And... Another Year has Passed!

The Rest of April

CrossFit

I was in two back to back competitions in April, piggybacking off the CrossFit Open. They were great but totally exhausting.. I placed 2nd and 5th. I made Finals in both which was my goal.  When you make finals you get 'rewarded' by having to do another workout. Oh yeah, and its harder. Oh yeah, and everyone else is done for the day.  Still, I was pretty pumped with these results for my first two 'real' competitions. 

Vera made an appearance on the podium...

Did I mention it was exhausting??

Luther's Birthday

We had an informal Family gathering at Chick-fil-a for Luther's 3rd Birthday...

May

For my Birthday present, Joel took me to Seattle.  We brought our traveling buddy...

She did extremely well, but I could tell it was probably the last time that she would be brought with Mommy and Daddy and considered 'low maintenance.' At 5 months, it wasn't like traveling with an itty bitty newborn;) 

Luther's gymnastics

Around age 3, we put Joel and Judah in the local gymnastics program. Luther enjoyed and appreciated it WAY more than the other two. It was cute. 

Trip to Indian Lake

Around the time of my Birthday we went to Indian Lake, it was a blast as always.  The highlight for the boys is 'driving' Uncle Mike's boat...

June

June wasn't as relaxing as I had hoped... 

We took on a massive home project.  New floors, New doors & trim. Painted kitchen cabinets. Basically everything that was oak was painted white. Seems simple enough... right?

It took forever.. But the results were pretty fabulous...

VBS

Our church VBS was in June.  The theme was "Ocean Commotion" it was Judah's first time being in the real VBS program.  He was with Joel,.. I"m not sure if that was a good thing or not;) 

Surgery

The week of VBS I had surgery to repair my umbilical hernia.  It appeared during Luther's pregnancy and just got worse during Vera's.  I tell people the surgery was the opposite of Birth.. During the surgery it was heavenly.. a nice long 2 hour nap in the middle of the day. Afterwards, it was terrible.  Super drowsy/moody and more pain than I expected. All in all, it was a great surgery and recovery.  Taking 6 weeks off lifting was the hardest part :)  But this CrossFit mom got pretty creative...

Joel's Birthday

I don't think we did anything other than this for Joel's Birthday...Kinda sad. But that's what happens right?

Vacation

Vacation was 2 weeks after surgery. We went to hocking hills. It was really a great time...

Vera just hated the water the first time she got in...

July

Lots of Library trips

In July and really all Summer long, we took weekly trips to the library where we got 70+ books...

RV trip

We took the newest RV out for a trip to Illinois near the end of July.  As always, it was very fun but very exhausting!

We stopped at a campground and did some hiking.  This trail wasn't nearly as beautiful as all of the trails at Hocking Hills but still fun nonetheless.

In case you are wondering.. This is what it looks like when a toddler gets a bug bite on his eyelid...

August

At the end of Summer we took a few trips to Cosi...Vera now likes the water...

And, of course, so do the boys...

 More proof that Vera likes the water now...

I think this is the part where I apologize profusely for not updating the blog monthly, and promise to do better next time.. but lets face it, that just isn't happening. Life keeps getting in the way!

the First Quarter

Time Flies

Its amazing how time goes by soooo slowly when you are pregnant. Then after you have your baby you blink, and the first year is almost over!! It is truly incredible how that happens. Because we realize this crazy phenomenon, we tend to cherish each baby a bit more and more... Vera is certainly no exception. If you are following my FB page or Instagram, you can see we love taking pictures of this darling little girl.

Joel turns 6!!

We had an informal, McDonalds, Star Wars themed Birthday party for Joel 3. His favorite gift was the Flash t shirt he's wearing below. 

RV trips to Vermont and Florida
In February, we took the whole family on an RV trip to Vermont and FWB, FL. The Vermont trip was ... COLD. The family did exceptionally well.  We found a couple YMCA's to run around, and Vera couldn't have been happier.  Dark, always bumping along, loud road noise, brothers voices close by.. its like an infant's heaven!

Our Annual trip to Fort Walton Beach, FL did not disappoint. We had beautiful weather, and ..because of Joel's amazing sister Emily Penton, we got some serious time to spend with like-minded friends.  Oh yeah.. and the boys had fun too.

Vera was the perfect baby, as.. almost always. ;) and so we took her to the banquet and a fancy restaurant on Valentine's Day.

Anniversary
Joel and I had a little Getaway for our 10 year anniversary!!! Yes, that's right. Boy, don't I feel old? Yes. I do. Anyway, We went to Fort Wayne, IN (cue the woo hoo's!) and enjoyed some movies, a hotel suite and you guessed it.. a little Asti and treats as well. Yumm. Oh yea.. Vera was with us too. She likes to sleep a lot (just like me) so it wasn't a problem.

 The Boys
The boys have enjoyed a "Movie Saturday" with Daddy if they have good behavior all week. Most of the time they all participate but sometimes... 1 of them isn't allowed to participate in the reward. Any guesses as to who?

Judah. Yep, he's at a difficult age (4.5) but he is surprisingly turing into a big boy pretty fast all of a sudden. He finally took an interest in riding a bike (with training wheels), finally doesn't need a pull up at night, and finally sits well enough to take part in a reading lesson with Mommy - and does very well!!

Joel has been obsessed with Lord of the Rings... Yes, we allowed him to watch the real movies.

He is also obsessed with baby Vera... I guess we have that in common...

 Luther is still pretty cute but getting a little too smart these days.  He participates in the reading lesson with Judah and isn't far behind! He's likes the Super Hero "Green Lantern" and insisted to be called by that name for a little over a month.