Landon is 5!!

Our baby boy is 5!  I know all parents say, "Where has the time gone?  How did you grow up so fast?"  But it is so true!  I can so remember a slobbery baby smiling and giggling.  Now we have a big boy who's 5 going on 15!  

Landon loves sports.  I think it is partly due to his first love...numbers!  He can add and subtract in his head.  He adds multi-digit numbers on paper.  He loves to run, ride bike, play outside, and draw mazes.  He is super thoughtful and always wants to do the right thing.  He still likes playing with his cars, loves "The Price is Right", and is learning to read.  

I know God has special things planned for this young man.  We were chosen as his parents and are so thankful every day for God's spectacular plan.  We love you, Landon Matthew!

Chickens at the Hahn Farm

Matt:  I've been looking at getting a chicken coop with some chickens for eggs.

Me:  Uh, no...I don't think so.

Not many days/weeks later...here is what we have in our backyard!!

Matt's done quite a bit of work getting the coop and "outdoor space" ready for the new animals.  And I must admit, it's not as bad as I thought it would be.  As long as we can keep the poop in the coop area and the rooster(s) don't crow and the 4 escapees learn to stay in the pen, we'll be set! :)

The first 5 chickens going to their new home

 The kiddos have been really helpful with the chickens.  They like to feed, pet, and retrieve eggs every day.

 Then, since the first 5 were too little to lay, Matt added these beauties who all lay almost every day!

Our first egg!!

 Just last week, we got 4 more (for a total of 14) chickens.  These are the new and biggest guys who can't figure out how to stay IN the fence.  Every night Matt has to shoo them back into the coop.  We've gotten quite a few eggs already.  I'm sure we'll have to figure our what to do once we get too many!  But for now, we're all learning how to live on our new farm! :)

Family Pictures 2013

The third time really is the charm!  We had to schedule our appointment for pictures once because the kids' outfits hadn't arrived, twice because of a thunderstorm, and the third time worked!  Heather (Heather Baber's Red Barn Photography) always does such a fantastic job.  We've had her take our pictures 3 years now and are always pleased with the results.  This year we met in downtown Goshen.  No, they're not perfect...but that's our family!!  LOVE!

One of my fav family shots

Doesn't he look so big?

Emerson's face = priceless!

This one's really cute too!

Here's Landon "shooting his 3 pointer"

Love her folded hands!

We got quite a few good family pictures this year!  It'll be hard to choose which one to put on the wall.  Here's the links to previous pictures:  Pictures 2012  Pictures 2011

Preschool at Union Center

The kids started preschool on August 12, 2013.  They were beyond the moon excited.  They each got to pick out their backpack and Emerson picked out her outfit (Landon didn't care!).  They both said they weren't nervous.  I'm sure it helped that they were very familiar with the building and they had a buddy to go with.  Their teacher is Miss Dee and Miss Tori helps in their room as well.  They love them both.  Emerson has such a knack for paying attention to things and people that she quickly memorized the routine and names of her new friends.  Landon is still working on figuring out his buddies' names! :)  We couldn't be more pleased.  

I drop them off before work at 7:30 and a grandparent picks them up at 11:30.  In that time, they get breakfast, playtime, preschool time, and lunch.  It's great.  What a wonderful blessing for our family.  And a wonderful ministry for our church!

Here are some pictures from their first day:

Remaining Summer Pictures

I had a few summer pictures that I didn't get blogged before school started:

4-H Fair

We had one day to go to the fair before we went on vacation.  Luckily it was a gorgeous day and Todd had some ride tickets, so the kids got to ride just about everything they wanted!

Dance Party
Emerson's fun summer activity was to make her brother dress up and they had dance parties.  She'd blast the music and they'd both dance and sing.  She picked out the outfits! :)

 Camping at Chain O' Lakes
The first weekend in August, we went camping with the Davis and Frye families.  Friday evening it rained, but the rest of the weekend was beautiful.  After we went swimming on Saturday, Emerson complained of her ear hurting a lot.  We figured she probably had an ear infection, but of course no doctor's offices were open. So thankfully we got a prescription called in and got her medicine quickly.  Other than that, we had a great weekend!

Waiting out the rain inside!

 Swim Lessons
The kids both took swim lessons at the Nappanee pool.  They LOVED it!  We signed up for August thinking it'd be warm to get in the pool, but we were wrong.  Most mornings were in the 60's.  But that didn't stop the kiddos from getting in and swimming around with their instructors!

