Let me start by prefacing the following backdated blog posts with the fact that we were surprised by Meghan’s somewhat early arrival, and we didn’t have a full day to casually upload pictures and blog. I understand that traditionally the more children you have, people will joke that the less attention they will get. This is why I am going back and backdating blog posts to corresponding dates and times so that our little girl Meghan has the same story and publicity as her sisters.

The birth notification process started for me when I received a text message at 12:01PM at work from Sarabeth which informed me that she was 4cm, because she had just finished going to her doctor appointment. No contractions, so no big deal, I finished lunch and continued working on USMT task sequence migration packages with my co-workers.

At 2PM I received a text with a slightly different tone which requested that I work the rest of the day from home because Sarabeth’s contractions were 8 minutes apart. My response in the text was….OK. At which point I closed my laptop in the meeting I was in and said, “Yeah, I gotta go.” My original intent was to finish out the day remotely and perhaps we would come to the hospital the following day. However, it appeared that things were moving a lot quicker than anyone had anticipated. Please keep in mind that I work out of Canton Ohio, and live in Medina which puts me at about an hour commute. When I was about halfway home I got yet another differently toned text message. The text was “Now closer to 6-7 minutes apart. Don’t drive crazy though!!! We have time.” My dearest Sarabeth, to my credit, I did not drive like a crazy man. I don’t consider Jeff Gordon to be a crazy man, and yet he does about 220mph in straightaways. For the purposes of legality I will not disclose the rate of speed at which I was traveling, but let’s just say that the 2008 civics are capable of much more speed than I thought was possible.

I then received a third text when approaching Medina which stated “I think we may need to go to the hospital once you get home. They are getting closer and stronger. I will call the doctor’s office in a few minutes here.” At this point I was feeling a little better because I was almost back home, but in a 3 short hours, my day had gone from work as usual, to “today we deliver”. Mad props to Apple computer for including free text messaging via iMessage with iOS 5, because I’m pretty sure the 2000 text count might have been reached. Also on an unrelated side note, I am now a huge fan of Siri’s voice recognition to text message service. I spoke my text messages into my earpiece while driving and didn’t have to correct even one of them. Now that impressed me.

It is already part way through November! Thanksgiving will be here before we know it, then baby three, then Christmas (hopefully in that order). I keep meaning to post more, but it just isn’t happening. I don’t like spending time in front of the computer these days. There is too much to do, more important stuff. I want to edit pictures, post our activities, keep things updated, but I realize that it is simply important that my family has those memories to look back on, and if I don’t get things posted, oh well. With that said, we’ll see when the next post happens, I am not putting pressure on myself.

Until next time, enjoy this nice fall scape taken while my friends Melissa, Trish and I ventured around on a surrey in Indianapolis around the canal (a story for another post).

                                                                      …God is really cool. His creation is beautiful…

A few weekends ago, Clarkes and Vollers went to Bauman Orchard for their Fall Festival. It was GREAT! We went on a hayride-twice!, saw some animals and briefly explored the hay maze, got a tour of the apple sorting/packing and where they make cider, had some lunch, bought some cider, and just enjoyed hanging out together.

We have been having lots of fun around here! The girls and I have been enjoying a couple mornings a week with Ally and Aiden doing homeschool. We are focused on playing and learning together. Ally has many fun things all planned out, she’s great! The kids don’t always want to do what is planned, but we try to get in an activity or two and just let them play. Just playing is so important. The kids get along well and are exploring, creating, and being imaginative.

We have done many apple things-going apple picking, painting with apples, making apple bread, apple tree crafts, making apple cinnamon play dough. We have done also just fun Fall stuff-taking walks at the park and around the block (Finally, after all the rain we had!), talking about leaves, exploring in the creek, jumping in the leaves (the kids weren’t big fans-surprising, I know!), making salt dough pumpkins, going to the pumpkin patch. I really should be writing down more of what we have been doing, Jillian and Lynnsey have been having so much fun! Fortunately, I have lots of pictures to remind us of our fun!

                                                                                                                    …more posts to come…

We had a lovely time picking apples with Ally and Aiden this week. I had never picked apples before, or at least I don’t recall ever doing so. I have certainly been to apple orchards for fall festivals and such, but have not actually picked apples while there.  So, this was a first for me and the girlies. It was a cloudy day to start, but the sun peaked through just as we finished picking. I must say, the apples are DELICIOUS! I am totally all about picking apples now, so much for buying them at the store, it is definitely worth the little drive to Bauman Orchard. Though, I did find out that Buehlars gets their apples from them, which is cool, but picking them yourself is fun and costs less.

The girls had a good time. Both ate an apple while we ventured along picking. It was quite amusing watching Lynnsey eat an apple. It was such a tiny one, not much bigger than her palm and she sure did gnaw on it for quite awhile.  Jillian also ate her first whole apple,  pervious to this day they have always been cut up with no skin on them. Go, little girlies! Aiden showed his strength pulling Jillian along in the wagon, it was cute and I am glad Ally got a video of  it. 

Apple picking with friends = a good time for all- and lots of pictures

It has been over a month since our last post. We have been busy living life. One day soon I hope to post a better update, but for now, know that we are well and loving experiencing life together as a growing family. July and August have been busy, challenging and growing. As we approach September, we are continuing to grow in our relationship with God, grow together as a family seeking the Lord and simply trying to enjoy all the moments-small and big, fun and challenging, each moment we have is one to be grateful for and one in which we can glorify God.

Last weekend we had the pleasure to spend some time with a good friend, Melissa. We ventured to the zoo, met friends at a park and went to dinner, splashed at the Splash Pad, and went to Blossom. We kept busy and had lots of fun. It is always nice to catch up with good friends and have a good visit! It is shame it cannot happen more often, but that just makes the time we do get to spend together more special. Thanks for a fun visit, Melissa!

June has equaled: work, end of school-which means new schedule for me, birthdays, graduation parties, zoo, friends, meetings, Father’s Day, autism conference, Joe being on call (glad that is over for now), more meetings, church, sun, rain, studying God’s word, going on walks, cleaning, garage sales, the usual day to day busyness, oh, and my new favorite thing-digital scrapbooking!

…and May got away from us too! My, oh, my! I seriously meant to blog more often and all of a sudden it is June!

Anyway, one recent event that is definitely blog worthy was our “Day Out With Thomas.” Jillian has been enjoying watching Thomas the Train and playing with her train track and Joe’s wooden track from when he was growing up. Uncle Paul arranged for us to go to see Thomas at the Cuyahoga Scenic Railroad and Uncle Mike and Aunt Anita were able to join us.

The weather was just about perfect and we went late morning, which seemed to be great timing for everyone in our group. We were able to enjoy some time with Uncle Mike and Aunt Anita in the morning and then meet up with Paul at the railroad. By the time we had ventured through the festivities and enjoyed our train ride the girls were ready to crash. It was a good day!

* Disclaimer: If you’re not a parent stop reading, because you won’t get it. I totally lost it today when Jillian started bawling uncontrollably because in the Curious George 2 movie George got separated from the Man in the Yellow Hat. She was so unbelievably sad. There we sat, crying about a dumb second-rate sequel animated film. Her because of the movie, me because of her. Parenting and such. Who knew. Sheesh.