September Photo Dump

I almost always have my cell phone in my back pocket so I can quickly snap pictures of the kids in every day life.  I swore I would never resort to using my phone over my big camera for these every day moments, but let's face it...lugging around a big camera is not conducive for every day life!  The cell phone is. So, I've done my best to try to learn how to better use it so that the every day photos I take with it are worth keeping!  Because of that, I do get a ton of pictures of the kids that I adore but don't really want to devote a whole blog post for. :P  Maybe if I blogged more often.... ;) Anyway, all that said, here are random pictures from September I don't want lost in my computer somewhere...

Ryan and his peaches. :)  I hardly remember this version of Ryan...the one with minimal bruising and scrapes on his face/head from falling all the time. :P

 Next summer with Ryan is going to be a blast. He loves being outside!  Unfortunately for this year though, he was far too obsessed with putting things in his mouth.

 Daddy's new skill of french braiding just might be my favorite skill he has yet! 

I think the kids might think his balloon making skills are their favorite though. 

 She has never fallen out of her bunk bed...I'm not sure how long that will last with how she sleeps! :P

4 sleeping babies

 these two are starting to develop a sweet relationship. I just love it!

 These two already have a sweet relationship. ;)

I was impressed with her imagination...she was driving Daddy and Morgan somewhere!

 Ryan and his cozy coupe...another activity that I am sure he will be a little better at for next summer!  He was really enjoying it by the end of summer this year!

 Found Morgan asleep on the floor one night

 There we go, that's better! :) 

 He looks huge here!

 His face when Daddy walked in the door

 I know I am bias, but she is so beautiful. So proud of her!

 Cousin Andrew got to come for an unexpected visit one day.  He and Tyler and Megan quickly took advantage of our dirt pit of a front yard!

 Though I hated the dirt/mud we had while we were waiting for our porch to be filled, the kids really did have a blast playing in it.  And, the day they decided to go walnut picking was the day that I'm quite certain the squirels loved our dirt pit too!  After this picture, we frequently saw squierls coming to gather these up!

 Tyler's amazing crossing eyes ability cracks me up every time.  When he does it while being disciplined though...LOL!

Lots more to update about! Hopefully not as random as this. :)

Sternwheeler Festival!

The day Tim enlisted, we had an already planned trip to West Virginia for the Sternwheeler Festival near my parents house. We have been the past couple years and though we have actually never spent too much time at the festival, we love going to the fireworks!  Since we didn't get to see any 4th of July fireworks, this year, it was a must! :) Also, we hadn't had the opportunity to go out on the boat much and knew that that weekend would be our last chance. Overall, it was THE perfect thing to do after such an emotional day.  Just my parents and us jumped on the boat right after dinner on Friday night and as you can see, we loved it.

Well, I can't say Ryan loved his life jacket. :P

But he obviously grew to adjust. :)

Boat rides on the river at sunset is pretty much my new favorite thing

Getting to see Tyler and Megan go tubbing for the first time was seriously sooo fun!  And, I'm not going to lie, absolutely terrifying. 

They loved it though!

They got to do two rides before Megan decided to bail and got everyone all freaked out and so we were done. :)  I already can't wait for next summer to do this again!!

The forecast for the Sternwheeler weekend looked pretty grim.  It was supposed to rain all day on Saturday!  So when we woke up the next morning and were greated to no rain, we hoped on the boat again, this time with cousins, and made our way to the Jug for lunch and ice cream. It's so neat to see each of the cousins and their relationship with each other.  Cherith and Tyler had a sweet moment sitting on the bank of the river watching ducks.

This was overlooking the Sternwheeler Festival from the bridge.  We didn't even walk over to it. :P

Firework time!

Ryan's first fireworks! 

Morgan chilled with Aunt Rissa but was a little intimidated by the fireworks.

So fun!

It really was the perfect distraction from the fear of the new life ahead of us.  It's so comforting knowing that we serve a God who cares about even these type of details. 

Our New Family Adventure

As most of you know, Tim has joined the Air Force Reserves and leaves for basic training on December 16th and will be gone for about 9 months for training.  Before you jump ship and claim we are crazy, let me try to explain just a little bit of our journey to get to this point so that you can see, as we did as well, God's guiding hand leading us to take this path vs stay on the path we were on. I hope I don't leave out the details because seriously, this was amazing! :)

First of all, I should start by saying that Tim wants out of aviation. While he enjoys the work he is doing, he has felt that he wanted to do more, further his education, and better be able to provide for his family. He has felt this for years which is what prompted him several years ago to get some training in the intel field while he was off work following wrist surgery. Unfortunately, though he has applied for 60+ jobs, he has never once even received a call back or the opportunity for an interview. This has left him discouraged and stuck.  While his current job provides and has certain perks, it gives little room for advancement or increase in pay and would likely keep him working off shifts and weekends for the foreseable future.  Not to mention, Tim has an incredible analytical brain, as funny as that sounds, that he is just not able to use to its full potential at his current job.

