Fall has Arrived!

It sure has not felt like fall here that last few weeks (until today - fall finally arrived!)…we have been in the upper 80’s. Which is really hot to us, especially after the cool summer we had! But regardless, the calendar said fall started. So we celebrated this weekend!

Saturday we met up with the Robbins and headed to the Louisberg Cider Mill.

We walked through the vendors, Jaxen played on some bounce slides 

and then we found the Kettle Corn :)

Even Zane enjoyed his first Kettle Corn!

We stood in the longest line, ever, to purchase cold cider and apple cider donuts.

Yummy!

After, we took the obligatory pumpkin pictures.

We did not buy pumpkins yet…too hot. And I don’t like to buy them until October.

But it was fun to look at them!

The best I got of the boys.

But look how cute!

And, of course, a group selfie!

Zane enjoyed picking up the pumpkins and moving them from one place to another.

I’m pretty sure we will hit up a pumpkin patch this October - looking forward to it!

Life Lately

Here is a little life lately for you….

Last Sunday, Jaxen got injured and had to have a staple in his head.

He was fine…and even went to school on Monday,

but it’s a bit scary when your kid injures his head!

Today, he got to get the staple out!

He did pretty good as they pulled it out, and he is all healed!

Afterward, I treated him to a little ice cream from  McDonalds.

Side note: this was our first McDonalds visit since leaving NY  :)

Last Sunday, Zane and I stayed home from church.

And I got all the cuddles!

(Which was good for my momma heart, after starting work that week).

He was not feeling well (allergies).

He was much better the rest of the week and today, but now I am struggling with allergies!

Why are little kids so cute in their sunglasses?!

Last Wednesday, I asked Nik if we could go eat at Chick-Fil-A.

I needed a change of scenery from home / office / home / office…it’s all I had seen for a few days!

Some of you may remember Zane’s first year of life - he was attached to me. 

Attached.

It’s so cool to see how far he has come!

He loves his daddy and looks forward to cuddling up with him now!

Jaxen has a job everyday after school.

It is to get the mail.

And he does it all by himself - He is so proud!

This little guy.

He is into everything!!!

Good thing he is cute while doing it :)

We like to go for family walks on the trail once or twice a week.

This time around, we let Zane out of his stroller, and he had the best time exploring!

How cute is this????!

Friday, Nik brought the boys to my office.

I think it was good for Jaxen to see where I worked

and I loved having all my office people meet my family.

The boys just want to touch and play with everything!

This guy was pretty happy because he got a bath all to himself!

And that’s a little bit of life lately!

The Next Chapter

FYI - you get no pictures with this post. We are having trouble linking our photos. I put in a request to my cutie husband to take care of that for me soon (on behalf of my bloggers)!

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If you have not talked to me in awhile and all of a sudden you are reading about our move from NY to KS and wondering what is going on…well, hopefully I can answer some of those questions here. I’ll try :)

As I stated before, the month of August our family was in transition and I took a blogging break. And I have to say…I missed blogging! I missed sharing our days with you. I missed recapping the funny and the mundane. I am trying to pick it back up, although it may be slow going for awhile - be patient with me.

So, the short story of it is - Nik surrendered his credentials (pastor’s license) and is no longer a pastor in the Church of the Nazarene. Because our house and income was based on his job, I sought work and evenutally got hired at Jesus Film Harvest Partners, in Olathe KS. So we moved the first part of September. Jaxen started school, I started my job, Nik is taking care of Zane during the day, and that’s that!

This was a long (to me), hard process, to figure out what to do with our life after the turn of events happened with Nik’s job. But let me say this... The Lord has been faithful to us the entire time. Although this was unexpected to us, this did not take God by surprise. He is all-knowing and knew what road we would be walking. I knew I could walk this road one of two ways: with God or without. And trust me when I say this… there is no way I would have wanted to walk this road (or any hard time, trial) without God. I sought Him through prayer over our entire situation and He answered (in His time and His way) and I am so grateful. God was already preparing us for this journey before it ever happened (looking back we can see His hand and provisions) and He had things in place as we took each step, and trusted in Him.

Some might ask if we think this was God’s plan for our life. And I believe the answer is no. There are consequences for every decision and action we make. And I also believe that the Lord can (and has, and will in any situation) use it to bring us (our relationship) closer to Him (if we choose to walk with Him instead of away from Him) and that He will bring good from it.

All I know right now, is we are here. And I can’t tell you for how long. God opened up doors and gave us peace as we followed this road. I have no idea what the future holds for us, but we are praying about it. We are praying about God’s call on Nik’s life to be a pastor, and serve in ministry again, in the future.

And I have to tell you…God used His people in big ways to minister to us through this time. We have experienced God’s love in a new way and seen people being His hands and feet to us. And I am so thankful and grateful to those who allowed the Lord to use them.

So - this is our next chapter, and things are going well! Keep reading the blog…and I’ll try to keep it somewhat updated :)

Moving Moments

These are a few pictures (leading up to) and from our recent move from NY to KS.

Jaxen saw me beginning to pack boxes up around our house and one day he decided he was going to help pack. So he got a box and filled it with stuff (I had no idea what, until I unpacked it) and then he got tape and taped it all up and even added his name to the box. It was so cute. He was so proud of himself! He wanted to keep packing…but I wouldn’t let him…haha!

This picture is not the best picture, but it is something I want to remember. The ladies from my Bible Study group bought these beautiful flowers for me, with the sweetest card and even a little money to help me purchase new clothes for work! I cannot even begin to explain the amazing generosity of people and how sweet they have been to me and my family during this move. God certainly used others to minister to us and bless us!

