Beginning the Goodbyes...

Well, as our move approaches, the rounds of good-byes start. This morning at the women's Bible study I am a part of, they had a good-bye luncheon for me and the kids. Cried a puddle of course. :) Tonight our home group had a good-bye dinner for us, cried another puddle. I am going to miss these people like crazy-- it's amazing how the Lord knits your hearts together in just a few years. Jason and I have both commented how much our hearts aches at the thought of leaving these precious friends. We will miss you all so much. We started taking pictures tonight of our friends so that we could have their pictures with us. We got about half-way through picture-taking when our camera died. But, we did get to take this precious picture of Josiah and Matthew:

We will miss you--- boy, we will miss you!

Pumpkin Train

A couple weeks ago, we went for a ride on the Pumpkin Train-- this is a real locomotive located in Noblesville, IN. They do the Pumpkin Train every year in the fall. You take a train ride to a pumpkin patch, pick out a pumpkin, and ride back again. I thought Josiah would LOVE to ride a train, since he loves Thomas the Train so much. He had a smile on his face pretty much the whole time! We got to go with Pop-Pop, Grandma, Aunt Courtney, Uncle Danny, Noah, Maya, and Keira. We all had a good time, and especially enjoyed our pizza dinner afterwards! :)

Fall Harvest Party

First of all, anyone reading this will have to excuse all of the underlining. It is automatically using underlining, and I do not see any button to change that-- the button has disappeared-- so everything is underlined! Oh well.... Anyway, here are some pictures from a couple weeks ago. We all went to a Fall Harvest Party at our friends, the Jordans. They live on a nice piece of land out in the country-- we had a great time with lots of other families. Everyone brought some stuff to eat, we had a bonfire, the kids took turns hitting a pumpkin pinata until candy flew everywhere, and Josiah took his first hayride! This hayride was a mini one for the kids-- it was a lawnmower hayride! Josiah enjoyed it-- even if he was the only boy among all girls! :)

Evelyn and Yogurt

Evelyn found some strawberry yogurt the other day that big brother had not finished...

(Hmmm... this tastes pretty good!)

(No, this tastes REALLY GOOD!!!)

(Mom, make sure to buy more of this at the store!)

Silly Sayings

Josiah is at the age where we hear so many funny comments coming from him. I love this time-- he makes me laugh quite a bit! I wanted to record some of these sayings so I don't forget them!

* One morning he says: "Gotta go get some work done. Gotta go to school and get some work done." (He often hears me say that Daddy is at school getting work done!)

* While riding in the car, I said that we should call Daddy and see how he is doing. Josiah says, "Don't bug him."

* While eating lunch one day, he says (in reference to eating the food): "Bigger and stronger, basketball high to the sky!" (He knew that he needed to eat in order to get bigger, stronger, and throw the basketball high to the sky.)

* He was fairly new to potty training when he started his second year of preschool. We were reminding him that he needed to tell the teacher if he needed to pee or poop. So, on the way to school with Daddy, Josiah keeps reminding himself: "I need to tell the teacher if I need to pee. I need to tell the teacher if I need to pee..." So Jason says, "And poop too!" And Josiah says, "And pee!"

* While riding in the car, Josiah picks up something to read (I think it was a phone directory). He says, "Mommy, are you listening?" I say that I am, and he says "Good-- you get candy if you listen." I say I would like that! He says, "When we get home-- you get candy when we get home." (I am often telling him that candy or gum is at home, and not with me in the car!)

* He is sitting on the couch one day and I ask if I can sit down. He says, "Yes, may I can!" (Too cute when they get their grammar all messed up at this age!)

* At least a couple of times now lately he has looked at a picture of himself and said "Too cute!"

There will be more to come-- I got some cute pics of Evelyn eating yogurt this afternoon!

This is delicious, Mommy!

