For Liam- part 2- our trash pick-up

Okay Liam, here is what it looks like when they come and pick up the trash at our house here in Kentucky! I hope you enjoy it!! Love- Aunt Kristie

For Liam- Our recycle pick-up

Today is recycle day at our house. So Liam, here is a video just for you of our recycle pick-up. We were on our way to the park when he came by this morning. I hope you like it!

Sick

I am in need to a good post here on my blog, I know. And really, this Winter has been an amazingly wonderfully healthy one here at our house. I think our best winter in like 5 years. But, right before Momma left to go back to TX, Brian got sick. He was followed by Amber and then Evan. The virus has run several days of a high fever with a cough and runny nose. Brian's then went to his ear. Amber and Evan seemed to be over it finally on Friday, since neither one was running a fever, but now Evan's is back. I guess that if it continues on tomorrow, I will take him in. His temp was 103 to 104 till Thursday and then back up to 102 yesterday and today. Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully this is the end of all of this. I am really hoping that Aaron and Weston, who have not yet gotten it, will stay healthy! With sick kids for over a week, my house is in need of a good clean that hopefully I can get in tomorrow. That and a few bazillion loads of laundry that need to be done!! Hopefully tomorrow I can get up some pictures from when my mom came to visit us for her Spring Break!! :) Oh yeah, and only 1 more week of school till we are off for Spring Break!!!! Hooray!!!! We are looking forward to a partial week of camping (all the sites were booked up past Thursday due to good Friday and the Easter weekend) and then a short trip up to see Columbus, OH! We are excited to have a break. And to think that once we get back, the children will have just over a month of school till we are done for the summer!!!! Hooray for the Spring time! :)

Afternoon at the park

We have had some seriously crazy weather lately, but also some really nice and warm weather too. (Okay not as warm as Texas, but still warm for us!) Right after we had the snow, we had more nice weather with temps right around 60. So, the other day after school, we walked over to the park by our house for some afternoon fun in the sun. These pictures were all taken with my phone, and for some reason, they come out huge. And out of order! Oh well! Weston was such a nice brother that afternoon, playing with all the boys, but especially nice to Evan. Weston played with him and showed him all sorts of things. They went on a pine cone hunt while Aaron and Brian were climbing the trees.

Do you see my little Brian monkey way up in that tree? He and Aaron got quite high in their climbing. They like to climb the pine trees because they are so easy to climb with all the branches. Aaron and Brian spent most of their time at the park in the trees.

Brian did play on the equipment too though. He and Aaron and Weston had fun on the slides together.

Evan is so big and independent now. He had a great time climbing and sliding. A few times he wanted to be on the swings, but mostly he was happy to climb. It was the first time in a llllooooonnnnnggggg time that I was able to just sit and watch if I wanted, or be the troll under the bridge if I wanted, or whatever. I had no little baby to hold and look after. :) And no, I am not making any announcement right now. I did have a miscarriage this past fall for those that may not have known that, and yes, we do want one more, but for right now, we are good and happy with the way things are! :)

Can you see Brian up there in the tree? I was zoomed in for this picture. He was actually really high up there!!

This was actually on the trip home (like I said, the pictures are out of order). All the bigger children rode their bikes to the park. I was pushing Evan in the stroller. They are so good when we are out. They always wait for me to say it is okay to go when they get to the stop sign. :) They looked so happy and sweet waiting there that I had to snap a picture! I guess that the next time we go, I will have to take my bike and trailer. Since everyone else was on their bikes, they were way faster than me this time.

The boys playing on the slide and having a grand time.

Amber climbing and playing. She played with Evan a lot of the time. Those 2 are good friends.

Aaron had lots of fun sliding down the slide and then climbing back up it.

He always enjoys the fire pole at the park. This time he climbed back up it too! He must be related to the Whitleys!!! :D

Aaron up in the tree. He couldn't go quite as high as Brian, but almost! He has some good muscles. Don't let his size fool you, he is very strong!! I keep thinking that I should put him in gymnastics.

It was such a great and fun afternoon. I love it when it warms up and Spring is on the way. Those are some of my favorite days! I love to go for walks and to the park with my kiddos! The days when they will all go with me and have fun are numbered, so I will enjoy them while they last!!!!!

Snow!

This morning we woke up to a fresh layer of snow on the ground. Perhaps even the most snow we have had all winter long. And to think that just a few days ago it was almost 70 and we were having tornadoes!!! :P Crazy weather. Of course, they didn't predict this much snow, so we had a few inches. The streets were still quite warm from all the unusually warm weather that we have had, so they were clear. That meant that the older boys didn't get to play in it. Right after taking everyone to school this morning, Evan, Amber and I suited up and went out to play! It was a perfect morning in the snow. :)
First we did a little bit of sledding.

Even Evan could work the sled pretty good on his own.

We are always thankful that Auntie M went to school in Idaho so that she could then give us all of her left over hats and scarves. We use them every winter!! :)

Amber made a lovely snow angel.

Evan loved to throw snowballs at me. Over, and over, and over again! Look at that mischievous grin right before he attacked me with that snowball in his little hands. :)

"I'm gonna get you Mommy!" says Evan.

Then we headed out back to check out all the snow on the deck.

It was the perfect snow for building a snowman! It seems like the snow is usually too dry here for snowman building, but really this snow was perfect. Amber helped me roll the parts of the snowman. She did a good job.

Here we are with our finished snowman! We ended up using mini pepperonis for the eyes, mouth and buttons. :) We stayed out for about an hour and had such a good time. Too bad most of the snow will probably be melted by the time the bigger boys get home. But at least we had a fun morning together!

The tornado that missed us

Here is the tornado that we were in the path of on Friday afternoon. It ended up passing just over 10 miles to our south thankfully. We feel very, very blessed that it didn't hit us!

All good

For those who may have been following the crazy weather up here by us today, I wanted to let you know that we are a-okay!!! This afternoon there were 3 tornadoes that came very close to us! We spent most of an hour in our basement. We feel blessed that we were not touched when there were so many all around us. Towns just across the river in Indiana were totally wiped out by the storms that were supposed to come right over us but went just barely to our south. My heart goes out to those that were not as lucky as us. It was a crazy, intense afternoon and I am glad it is over!!! We will be sure to offer up lots of prayers of thanks tonight that we remained safe!