To Grandmother's place we go

I think it was last weekend (or the weekend before?) we went to visit my Grandmother who lives in Illinois. This was the first time she got to see Hannah who is almost six months old now!

 All the residents loved seeing the kids. They always oooo and aaaah over them.

It's all about Fire Barney

Levi each and every day asked to watch "Fire Barney". It is all about firemen and such. So, while we were visiting mom and dad in Eldon, we took a field trip to the fire station.

Notice the name of the fire engine. Jonathan pointed out that our kids were sitting underneath the label "The Black Sheep" :o)

 I was amazed at how huge the tires were.

 Our fireman showed us the infrared devise. It was cool! You could point it at a wall and see no heat, but if you put your hand on the wall, took it away and then pointed the devise at the wall, then you could see your hand print. It was so fun.

 Our fireman was so enthusiastic to answer any question we had. He was so helpful and kind. You could tell he had a passion for his job.

Summer Fun

It's a bit late, but it is still July! Here are a couple of pics from our home fireworks display. The teens at church were doing a fundraiser and sold fireworks this year, so to help them out we bought some. Levi still asks to do fireworks. There was a nice fun display at church (no pictures) and the kids were not as fearful as I thought they would be.

 When Levi had the sparkler, you had to STAND BACK! He flung that thing around like crazy. The black snakes were a bit more tame and daddy let off some roman candles and parachutes.

 The kids are very timid around water, so we thought that if we got a cheap pool this year it would help them get accustomed to playing in water. They have gotten more brave! Haven does not like it in her eyes or ears still, but she is much more comfortable than she has been. I would not recommend this particular pool, but it was our first try, so we will try again next year. It was cheap enough to just by another one.

Tubes

When Hannah was born she did not pass her hearing screening. We ended up having to take her to an audiologist. He tested her and came to the conclusion that she still had fluid in her ears and that is why she had hearing loss. We took her in for check-ups over the next few months, but the fluid never drained. So next step was tubes. I was a bit nervous. Levi had tubes at a year, but Hannah was only 4 months old! We took her in about a month ago to have the surgery. I found out while we were there that they were going to have to put her fully under, which included a tube down the throat, so that they could do a hearing test while she was sedated. Putting her fully under made me even more nervous. She is a breast fed baby and I was not to feed her anything after midnight. YIKES, she still got up in the middle of the night to eat and they were telling me I had to have a hungry baby until surgery at 7:30 the next morning? I prayed that God would keep her content and that she would not be a screaming baby the next morning. She did wake up in the middle of the night, but Jonathan was able to get her back to sleep. God answered my prayer and she was content until the surgery. It may sound like a little thing, but I was a big answer to prayer for me.

Here we are nice and early in the morning.

 My answer to prayer, a happy baby who had not eaten anything. The PJ's they gave her for the surgery were huge on her, but we made it work.

The surgery went well. The doc drained a lot of fluid out. She fully passed the hearing test on one ear and the audiologist thinks that the other ear will test fine eventually. There was just some seepage that was getting in the way. Praise the Lord she came through with flying colors. The only downfall is that you can now startle her while she is sleeping. It temps me to put her earplugs in while she sleeps :o)

Hannah Grace

Here are some pictures over the past month or so. It is true that with the third you take fewer pictures. I have been trying to do better so that she doesn't feel left out.

Our Hannah has a bright smile that is contagious. The funny thing is that when she is not smiling she looks grumpy, but as soon as you get her to smile it transforms her face.

 Not sure what this was about :o)

 Hannah is one of THOSE people who sometimes sleep with their eyes in a creepy half open position. It can be rather disturbing at times. She hasn't quite gotten the latch on her thumb, so sometimes she tries to stick both thumbs in her mouth. She still can't latch, so she gets a bit frustrated. Someday maybe her thumb will be big enough to suck on....

 All grown up and driving already.

Campmeeting 2011

I am a bit behind on posting. June was a CRAZY month! Jonathan and I are low key people and June was anything but low key. We found a new house to rent at the beginning of June and I did not have a boxed packed. During the month of June we were going to be out of town two out of the four weeks. Needless to say I was packing and moving every spare moment possible. One of the weeks we were out of town, we went on our annual trip to Campmeeting. I really didn't get very many pictures this year. Usually I at least have pictures of the watermelon festivities, but that day we had to take a trip up to St. Louis to take Hannah to get some health concerns checked out. Thank the Lord her exam was all good.

One thing I really wanted to have that week was some quiet time and study time with God. Sadly it did not work out as I planned, but I did get one morning to go off alone and be with God. Here was my view. God has provided our district with a beautiful campground!

 The kids loved the morning children's church. Haven keeps singing new songs and I ask her were she learned them and she keeps saying "camp". Levi enjoyed being with other kids in the nursery. The day we left they had a little festival for the kids. Jonathan took them down while I packed up to head home. Not pictured was a boat ride that they took with Jonathan and pool time with me. We bought these neat life jackets and it took a while for them to get comfortable in the water, but by the time we left they were "swimming" with my arms around them and not in a panic over every splash.

Campmeeting has always been such a physically and spiritually renewing time for us. This year had its challenges (I won't name names :o) that we have not faced before, but we are sure glad we went.

Five rowdy kids and a baby

I went to visit my friend Carla this past week. She has three boys and I have my three. It was a house full! The kids had a blast playing together and Carla and I had a great time just hanging out, talking mommy talk and just spending some fun time together. 

Carla is great at garage selling, so she had a huge stash of costumes. The kids had fun changing into one thing and then taking it off and putting on another.

 Not sure what Levi is supposed to be in this picture.  A third Woody, A third Buzz Lightyear and a third diaper model.

 Levi and Carter are six months apart. Haven and Keagen are two weeks apart.

 What a good looking bunch of crazy kids.