Meet Lucky!

Meet Lucky! He is the sole survivor
Of a set of triplet goats. The mother that
delivered the triplets did not have enough
milk to feed him so my dad has literally
taken him in and he lives in my parents'
basement in a large plastic tote. Lucky
has to be bottle fed every 2 hours so as
you can imagine, he is kind of like taking
care of an infant.

I had made up my mind Thankgiving night that the kids and I were going to stay home (Brad had to work at my parent's place of business) and I was going to finish getting Christmas decorations out and clean up the house. On Thanksgiving night, we received a call from my dad, which came as no surprise. He has not missed calling our house more than 2-3 consecutive days since the day Gabby was born! However, this call was different. He had something he wanted to tell Gabby. If you know Gabby, she can sometimes be selective about who she talks to on the phone, my dad and brother are not on her list of favorites to talk to...for whatever reason. So she actually took the call and got the news about 2 baby goats that grandpa had living at his house. It's pretty obvious that Brad and I have passed on our love for animals to Gabby and she immediately wanted to go see "Hope" and "Lucky". I tried to hold her off thinking that in the morning she would have forgotten about it but there was no such luck. She woke me up on Friday with the words..."Good morning, Mom. Can we go see the baby goats today?" As I pryed my eyes open, trying to get my bearings, I told her that if she was really good, and let me get some things done, we'd go see the goats. So....we left Ft. Wayne around noon and made the treck to Shipshewana.
Sadly, when we arrived, we found "Hope" had died which was not unexpected as her chances for survival were slim but there stood Lucky bellering like he hadn't been fed in days and wagging his tail. I took him upstairs and gave him a bath and fluffed up his coat and Gabby about jumped out of her skin waiting to play with him. The tears that she shed for Hope had been replaced with laughter and giggles over the life that had been spared in Lucky. She was able to feed him a couple of bottles before we left and is already asking when she can go back. She's talked to my dad more on the phone today than ever before in her life and I think my dad is eating it up! As you can see in the pictures, she had a blast. The sweetest thing from the whole experience is that now when she prays at night, she asks God to send the angels to come and get Lucky's sister.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I just wanted to write and say Happy Thanksgiving! So many times we (myself included, note the Christmas backdrop) overlook this special holiday and move right on to stressing about getting all those gifts bought when we need to take time to focus on all that we have to be grateful for. So..in honor of Thankgiving, a few things that I am thankful for:

2 healthy and beautiful children
1 wonderful and loving husband. I am living the life I dreamed of when I was growing up. Thank you, Brad for making all my dreams come true. I am so blessed to have you walk beside me in this journey we call life! Don't know what I would do without you! You work so hard for our family and even when you're tired from work and I am headed out for the evening, you never complain or even call to see when I am going to be home. You are the love of my life!

Parent's that love us and support us in our parenting and life's struggles, no matter what the issue. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I love you all! You are all wonderful grandparent's to our children too! They are so blessed!

My health! Wow, we don't think about it until we have a small sniffle and then we complain of how miserable we are when there are people who are terminally ill and have a better attitude than I do. thank you God for good health.

Siblings...I have been blessed with a brother and sister and a sister-in-law that has loved and accepted me from the time she met me. You guys are all wonderful and I also want to thank you for treating our kids like they are your own. You all mean so much!

Lauren, you have grown up so much since the day I met you! Keep your head on straight, you are going to go far!

To Josh, who is going to join our family in June.....welcome to the family! We love you and you make a great addition! Take great care of my sister or you'll have to answer to me!

Whitney, you are so sweet and I love ya!

Last but not least, thank you God, for giving us life and the promise of eternity in Heaven with you. I hope when I'm standing at the gates, you will say, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." I love you!

I hope you will take the time to think of the things you are grateful for in your life. Be blessed and Happy Thanksgiving!

Popcorn Party

I just thought this was too cute not to post. A couple of weeks ago, Brad was working late so I let the kids have a late afternoon snack, which I rarely EVER do so they wanted popcorn. I gave them their popcorn and went about some business in the kitchen. A few minutes later, I noticed it was SO QUIET and if you're a mom, that is almost like a fire alarm going off. I went into the family room to see what was going on and there they both were, sitting on the floor with their kool-aid and popcorn, just hangin out. It really is starting to get easier since Carson is getting older. There are times when they will just play so well together and I sit back and remember dreaming of these days before I even ever became pregnant with Carson!

An Historic Day

You didn't have to go far today to know what the buzz around town was! Voting! I set out this morning around 7:30 to vote, totally anticipating a long wait. I arrived at the church and saw the line back to the door...ugh! Somehow, I live in an area that got scooted right along in line and was back out and on my way back home by 8a.m. Pretty good! Without a doubt, this was a very historic day. Regardless of where the votes fell, either winner was going to make history today. I am optimistic of where our country is headed and whether you are or not is totally your opinion and I respect you for it. All I am asking you to do now is pray...pray for our new leader, pray for our country. We are not in good shape right now and while we could be a lot worse, we could be better too! So take a minute and thank God for this wonderful country you were born into or came into and pray that he guides our new leaders next year!

The Elf on the Shelf

O.k. so I just had to post this cute story really quick. As with a lot of families, while we teach the TRUE meaning of Christmas to our kids, we also have Santa Claus visit. Well, my mom got the kids this adorable book entitled, "The Elf on the Shelf" and I just finished reading it to Gabby. It comes with a little elf that comes to stay at your house for a little while before Christmas and then goes back to the north pole each night to report back to Santa. In the morning, he settles into a new spot so it's a game to try and find him. ADORABLE BOOK! So she found him this morning and asked if she could tell him what she wanted for Christmas. I told her yes but the rule is that she can't touch him and he cannot talk to her. He can only listen. She looked at me, and as serious as she could, she said, "Turn on the commercials." I said, "What?" She said it again and said, "I want him to see what I want for Christmas." It was all I could do to not laugh! Just had to share!

Jack-o-lanterns and trick-or-treating

Snow White

Little Tiger

O.k. so as you can see, I'm having a little trouble with my picture placing for this post. I think I'm gonna have to put myself through some training but it will have to wait. I just wanted to get some pics of the kids posted before more time got away from me. We have been having a great fall. The weather has been ideal for outdoor activities and trick or treating this past Friday was perfect. I don't remember having that nice of weather on Halloween in a very long time! We are all doing well. Gabby is having a blast at preschool. She recently took field trips to the fire station and the pumpkin farm, both of which she really enjoyed. Carson...well, he's Carson. He keeps me on my toes but as you can see, he has joined right in on all of the fall festivities and is loving it!

The tasting of the seeds. Even the 20

month old knew better. Yuk!

Preparing for the carving!