Harvest!

Well we sure are in the swing of things now. It may feel like summer outside still but to us its already fall. Harvest came early this year. Last year we weren't even started yet and this year we will hit the half way done mark this week! Its crazy how each year can be so different. The kids are absolutely LOVING it, especially Aiden, as always. He gets to ride in the combine, semi, or tractor almost daily and typically for hours on end! And if he's not out farming somewhere then he's here at home farming one of our rugs! I give you exhibit A:

I am not exaggerating at all when I say he will "play" harvest for hours on end. He cannot seem to get enough combining!

Makayla has definitely learned what a combine is and often repeats "I wanna ride combine. I wanna ride combine," when big brother gets to go ride and she has to stay with mommy. She got to ride once but she's too little to ride without Kreg or I so the rides are fewer. If there were such a thing as a "farm princess" then I think she'd be considered as such. I give you Exhibit B:


Today they are actually harvesting the field that Kreg and I own. We have been anticipating this for months now! This time of year is extremely exhausting for the guys (Kreg has been pulling 15 to 18 hour days the last few weeks) and its tiring for me to not have Kreg home much but it is also exciting and we love it. God is so good to give us a crop to harvest each year. I love that we are in a profession in which the LORD God Almighty is in charge of the whole thing!! Here are a few pics from our corn field:



Needless to say Aiden was not excited to have his picture taken. These days I'm pretty much happy if they will both just look at the camera!

And I know I still haven't posted a pic of our new home. Some day that will happen but today I give you the view from my front porch (in sepia...i thought it looked cool)

I love my view!!! This is also the view I have from my kitchen window. So so glad that God saw fit to move us closer to the farm!

Florida!

Lately I cannot seem to keep up with this blog. Granted life has continued to be quite busy but somehow the weeks just keep slipping by. Last night I officially unpacked our last box! That was an exciting moment. I pretty much have the house set up and organized now, except for some remodeling to the kitchen we hope to have done this fall. And let me tell ya, that project makes me super excited!! (more on that in the months to come)
One reason for my long blogging absence is because we went on another vacation. And as you can tell from the title, we went to Florida! Kreg's parents took us and all his siblings and their families to St. George Island for a week. It was wonderful! We truly just relaxed. We all stayed together in a beautiful house right on the beach. And not only were we on the beach, but we had our own private pool as well! I could have stayed there for much longer than a week, that's for sure.
Take a peek at the house:



Aiden and Makayla both loved the beach. Aiden improved quite a bit on his swimming while we were there. And Makayla loved the waves! She is a true beach babe. It was quite windy for several of the days so one day the waves were probably at least 4 feet tall, but that didn't phase her. I got in the ocean but not for long. I love the beach but I am not the biggest ocean person (not a big surprise to some of you).
I could tell you more but I think pictures say a thousand words so maybe I shall just inundate you with pictures. I realized after looking through all the pics that I didn't have too many of Aiden. And then I realized why. He was off playing with his cousins for most of the week! Hard to believe my son is old enough to just go off and play with his cousins. Anyway, I present to you our Florida trip:














And that was Florida! Well atleast some of it. We had a wonderful time and are so thankful to Kreg's parents for letting all of us spend the week together. What a blessing it is that we both have such wonderful Christian families!

Home Sweet Home

What a busy summer it has been! I can hardly believe its August already. Moving really made the weeks go by fast. But we are in our new home and loving it. And last night my father-in-law and my husband got our Internet going so I feel reconnected with the world once again! (awww what a great feeling) We've been in our house since the first of July and are feeling fairly settled now. Kreg's "honey-do" list is getting shorter with each week. I've already painted 3 rooms and just have the kids room and a bathroom to go. This may sound weird but the house is starting to smell like us now too. When we moved in it just smelled like other people. I would walk in the door and it didn't "smell" like home. Now I walk in the door and I don't notice anything so it must smell like us now! haha.
We moved in on a Friday night and by mid-morning Saturday I had my dad put to work on a little remodeling project. Our house is very open concept but it wasn't that way to begin with. There was this very odd wall that separated the kitchen from everything else but the wall was serving absolutely no purpose (it wasn't even touching the ceiling). So we took it down! And we LOVE IT now. Here is a before and after pic:
Before

After!

So I was thinking the other day how life has changed this summer:
-I now use the words "goin into town" when I need to run errands or get groceries.
-I go by corn fields, bean fields, grain bins, and hog barns when I'm jogging.
-I have a great view of the grain bins from my kitchen window (no longer is my view the side of the neighbor's house)
-Kreg can just pop in to say hi now when driving between barns. Love that part!
-We live just around the corner from my in-laws who have a pool so we've been doing lots of swimming.
-The kids have a huge yard to run around in now and I don't really have to worry about cars driving by while they're playing.
-Aiden and Makayla's future school is also just around the corner. I'm hoping to get Aiden signed up for preschool there next year.
-The kids also share a room now. Its going really well too. The only down side is they tend to wake up a little earlier than they use to and stay up a bit later talking (although sometimes thats really cute to listen to).

Those are just a few things I love about our new location. I think we are really going to enjoy living here.
And because I can't resist here is a recent pics of the kiddos:

They were dressed in my shirts.

We also took a big trip to Washington State to visit my extended family a few weeks ago. I'll post some pics from our trip soon.

Almost!

