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!

a first glimpse at baby girl eargle!

you heard right its a girl for the ky eargles. after our ultrasound on thursday we were surprised to find out that we would be welcoming a baby girl into our family this May. i'm not exactly sure why it was such a shock, since neither alan nor i have had any overwhelming feelings of one or the other, but it was. wilhelm also went to the appointment with us. he enjoyed seeing his little sister on the screen and waving to her. of course wilhelm still is convinced that she will be named Sherman (his chosen name) but has now added Pumpkin to the beginning to make it a bit more feminine. sadly i'm not sure if we'll be able to fulfill his wishes for his sister's name. when she gets a bit older she'll be grateful to her parents for that executive decision. here are a couple of glimpses of our little darling girl.i like to call this her first Charlie's Angels pose. way later in life she will see pictures of her momma at a college Halloween party dressed as one of "the angels," making the same pose. hope this isn't a sign of a wild side for her!

a post before the new year

before 2009 passed us by i wanted to assure all of our blog readers, if there still are any, that we are still around and there is a wonderful explanation for the LONG silence in this online chronicle of our life.

first here are some glimpses into the past month or so...

a field trip to the pumpkin patch with wilhelm's school.

On our way to Baltimore for Thanksgiving we stopped in Pittsburgh, PA, and visited with our friend Shannon, a loyal blog reader, & enjoyed a downtown Spanish eatery.Thanksgiving dressing making in Baltimore with gran po. Wilhelm is getting the hang of it already.Having so much fun on the way there we stopped in Pittsburgh again on the way back and had the famous Primanti Bros. sandwich with Shannon, along with some quality, family pool time at our hotel.

Christmas Eve was incredibly exciting for Mr. Wilhelm Clarke. Since we are still hanging out in my parent's guest room we celebrated Christmas night at there house and instead of cookies left Santa bon bons (my mom was sick prior to Christmas so there was no time to bake fresh cookies, sorry Santa!).
Christmas morning was amazing this year. Santa brought Wilhelm a LARGE cardboard rocket that he can decorate himself and a remote control car. It was so joyful to see his excitement this holiday season. The only downfall, the masses of gifts that i now have to figure out something to do with!Our Christmas morning picture at Daddy Will and Gran's added another face this year, Ava Belle. And as usual this is the best snap shot we could capture with the cousins.

And lastly the explanation for the MAJOR break in blog post. Looking above you can guess, hopefully, what the news is (Alan typically doesn't lay hands on my stomach in pictures), we are expecting eargle #2. as i write today i'm about 4 1/2 months along, expecting an end of May delivery. the first few weeks/months were quite rough this time around with LOTS of sickness and i didn't feel like doing much of anything, except for what i had to do. the blog got a backseat to everything, but now we are in the upswing of the pregnancy and starting a new year so i'm re-energized. in the next few weeks there is a 3rd birthday, a trip to chicago, and of course finding out the gender of baby #2 on 01.07.10. Look forward to sharing with you our happenings. Before I loose the opportunity I had to post this. By far this is one of my favorite pics of 2009. Pictured is Nick the Gnome, the youngest son of our friends Joe & Jen in Chicago, on Halloween (no they don't regularly dress him like a garden decoration). He was woken from a nap to show off his costume and his mom snapped this beauty of a pic for everyones enjoyment. Thanks for the laugh Jen!

Here's wishing you and yours a bright 2010!

a look back at four years ago today

today alan and i celebrate our four year wedding anniversary. i truly knew from the first time i met him that he would have to put up with me for the rest of our lives. i'm so blessed to have such a loving husband who is not only the perfect partner in life, but a terrific father, person, and friend.

a day at the museum

If you live in Louisville, near Louisville, or ever visit Louisville, one attraction you have to take in is the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory. Well I qualify for all of the above, and this past Saturday was my first visit to see the world's largest bat (please see picture above) and where the official bat of Major League Baseball is made.

For the past few months when I ask Wilhelm where he is going (if he is just aimlessly walking around or we're playing pretend) he'll respond by saying, "i'm going to work."

So I follow up with the questions, "What do you do?"

And he says, "Uh, I'm a baseball player. I hit the balls."

Therefore, Alan & I are convinced, or maybe praying, that he is the next child prodigy and will someday be in the major leagues himself. We thought since the Smithsonian was offering FREE admission to the museum Saturday it would be the ideal time to go, and continue to nurture the seed (dream) that has been planted in our offspring.
After picking Alan up from the airport, returning from The Great American Beer Festival, we headed downtown and hung out outside by the world's largest bat & took some pics. Alan's first father's day we gave him a book with bizarre national landmarks to take road trips to, this book included the Slugger bat. We've done a pitiful job taking pictures next to any of the featured landmarks during our travels, but i vowed (as i always do!) this is the start of something that we will do from this point forward!

