Unexpected Happy Things

Sometimes I get so caught up in all the different everyday things of life. Not that I have anything even close to being major stressful but you know those days when the kids just seem to get into everything- like filling the toilet full of toilet paper-3 times, or the baby is fussy and won't let you get anything done because he would rather be held and for the last few nights has been waking up to eat every 2 hours(starting the night after you posted he was on a good sleep schedule), or the bills that come are more than you thought they would be or the calves are bawling to be fed and you don't really want to get your work clothes and boots on to go bottle feed them... and so on and so on. You know just the everyday little things that just rub you wrong even though they are so minor in the scheme of things that there is no reason for you to be upset about them.

Well, unexpectedly, today has been filled with little minor HAPPY things. They all kind of caught me off guard. Like God is just reminding me of His presence. And that He cares for us, even in the little things.

First of all Lillie's cousin Emily gets to play at our house today. They have such fun together. And I love having her over.

I got a new CD. Tenth Avenue North. I really like their songs. Matt's cousin KaLisa sang one of their songs in church a few weeks ago and ever since then it has been one of my favorite songs on the radio. She is a talented singer! And she is only a freshman.

I just saw the post my aunt Karla in Idaho had about a crocheted dog she made. And it is for my kids! I know it sounds like a funny thing to get so excited about but it is adorable and it was so unexpected to see that she had finished it and how CUTE it is! And it is fun to be connected to family so far away even in little things like a crocheted toy.

I got an embroidery machine a few weeks back and had been getting a little frustrated with it. Partly because I couldn't figure out the little quirks and partly because I couldn't find designs that were very modern. I could find some pretty cute kids designs but not too much that was modern/contemporary. BUT, on Etsy, I just found a few designs that are just what I was looking for.

Life is full of surprises. Some good ones, some bad ones. But I love it when there are lots of little unexpected fun things! So, sorry this post doesn't have any pictures and it is kind of random but I just had to share my excitement. Even though they are just little things=)

I hope your day is filled with unexpected things-of the good, fun, happy, joyful variety!!

Sweet Baby Fingerprint of God

Fingerprint Friday is hosted by PamperingBeki and she is so good at reminding us to look all around us and see what God has made and to remember how blessed we are to be able to have such a magnificent God.

This week I wanted to recognize my sweet baby boy Zethan Matthew as one of the many fingerprints of God. He is just a few days past 5 months and he is just growing so much. God has blessed us greatly with a very fun, calm and almost always happy 3rd baby. He is always making us smile and he fits into our family so well. Almost since he was born I have said how much it seems like he just slid right into our family and fit so perfectly.
He is really people person and loves to have attention. He is even a little silly sometimes. I recently caught him chewing on this thing and it made me laugh and laugh. And he got this thing into his mouth like that without any help from older siblings. They were off playing with something else. I thought it was so funny. It is that foam type stuff so it must have felt squishy on his gums. I think he is in the early stages of teething. Uh Oh!

And he is learning every day! Last night he was doing push ups! Ha! Instead of pulling his knees into a crawling position he would go up on his toes and hands. It is kind of hard to tell in the picture but he is only up in his little toes and little hands. He kind of scoots around backward (not really on purpose) and he can go in a complete circle. And yes, I know his eyes look goofy=) We have an appointment next week with a pediatric eye doctor to get them checked out. Our regular doctor thinks they are probably fine but just wants to make sure=) We may have a baby pirate on our hands if he has to wear an eye patch to correct them=)

And while I am talking about eyes, he has his Daddy's blue eyes! Lillie and Titus have brown eyes like me. But so far Zethan has blue eyes. I think everybody on the Stucky side (except the Lettau grandkids-they have brown eyes!) have blue eyes, I think. Maybe some greens or hazels, but not brown. It is so interesting how all the different genes work out in families. Sorry that was kind of a bunny trail=)

And like I said before, he is just a happy baby. He really does bring so much joy to our family. Lillie gets worried if she thinks we might accidentally leave him somewhere and she is so excited when she sees him if she has been gone. And I know Titus loves his baby brother too, even if he shows it by pinching or rocking him too much=)

He has got into a pretty good sleeping habit too. He goes to bed around 9:30 and sleeps anywhere from about 5:00-6:00 and wakes up to eat then goes back to sleep for a couple more hours. Can't really complain about that!