Two more days and we should be home owners once again. We are still living with Kreg's parents and its been going really well but we are really really excited to get our hands on our new home. As long as all goes as planned we should be moving in this weekend!

In the meantime I had a wonderful birthday. I got my hair chopped off!! Aiden is swimming a little without his floaties. Makayla's vocab has continued to explode. And wheat harvest has begun.

So here's a pic of the new hair:


And a few pics we took last night by one of the wheat fields:





Hopefully the next time I post I'll be typing from my new home!

Crazy!

Well in just 48 hours we will be moving out of our current home and moving in with my in-laws! That's right. We sold our home just 10 days ago but part of the deal was that we had to close by June 16th! Its been a busy 10 days let me tell ya. We have a home we are buying but haven't been able to move that paper work along quick enough to be able to move right in. So we're just makin it work. We feel very blessed that God allowed us to sell our home so quickly and are so so excited to live next to the farm. Its going to make my life so much easier (on many different levels)!! And Kreg will be able to stop by home now throughout the day or even come home to just grab a snack! hip hip hooray!!

Makayla has absolutely no idea whats going on or why there seems to be nothing left in her room but she's been goin with the flow. Aiden understands that we're moving but he thinks we are going to have 2 homes. (Nope don't think so bud.) But he is very excited because he is going to live closer to the piggies! Living next to the farm is going to allow Kreg to swing by and pick Aiden up more often to go work with him. Aiden is going to LOVE that part. Right now we live just far enough away that its a very big inconvenience for Kreg to come home. And after 2 1/2 years of driving back and forth we're so glad we don't have to anymore!

The next time I write I will hopefully be able to say I am officially a country girl! :) (never thought I'd be so excited to type that sentence...haha) The good thing is both my in-laws and my parents are wonderful to be around and they both have pools!! So the kids and I are going to be doing a lot of swimming while we're between homes!! Maybe I'll even get tan! (that hasn't happened in a long time)

So I may be absent from the blog for a couple weeks while we're in the process of moving. Continued prayers that all the details will work out as planned would be much appreciated!!

Where Have We Been

Well the past month has definitely been a busy one. Planting season started this year on April 13th and all the crops were in by May 10th!! I believe it was a record year, as far as how early the crops all got in the ground. We had some crazy 80 degree weather the beginning to middle of April and that really helped us get off to a good start. And with a couple good weeks of rain the crops are growing and Kreg is already out spraying the first rounds. So between April 13th and May 10th I was busy getting lunch and dinner to my husband in the fields 6 days a week.

We have also put our house up for sale so the past weeks have been full of cleaning, organizing, sorting, pitching, and cleaning some more! This past week I cleaned for 3 showings! And let me tell ya with a 3 1/2 year old and a 16 month old that took a lot of time and energy! We shall soon see if anything will come of all my hard work. We don't HAVE to move but we would like to live closer to the farm. Life would be much easier on me!

Makayla has been getting her 1 year molars so thats been quite fun as well. The 2nd one is almost through....sheeweee...and let me tell ya I will be very glad when this stage of teething is done! Teething is really hard on her. When Aiden was teething I hardly knew it but with her its been so much different.

On May 8th I ran the Indianapolis half-marathon! For all that nice weather we had in April it sure wasn't nice that day...freezing cold and windy but I felt great and can't wait to do it again next year!! My mom and dad came downtown to watch me finish the race and brought the kids so they could see mommy. See Exhibit A, I was just about to cross the finish line!
Exhibit A

The kids and I have been spending a lot of time outside too, since it has suddenly turned summer with temps of almost 90 degrees! Aiden figured out how to ride his bike (with training wheels of course) so we've been making lots of rounds through the neighborhood. I'm really proud of him. See Exhibit B
Exhibit B

We've also been trying to stay cool in whatever water we can find. Be it the baby pool in the front yard (Exhibits c & d) or Mamaw's pool down in Indy (Exhibits e & f)
Exhibit c

Exhibit d

Exhibit e

Exhibit f

On top of all that I've been trying to make Makayla's baby book scrapbook. Its coming along nicely but taking up most of my "free time." (thus my lack of blogging)
And just for kicks I will end this post with Exhibits G & H. These are pics of Aiden after a long fun day at Gran and Poppie's house with so much to do (like clean their pool, play outside, help Poppie on the fork lift, help Gran make dinner, etc...) that there was no time for a nap. Aiden told me this week and I quote, "Mommy, I'm a great help." Right you are Mr. Aiden! Thus I give you Exhibit G & H: Aiden asleep on the family room floor at 7:30pm. Makayla was evening hitting him on the head. We could not get him to wake up. I think when I snapped the 2nd pic he was even snoring.
Exhibit G

Exhibit H

And I think thats pretty much what we've been up to.

15 months!

Sweet baby girl is now 15 months old and sooooooooo BIG (yet so little). Miss thing loves her baby dolls, loves bugging her brother, and really loves playing outside. And as you can tell from the pics below this girl LOVES her sippy cup. She is almost never without milk. Its her favorite word and already at only 15 months she says "I want milk" quite clearly. I don't know if its because she is a girl or the 2nd child but she is talking so much quicker than Mr. A ever did. And she seems to understand most things that I say and responds with either "yah" "no" or "ok." It's hilarious! She is such a sweetie.


This is Makayla "cheesin it" for the camera. hmmmmmm...we may have to work on this one.