I love hearing Josiah say words that he has never said before. Some words are just so funny to hear coming from my 3 year old. Today we picked up some bread from our local Great Harvest Bread company (good stuff!) and they give you a free piece of bread to slather with butter for your car ride. I got some sourdough and gave a piece of it to Josiah to eat. He took a bite and said, "Mommy, this is delicious!" I just couldn't help but laugh. I love making my children happy. Sitting here writing this, it makes me think of how much God loves to make His children happy. But even more, He loves to hear us say, "This is wonderful, Daddy. Thank you!" How much it warms His heart to hear us say thank you. I need to be doing this more.

Josiah is definitely saying words and phrases left and right. I wish I could remember them all to write down. We recently (finally) bought a used train table for him. My hope was to move all the tracks off the floor and on to the table. But nonetheless, at the end of the day, there is track *everywhere*, table and floor. Jason told me it wouldn't make a difference mess-wise having a table or not, and I guess he was right! Josiah likes to have messes with his trains. He loves to make train wrecks. It is amazing at this age how much they try to role play what they have seen on TV/movies. They have such an imagination. Today Josiah was drawing, and I could see that he was really progressing with his drawing. He drew an apple slice, and it actually resembled an apple slice! I was impressed.

Evelyn is such a sprite. She has an a-t-t-i-t-u-d-e if she doesn't get what she wants. She and Josiah have been fighting over these ducks I just bought, and if he takes the ducks away from her, get ready to hear some high-pitched screams. My goodness, my ears just can't take much of those screams. Like nails on a chalkboard! But she is just so sweet. She gives sweet kisses (just leaning in with an open mouth) that you just love to get. For a brief time, she would say these cute "O! O!"s when she would get excited about something. I hope when I am 50 that I still remember what those sounded like. Too cute. She is climbing on everything these days. One day I found her squatting next to the TV on the tv stand. She just climbed up the side of it. She is on the table, on the end rail of Josiah's bed, everywhere. She also is starting to form her words more-- she is saying a quite recognizeable "more." It is neat to see her beginning to talk. And lastly, she gets very excited to see Daddy when he comes home. I know Jason feels good when they are excited to see him!

July Happenings

Well, once again it's been awhile since the last post. Guess I know now that I will probably be posting about once a month now-- if I get more posts than that it is icing on the cake! Speaking of cake, Josiah had his 3rd birthday party yesterday at Dobbs Park here in Terre Haute. We had lots of family over for a cook-out and cake. Grandma Bette made a Thomas the train cake, which Josiah has been talking about for several weeks now. He was super excited about it-- but when it came to having a piece of it, he was too interested in the unwrapping of gifts to care about eating cake. He was adorable as ever, and pics will be following soon.

Just wanted to share a couple of cute stories lately. Josiah is in the stage where he says stuff that is so cute, and many times you are left wondering, "Where did he come up with that?" So I just wanted to share some cuteness. First, he fell down one day recently in our apartment. As he's getting up he says "I'm okay!" He has never said it before or since. Another day he brought out one of mommy's belts and wore it high on his waist like mommy and said, "Too cute!!" Tonight we went on a walk (all four of us) with Nana. Josiah and Evelyn rode in strollers. Nana pushed Josiah, and Daddy walked next to us. We walked across several roads on our walk, and each time Josiah looks over at Jason and says with concern, "Be careful, Daddy!" Josiah was concerned because Daddy wasn't holding his hand while crossing the street.

Evelyn is loving boxes and other containers right now that she can sit in, such as Josiah's suitcase. She made herself a little perch in there the other day. She also likes any of the buckets in Josiah's room that have toys in them. She'll make herself at home in one of them and play! She just loves checking out what mommy is doing. I bought tons of diapers the other day (great deal!) and I had them all stacked neatly on mom's coffee table. She was so excited when she saw them, and started taking them off and carrying them around. In no time they were everywhere on the floor. She found one package that looked comfortable and had a seat. She's just a little mommy in training in many ways! Too cute!

Well, in a little over 5 hours my two year old will officially be 3 (at 4:56 am). He was only 3 weeks old when we moved into our tiny apartment in Purdue Village. At the time I thought, "Wow-- he will be three when it is time to move out of here. That seems so far away!" But the time has flown by, as any grandmother will tell you. We love our little man so much. He is such a blessing to us all.