Tree Accident

One evening, a few days before school started, Em and I were going to Meijer to get groceries.  A storm had just rolled through and as we were driving, a large tree branch fell out of the tree right on our Honda Pilot.  Thankfully we were fine, but the hood and headlight were pretty banged up.  Over $3,000 later (thankfully covered by insurance :)), we have a nice looking new hood and front end!

Notice part of the tree still stuck in the light!

St. Louis/Evansville Vacation

This year for our family vacation, we didn't want to go to far, but we wanted to go somewhere different.  So we decided on St. Louis, Missouri.  Neither Matt or I had been there and it wasn't a long drive.  Plus we could stop and see Nate in Evansville, too.

In years past on our trips, I used travel tickets with the kids to help them count the hours down.  This year, I decided to give them each a bag of jewels and every hour or so they could exchange them for a small gift.  I figured I could also take them away if necessary.  The kids did so great, we didn't even start the gifts until we were almost there!  Emerson was thrilled about getting new gifts.  Once Landon got his full size Magna Doodle to make mazes on, he didn't care too much about the rest.  We didn't get to them all so I figure I've got some stocking stuffers now!
We started our trip at Grant's Farm.  It's a FREE animal farm that is run by Anheuser Busch (so there is also free beer).  There was a $12 fee for parking but there is no fee for getting in.  The kids had a great time checking out all of the animals.  I think their favorite part was feeding the goats!

                                                                                                                                                                   

Landon's new thing is taking a funny picture after all of our "serious" ones!

Picture of the parrots for Gma!

Some goats were more interested in our clothes than the bottles

Landon had fun feeding the goats too

Later that afternoon, we decided to head over to see the Gateway Arch.  It is so enormous.  There's no way to really tell from the pictures.

We got tickets for the 4:30 visit to the Arch, so we assumed we would get in line at 4:30 and then be at the top a few minutes later.  Little did we know that we'd have to wait in line for over an hour to check out the view for 10 minutes!  But the kids did great waiting and it was neat to see the view from 630 feet up!

The next day, we were debating between driving down to the Ozarks or staying in St. Louis another day.  Matt really wanted to catch a Cardinals game, but I didn't think the kids were old enough and I knew Emerson wouldn't really like it.  So we didn't.  We did decide to stay in St. Louis.  We went to the Science Center (which was also free and our Hotel, Drury Inn, had free passes to the Egyptian exhibit and the Omnimax Theater).  The Science Center was a little too old for our 4 year olds.

Then, later that day Matt found a Cabela's nearby, so we drove there and come to find out it was attached to a mall.  So we did a little shopping!  Not only did our hotel have a free breakfast, but they also had free "snacks" and drinks from 5:30-7:00.  So we took advantage of that and ate 2 meals at the hotel. 

Then the next day (after swimming in the hotel pool AGAIN :)), we drove to Evansville to spend the weekend with Nate.  We had much better weather this year.  It was gorgeous!  We went to play mini golf and went to a huge outdoor playground in Owensboro, Kentucky.  The men even got to play some disc golf together. 

Of course, I didn't realize Emerson's hair in her face until AFTER I looked closely at the pictures :)

We had a great week together as a family.  The kids were wonderful travelers and great at waiting in lines.  Which makes me wonder where we'll head to next year.  Maybe we'll venture a little further away.  Any ideas??

Indy Zoo

Last weekend we drove down with Todd and Cathy to meet Nate in Indy.  We had a great time (even though it was super hot).  We went to the zoo, went swimming, ate out at some yummy restaurants, and enjoyed each other's company.  Below are some pics from the zoo.  I elected not to take my camera because I didn't want to lug it all around the zoo, so they're just phone pictures.  The kids did AWESOME!!  This was our first experience without a stroller and they were great.  Wanted carried just a little, but walked most of the day.

Riding on the carousel.  Landon's first ride on an "up and down" animal.  It was a dolphin with 2 seats!

 

How cute is she??

 Our favorite animal exhibit at the zoo was the budgies (parakeets to normal folk :)).  There were hundreds of birds and we could feed them.  Several of them landed on our arms.  Even Landon, who normally doesn't care about animals much, LOVED feeding the birds.

This zoo also had a roller coaster which our kids LOVED.  They said it was their favorite part of the zoo.  We also saw a dolphin show (not great in my opinion) and watched Ice Age Dawn of the Dinos in 4D.  The kids love the "interaction" of a 4D movie, but Landon wasn't so excited about the dinosaurs.  He is really sensitive about things he sees on tv.
I realized after our trip was over that I actually didn't get any pictures of the grandparents or Uncle Nate, but they really were there! :)