Wolf Badge

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, we have Grandma and Grandpa Yorke in town and are having a great time visiting with them. Wednesday night at the pack meeting, Weston got his Wolf badge. He worked hard the last few weeks to finish up his requirements and it was doubly fun that Grandma and Grandpa got to see him get his award!! Weston's den leader is the man standing in the doorway behind us. The Cub Master is just finishing up his dental residency here at the children's hospital and will be leaving next week for Washington. I know the boys will miss him! We have got some great leaders!
Congratulations Weston on getting your badge! You are a hard worker and sweet boy! We are glad that you are part of our family!!!

Its A ................

BOY!!!!!

We are so very excited!! The baby looked great today. He was 11 oz and perfect. Brian was so excited since a boy was what he was guessing. The boys all thought that it was neat to see the baby moving on the tv when they were doing the ultrasound. At one point Weston said, "It looks kind of creepy!" That was when we saw the face. We told him that he looked the same when he was in my tummy and look how great he turned out! While we were looking at the profile, the little baby boy yawned a big yawn and then we saw him open and close his mouth and swallow. It was so neat!! We couldn't be more pleased to have a new little one coming to our family this fall!!!

Pictures

Well, for the moment, my computer is uploading pictures. So, this morning I went outside to take a picture of the flower bed that I have been working hard on the last 2 days. Weston decided that he wanted a picture of the flowers that I planted too. I thought that he was cute out there taking a picture. You can see the flower bed right there in front of him! Tomorrow I will try to do the one on the sloping side of the house and then they will be done! It was a beautiful weekend to be out working in the yard. We have had temps in the 80s with a wonderful breeze and hardly any humidity and so it was perfect!!! When he saw that I was taking a picture of him, Weston said, "Hey! You take a picture of me and I'll take a picture of you and we'll both be taking pictures of each other taking pictures!" So, here he is taking my picture

I got this cute dress for Amber just a bit ago. I thought that it was so funny when I was looking at my friend Kristin's blog the other day and her daughter was wearing the exact same dress and shoes!!! Amber looked pretty cute in her dress today, but don't be fooled.....she was a little on the frumpy side at church! Still, terrible twos or not, she is sweet most of the time and adorable too if I do say so!!

Any guesses?

Monday afternoon is the day that we have our ultrasound!! Are there any guesses on what we will be having this time?!! :)

The Clean-up Brigade!

This afternoon for one of Weston's last wolf badge requirements, we went on a walk to pick up trash in the neighborhood. Weston had the great idea to walk to the park here in our neighborhood and then clean up the trash at the park. The park had a ton of trash and the kids were so happy to be cleaning it all up. With all of us working, it didn't take long at all and it was like we were the clean-up brigade. :) After all the good cleaning, the kids played at the park for a short bit, although not as long as they would have like due to the looming rain clouds and wind. Even though it was almost 60, it was a little chilly with the wind blowing away at us. It was a good afternoon for cleaning up!

I have no pictures to post. My computer is having some trouble and I fear that it is on it's last leg! It has been having trouble starting up and shuts down in the middle of things all the time lately. It also won't read any cd and now it won't read the memory cards either and the usb ports won't work!!! Oh my! :O Hopefully we can figure it all out and get things back to normal so that I can post some pictures!!!

Rainbow!

We had a much cooler day today filled with a light, fairly steady rain. It stopped for a bit and then this evening, we had a short storm roll through. And it left a beautiful rainbow. The kids had just dressed for bed and it was actually fairly chilly outside, but Barth got them to run outside to capture a picture under the gorgeous rainbow.
Isn't it pretty? As you can see, the grass is really green, but a goodly amount of the trees around here have yet to get their leaves. We are glad that it is Spring though and that we have had such wonderful rain as well as pretty, sunny days.

We have more rain set for tomorrow. Hopefully it will continue to help our yard grow nice and thick!!! :)

Our Yard is improving!!!!