The day included a short movie, factory tour and time in the museum.
This is Alan's amazing hand pointing to his childhood idol, Cal Ripken Jr., name on the museum's hall of fame wall of signatures. An absolutely legal thing to do.

Below is a picture i snapped in the factory, a slightly frowned upon thing to do, but i couldn't pass up the opportunity to capture something from the most interesting part of the day. This is where they store the pieces of wood & bats for major league players. From my hip i inconspicuously took this shot (which includes a Cubbie for all my Chicago friends). I tried to break the rules a few more times, at stations throughout the factory (it truly was neat.) but Alan informed me that he didn't want to get kicked off the tour. I'm still not convinced that they would have kicked me out, especially if i had summoned Wilhelm to cry, but i decided to keep the peace and put my camera away.*
*To clarify the tour guide stated that they didn't want pictures taken because they may distract the workers. At this location there were no workers, and that day there was just a skeleton crew working anyway.

After our tour this was Wilhelm's opportunity to show his stuff. He LOVED the batting cage. We are currently in planning for how to construct one of these in our house or at least somewhere on the property.By day's end he was exhausted and so were we. It was a terrific time had by all. Per Wilhelm, I think we are going to have to work on a baseball player costume for Halloween 2009. I'm just a mom trying to keep her little boy's dream alive!

a post of gianormous proportion

do bloggers get a summer break? whether they do or not, this one took quite a summer vacation from typing the happenings of life and instead stored up some photos to share of the last four months since i last posted.

one would think that after taking a blog vacation for the summer that i would take those energies and put them into finishing the renovations on our house, so we would finally be able to move out of my parent's guest room. that is a very nice thought, but the renovations continue! the reality is there is SOOOOOOO much to do and we have such little time to do the improvements ourselves, but we continue to chug ahead and hopefully by mid-October we'll be in part of the house (at least that is what i'm lead to believe today).

the end of last school year brought two graduations: Uncle Ben (alan's brother) from high school and Lily Grace from preschool.

when daddy's went out of town we had sleepovers.

and played LOTS of dress-up. i learned that my son needs a more versatile dress-up closet or more male cousins or sibilings.

the KY eargles joined LOTS of eargle's in knoxville, tn, for a family reunion on the lake. a fabulous time was had by all, late nights & lots of laughs. it was basically a big bunch of eargle awesomeness!

our niece ava belle is continuing to grow into a delightful little gal.

lily grace began kindergarten, along with her new glasses.

i took my first dip into baking for a LARGE event. a wedding at a horse farm in shelbyville, ky.

a beautiful day, that was amazingly exhausting with 10 dozen cupcakes (3 different kinds), 8 dozen bourbon balls, 5 dozen mini-derby pies and 12 dozen cookies (5 different kinds). i have another scheduled for october, and who knows what the future holds. hopefully better pictures of the product.

our wilhelm started a new school. much better than our last attempt. he absolutely enjoys each tuesday and thursday when he gets to go to his school.

recently we went to columbus, oh, to celebrate grandpa mccalla's 80th birthday and cousin carolyn's 60th birthday. it was a lovely weekend, which included the boys and i camping out in the backyard.

this is by far my favorite picture of the summer . it is a pic of us done by using my camera timer (never have done that before. i know not that difficult!) during one of our family movie nights.the eargle family blog is returning this fall with a new look and i can't wait to see what we get into! thanks for visiting and continue checking in on us.

loft moving weekend

starting today we are loading our loft in lexington and moving out! for those of you who know me well this is a blessing (it isn't the best atmosphere for a two year old and a stay at home mom). our tenants will move in next week, which will be our first venture into a life as landlords. more later on our eargle family's plans. until next time...

a tasty derby treat

this saturday marks the running of the 135th kentucky derby. in celebration a couple of my friends, radhika and priya, came over to make derby pies. hopefully it becomes a tradition for them to bake and share with others in years to come when they move away from the bluegrass state (i'm not rushing them away, but the truth is their time in ky is short because their husbands are only here doing cardiology fellowships at UK). since i was a little girl it has been one of my favorite desserts, who i am i joking i just love desserts! it also may be one you would like to add to your recipe box:

derby pie

• 2 eggs
• 1 c. sugar
• 1/2 c. self-rising flour
• 1 stick melted butter
• 1 c. chopped pecans
• 1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

preheat oven for 350 degrees. combine ingredients in order given. mix well. spread in unbaked pie shell and bake for 35-40 minutes. let pie cool. cut and garnish with whipped cream and/or ice cream. enjoy!!!!hope it becomes one of your favorites too:-)

a welcome to our new niece

count it 1-2-3, three girls and counting for my brother and sister-in-law. ava belle palmer was born on wednesday, april 15 (a little earlier than expected), tax day!

we are so blessed to have our third niece here and look forward to when she is healthy enough to come home. congrats to justin and nicole on this new little darling & to lily grace and hannah kate for their new little sister.