Apple Picking

Because Justin's birthday is in September, one of his favorite birthday activities is apple picking. This year, we invited two other families to go with us for Justin's birthday. These are a few of the pictures from our apple picking trip.

Rebekah was completely cozy during the whole experience. She was comfortable and I was even able to pick some apples while holding her.

Caleb loved the first apple picking trip that he can remember! He ate an entire apple - seriously, I had to stop him before he ate the stem and core! Because the ground was wet from rain, we didn't let him out of the stroller, but he enjoyed watching the bigger boys pick apples.

Aaron proudly displayed one of the Granny Smith's he had picked - right before he ate it! I was beginning to wonder if he would eat his weight in apples!

Zachary bravely jumped into apple picking and even climbed a tree or two. He ate his fair share of apples as well.

We are trying hard to pair all of our children up with future mates by the time they are ten! Not really, but Justin's and Aaron's best friends happen to be sisters. They are never far apart from each other when our two families get together.

New to the apple-picking scene this year is Uncle David. He came up to spend Justin's birthday weekend with us and we enjoyed having him join the celebrations.

Dear Sara Kate! She and Justin are inseparable! We enjoyed spending the day with her family, and I know it made Justin's birthday extra special to have her there.

Nancy

Catch-Up

Okay, so it's been a while since I last posted.  A thousand pardons......but there has been a lot going on lately!

To start with, Zachary had a red letter day at school today!  His day started off with a smiley face this morning for doing his papers correctly last Tuesday.  Yeah for Zac!!  But the very exciting thing is that he was moved up to the red reading group (the middle group)!!!!  We are so proud of Zachary working hard on his reading and showing so much improvement since the beginning of the year.  Here's Zachary's quote for the day (said while he, Justin and Aaron were cleaning up their balls in the living room), "Justin, don't pick up the balls you can see; pick up the balls that you can't see!!"

Justin also had quite a start to his day.  We were the second car in car line this morning, and as the car in front of us exited the line, I started to move slowly forward.  Well, Justin caught sight of Sara Kate and opened the car door to jump out while the car was moving!!!!!  I snagged the back of his jacket as I hit the brakes and we managed to avert any potential disaster.  Needless to say, I think he missed Sara Kate over Thanksgiving break!  He said they had a fun day at school and played together at play time.

Aaron has been his cute little self today.  In fact, I told him this evening that if he got any cuter I'd have to send him back.  He told me "You don't send me back.  I Aaron; I stay here."  :)  According to Aaron, our dinner was "some getti" (anyone want to guess?), and he ate lots of it!  Aaron also spread his pants out on the floor to put them on and told me "It's [the pants] like a swimming pool!"  When I asked him why, he replied "You just dive in!"  Too much!

Caleb has been crawling and exploring all over the house.  Unlike the other boys, he seems to like having something in his mouth constantly.  He spent the better part of the evening crawling around the kitchen with a washcloth hanging from his mouth.  He was perfectly happy - snorting and giggling.  Other objects that he enjoys carrying in his mouth are his small stuffed squeaky frog and pieces of plastic food from the play kitchen.  It is really cute to watch; I guess when we took the pacifier away, he came up with his own versions!

And for the last piece of news, for those of you who may not know, we are excited to announce that we are expecting Baby #5 in July!  It will be a while before we find out this baby's gender (or in other words, confirm that he is a boy! :), but we are eagerly anticipating this little one's arrival.  It will add a very new dimension to our household since Caleb and Baby will be only 15 months apart.  We were VERY surprised since we were not even thinking about thinking about trying to get pregnant, and in fact were trying NOT to get pregnant, so this one truly is God's timing!  We'll keep you posted on how things are going for Mommy and Baby!  :)

Nancy

Justin Pictures

These are some pictures of Justin from the last couple of weeks.....

Justin and Sara Kate at their field trip to the Max and Ruby play.

The mighty hunters are ready to go (at 6:00 a.m.!!!!!).

Justin is checking out the scenery and watching the turkeys.

Ready just in case Daddy sees something!

Happy Birthday, Justin!

Well, we now have another boy that has reached the five-year-old mark!  Happy Birthday to Justin!!  He is so excited to be five now.  Justin helped me make his birthday cake, and he thought it looked like yellow dirt!! On his birthday, Saturday, we went with a group of friends from church to Sky Top Apple Orchard to pick apples.  That is one of the boys' favorite things to do in the fall, and this year the weather was beautiful!  Grampy and Grammy also came with us and we left with bushels (!) of apples.

On Thursday night we met at the park with the Gazaways and Florences (Sara Kate's family) to have cookie cake and ice cream for Justin's birthday.  The kids all had a terrific time playing, and we all enjoyed the beautiful fall weather.  The rain held off so we were able to spend an enjoyable two hours playing.

We have seen Justin grow and change so much in the last year.  Not only has he been growing (finally!) but he has matured so much that sometimes it surprises us.  Justin is becoming a very loving and giving little boy.  He is so protective of his brothers, especially of his younger brothers.  Justin also loves to share and works hard to include his friends at school in what he is doing.  One of his best friends is Sara Kate, and it has been fun to watch their friendship grow in the last year.  We are very proud of the big boy Justin is becoming, and we are looking forward to watching him grow even more this year.

Justin's First Day of School

Today was Justin's first day in K-4. Mrs. Butler is his teacher (she was also Zac's K-4 teacher). Justin's best friend from K-3, Sara Kate, is also in his class. Justin had a terrific day. He was able to play on BOTH playgrounds today, and he thought that was the best! He also said that he got to "marker" his name (write his name with a marker). Justin was excited about calendar time and learning about putting the date on the calendar. He said that he played with Sara Kate and RJ, building blocks, playing with Legos and playing in the kitchen center. All in all, he had a great day!