The picture above was taken of our grass last June. It already looked about a million times better than it did when we bought it. A few week ends ago, Barth over seeded the yard again and fertilized it. While we do have some weeds in there still, I think that it has improved over the last year! Below is the picture that I took today of how our grass is looking. We do still have some bare spots, but I am pleased with how it is coming along! A lot of the seed took really well due to the goodly amount of rain that we have had lately. I think that next weekend we will put more mulch in the flower beds and maybe plant some flowers. That is, if it stays warm enough. We had another beautiful day here today, but rain and colder weather is due to arrive in the next few days!!!

My kind of day

We have had beautiful weather here yesterday and today, so we took full advantage of it and got some outside playing in before we get some more rain next week. Aaron discovered Brian's old scooter and has been so happy scooting all around the driveway lately!!! I love how green everything is turning here!
We had some left over water bottles from our trip last week, so the kids had fun drinking out of the bottles as they played outside. I think that more water was spilled than drank, but it was okay by me! :)

To me, Amber is looking more grown up by the day. She is doing more and more talking and acting more like a 2 year old. Time is passing so quickly! One of her favorite things to do outside is to play bubbles. She gets the long wand and waves it all around making the bubbles and then goes and chases them!

She also likes to stick her fingers in the bubble wand holes. It looks as though she is going to have the same blister problem as Brian. She has peeling blisters on her palms and fingers and they are especially bad on her feet right now as well. It looks as if we may need to try some different shoes to see if we can't get it under control a little better!

Hope everyone had an enjoyable day today and that your weekend will be equally good!!!

Louisville Slugger Museum

On the last day of our trip last week we went over to the Louisville Slugger Museum. We had hoped that the new renovated museum would have been open, but it was opening the next week. We did however, get to take a tour of where they made all their bats. It was pretty cool. Usually you can see the bats as they are made by the workers, however, we went on Good Friday and everyone was off for the holiday! It was still neat to see the machines and learn more about bats than I ever thought that I would know. The kids had a blast and at the end of the tour, everyone got a mini-bat to take home. We also got the end pieces or nubs of the bats that the machines hold on to while they are being sanded. The boys thought that everything was so neat to see.
Weston thought that it was pretty neat to try out the bat of Babe Ruth! You can see in the crate behind him some unfinished bats and then nubs that I was just talking about.
Brian thought that this place was especially cool since he LOVES baseball! You weren't allowed to take any pictures inside of the actual factory. We were able to see all of the official types and colors of Major league baseball bats. I thought that the most interesting bat was the pink one. The players are allowed to use a pink bat once a year on Mother's day. They are allowed 2 pink bats in that game. One is to be given to their mom at the end of the game and the other is auctioned off after the game with the proceeds going to cancer.
Aaron was also fascinated by the bats. He really likes all bats (and has a tendency to whack people with bats sometimes~like his siblings!) so he thought that it was really cool. At one point the kids were able to pull a finished, but not painted, bat of the players that had contracts with the Sluggers out from a cart. I thought that it was interesting that Aaron chose the bat of A Rod, who I know has admitted to drugs or something like that in recent years, but that was one of my brother, Aaron's, favorite players when he was alive. Aaron used to follow the Rangers so faithfully and it was almost like he was there whispering into little Aaron's ear to choose that bat!! :) Although we weren't there long, it was still a great time for us. After that, we headed back in the rain and storms back to our home. We had a great vacation week! The boys enjoyed the time off but are glad to be back in school!!!

4 months

Sorry, I had Weston take this one and it is a little crooked! :) Here I am today at 4 months along. I really don't look so much like I am pregnant, but nothing fits so I started to wear my maternity clothes this week.

Easter festivities

Well, there is still one more day of our vacation to blog, but I will pause to show you our Easter weekend festivities!! On Saturday we dyed Easter eggs. The boys had a great time and were so excited that they got an entire dozen eggs to themselves. Amber was a little mad that she didn't get to dye them, but she got a cookie, so it was all good!! :)
See, she doesn't look too sad that she has to eat a cookie instead! :) And she got to sit in the high chair so that she could see all the happenings.

