SHE is here!!!!!

It's a GIRL!!!!!!  Whitney Emma MacDonald born 10/28 at 1:02pm weighing 8 pounds 12 ounces and 20 inches long.  And....that may be all you get for another month and a half!!  Ha!!!!  She is a JOY. We are all SMITTEN. She is a LAID BACK baby and we are so BLESSED!!!!  The weeks are flying by as are the minutes during the day...I look at the clock and I can't believe it's already time to feed her again.  She keeps me busy, the boys keep me busy, laundry keeps me busy.  Leevi asked me one day "if I did anything today"...before I bit his head off he reworded his question to "did you go anywhere today" Ha!

I am desperately going to try and attack the blog over the next week.  I will also recommend to anyone around to NOT have a baby over the holidays...we are swamped with so much extra FUN and shopping not to mention it's impossible to loose any baby weight jumping from Halloween to Thanksgiving to Christmas! :)  Much to be continued...

 

 

2nd half of October

This will probably be my last post until after the baby comes unless I'm still pregnant on Halloween!!! 

 

Hailey qualified with her mile time of 8m50s to compete in the Stampede at the Park against the other 4th graders around the city.  The two 4th grade girls heats had about 40 racers total and Hailey was pretty nervous once she got there. 

Her cheerleaders!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She finished strong, but not in the top 10 and was pretty disappointed but it was her first race and we were proud of her!!

Loving the sunshine just like Leila!

Leevi got his first deer of the season bow-hunting in the woods behind our house.  It was smaller than he thought once he climbed down from the tree and found it, so instead of paying someone to harvest it, a friend came over to help him (along with you-tube videos!). 

This was as close as I got, but the kids were definitely intrigued!!!!  I love that the girls still love princesses and dolls, but equally love hunting and fishing!  We had some friends over for a bbq and Leevi made venison burgers (half deer/half pork and half deer/half hamburger) and venison tenderloins which were all surprisingly yummy!!!!!

Cody and Luke setting up a frog trap!  There is a tiny frog on the chair above the bucket!

He loves this Richard Scarry cars and truck book!

The girls (including Leila!!) all still sleep together each night!!  So sweet!!!!

Kailee made the PE bulletin board at school with her 43sec flex arm hang.  She's determined to get up to a minute and has been practicing on our monkey bars in the basement!  She was also the fastest girl in the 1st grade on the Pacer test, but I'm not sure of her score.

This sweet man had his fun, busy day ruined by the fact that the Superhero gogurts only came in PINK!!!  It wasn't so much that he didn't want PINK, it was that he wanted BLUE!!!

 A major fort construction with Riley!

Luke making good use of Leevi's cornhole set...it's a perfect monster truck ramp!

Pumpkin Patches

One more thing that I was grateful to be able to check off my list before the baby arrives was a family trip to the pumpkin patch!  We had to work around soccer schedules, but made the trip out to Dixon to Uncle Buck's pumpkin patch.  There are so many to choose from within a 30 minute drive, but this was the one that Kailee went to on her field trip last year and we knew it was a good one!  

These were the only individual pictures I got of Kailee because she was on the hunt for the PERFECT pumpkin!

 Yep, she's special! :)

 

Luke and Leevi took the hayride back to the main area and we waited behind to take the family picture once they walked back.

Leevi dropped Luke's pumpkin off at the car which almost ended up being a fatal mistake, lol!  Luke only wanted HIS pumpkin for the picture and Leevi threatened him with not being able to go back into the fun corn barn if he didn't cooperate! It worked...sort of!! :)

This was a close 2nd to the other one I added in the baby update post!

 Lots of animals...goats, bunnies, chickens

A little wagon ride

The Heberlings and Kozals joined us!

 Putt-putt

 A special 9th hole with a toilet!

 Water balloon sling-shot!

 And the main attraction....the corn barn!!!!!  So fun!!!!!!!!!!!!

 My girls!!!!!  Or is there a boy sneaking in the picture in my belly??!!

 There was also a zip line that I didn't get a picture of!

Killing time before church...they actually wanted their picture taken!

And yay, another check off my list, the boys had a field trip with MOPS to a pumpkin patch a little closer to home.  The layout of this is one is PERFECT for preschoolers...tons of playground type equipment and all open so if the boys took off in different directions, I could still see them!

This is where I got the idea for the rock pit that Leevi built Luke for his birthday.  Even though we have this in our backyard, this is where the boys spent the majority of their time! Ha!

 They loved this pallet maze too!!!!!

He found this PERFECT little pumpkin and when I went to the bathroom I set it beside my backpack and a toddler must have walked off with it.  I grabbed another small one but I should have known better that he'd be sooooo observant and realize that it wasn't HIS pumpkin!  Thankfully, he was ok with saying we'll give it to the new baby and get him a new one. 

 Hayride snuggles!

 Roping the cattle!

 Such a fun morning!

 Mamas and their babies!!