing with the rest of the kids for their mini-program at the breakfast and then again at church...

All in all, a joyful celebration of Christ's resurrection!!

He is risen indeed!!

A long overdue update...

After reading my last post, I realized how long overdue I am for an update on our family! The past few weeks have seemed to fly by, but our most exciting new news is that we are expecting a new baby to join our family in September! We were hoping to get a referral for our Ethiopian baby by then, but God had other plans! Near the end of January, I began to suspect that I was pregnant, and we soon found out that sure enough I was!

We contacted our adoption agency, AAI, later in February to find out what the procedure is for a family getting pregnant in the middle of an adoption. Once again, we felt so grateful to God for leading us to choose AAI. Many, if not most, adoption agencies have a pregnancy policy where you have to begin your paperwork all over again after your baby is born and you are not refunded any money you've spent up to that point. AAI. however, is very supportive of families getting pregnant during the process. After calling AAI's office, I discovered:
-We will be put on hold for a referral until after our baby is born.
-We will continue to move up the wait list.
-We will not have to pay any extra fees unless any of our paperwork expires
-We will be taken off "hold" once our bio baby is six months old (AAI has this policy so that the new baby has time to bond with the family before introducing a new member)
-By the time our bio baby is six months old, we will be at the top of the wait list, meaning we will most likely receive a referral within weeks of our baby turning six month old.
-This puts the approximate time for our referral sometime around March of next year.

Of course, after learning I was pregnant, my emotions ran the full gamut--excitement, disappointment, uncertainty about raising two babies at once (one possibly quite needy), etc. However, as I get used to the idea, I look forward to seeing how God plans to grow our family in the next couple of years. As busy and crazy as I was raising our first two (a year and five days apart in age), I love how close they are now and how they love to play with each other. They are very rarely apart. I hope for the same bond between our next two.

I have been blessed with this pregnancy. So far, I have been feeling pretty good--just tired. I had my first doctor appointment this last week and was glad to hear the flutter of a miniature heartbeat. The last two days, I have enjoyed feeling what I suspect are tiny movements. I hope to have an ultrasound this next week to better pin down a due date. Right now the doctor is thinking September 16th. Meanwhile, life goes on and seems to be picking up pace, gearing up for summer already!