I know that God has blessed us so much to have a healthy baby boy and I thank Him everyday for our kids. I pray that Matt and I will raise our children to love the Lord and to serve Him in all they do and that they will continually notice all the fingerprints of God.

Applesauce

My sister Krista and I made LOTS of applesauce the other day. She was kind of tired of freezing/canning things because she has been doing a lot of that lately. But it was fun for me. I have never made applesauce before!
Here she is stirring the apples up that are cooking.

After they are cooked you put them through this nifty little gadget she has for her kitchen aid. It pushes all the 'good stuff' out through the hole in the cylinder and out the bottom into a bowl. Then it pushes all the 'waste' (and let me tell ya, it really looks like waste, haha, pretty funny) out that hole on the end and into another bowl. Kinda snazzy.

Here's the cooked apples. With her handy gadget we only had to quarter the apples and take the stem off and then put them into a couple inches of water and bowl for awhile. Then we just scooped it all into the applesauce maker attachment. Krista uses it for all sorts of different fruits and vegetables too. She made her own pumpkin and made fresh pumpkin pie and froze a lot of it too. This attachment got all the stringy-ness out of the fresh pumpkin! Awesome!

Here is the counter where she was washing and I was cutting the apples. She also got the idea of using these tubs from her friend Ruth. They were really handy and just the right size. She used them when she picked the apples and then she emptied them into the sink to wash them, then put clean water in them and we put the cut apples into the water until we were ready for them to cook. We only had 2 pots so we couldn't cook all that many at a time. Krista had started washing the apples before I got there but I was there for probably 4 hours or so and we got, I think, 56 pints frozen. I should have taken a picture of all the applesauce on the table when we were done.

It was a lot of fun though! The kids just kind of played while we worked and were perfect little angels, didn't make any messes, no fussing or anything. HA! Just kidding. Actually Krista came back upstairs, after going down to tell them it was time for lunch, and said she was pretty sure the basement had never ever been that messy before. And Titus even pushed his little cousin Caden over onto the floor. And while Zethan was laying on his blanket in the kitchen, Titus decided to pull him around on it... But they keep our lives interesting=) We wouldn't trade them for anything in the world=)

Happy Applesauce eating!

Pronto Pups and Giant Slides

We went to the State Fair again this year and had lots of fun! Lillie has seen Strawberry Shortcake or something that had a county fair on it so she was only talking about the ferris wheel the whole way there. And of course that is one of the biggest things you can see from the parking lot when you get there so she thought she was going to get to ride it. We thought maybe in a couple years she would like it better so we didn't do that this year. But we still had lots of fun!
They liked sitting on all the John Deere tractors and mowers and things.

And of course they wanted to ride the little train but they had to settle for just watching=) That was still fun for them though. They ate their 'banquet on a stick' and waved at the people as they rode by.

Whenever we went to fair growing up, they only 'ride' we were ever allowed to ride was the giant slide. Lillie saw it and thought it looked fun so we rode that. Lillie and I rode first, then Matt and Titus rode. Lillie kind of had a scared little quiet scream as we would go over eat bump in the slide but when we got to the end she was like 'Oh, that WAS fun'! Then after Titus saw Lillie do it he wanted to too. So Matt went with him. It was pretty cute!

And of course they both got a little cranky by the time we were done. Lillie mostly because she was mad we wouldn't let her ride the rides. We made the mistake of taking her by the ferris wheel to look at it and she saw all the other rides. She said "Oh! I want to ride the tea cups and the horses, and I want to ride EVERYTHING!" As she is looking at everything and waving her hands around in excitement. Poor girl was so sad she didn't get to. At one point she came over to me and as she counted off with her fingers she said "I'm too tired, I'm too hungry, I'm too thirsty" What a silly girl.

And here is how Zethan hung out most of the time. He sat in the stroller a little bit but he really preferred to be held so he sat in his little pouch and held onto my arm. It felt to him like I was carrying him but the sling saved my arms from getting tired. I couldn't even count how many people saw him sitting in this and said "Oh, look at that cute little baby." I think they just hadn't seen a sling like this too much and he was just so cozy sitting in the little pouch!
When I was taking it off to go on the slide with Lillie, I tried to put it on Matt so he could hold Zethan. Matt was like "Are you kidding me? Do I really have to wear that?" Fortunately for him it was too small anyway so he didn't have to. Some dads wear their babies!? Right?