Because we knew we would be moving into a place much smaller than the place we were currently living, I knew we needed to downsize and get rid of stuff! So, I had a garage sale. Well, a lot of garage sales. Actually, I guess…I just had a never-ending garage sale. In the afternoons, when I was home, I just started setting stuff outside with prices on it and people stopped to buy! So I continued that for about 2 weeks. I did officially have a garage sale I guess one Friday and Saturday morning. Below was the temperature on that Saturday morning, and my selling-buddy :)

He did pretty well…although he spent my profits in the first 2 hours with the garage sale happening next door, and he pulled quite a few items back into the house that he decided we were not going to sell. So, some came with us, and some got left behind. 

Part of the moving process is the cleaning process. Thankfully, once all the toys were packed, Jaxen found fun in using the vacuum to help me clean!

This was day 2 of driving. I totally had “travel hair” and did not care. One bit. But I had to document the half up / half down / mess of a hairstyle I was sporting. Jaxen’s expression pretty much sums it up!

Let me just say - we had some incredible sunsets while traveling. Breathtaking. Driving across the country, moving away, is never easy. But when you see sunsets like this - it takes your mind off yourself and helps you see there is a greater picture.

And a few funnies:

One night Nik was looking for his drill set (that he had just had) and could not find it anywhere! We searched forever. Finally, Jaxen opened the lid to the trash can for something - and there it was! Zane had a bad habit of throwing things in the trash (shoes, apparently drill sets, and more). It was so funny and we laughed so hard over that!

While Zane was busy throwing stuff in the trash, Jaxen was busy hiding things. I don’t think he meant to “hide” things on purpose, but once cabinets were cleared out…he started putting stuff back in them! I found so many things I was missing one day in the bathroom cabinet. Glad I wasn’t actually going crazy!

One night while Nik and Jaxen were in the U-haul, Jaxen noticed a full moon. He said “Daddy, the moon is all full and it makes me go (and he began to howl)". It made Nik laugh forever! Nik actually called me and I got to hear Jaxen howling at the moon. It was so funny to hear his little voice, howling at the full moon!

One night after we moved here, Jaxen was missing some of his friends. After we prayed for them and looked at some pictures, I told him to dream about playing with his friends. He looked at me, in all seriousness, and replied “Dreams are videos in my eyes. I never know what I’m going to get.” Haha! That made me laugh so hard. I guess it’s true…dreams are like videos and you cannot pick and choose what you will dream about!

Lastly, and not from the move, but just funny - I had Jaxen dressed in a tank top and shorts for school one day, but put a long sleeve shirt on because it was a little chilly outside that morning. In my mind, once he was at school and warmed up, he would take off the long sleeves. Well, he still had it on after school so I asked him why and he said “I didn’t want people to see my arms naked!” Haha!

Random Moments

I am trying to catch up on the blog since my break…

so now you get a blog post of complete randomness :)

Jaxen was being helpful with Zane a few mornings by talking (sweetly, not shouting)

to him when he would first wake up, and then even gave him some books!

Much sweeter than the way he was “helping” me with Zane (previously).

While we were in the middle of packing the house, Nik set up this tent in the playroom

for Jaxen - and that is where he slept for at least a week. 

He thought it was so cool!

So this is what you get when your 5 year old takes your phone.

Pictures of his boo-boo’s. He had a splinter in his toe, and a scrape on his knee.

I told you…random! Haha!

Did I show this one yet before?

Not sure - but Jaxen was trying to make me laugh one day,

so he taped a leaf to his head.

It worked!

We were getting ready to go somewhere one morning, and both boys ended

up joining me in the bathroom…fixing their hair. Forever!

It was so funny to me, because I thought only girls wanted to 

get ready in the bathroom with their mom. 

But nope…these boys had the best time putting water in their hair, combing it

and then blow-drying it.

 So much fun on the tree swing!

So this past summer Nik’s parents came up north, and stayed the summer

in a camper, in a campground, in our little town.

I realized one day I had no pictures of them with the kiddos!

And I figured out why…the first part of the summer, 

every time they were with the kids, we were not! 

Haha!

They were our wonderful babysitters for many occasions.

I did manage to snap this picture…walking out from Sam’s Club.

Our boys really enjoyed having their Mamaw Kay and Papaw Russell around all summer! 

I posted these on social media…

but seriously, they kill me.

He is so stinking cute!!!!

 Part of the money I made from garage selling went to this Elmo, at another garage sale next door.

It’s huge. 

But when your little one falls in love with it, it’s hard to say no.

Jaxen got a new race car track and Zane got Elmo.

So I have been snacking on a lot of Nutella lately.

I blame it on Kay! Haha!

She left a jar at my house…the rest is history.

Anyway…Jaxen has been enjoying his fair share of Nutella as well.

One afternoon, after I thought we were done with our snack of pretzels and Nutella,

I found this…

Jaxen, digging into the Nutella and licking (literally, at one point) it clean.

It made me laugh so hard!

 So, if you remember, back around Mother’s Day Jaxen made me a flower pot and

then we bought some seeds for it.

Jaxen wanted Sunflower seeds.

So we started them off in the pot and then transferred it to the ground once they started growing.

Nothing really happened for a long time, so I figured I killed it.

Then one day…a little something popped out of the ground and it kept growing!

Right before we moved this beauty appeared.

And I loved it. And so did Jaxen. 

 Sweet sleeping boy.

How’s that for random?!