Hezekiah no more

We have a name. No turning back. We're committed. This is it.
Grant Robert Moffat

*Hezekiah, or Hezi, is what Grandpa M has been calling him, since we didn't have a name.

Ride 'em Cowgirl

This is Aubrey's first time with braided hair. She wanted to be like Kari, so she managed to sit still enough for me to do it.

A beautiful reminder of God's promises

The good thing about this crazy Oregon weather is that sometimes you get to see these. It was much more brilliant in person, as you can imagine. Kari is especially into rainbows right now (aren't all 6-year-old girls in love with rainbows?), and it was fun see her so excited.

Kids will be kids

Two large bags of freshly shredded paper proved too strong a temptation for these two small children. We left the room for, literally, one minute, and this is what transpired. Quite the clean-up with this one. Had a nice paper fiber dust cloud going, too.
(I organized and purged my filing cabinet a while ago, but we missed shredding day at Greg's work.)

Switcharoo

Today was the big kid-room re-org. I've been putting it off, but Greg decided this was the weekend to do it. We have had a VERY long day of furniture moving (read: Greg moving furniture and me asking him to move it again), making up beds, and moving kid stuff around. Kari's old twin bed has been at my parents' since we got the bunks, but with number four coming in less than 3 months, we needed to bring it back over and somehow squeeze it into our already crowded house. We put it in the same room as the crib, and for a couple months Kari gets to have her own room, something she's pretty excited about. Trying to figure out how to configure the room was a bit of a jigsaw puzzle, but I think we finally have an arrangement that will work. (Big "thanks" to the Wilsons for taking our kids for the morning so we could work uninterrupted!) There's still quite a bit of work to do, but at least the children all have a place to lay their heads. Two of the three are snug in their beds, fast asleep, but Aubrey has had a more difficult time adjusting to the new arrangemennts and her new bed this evening and is hanging out with us on the couch. It's our bedtime, so hopefully she'll go to sleep soon. During the hour+ we tried to keep her in her bed, she managed to get a major goose egg on her forehead. She had a run-in with Kari's door (natural consequence?). It'll be a real pretty bruise at church tomorrow. Here she is hanging out with Daddy and making us smile while the other kids sleep.

Take-your-dad-to-school Day

Greg took a vacation day today to go with Kari on her class field trip to Old McDonald's Farm. Kari was SO excited to have her dad come to school with her. From the report I heard when they got home, it sounds like they had a really good time.

He was assigned a group of seven girls. Here's his crew.


















Kari's teacher holding a pygmy goat for them to pet.


















Brushing the cow.

Signs of Spring

It hasn't really felt much like spring yet, but we have evidence right outside our door that spring is indeed here. A robin decided to make her nest on our house, and yesterday Greg peeked inside and saw these. The bird's first choice for nest location was on top of our light fixture right next to the sliding door in the back. I didn't like that location much (afraid she might attack my children when they tried to go out--not sure if robins do that, but we didn't want to take any chances), so we kept taking down the twigs and debris she kept bringing. She finally gave up after a few days. We weren't outside much that next week because of the rain, and by the time we noticed her new location, she had already built a full fledged nest. Aubrey will get to awaken to the sound of baby birds one of these days, as it's right outside her window.

Ride, Kari, Ride!

At the end of last summer, after many, many attempts at teaching Kari to ride a bike, I was pretty convinced that she would be riding with training wheels until she was 12. However, on Saturday afternoon Kari surprised us by asking Greg to take her training wheels off. She was ready. Here's the exciting progression:
Greg awkwardly trying to run alongside, holding on to help balance
freely running alongside, no contact
Kari feeling confident enough to go it alone, and Greg happy to be done running up and down our street.












proud, training-wheel-free Kari
















While not completely in control, she's got it down. We went over to the local middle school track this afternoon, and she rode fast and furious, hair streaming behind her in the wind. Only had one major wipe-out. She ran into Joel on his bike and took a tumble with legs flying over her head. Joel somehow escaped unharmed. After a band-aid application, Kari got right back on and rode some more. She loves that she can go "so, so fast!"