Monday, December 13, 2010

Mrs. Potato Head

HI! So, months and months after my last post:

Aedyn likes to role-play Toy Story (we've only seen the first one.) Aedyn assigns roles. While we have no real costumes, Aedyn pretends we do. A few days ago Aedyn rushed into the kitchen where my back was turned to him, "Oh, you already have your Potato costume on!"

We're all well. Finally.
I hope you are.

Monday, December 6, 2010

We're Back!



Sorry for the long hiatus. We will be using this next 2 months to try to make up for it. You should be enjoying some summer pics right about now anyway! We are down to single digits already, with 7 inches of snow blanketing our fields



This first set of pics is of the property. Will get some with the kids in it soon. We left WV on 30 June and arrived in Richland Center 1 July. That night we stayed in a hotel. We closed on our house the next morning and I drove up the driveway for the first time 2 July around 11 a.m. (only Heidi had seen the place before we bought it!). I was quickly struck by how big 67 acres actually was. We have a barn, a quonset barn, a shed and a 3 BR ranch on >40 wooded acres with a spring fed creek.



To the left is what will become our goat pasture (more on that later).



Saturday, June 26, 2010

West Virginia 'Lasts"









Weeks and weeks have passed since my last post, mostly because I haven't uploaded pictures often and think there should be pictures every time I write something new. I only follow a few blogs and I'm always aching for the pictures. Yes, I am transferring my expectations onto you. So. We move in less than a week! Today we have: haircuts for everyone except Eliyah, trip preparation errands, a going-away party hosted by the neighborhood, and a tiny bit of boxing-up stuff. TINY, you say? YES! Eric's new practice pays for movers. The kind who pack. and carry everything down the stars. and again down the stairs to the street. Collective Sigh of Relief, friends and family--not one of you will be carrying a dresser or bookcase or making 34 trips to a moving truck.

I'm aware of all the moments of "this is the last time that . . ." We'll miss this house and our neighbors and friends. We'll miss the milder WV winters, at least I will. But we are so excited to move to the place we plan to put down roots. (Literally, we have many potted trees that will be making the 2 day drive with us.) We're excited about Eric's new job and the people we already like there. We're eager to live life with a new community of Jesus-people.

And our new land! oooooh! This is a picture of a picture of the house (a ranch-style house to the lower-left of the flash reflection), barns, shed and most of the land. There is some more woodlands and pasture area not pictured to the left of the photo. The North edge of our property is along the ridge at the top of the big tree line. The big white road (Old Hwy 80) is the southern property line. Hwy 80 is on the southeast. That strip of cultivated land down the center was planted in corn. In a few years that whole plantable area will be restored to SW Wisconsin prairie. We're planting fruit and nut tries along the road, getting more chickens, some goats, and bees.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Six Bountiful Years

Today is our sixth anniversary. Every day I thank God for the relationship he drew us to and for the great joy we have in our marriage. We went away for the night/day (20 hours, to be exact) and had a great time. This was our first night away from the kids. Carter Caves State Park in KY is about an hour away from home; the drive was lovely. We got there at 8:00 last night and went for a short hike in the woods. We stayed in the lodge hotel in the middle of the state park. This morning we tried to sleep-in and then went for another hike along streams and up through waterfall caverns. Every view was lovely and interesting and we saw no one else on the trails. We took a tour of one of the caves, ate lunch beside a stream, and walked through another wide stream to get closer to more falls recessed in a cavern. (Yep, wet feet. It was worth the view!) What a GREAT time away! Sara stayed with the kids and they all seemed really happy with their day with her.




Tuesday, April 20, 2010

She's 1!







Eliyah Grace Tuleen is ONE! Saturday we celebrated with Grandpa Bruce and Grandma K (my parents), our dear friends Grammy and Poppy Wilcox, and Eliyah's birth-parents. She was surrounded by love! Eric is in Honduras on a medical mission so we'll have a second celebration when he gets home.

We had a really great day and I'm so glad that my parents were able to be here. Eliyah's birth-mom is with us a lot (Yeah! She's one of our favorite people!) and it was great that E's birth-dad could travel a long distance to be with us for the weekend. The birthday girl loved the attention, her cake, her Snow White doll and especially her new hair bows. Justice and Aedyn think the hair bows are pretty great, too.

Eliyah is saying mama, papa, 'us'is (Justice), a'en (Aedyn), and she does some great animal sounds. Her favorite activity is singing and dancing and she would be content for an hour if I would continuously sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "5 Little Monkeys." Eric and I are so, so grateful to be her parents. Eliyah brings true joy to our hearts.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Happy Resurrection Day!


