don't blink

this post is two-fold, you are going to get a very brief look at thanksgiving and christmas for our eargle family, since the blog was neglected during that time, and secondly, on the eve of my eldest child's birthday i'm still amazed at how children grow up right before your eyes.

thanksgiving 2010 was a whirlwind adventure through annapolis, DC, baltimore, and pittsburgh (i know the last stop is random, but we always stop on our annual tday road trip in pitt to visit friends at the end of our holiday). reflecting on the road trip it went surprisingly well with our backseat duo, wilhelm & elly, if we neglect to recall the ridiculous DC beltway traffic & the fact that our children were in the car on day one for 10+ hours. our visits with friends in annapolis & dc were so enjoyable and along the way we found time to do a bit of sight seeing by the bay and at the national zoo. then it was on to baltimore for crab cakes, turkey & dressing, and lots of gravy, at granpo & gran mo's. we ate more than we needed to, gave lots of hugs, and hated to leave, but were glad to be a part of the annual family holiday celebration.side note: wilhelm clarke and elly violet, are developing such an amazing sibling relationship. now you wouldn't think so by looking at the below, hostage situation photo, but truly he loves his little sister and she thinks he hangs the moon. their giggles at one another make my heart smile. the below is a result of letting your 3 year old have pretend hand-cuffs for his Halloween costume and letting your daughter have an annoying toy that deserves a little time upside down every once in a while. though as i look at this picture i know that in a year or so elly violet my have a stronger reaction to her brother's actions than she did this time. christmas came, i think sooner this year than in years past. we put the tree up and before you knew it we were taking it down. between those two occurrences we played with our Christmas train, wrote letters to Santa, talked about Jesus being born, ate too much food, started a Christmas eve tradition with Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and were blessed with the company & gifts from family & friends. this year wihelm clarke asked santa for a grey & white remote control robot, and some baby shoes for elly. the genuine excitement and joy of the season that wilhelm had this year was contagious, and was so much fun to experience. and if you didn't notice, elly is sitting up in this picture. shortly after thanksgiving she started sitting up on her on. since then she has made MAJOR milestones including (but not necessarily in order) eating real food, getting her first tooth sprout, and saying the start of momma. this exponential change in our seven month old daughter leads me to this evening. as i finish this email i am very tired (so i may or may not have to edit this post tomorrow), for its a birthday week at the eargle homestead. our wihelm clarke will turn 4 tomorrow! i can't even begin to put into words my complete range of emotions this event causes for me.

mainly, it literally makes my head spin to look at our children and see how much they have changed in such a short period of time. it also causes me to analyze if we are taking each moment & living it to the fullest with them, doing our best to be their parents and making sure we are providing them with the guidance that will make them the people we pray they will become. i'll wait to reflect on that which is wilhelm clarke in tomorrow's post, but will leave you with one of his recent pics and a sneak peak into the farm birthday party we are hosting for him this weekend (the invitation).

a blogger returns, and by the way elly violet is here

"we are here, we are here, we are here"

-citizens of Whoville

November is here and the end of May (when you heard from me last) seems only moments ago, minus the intense desire to not feel quite so pregnant. I can't even begin to count the number of times I wrote the word Blog into my agenda in the past five months, and since for me & most it isn't a matter of life and death that this blog has a post it was scratched out and written for the following week's to-dos. It got to a point that I would see the word Blog and cringe because I was simply so behind at catching up our family, friends, and others, who partake in the rambles of our little bit of cyberspace. But alas, here we are! I am back to share pictures of our darling children, stories of our blessed life, and everything in between that I feel like sharing.From the time Elly Violet entered this world on June 1, 2010, we've had LOTS of excitement and enjoyed five months of first and many memories. Obviously my time hasn't been spent blogging but it has included: baseball games, saying goodbye to friends & meeting new ones, backyard t-ball & kickball, parades, nature hikes, hernia surgery, campfires, a family reunion, weekend trips, continued house renovations, the boys going on a great trip to Portland, whooping cough, new preschool, and figuring out the art of managing a household with two children. Now I know that I took the easy road with simply listing some of the major events of our summer and beginning of fall, but there is no way possible that I can genuinely give an accurate account of each of those moments, but here are some pictures of those times. Eargle Family night at the Louisville Bats game yielded a grand evening and
a game ball for Wilhelm Maya & Kiran say goodbye to KY Wilhelm Clarke has hernia surgery Our sweet baby Elly contracted whooping cough & had a hospital stay and
a one month of regaining her health. Dinner with June 1 birthday buddies, Emily & BehrenOh & lastly we did host a pumpkin carving party for our Sunday school class to help us prepare for fall and Halloween. And I've never quite seen a better police officer & doughnut than
the Eargle children on Halloween. So we are back, and I look forward to making the blog, once again, a regular part of my weekly routine, now that i've dug myself out of a hole.

a week to go, and a week behind us

in less than a week we will have a new baby girl in the mix of our eargle family! june 1 is fast approaching and the boys & i are getting super excited (anxious) about our new family member making her big debut. our bags are packed and we'll soon be on our way (hopefully with an agreed on name by daddy & momma too)! this will be a very busy week, if i can get past the horrible stuffy head that has set in and stomach virus that keeps visiting me, and one that will go i'm sure at warp speed. hope to be sharing lots of pictures with you next week and following to introduce you to our new daughter.

our past week had a few highlights of mention too.

