The Many Faces of Micah (i.e. It's hard to choose what photos to post when one takes a gazillion per week!

Chubby Micah

"Elvis" Micah

Just-want-to-SQUISH-him Micah

Curious Micah

Loving Daddy Micah

AMAZING Micah!

Tiny Micah

Much-loved Micah.

Surprised Micah!

Sleepy Micah 

Muscle man Micah.

Naked victorious Micah.

Melt-mommy's-heart Micah.

Content Micah

What's-that-thing-you-keep-pointing-at-me Micah.

Sweet Micah!

So HAPPY Micah!

Summer Lovin'

This summer we've been blessed with a kids picnic table from Rob's parents, a sandbox from a friend, and now a pool from my aunt an uncle! Yesterday was our first time trying out the pool, and it was a hit...for Ellie at least!

Josh "helping" me fill it up.

Some of the water actually went into the pool!...

...A lot of it hit Ellie.

Photographic proof that our son is NOT always smiling (some folks have trouble believing this but it's most definitely true!)

Watching the girls have fun in the pool and wanting nothing to do with it.

Ellie + water = Good times!

Our 6-year-old neighbour Sara came to play.

Josh is most definitely NOT a fish! (I even had trouble convincing him to put his swim trunks on.)

But, I taught him how to make roads with tractors and he was busy for an hour!

Micah 3.5 weeks...relaxing on his pooping pillow.

(Yeah, he poops pretty much every time we lay him here.)

(Usually 2 or 3 times)

(Most often right when I've got his old diaper off. Why do babies do that? It's as though he's trying to break a record for going through a bag of diapers the fastest. I think he'd win, too. The most I've gone through in one diaper change is four diapers. Can anyone top that?)

(He was probably pooping as I took this photo.)

Oh - then Ellie swoops in for a snuggle.

And Joshy can't resist a photo opportunity! My three muskateers!

Brothers

 Here's Micah (above) and Joshua (below) at three weeks old.

They don't look alike to me...how about you?

Summer in the City!

Last Saturday we managed to leave Micah with my mom and dad for a few hours and brave the crowds for our city's annual 'Summer in the City' festival. Crowds aside, we had a blast! Ellie was more than pumped to be transformed into a butterfly.

The kids and I boarding the ferris wheel. We got a BLUE car, which made Josh's day!

Ellie feeling quite like Cinderella!

We're Back!

Well, after quite some time of having no internet, we're back. With the addition of Micah to our family, we felt it was important to be able to communicate via blog/email with Rob's family again (as well as there being at least 3 or 4 more selfish reasons...but I digress...)

Micah at birth

For those who might be wondering, everything has gone way smoother than expected so far...and in some ways, it hardly feels like life has changed at all! That being said, Micah has 'woken up' recently and Rob and I spend many evenings taking turns walking the floor with him. Micah makes up for his fussy evenings with wonderfully consistent nights, so I am NOT complaining! (Secretly Rob and I are having a lot of fun having so many evenings at home together.) Micah is a JOY to all of us! I am so thankful.

Anyways, my hope is to blog about once a week, though perhaps more initially because I'm kinda behind on the picture scene. So here's a few to get us started - enjoy!

1.5 weeks

2.5 weeks

BIG smiles!

The daily snuggle.

3 weeks

Our first baby that doesn't violently protest tummy time!

Just in case you're still checking...

Just in case you're still checking up on our blog, I'm sad (and kinda happy) to say that I won't be posting any more...for a while, at least. Our computer refuses to connect to the internet and we've decided we like it that way! Every month the amount of spare time we have becomes more and more limited, and quite frankly, I can't afford to spend that time on the internet anymore! So instead of the blog, I'll be sending a monthly update letter by snail mail to Rob's family so they can keep up to date with their only grandchildren. If there are any of you out there who are overwhelmed with grief by the prospect of not keeping up to date with the growth of our family and children, leave a comment....perhaps I can send you a letter, too. :) But you must be overwhelmed with grief or else I can't justify the postage.
Who knows, mybe I'll be back sooner than expected. I'll keep ya posted! Bye for now, friends!

A HOUSE FOR THE BALFOURS!!

Well I stole away to my parents' computer room so I could share our wonderful news with all our friends (our internet's still down):

As of last wednesday, we are finally home-owners!

In February of this year we began to pray for a house. And then we waited. And prayed. And waited. And then about two weeks ago we officially started looking...quite certain that God already had a house picked out for us - we just needed to find it.

On Saturday of last week we went to look at two houses. Both of them were alright, but they were over our budget, and they both needed a lot of work - two ingredients for disaster. After looking at the second house we felt a bit discouraged, wondering just how long this journey was going to take, and if there was actually anything out there in our price range.

So we went onto the yard of this house and were chatting with our real estate agent and my parents when my Uncle Ron and Aunt Jo drove past. They happen to live two doors down the street, so they waved us over to chat.

Very shortly into our conversation they shared that they had just put in an offer on a house that they loved. I eyed their house and with a hesitant hope in my heart asked, "How much are you thinking of selling your house for?" (and I was thinking much, much more than our budget.)

When they shared with us their asking price our jaws dropped - because it was EXACTLY our budget...only their house is bigger and better than anything we had imagined we could afford!

In fact, it's a 5 bedroom split level home!!

Within a few days, everything was settled...and we are the happy new owners of a home that goes above and beyond what we ever imagined. God is so faithful. Can hardly wait to have y'all over!!
p.s. We needed a washer and dryer for this house and recently began to pray about that. Today we moved our new washer and dryer - in great condition - which we paid FIFTY dollars for - to our future garage. FIFTY DOLLARS! We do serve an awesome God!

BC Trip

Wow, I must be in summer holiday mode.

It’s very rare that I have to report news from two weeks ago, but sadly, that’s the case today! It’s been two weeks now since we got back from our extremely WONDERFUL trip to Vernon, B.C. It was refreshing (as refreshing as a trip with two small kids can be), and full of family, friends and of course, fun!
The kids are blessed with two sets of wonderful grandparents. I am always amazed to watch them reconnect with their BC grandparents as though no time has passed at all. In this case, we hadn’t seen Rob’s folks for almost a year. Yet before we even left the airport on arrival, Ellie and Grandma were stuck like glue, and before bedtime that first night Joshua was asking to be held by Grandpa.
That being said, when I was sorting through the photos of our trip, I could NOT figure out how to minimize them to a number small enough to make a reasonably sized blog post. So I decided to simply post my favourite photos of the kids with their treasured BC Grandparents…two of God’s best gifts in our lives!

Thanks, Mom and Dad for a wonderful, unforgettable time.

(p.s. for those of you with Facebook accounts, I posted the rest of our holiday photos there)