Aedyn's Potty Party. He's trained! Diaper at nap and night but he's waking up dry.
Finding the easter eggs that we had just dyed moments before.
A cool and sunny day last week.
Potty training day. It took about an hour to discover the second best place for underwear.
Justice pulled Aedyn's paint project onto the floor and both babies enjoyed themselves.

It's 78 degrees, the kids are all napping, Eric is resting on the couch, Sara is asleep in the chair and I've been wandering around the yard. Next year I will have a huge 'yard' to wander. We are in a contract for a house on 65 acres, 50 of which are wooded, the rest are cropland or pasture.

I've been really overwhelmed as we try to get the house ready for viewing and feeling concerned for the price we probably won't get, but do need. Three years isn't much time to build equity in a house. We would consider renting the house and are praying that we find someone to buy or rent soon.

The kids are all doing great.

Friday, March 12, 2010

March Days

My Sunshine Boy has been sick all week, along with his sister. Last week was Aedyn's week to feel crummy with this nasty cold. It's nice to see J so happy here.
This was taken a little more than a week ago on an afternoon that Eric was post-call. It was fantastic that he had time to play outside! He's on hospital service which means that he has no weekends or other days off for 15 days and he's 'on' every other night. Thankfully, as a 3rd year resident, he can usually stay home on those nights and do his part of the work over the phone /computer. This hospital service has gone really well, except for Eric getting sick, and it will be over on the 15th.
Eliyah is experimenting with her voice. How loud can she shout? Hmmm. See her curls? She is going to have seriously beautiful hair. I can hardly stand the wait! I was telling her birthmom that when I was a child I used to wear my hair in two long braids every day. So did she! Eliyah will be a braids girl, too.
I don't dress the kids alike often. They're lucky if the items within a single outfit match so the coincidence of the 3 kids matching each other is pretty great to me.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Happy Birthday, Aedyn!


My big boy is 3 today! We celebrated on Sunday but saved a piece of cake for today which was requested at breakfast. Aedyn asked for a chocolate-orange cake so we baked a Brown Sugar Chocolate Cake with orange marmalade filling and orange-cream cheese frosting. Balloons, friends, and WARM WEATHER made for a great party.

So far, 3 suites him. He's been very polite today. "Fanks, mama!" is music to my ears. Aedyn Shepherd brings such joy and humor to our lives, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for him.

Some pictures from his party:





Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Happy February!





Everyone's growing taller and toothier. (well, not EVeryone.) We're home for our WI house-hunting trip and we may or may not be buying. We'll post if/when we find a house to buy!

Enjoy these happy times. Aedyn posing. Justice getting his first haircut. Babies raiding the cupboards. Eliyah being silly.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

and . . . Bacon!

Yesterday morning I asked Aedyn if he would like cereal or toast for breakfast.
A: Toast with peanut butter and sumping sweet.
M: jelly or honey or apple stroop? (apple juice cooked down into a syrup, its German)
A: Bacon!
M: ok. peanut butter and bacon.
A: And sumping sweet. Apple stroop! and Bacon!


Saturday, January 9, 2010

Saturday, snow softly falling, just the babies and I hanging out at home. We started with morning nap and I got a full hour of sleep! The last few nights have been rough. Eliyah has 3 teeth coming in, one of which has a bone chip poking through the front of the gum, and J had his MMR shot the other day, so neither have slept well. This morning Eric took Aedyn with him to drop-off the minivan for a tune-up extraordinaire as we have no idea if/when anything has ever been done on it for the 106,000 miles before we bought it this summer. The first week of February we'll be driving 1,200 miles to WI for a conference, house-hunting, and family visiting and we need a safe vehicle. Eric just called from the mall to say that Aedyn was loving the new 'play-place' there and that the minivan would take 3 hours. Aedyn must be thrilled with his day out: the play-place, lunch in a restaurant, and his papa all to himself!

So, just me and the twins. Eliyah, my overly confident 9-month-old climbed the stairs yesterday, twice. The first time I had Justice in my lap and hadn't thought about closing the stair gate; the second time she was just quicker than I. I always have a hard time describing Justice. He's so "sunshiny!" And very determined. He shouts out/giggles, "Hi-eee!" for phone callers and for Eric when he comes home from work. (He just said this as Eliyah crawled into the kitchen where J is playing.) They are quite the co-conspirators. Together they rummage through cabinets and toss all the clothes out of baskets and diapers out of bins. They act the same age, they seem to have split the 4 month difference and settled on acting like 11 month olds. They will both be enjoying a meal and then one of them will decide not to like whatever it is that they ate happily 10 times before but the one baby refuses to eat and within a minute the other has concurred. (grrrrr, says mama.) Right now they are are crawling toward me together, looking for lunch, I'm sure.