October

Addie's half-birthday was on the 4th, so she is now officially 4 and a half years old!  She got a travel-sized dollhouse and some gum!

 Happy Birthday, Daddy!

 Daddy and the kiddos

 Levi now wears gloves to bed at night to keep him from sucking his thumb...it's been working!

Puppet show at the Nature Center

 The Nature Center is the closest thing we have locally to a zoo.  We were there with friends from our MOPS group and had a great time!  Here are Addie and Levi with their friends, James and Maggie

 Addie riding a fox

 Cute Levi!

Addie comparing her wingspan to that of a hawk

 Addie with Laila

 Watching the otters at feeding time

 Addie on the slide!

The fair

The fair was last month, and I took the kids and we met some friends there for a few hours.  Everyone had a blast!  In the past, animals were the main thing we focused on at the fair, but this year was different.  The kids knew there were rides (we had been driving past the fair for at least a week before going), and they wanted to ride them!

Levi on "Dumbo"

 Addie's best fish face

 Levi was scarily a natural at writing the motorcycle.

 Sweet girl

Playing in the corn with Noah

 Addie with the newborn calf directly behind her.  The mooternity ward is always a hit with her!

 Addie and Summer

 The girls rode several rides together

Levi's riding buddy was Noah anytime Noah was tall enough for a ride.

 Summer's little brother, Zane, even got to do a couple of rides!

 Such great friends

 Cotton candy time!

Gymnastics

Addie and Levi started doing gymnastics this fall and are in a class together.  They love it!  Their friend, Summer, is in the class too, which makes it even better!

Addie and Summer

 Balance beam

 Levi working on his balance

 I don't know if you can tell here, but the balance beam Levi is on is green.  It's his favorite.

 Touching toes to the bar!

 Addie can do it too!

Levi's 3rd Birthday

I know this was well over a month ago now, but still wanted to put these pics up.  Levi turned 3 on August 12th and had a great birthday.  We are so happy and thankful to have him in our family! 

Ready for his party with friends

 All he wanted for his party was to play sports.  Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate, so we were not able to have it at the park like we had planned.  He still had a great time though!

 He's definitely not only an athletic boy, but loves to play any and all sports as well!

 Tennis time!

You may notice there are lots of girls at his party...with our kids being so close in age, Levi has become great friends with Addie's friends (who are of course mostly girls).  All of Addie's friends have little brothers, but they're all quite a bit younger than Levi.

 Gatorade break!

 Ice cream cake!

 Levi and his best buddy, Noah.  This was the best pic we could get of them-that's how they are together...silly!

 Levi's cousin, Logan, made the trip up for the party!

 On Levi's actual birthday, he got to choose what we did all day.  The first thing he wanted was to go to the bagel shop that I took Addie to months ago and he had never been to.  He picked out a chocolate chocolate chip muffin.

 And then a gumball out of the machine.  I have NEVER bought candy for him out of a machine like this before and he ALWAYS asks...so that was a very special treat for his birthday-and totally worth the quarter!

 Next, he wanted to go to the apple orchard.  Got to ride the tractor!

 Then picked some apples...

 And played on the playground

We also met Daddy for lunch and had apple donuts...just didn't take any pics of that.  After dinner (he chose to have shrimp and pasta-his current favorite meal), he got to open presents!

 Ready to play baseball for real!

 Levi with all his presents!

GodStrong t-shirts

I wanted to let everyone know about some t-shirts that are on sale right now to help out a family in need.  Jon Strebe is the husband of one of my high school basketball coaches.  He has 3 kids who are very close in age with my kids (his younger two are twins that are a month older than Levi).  Jon has testicular cancer and is getting ready to move from their home in Hilton Head to Indianapolis for a few months for some high dose chemotherapy.  His family will be going with him for this treatment.  Throughout this cancer process, Jon and his wife, Donna, have kept a blog to keep people informed as to what is going on and they have continuously said they are "GodStrong."  Their friends recently made GodStrong t-shirts in honor of Jon that are being sold to be a witnessing tool as well as to help the Strebe family financially.  These t-shirts will only be sold for the next 2 weeks.  You can read Jon's story on their blog here: http://strebefamily.blogspot.com/ and can order a t-shirt here: https://www.bonfirefunds.com/jon-and-donna-strebe

I just wanted to spread the word so the Strebe's can get as much help and prayers as possible!

Thanks!

July Highlights

 I know I start every post like this, but I am so behind on the blog!  So, here are our highlights from the month of July-I've got to hurry up and do August before it's over as well!  Time keeps on flying by for us!

Our cows are growing up!

 We went to see "The Lorax" at a theater with friends.  Funny side note: both kids struggled to keep their seat from folding as they sat in it

 We've been to the playground lots of times!

 Always fun!

 Went to the annual Angove family reunion-this was all the kids going on a nature hike

 Levi, his cousin Julianne, and 2nd cousin (I think) Ronan

 Putt-putt!

 A friend from church had a baby, which we got to go meet!

 Snead beach vacation-all the girl cousins (except Ella) with Nana (Olivia, Vera, Addie, Eden)

 Addie and Olivia in their matching bathing suits

 Pool time!

 Wild man Levi jumping in the pool!  He got brave enough to try swimming without his floaties...and did great!

 Snead family picture 

 Our sweet kiddos

 Family pic

Last, but not least, we found out we are having a girl!  We are so excited!