JOSHUA STEDMAN

This lovely couple recently moved to our area and have joined our small church congregation. They were just married in May and are expecting their first child in February. They moved here for Josh to pursue his doctorate at the West Virginia University, which he began a few weeks ago. On Saturday, Josh was found unconscious on the side of the road, apparently thrown from his bicycle and is, as of today, Tuesday, still in the ICU with head trauma injuries and several broken bones. I was at the hospital tonight to visit them and Josh is finally showing some signs of improvement. He has been almost continually asleep and showing very little comprehension of things. He is, thankfully, showing a little more wakefulness and some indication of increased understanding and recognition. Peter and the elders prayed over him and anointed him as is talked about in James 5, this morning. If you think to pray for his recovery, James also says the prayer of faith is not unheard. His wife is Kristin and she is managing very well. Thank you for praying.

BABY NEWS

I went to the midwife today, this is my 38 week check-up. The baby has not been measuring any larger for 3 weeks now. She seems to have stopped growing. I had an ultrasound done last week to check on the baby's progress, but I didn't find out very much. I am going back in tomorrow for a non-stress test to monitor the baby's heartbeat and then a more extensive ultrasound. She has been moving well and I know her heartbeat has been very good up until this point, so we have no reason to believe that she's under serious duress right now. Depending on what we find out from the tests tomorrow, it's possible that labor will be induced. I will try to keep the progress posted as I know. Thank you for praying.

MILLIE'S NEW BED

I found a little bed at the kid's clothing sale for Amelia. I wanted this toddler size so that it would free up some space in this little room she's going to share with her sister soon. She's not sleeping in it yet, but she loves to climb on it and try it out. She's getting so big!

THE STRAY KITTY

While I was at the kids sale, a stray kitty wandered into our yard and Peter gave it a place to sleep until we could find the owner. I took a couple of pictures of Amelia discovering the kitty the next morning.

KRISPY KREME

Last week I went north towards Pittsburgh, where we used to live, for a bi-annual kids clothing sale. Since I was in the area, I stopped at one of our old favorite places, Krispy Kreme donuts. They had a few specialty donuts that were so fun I decided to bring some home for the rest of the family to enjoy.

The Jack O' Lanterns were very cute.The footballs for football season were even better!

The real football fan around here was grateful.

AMELIA SUE

While the boys were enjoying their buckskins, the little sister was running around in her favorite boots, toting her favorite thing, an apple.

Time for a bite...

BUCKSKINS

We pulled the buckskins out of the closet to see if they still fit. Fall seems to be the perfect time to use them. Sam and Will ended up having a very fun afternoon being frontiersmen again, "hunting" and playing in the woods around our property. (They still fit). Aiming and firing

Reloading

Daniel Boone and Davy Crocket

Trying to shake down apples...

Those costumes have been hours of fun!

36 WEEKS

There's actually very little to report at this point. I know this next month will go quickly and our new family member will join us before we know it. I did go to see the midwife today as I will every Tuesday until the baby comes. She and I agree that this will likely not be one of my bigger babies. I am thankful for good health. I have no complications and continue to get good reports at my check-ups. I feel pretty good too. Thank you for praying for me.

PRESCHOOL

When I ordered curriculum for this school year, I made sure to include the three-year-old. There is a Japanese company called Kumon that puts out some very colorful and creative preschool books. You can see how pleased he is to do his "school" too. He has 4 books,

1 book for cutting....
1 book for folding....

1 book for coloring....

and 1 book for pasting....

I never get tired of seeing them learn new things. They are so enthusiastic and thrilled with their accomplishments and new skills.

Hurray for Calvin!

BIKE RAMP

Peter set up a quick bike ramp for the boys to try. After Benny started riding his bike on his own, everyone got into a bit of a bike frenzy. Here is William giving it a go.

Sam's turn. He got his front tire off the end of the ramp before he was off of it. Good job, Sam.

Calvin just wanted to jump.

Peter couldn't stand it. He didn't have a bike of his own, but he just had to jump the ramp too. So here he is, holding onto imaginary handle bars and jumping his "bike."

NO TRAINING WHEELS

I have delayed teaching Ben to ride his bike without the training wheels. It's not that he isn't big enough. I was pretty sure he could do it, but I wasn't sure I was ready for him to be peddaling around our shared parking area where the neighbor's cars are. The older boys are good about staying away from the neighbor's cars and avoiding any collisions, but as a beginner, Benny would be unpredictable, I'm sure. Well, he decided on his own that he was done waiting. He just took off last Saturday. He basically taught himself and was riding solo within a few minutes.

Way to go, Benny!

HELPING OUT

Sam was asked to help out by washing Calvin's hair the other day and he thought this "horn" he created was pretty funny. We thought Cal was cute enough to take a picture, too.

LABOR DAY WEEKEND

I thought I would sum up our Labor Day Weekend because it turned out to be so fun. I didn't get pictures of most of it, but the following post includes the pictures from the first part. First, on Saturday, we spent a good part of the day at the home of another homeschooling family who invited us over for a project on their property and a barbeque. They have a lovely 10 acres and another friend of theirs had offered to bring over his tractor and dig out a pond for them. They invited our family as well as another young couple from our church over for the day, though we didn't help much with the pond project. You can see the pictures below for more about our fun day there.

On Sunday, we spontaneously had a family over for dinner after church who are visiting the area from Arizona. They are such a delight to be around and we enjoyed the fellowship with them so much. They are the Simms family from Phoenix and they had 3 of their children with them, 2 girls and a baby boy. They were so easy to have as guests and flexible with the thrown-together meal. Very fun.

Lastly, a family from our church in the Pittsburgh area invited us over for dinner on Sunday night. We hadn't seen them in a long time and it was so refreshing to catch up and be with their family for the evening. We enjoyed being in their yard to eat, roast marshmallows, and watch the kids play. The Glenns are always very encouraging friends.

All of this may not seem very significant, but to us, it was a real blessing. We are so blessed and encouraged to be with other families and share fellowship. We were grateful to the Lord that He had planned that kind of a week-end for us and we went into the week feeling very renewed.

SATURDAY AT THE OLDLAND'S HOUSE

The Oldland family have a very nice playset, as you can see.


This is William Oldland, who is 5 like Ben.

Katrina Oldland is about 3 months older than Amelia. They were very cute together.

Putting on boots was necessary with all that mud.

Digging the pond.

The mud that was dug out was put into a pile that the kids enjoyed climbing on.

Ultimately, the kids took the mud and worked very hard to create this wall. Isn't this cute? They really worked hard on that wall. From the left is William and Samuel Jones, Samuel and William Oldland, Megan Oldland, Ben Jones and at the back is Sarah Grace Oldland.

Sarah Grace

PAINTING THE BIKE

These pictures aren't too exciting, but you can see that the boys did paint and reassemble the bike this week.

VOCATIONAL SCHOOL

This is a post that I made a while back and it somehow never published. Take two.

Peter has been trying to spend some time after work once a week (Thursday) teaching the boys about tools and fixing things. In these pictures they are working on taking apart a bike, discussing the different parts and how they work. They plan to spray paint it and put it back together in the coming week.

At least the three year old must be learning something. Sam recently asked Peter at dinner if he knew the two tools that were on the flag for the Soviet Union. Peter replied that they were the hammer and sickle and Calvin added, "...and a flat-head screwdriver!" :-)