Way back on January 25th, I received an email from Tim while I was at work stating that he wanted to go to this informational meeting about the Air Force Reserves. It was about an intel squadron and he asked me to pray about that opportunity and the possibility of joining. Honestly, I was so mad at him for even considering such a crazy thing. I was terrified of deployments and kids growing up without their father and being left alone and everything that I didn't even want to pray about it.  I sent him a couple nasty gram emails, had a hard time focusing at work, and was just overall frustrated with life and that we even had to consider something like this to get out of our stuck spot.  Then, I prayed about it.  Once. I didn't want to do more than that because I didn't want to even make it a possibility but wanted to be able to tell Tim that I prayed about it. :P  I know, I know...I'm terrible, Then, overnight peace happened. I mean, it was unreal. The next morning I woke up with an overwhelming feeling of peace that we should just proceed until we hit a closed door. I had peace with that completely. Though, I honestly figured we would hit a closed door because there was no way God really wanted us to be a military family, or so I thought.

At the meeting on February 12th, Tim met Sergeant Sullivan who told him that because of his past medical history, he would not likely qualify for service with the Air Force, or any branch for that matter. Open heart surgery, knee surgery, reconstructive eye lid surgery, wrist surgery, and an ancient history of being diagnosed with asthma were all major red flags.  We decided to keep pressing forward though. We went through a fairly lengthly process to get all of Tim's past medical records. The children's hospital where he had his open heart surgery actually had to go to some warehouse to get his medical chart! :P That didn't make him feel old or anything. :) Neither Tim and I can remember a specific time frame of when he finally submitted paperwork to start the process of joining, but sometime between the end of February and early May, Tim sent in the application. Sergeant Sullivan told us that it would take 2 weeks before we would hear anything and we would likely get a rejection notice and then we'd have to start an appeal process. But, just 5 days later (as opposed to the two weeks), we received word back that he had been ACCEPTED medically and was free to go to MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station) for the official physical and ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test).

Tim took the ASVAB on May 27th-28th. Of course, he scored high. :P After the physical, he was told that he had to come back for an xray of both his chest and knee and also an EKG just to confirm that everything was fine.  Though we had some frustrating things with that (going all the way to Columbus for the testing only to find out that he wasn't scheduled to be there), by late June, he had passed through all of that and was scheduled to take another exam, the EDPT (Electronic Data Processing Test) which was needed specifically for the career he had choosen to go in to. That particular test is one of the hardest tests offered at MEPS.  Tim was nervous but left for the exam at 0400 so that he would have plenty of time.  On his way to Columbus, he stopped for an energy drink about 15 minutes from home and it was there that he realized that he didn't have the paperwork that he had printed out.  It was required paperwork for the exam.  He came back home to print it off really quick and our printer decided that morning that it was going to die and not print.  Tim tried and tried to get it to print and ended up leaving without it and made it to the testing center minutes late.  They wouldn't let him take the exam.  This particular exam is not offered as often and so we had no idea when or if he would get another opportunity.  We were honestly both discouraged and wondered if we had been led this far for another closed door.

Then, on August 14th, he was given a second chance to take the exam.  He not only passed, he scored higher than the ones administering the exam had ever seen. Obviously, we were both thrilled but also had a sense of nervousness as we both knew what that meant...he was joining the Air Force. But wait, there's more! :P  It was after this exam that we learned that the last position for the job he wanted had been filled. They were no longer accepting people.  Talk about disapointing! He interviewed at Wright Patt Air Force Base anyway though and spoke with a Major there about his other possibilities. There were a couple other jobs that he was qualified for that would still get him to the final goal of getting out of aviation and furthering his education, however, the positions were more deployable than the one he wanted and not necessarily in a field that he would be as interested in. As a side note, several years ago, I started taking pictures of a military family. This past spring, I found out that he works in the same area that Tim was interested in going into. After we found out about the job position being closed and the other options we had available, Tim contacted that father and was able to get some super valuable and great insight in to the multiple positions that he qualified for.  It was after that meeting that both Tim and I felt that if the original job he had wanted to go in for wasn't available, we would consider that a closed door, even after all that we had already been through. We weren't willing to take that risk.