And of course we looked at the animals and everything too. I didn't get the camera out as much as I wanted but thats okay. My favorite part of the fair is probably the birthing center. I love seeing all the newborn animals and everything! The sweet baby lambs were so cute! And I can never get over how BIG the mama Holsteins are! They are HUGE!

Anyway, we had fun and the kids got worn out. They slept pretty soundly on the way home. I asked if they had fun and Titus answered with a big "YA!" But Lillie said she didn't because she didn't ride any rides. But I think she really did have fun=)

Oh Titus.....

He likes to wear eye makeup. Not sure why. We have to hide it from him. As funny as that is though, that's not what this post is about. I just thought the picture summed up some of how ornery he is.

Most of you probably already knew Titus is ornery. Or probably the correct term should be just plain naughty.
Lillie came downstairs a little bit ago and said,
"Titus is making a big mess in your sewing room!!!"

(Just maybe an hour or two ago I had told them they were NOT to play in any room upstairs except their own. Not my sewing room and not the storage room. Only their room. I even brought out some toys that had been put away for awhile.)

Oh great, I'm thinking to myself. I just hope he didn't ruin anything I was working on. But I was prepared to find the worst.

He must have heard me coming because he wasn't in there when I got up to the room. Thankfully it wasn't too bad, just some thread strewn across the floor, some fabric out, a few things misplaced.

I called him into the room and asked him, "Who made this mess?"

He so sweetly replied, "Nobuddy." (His baby talk accent it pretty cute though)

"Titus, WHO made this mess?"

"Nobuddy"

"Titus, tell me who made this mess"

"Nobuddy"

By this time, his sweet innocent face was making it very hard for me not to laugh. I only cracked a little smile, but he still saw me, so I had to regain my composure quickly and ask him again.

"Titus, somebody made this mess, who was it?"

"Iyie"

"No Titus, it wasn't Lillie. Who was it?"

He'd been cornered, his shoulders slumped a little, he answered "Me" with a sad little face now.

I made him pick everything up and sent him to his bed. It was really his nap time anyway.

Sunflowers and Silly Kids

Just a couple of weeks ago we noticed that out past our back field and over the rail road tracks it looked like the field was completely yellow. A very pretty bright yellow! So we had to drive over there and check it out. It was a sunflower field! As Kobe and Konnor pointed out- "A whole field of them"
One of them said "Dad used to grow sunflowers".
To which the other one replied "Yeah, but not THAT many!"
Kobe and Konnor and Kimalee came over last Friday to help bottle feed the calves and then they ended up spending the night. When I took them home I took them past the sunflower field. They were pretty impressed as you can tell.
And of course it had to be the huge leaves that impressed them the most. They all wanted their picture with their leaf=) This is Kobe.

That is Konnor behind that leaf and Kimalee laughing and Lillie looking mad. She wasn't in a very good mood that morning.

Here is all the kiddos posing by the flowers. Each with a leaf in their hand. I didn't let them pick the flowers much to their chagrin.

I really like this picture with the blue sky and puffy white clouds!


And Kobe wanted to use the camera so I let him take a picture of me=) I included it so you all can make sure and get your daily laugh in=)

It was a lot of fun showing them the field. It is a pretty simple thing yet they thought it was so cool. Well, I thought it was so cool too!

And back to them helping with the calves:
They really liked helping Matt feed the calves while they were over. They got to help in the evening and then again in the morning. We all got some good laughs from watching them. The calves that haven't been fed yet, or are already done and just want more, like to try and suck on whatever they can. They kept trying to suck on the boys' arms or shirts and the boys didn't quite know what to think of that. Kobe thought it pretty funny that the calf thought he was his momma (ya know, since he was the one feeding it milk and all). And they learned by trial and error that boys probably shouldn't hold the bottle a certain way because the calf can buck its head pretty hard while it is eating! Oh man, THAT was funny! Especially since it took them a few times to figure out a better way to hold it. Well, actually, I'm not sure they ever figured it out=) Maybe you had to be there to see the boys' reaction but we were laughing so hard!
They all also liked the kittens we have. Konnor was convinced that one of them wanted to go home with him.
We always have fun and make good memories while they are over! As a saying that I recently found goes:

Home is where the best memories are harvested.