• alan headed to alabama for a business trip for three days. he was quite nervous that the baby would get into motion and choose to enter the world while he was away, but thankfully she held off. he had extreme plane delays on friday night due to horrible thunder storms, so wilhelm & i both gave up on waiting up for him even though we gave it our best effort.
  
• when daddy was away wilhelm had his last day of preschool. he and i both will miss his tuesday and thursday mornings at school, but hopefully we'll have lots of playdates with school friends and august will be here before we know it, when he will start a new school for three days each week. here is our pint-size, live-in, clown's picture on his last day of school.
• after helping alan's younger brother move into his new apartment we headed to the movies. taking a trip to the movie theater is a favorite treat of alan & wilhelm's so we headed to matinee showing of Shrek: The Final Chapter. We all found ourselves a bit disappointed. The entire movie was quite dark, a little scary for wilhelm and not filled with many funny moments for alan & i. The main message of the movie was very adult focused rather than kid focused, which might have been the intention. As a fan of the cartoon series we were a little disappointed with the last installment. But the boys did enjoy the popcorn. We'll be looking forward to our local theater's FREE summer children's movie series and Toy Story coming out in June, those will suite wilhelm's fancy.
  

a family fun party on the farm

this past saturday we hosted wilhelm's preschool class at our farm for a family fun outdoor party. thankfully the weather was picture perfect, right up until the last family left and then the flood gates opened for a major downpour.

the purpose was two-fold for us, to celebrate the end of school with our little guy, his friends, and their families, and to have one last BIG "thing" for wilhelm before the BIG arrival of his baby sister (we are now two weeks away, unless she comes before then). of the 12 classmates, eight were able to make it the party with their families, along with one of wilhelm's lexington friends (maya, who has made blog appearances before) and her family, one of the teachers from wilhelm's class, and alan's dad, pappy. the day included fishing, bubbles, hiking, eating, a hot dog bar, other good food, and just enjoying the company of friends. there were nearly 40 people in all and i was just glad that they all were able to navigate their way to the farm without getting to misplaced in the country.

we had such a grand time, but were exhausted at nights end. my only regret of the day, besides not planning all of the fine details until a few days before (i typically have a bit more energy and time to spend on party planning but for some reason most of the details were left until the thursday before this time), was that i didn't take nearly enough pictures. i didn't even get a picture of wilhelm with any of his friends or the desert table where i made alan's favorite kick-back to childhood dessert, worms & dirt cake. this is the only glimpse you get of the day, the rest is a memory for us and those who attended this past saturday.

tuesday tball

since april wilhelm has been involved in his first organized sport, tball, and he LOVES it. yes, we've done swim lessons, gymnastics, and music class, but tball is different. with tball wilhelm is in a league, even though they don't keep score, and it has been an investment of time & money for his daddy and me. its a new experience for us all, but its been a blast so far.

i feel as though our days of sitting on bleachers to watch sporting events in the sun have just begun, and alan & i couldn't be more excited. i can't say that we have the next child baseball prodigy on our hands, but i do know that the most important thing is that he is having SO much fun each week.

it is a true pleasure to watch wilhelm and his teammates each Tuesday night as they dive on each other for the ball, smile from ear to ear while running the bases, and wave at their cheerleaders on the sidelines. they all have improved so much from their first practice, lets just say wilhelm had a Forest Gump running moment in practice #1. our Cardinals are a joy and here is a glimpse at their first game. i hope to take a few more shots before the season is over.

a march update

march 2010 truly is madness for our eargle family! granted i didn't post anything in february, and have started on the same trend in march but for good reason. we are working diligently on getting into our remodeled farm house, BEFORE the baby comes. a bit of panic has set in for me and we are feverishly working every free minute we have to get things together and somewhat settled before we welcome a new little gal to our house. along with that we are wanting to get wilhelm comfortable in his new surroundings asap.

i do hope to get back to a regular blogging schedule and share all the awesome happenings in our lives. in the coming months, aside from the new baby arriving, wilhelm will be starting a tball league and finishing his first year of preschool, two of our nieces will be having birthdays and we'll be in our new house and you will be able to see the amazing work of my handyman husband.

stay tuned and say a prayer that the house comes together soon.

a ski lodge birthday party for the boy

on saturday we hosted wilhelm's 3rd birthday party at my parent's farm. it was a ski lodge theme, unfortunately there was no snow, although there was the weekend prior, but the weather was beautiful so it allowed for playing both inside and out. i didn't have the opportunity to take many pictures so i hope to post more of the detail pics at a later date, but here are a few looks at our fun day. thank you to everyone who came and for your kindness in celebrating wilhelm's birthday with him.

a 3rd birthday celebration

Three-years ago on January 12, Alan & I were heading to the hospital in Geneva, IL, nervously awaiting the birth of our first child. At 9:54 pm (CST) Wilhelm Clarke entered into the world, and changed our lives forever.

Three years have come and gone so fast. We've seen him take his first steps, say his first words, and go to his first day of preschool, amongst other things. He is such an energetic, happy little boy, who brightens each day. I can't even begin to imagine what the future holds for him, but i'm excited to see!

happy birthday wilhelm clarke, we love you so dearly!

**wilhelm wanted to make pizzas for his birthday. as you can see he enjoyed his creation!