On August 29th, Tim received word from Seargent Sullivan that he was granted a position in the 71st intel squadron, in the position that we had prayed for.

 

 

 

From there, things have moved fairly quickly.  He officially enlisted on September 9th and reported for his first UTA (Unit Training Assembly) on September 13th. He will have 3 more of those before he officially leaves in exactly 60 days. He will be spending 8 1/2 weeks at basic training in San Antonio Texas and then going straight into tech school in San Angelo Texas where he will be for 5-7 months. We are already longing for next September when this period of separation that currently lies before us will be a thing of the past but are praying that through this journey, God will strengthen us individually and even as a couple and family.  Please pray with us on our journey and especially for the kids as we make this tough transition to hopefully better the future for our family.  For those of you who made it to the end of reading our journey so far, kudos. :)  We know that God's hand has been at the forefront of this and that gives us great peace.

Just a little bit of life...

Our life here is nothing short of fun, chaotic, stressful, crazy, and wonderful, all at the same time. Though there are certainly moments I'd love to have  break, I would never change a thing about our life as it is right now. These hard years will pass all too quickly, I know.  So, I will embrace the broken crayons all over the floor, the toys under my feet while I attempt to cook dinner, and even the nail polish used to paint a complete body art masterpiece and do my best to remember the long days I am in now will have been so fleeting when I look back.

 

This was actually two separate instances... :P 

 

A little taste of Sprite for Ryan

This cracks me up, every single time. :P

Ryan's laugh is so contagious.

At the end of that video, Tyler says "That wasn't funny at all!" That's when the cup had enough and spilled all over the floor. :P

Morgan loves to feed Ryan...ALL the time.  We have to watch her like a hawk to make sure she doesn't feed him anything he can't have.  But when she feeds him and he is patient with her, it is very, very sweet. :)

Megan is doing really well with her letters!

This video is actually from Ryan's birthday party weekend.  I have videos of him doing this with each of the kids I think. :)  Each one of them loved it just as much as I did as a kid. <3 p="">

Our future soccer player apparently :) This was a present from Grandpa Jack and Grandma Sherry. I'd say it was a hit!

Can't forget this guy!  He makes it in to a few pictures every now and then. :)

 Sweet matching sisters :) 

That brings us up to September! WOO HOO! :)  Someday I will be updated. :P

Megan's 1st day of Preschool

Megan started her second year of preschool this year.  She has the same teacher that Tyler had last year, so that is kind of neat.  It is certainly comfortable for us!  We know exactly what to expect. :)  

Megan is our outgoing little extrovert and is very eager to learn!  She could.not.wait for her first day of preschool!  Tyler started a good week before her and so she had to endure quite the wait. :)

And then Megan had the most horrible thing ever happen...after we dropped Tyler off at Kindergarten (at 8:30), we had to wait an entire TWENTY minutes before it was time for her first day! She was thrilled, can you tell?

Thought it was kind of sweet that she did the same hand thing that Tyler did. Her nerves only lasted about 2.5 seconds though and she didn't even hug me goodbye.  She was off to play and learn and just enjoy school!

Here is our Megan, age 4!! :)

1. What is your favorite color? "pink"

2. What is your favorite toy? "my dolls"

3. What is your favorite fruit? "green beans!" that's a vegetable Megan. "Oh, uh, Bananas!"

4. What is your favorite tv show? "Let it go!!!" aka, Frozen

5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?  "Hamburgers!"

6. What is your favorite outfit? "My Dora dress up dress"

7. What is your favorite game? "Tic- Tac-Toad"

8. What is your favorite snack? "crackers"

9. What is your favorite animal? "Cheetahs" 

10. What is your favorite song? "let it go"  Gee, I'm so surprised..."When you sing let it go, it makes me so happy, and I love Hunter."

11. What is your favorite book? "Noah and the Ark"

12. Who is your best friend? "Emma"

13. What is your favorite cereal? "Cinnamon Toast Crunch"

14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? "Dig!"

15. What is your favorite drink? "Milk"

16. What is your favorite holiday? "Princess!" That's not a holiday, Megan. "Turtle!" No, Megan, I'm talking about Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, the 4th of July, New Years... "Easter"

17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? "my flamingo and my bear, but I lost my bear"

18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? "Cinnamon Toast Crunch"

19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? "Bananas and soup...haha, banana soup!"

20. What do you want to be when you grow up? "A soccer girl because I am super fast!"