Start of summer

More updates!!  Look at me keeping my blogging promises!

4/26 - we went to a marriage retreat in Branson with our church.  It was not what we expected but still a great getaway.  Thanks to the Bonvillians for taking care of the kids! 

5/1 - a better picture of baby Pearl at about 1 week old.

5/2 - We listed our house!  We're hoping to move closer to Mt. Vernon, but we'll see if that's what God wants us to do!

Josiah's end of year school program.  They are singing 'God's Not Dead'.  Singing is a loosely used term here - it was more like shouting.  :)

5/7 - Josiah's school field trip to Jump Mania.  His class is on the floor and the first graders are behind them.

Also on 5/7 - we got Levi a big boy bed!!  He had been asking for one for a few weeks.  So we told him if he could keep his underwear dry we'd get one for him.  The crib is still in the room for a backup plan (which we have had to employ several times).  He was so proud of himself the first night when he was able to get out of bed and exit his room after we put him down to sleep.  Not quite what we were hoping for, but he's getting better at it!  He had a potty training setback last week, so he had to sleep in his crib for a few nights (which he now hates), but he's doing much better staying dry now (thankfully)!

5/10 - Mother's day weekend - we went to Jason's parent's house and 8 of us got up really early on Saturday to run the Joplin Memorial 5k. 

Here are some of the cousins being goofy.

Jason's sister Ericka drove up from Texas so it was fun to get to see her family.

5/11 - continued the fun family weekend with our nephew's graduation party.  Congrats Chandler!

5/14 - Josiah has been into making his own costumes lately.  He's also been watching a Star Wars cartoon every time his mean mommy lets him watch TV.  Here are my little clone troopers.

5/17 - Matriarch (#4) had her calf and she even let Jason and Levi pet it!  She mooed at them the whole time though.

5/20 - goofing off in the field, looking for another new calf after Jason told us that #7 had calved.  Surprisingly, we didn't find her calf in the tree.

5/21 - Josiah loses his first tooth!!  He was already prepared with his grown up tooth, so no toothless wonders around here!  He was so excited.  After putting his tooth under his pillow that night, the "tooth fairy" left him 50 cents and some new drawing stuff.  The next morning he was so excited, but a little while later said, "it was you that sneaked into my room and took my tooth last night, wasn't it?"  Smart kid (or loud tooth fairy).  Then he said, "This money isn't worth very much - can I please have my tooth back?".   

5/22 - several years ago a friend gave us a body crayon.  Hence the following superhero picture.  They even had capes drawn on their backs.  Baths were fun that evening!

Also on 5/22 we finally caught up with #7's new bull calf!  She hid it well.

Then we finally (after 3 years) decided to climb up in the loft of one of our barns.  Not sure why we'd never gone up there before.  Maybe because of all the animal poop (raccoon?), or maybe all the dirt dobber nests?  Or maybe because we weren't sure about it's structural integrity.  Whatever the lame reason, we were missing out!  Josiah now has plans to make this his clubhouse.

Weekend of 5/24 - we took a trip to St. Louis to visit our friends.  On the way there we stopped at Wendy's because Josiah had earned a free jr. frosty for reading 4 books by himself.  He was way excited about it (rightfully so).  So we get frostys (frosties?) for everyone, I grab straws, and we pile into the car.  The problem was, I accidentally got coffee straws.  So we were getting headaches trying to suck the thick frosty goodness through the teensy, narrow straws.  Levi started crying.  Thankfully I found some big straws in the glove box, but then he had the opposite problem - he couldn't suck hard enough to get the frosty all the way to the top of that giant straw.  Followed by more crying and begging to get the tiny straw back.  Our frosty drama was very comical.  First world problems!

So we survived the car ride and had a great weekend!  We went to the City Museum and had a blast (and wore ourselves out) climbing / sliding / running / crawling our way through the 11 story building. 

Enduring the photo op so they can get back to playing basketball.  :)  We had a great time!  We love you guys Hardins, Buhrles and Dennys!

We came home to find that #5 had calved!  That makes 4 healthy calves born so far this year - one more to go!  Thankful!

5/26 - Memorial day - we visited Grandpa Regehr's gravesite.  He fought in WWII.  A beautiful day to remember our fallen heroes.

5/30 - a little better picture of #7's calf - he's 10 days old here.

Also in May, Josiah started his second season of t ball.  We missed the first two games because of other plans, and the third game got rained out!  He's only played one game so far, but he seems much more interested in it this year which is great.  It's fun to watch.  We're also in full garden mode.  Jason has done most of the planting, (the ones I can remember: wheat, potatoes, green beans, cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes, eggplant, broccoli, cauliflower, watermelon) and we've been harvesting a lot of yummy strawberries and spinach.  After being in a drought the first part of the year, we've been enjoying rain every day for the past 7 days!  And of course the garden loves it too.  Josiah is enjoying being out of school, and I am trying to have activities for them to do to avoid the boredom, keep learning, and stay away from screen time as much as possible!  Happy start to summer!