The boys all wrote stuff on their eggs. It was fun to hear them talk back and forth telling each other that they were going to make an egg for the other person. It seems to me that Brian is looking more and more grown up these days!

Here is Weston showing us the grass that he drew on an egg. I think that he should have dyed it green if it was grass!! :O

The kids woke up Easter morning to baskets that the bunny had left them. The boys each got a book, a few trinkets and some candy which is already gone!!!! Amber got candy, chalk and a bunny!

I had hoped to get a picture of the children before church, but I ran out of time!!! Amber wore this pretty dress that her Daddy picked out for her. She has him wrapped around her finger!! She wore her pretty braids to church, but by the time the egg hunt rolled around in the afternoon, she had slept on them!

This was the one and only time that Amber had the eggs in her basket. She preferred to hold them in her hands. She kept calling them a ball and throwing them all over the place. Needless to say, those are the first eggs that we ate because they were so cracked!!!

Here are the bigger boys out hunting eggs in the backyard. As you can see, they needed jackets. It did get up to about 57 yesterday, but it was still chilly outside. Gone are the days like in TX and FL where I could dress the kiddos up in cute short outfits with sweater vests~ unless I want them to freeze that is!! Easter time is a bit chillier here!

Aaron found the one out by the tree!

Here we are looking for the last of the eggs. As you can see, we are just starting to get some leaves on the trees. It is supposed to be warmer this week!

I wanted to get a picture of Amber and Barth together in this dress that he picked out for her, but she was having none of that!! I will just have to content myself for the time being with this cute one of them walking side by side!! I hope that everyone had a wonderful Easter!!!!

Day 2- Mammoth Cave National Park

The second day of our vacation we drove a little over an hour south to Mammoth Cave National Park. It was a little further than we were expecting, but not a bad little trip at all. We got there at just before 11 our time, thinking that we would just pick up an early lunch from McDonalds and then head on over to the caves. When we walked into McDonalds they were still serving breakfast but we thought that perhaps they served it till 11 there for the group of older people who were playing bingo. :) So, we ventured outside to the play area and let the kids run around a bit. Right at 11, Barth went in to see if they were serving lunch. It was then that we found out that we had passed into the Central time zone and that it was only 10am!! :) From there we went to a rock shop nearby to kill some time. Since my family is full of rock happy individuals, it was a big hit. The boys each came away with a bag of rock treasures! Once 10:30 local time hit, we headed back for Happy Meals and then it was off to the park. We got there and the place was crowded! Who knew that most of the tickets for the entire day would sell out before 11?! We certainly didn't. There were still a few guided tours left that we could go on, but there was a catch. No bags, backpacks or things of the sort were allowed on the tour. That meant that we would have to carry Amber for the 2 to 4 hours of the hike. Not really my idea of fun. I wouldn't have minded it if she could have been in the backpack carrier, but just having to hold her for that long didn't sound that great to me. So, we decided that this time, we would just do the self guided Discovery tour of the caves. Lucky for us, they don't charge for kids under 5. :) It was really neat to see the natural ENORMOUS caverns that were there, but I really missed seeing the stalagmites and stalactites that you could see if you went on one of the guided tours. We will be going back for sure to go on one of the tours!! :) The picture above is going into the main entrance of the cave. Isn't is huge?!!
Here we are getting ready to enter into the cave for our tour.
I realize that most of the pictures look the same: us, surrounded by blackness. That is because it was dark in the cave and so enormous that you can't even see the things around us.
Weston in front of the salt peter mine that was there a long time ago. On this self guided tour, they had park rangers that you could talk to at different stations. We learned all about the Indians that used to use the caves and well as the hotel that is still on the property that was there during the civil war. Tours of this place have been taking place for practically forever! The caves were used at one time for a hospital for those with consumption, but it didn't help. Parts of the cave have closed off due to the sink holes that feed the caves. It was all really interesting to learn about.
More pictures of my cute family in the darkness. Amber was so funny and insisted on walking just about the entire half mile of the tour. She is getting quite independent these days and freely expresses her likes and dislikes!! :)
Behind us in this picture that you can't really even see is a light that is lighting up a part of the caves that comes way down and looks like a rock slide. We were told that, in fact, it was a valley in the area. As the ranger put it, "When the caves meet a valley, the valley always wins!" We even got to see the kind of lanterns that were used hundreds of years ago to explore the caves. They burned on vegetable oil!

