4 months old

Elijah turned 4 months old on the 19th. We finally had his check up yesterday. He is a strong, healthy boy! He weighed 15lb 15oz (60th percentile) and was 26 1/4 inches long (80th percentile). He has rolled over a couple times from tummy to back. His favorite toy right now is the exersaucer. He doesn't nap long (usually 45 min.) and when he wakes up he turns his head and stares at the door. I guess he thinks he's missing out. We tried cereal but he didn't go for it. Maybe in a few weeks we'll try again. Here are a few pictures to update everyone.

Ready to go outside and enjoy the weather!

He didn't like the rice cereal. :(

Playing with the turtle.

Can you guess who gave him his toys? :)

I love my Dad

Mark usually puts Ethan & Amelia to bed if he's home at bedtime. They love it! They always want him to ask them questions about Catechism or Bible stories. I'm sure they only do this to stay up later, but at least they're learning valuable information.

Mark reading the kids a farming book before bed.

Playing a little before bed.

Harvest

It's almost November and I haven't posted anything about harvest! A major part of our lives! Fall has gone well for our family so far. No major breakdowns that I know of. We've seen Mark quite a bit with almost weekly rain showers! Monday I spent a few hours driving grain cart. Here are a few pictures.

I helped until the auger almost fell off and had to be welded back together. I didn't hit the auger, I not sure what the problem was. :)

B.J. combining with Mark.

Unloading on the go.

This picture was taken about a month ago. It was Elijah's first combine ride.

Autumn Acres

Last week the Mrs. DeBruin's kindergarten class went to Autumn Acres for the morning. I went along to help with the kids. We had a great time and the rain held off for us thankfully!

Ethan with his friends, Jaren, (Ethan is a sheep), Cody peeking over the top and Blake is the pig.

Ethan and Cody walking into the play area. They'll love this picture when they're seniors!

Ethan actually did better than I did on apple sling shot!

(I dropped my apple the first time) I beat him the second time. :)

A picture of me going down the slide! What fun! I've already asked Mark to build me one in the coal mine!

Ethan and his cousin Cody playing in the inner tubes. What they did was pile them over their heads and then push each other over. I didn't try this activity. :)

Kids playing in a box of corn.

Big Ol' Fish

The kids spent some time fishing at Grandma and Grandpa's pond. Here are a few pictures that Grandma VDB e-mailed.

One of the big catfish in grandma & grandpa's pond.

Ethan was so proud of his fish!

Grandpa helping Amelia with her bass.

I love the facial expressions on the kids' faces as they watch the hook getting taken out.

The Big 3-0!

Mark turns 30 on October 18! I found a few pictures of childhood birthdays to share with you all. Happy birthday Mark! We love you!

Mark' 1st birthday, his brother Mike posing with him.

Looks like 3 candles on this one. Nice boots!

What a cute boy!

A blue cake with blue tractors, this is diffently a Mark cake!

Fall Fun

Every fall our kids love to paint and cut up pumpkins. This week we spent a little time being creative. Ethan has really come a long way in his painting skills this year.

Cutie Pie

Elijah continues to grow and grow! He is such a happy guy and is getting more and more interested in toys and stuff. Right now his favorite toys are the exersaucer and his little piano thing that he lays under.

Elijah does very well in the Bumbo, but I don't think his legs will fit much longer!

He loves to suck his thumbs at the same time :)

Sitting under the piano thing kicking for all he's worth is always great fun.

Sucking on toys is a nice change from the thumb.

Slithering Salamander

On my way bringing the kids to Grandma B.'s house on Monday I saw something crawling across the road. I decided to stop, turn around and check it out. It was a spotted salamander! I didn't have anything to put him in and I knew the kids would like to look at him so I a put him on the floor on the passenger side. I know this sounds so stupid! Well my plan of him staying nicely in one spot was going great for about 75% of the trip. Then he crawled under the seat to the back. I stopped at a stop sign to relocate him and couldn't find him, of course. So we went the rest of the way to Grandma's and Mark, Cassia, Rachel, John & Amelia all helped me try to find him. But we couldn't find him. I assumed he crawled in this little vent under my seat to die and eventually stink, a lot! I decided that my stupidity served me right, and envisioned him crawling on me unexpectedly while driving down the road. I had to look one more time before leaving. Sure enough I saw him crawl under the seat! I quickly grabbed him and put him in a Rubbermaid for the kids to watch. I was so happy! The kids thought he was cool and enjoyed giving him water and a piece of wood. At the end of the day we took him back to the edge of the road so he could go find his mommy and daddy, according to Amelia. The moral of the story, don't let salamander's run free in your car, they may not be as slow as you think! :)

The spotted salamander I found.

John, Rachel and Amelia checking out the salamander.

A Sunday Ride

Mark loves to ride, but this time of year he only gets a chance on Sunday afternoon. Here are a couple pictures taken on Sunday on one of the jumps he made in our coal mine.

A Busy Weekend!

We had a busy weekend with the Pumpkin Farm, two birthday party's, a baby shower and a trip to Grandma & Grandpa VDB's!

The Boender Girls at Hannah's 18th birthday party.

Mark's Aunt Julie does such a great job teaching and coming up with creative activities for children. Julie wanted to celebrate Hannah's birthday with some of the women that have been a positive christian influence in her life. As part of the party she gave the small girls a little talk about being servants and how we serve & love each other. With that she had each little girl wash the feet of a mom. Here is a picture of me and Amelia.

Amelia was a little shy washing my feet at first. But she soon thought it was fun and moved on to wash Grandma B.'s and Aunt Cassia's feet.

We took a ride on the Gator at my parents house. My uncle Gary made a really nice trail through the timber with some kind of machine that basically grinds everything in it's path. We had fun going down the trail, until we came to a fallen tree. Ethan to Aunt Ang to just drive over it because Grandpa does. We decided that it wouldn't be nice to wreck their new gator so Ang and I got off and shoved the tree down the hill. We then came to a very steep part in the path so Ang turned driving over to me. We made it through after putting it in four wheel drive!

The Pumpkin Farm

On Friday we visitied Carroll's Pumpkin Farm in Grinnell. The kids had a great time playing with their cousins and friends from church. Amelia posing by a cheesy sign.

They had a little barn with a bunch of corn for the kids to play in. They played and played until I made them move on to another activity.

Ethan and Gideon loved the teeter-totters.

Ethan milking Daisy the cow.

Foreign Exchange Students

Last weekend Mark and I hosted two foreign exchange students as part of the Farm Tour Weekend. Min (in the yellow) was from China and Ai (in the white) was from Japan. Both are studying at the University of Iowa this year. The tour was part of a Christian outreach program where exchange students come to the Pella area and tour a dairy, a hog farm, and corn/bean harvesting. Then they stay overnight with a host family, go to church and have Sunday dinner with them. We had a great time with these two! They loved the kids and played with them so well!

A group shot before bringing them back to school.

Mark taught them how to drive the 4-wheeler.

Mark also taught them how to drive the excavator. They really got a kick out of this! :)

Ethan showing them his new tool box. Warning to all visistors: If you come to our house and he hasn't shown you his tool box, he will, and he will tell you all about it! He is very proud of the garage sale find!