And here we are climbing back up out of the cave. Brian got to the top first with Weston close behind. If you make the picture bigger you can see Brian at the very top. We really enjoyed going here and think that perhaps in the near future we may come back and camp for a few days and hike around and take a few more tours!!

Trip to Louisville- day 1 the Zoo

Warning: This post contains LOTS of pictures!!! :)

Wednesday kicked off the first day of our Spring Break trip to Louisville. We had a great time. We left in the morning after the bug man came to give us an estimate on getting rid of our pesky ants!! Louisville is not that far away from us, so we got to the zoo before noon time and had the whole day at the zoo. I must say that I think it was a fantastic idea to go to the zoo in another town since ours would have been full of Spring Breakers like ourselves. As it was, the Louisville zoo was fairly empty and it ended up being perfect weather of just right around 60 degrees. The kids had a great time. The first part of the zoo that we saw was entitled "the Islands." We saw some lizards and birds and this cool monkey that was right by the glass.
Aaron wouldn't go anywhere near the window, but the other kids liked it. (even though they have strange, fake smiles on their faces in this picture!)

Here I am giving Aaron a boost to see some bird I think. (or it could have been a snake- I can't remember.) One of the good things about having Barth around is that I am able to get in a few pictures! :)

Here are the boys making funny faces at me!! Silly guys!

After the first little bit we stopped at a sunny park bench for a snack. It was really lunch time, but we held the kids off for a while longer! We had lunch a little later and let the kids play on a playground there at the zoo.

After lunch time we went into the lorikeet exhibit. Aaron really wanted the birds to land on him. Here he is pretending to be a tree with his arm out for a bird to land on. He never did have a bird land on him, but it was so cute to see him stand perfectly still and keep saying, "Come here little birdies!"

Amber and Aaron watching those birds!

Brian had been standing with his arms out like a tree too. He wanted the birds to land on him, but again, they never did. Those who bought the nectar stuff were having like 4 to 5 bird land on them, but we didn't buy the nectar. Right at the last minute when Barth was taking Brian's picture of trying to be a tree, Brian noticed and decided to make a funny face instead! Boys!!!! :)

Our next stop was the ape and gorilla exhibit. Outside there was this station that you see Weston and Brian at. You could push this button and it made different jungle sounds. When we first got there and the kids were pushing the buttons, an ape kept coming toward the sounds. The boys thought that this was great fun!

Barth at Aaron watching the apes. Aren't they so cute!?!

After looking outside, we went inside to the ape/ gorilla house place. This guy was right by the window and very interested in what the kids were doing. I felt sorry for him having to be in there.

Amber checking out the gorilla. When we went to leave, the gorilla followed us in his cage all the way to the door sucking on his finger with his blanket in hand. He reminded me of a little baby!

This was a cute thing of how you measured up to the gorillas! Look how tall Weston is getting!!!

And then came Brian!

And lastly Aaron!! :)

Just as we were coming up to the elephants, they were putting on a show. It was pretty cool to see them get up on stands and lay down and all the cool things that they could do. We found out that the little baby elephant just turned 2! Isn't he cute?!

The last thing of the day was the train ride. It was getting kind of chilly by 5 and with the train going, I kind of wished that I had more than a pull-over jacket on, but it was still fun and of course, the boys were thrilled to get to ride the train.

I rode with the boys and Barth walked around the gift shop with Amber! All in all, it was a wonderful day! We topped it off with a trip to Chili's for dinner. For us, that is a real treat!! First of all, because we don't go out to eat to real restaurants with kids (it costs a fortune!) and second, because there are no Chili's where we live!!! :) Stay tuned tomorrow for the second day of our trip.......Mammoth Caves!