Our Growing Family

After heartache over a miscarriage, we are happy to announce that our family is going to grow again! Yes, our children are growing up, but we are going to add another one to the group. We're so excited about our growing family and to be able to add another little one around October 24th.

We hope everyone is happy and healthy and feeling as blessed as we are right now!

With much love,
The Hunter Family

Spring!

So, I've decided I don't know what spring is normally like in Kentucky because I have heard that we are having the craziest weather this year, but so far, I'm okay with it!

We used some of our tax returns to buy a fence for the dog and a playset for the kids. We're just going to make a dog run instead of fencing in the whole back yard. We had originally planned on fencing the whole back yard, but then there wouldn't have been enough money for a swingset and I really wanted them to have a place to play outside. They do a great job of staying in the yard, so I don't feel that we need a fence right now. Next year if we decide to get a pool, we'll have to put up a fence for sure, but for now, we'll just leave the yard open. It actually works out well. The day after Kyle put the playset up, we had a regular party in our back yard with the kids from the neighborhood. We even had parents come to chat while their kids played, so I think it will be a great way for our family to get to know our neighbors.

These are pictures of the boys watching the guy from Home Depot bringing our fencing material and playset material. They LOVED sitting on the front step watching the tractor! It was too cute, I had to get some pictures!

This is the finished playset. Our last playset, Kyle made from his own design and we thought we got a pretty good deal on the wood and materials. This playset cost A LOT less and is similar enough that the kids aren't missing anything.

Saturday night, after Kyle was done with the swingset and the kids were inside for the night, we had a lightening storm. It was the craziest thing ever. Kyle tried taking pictures of it, but he needs to practice with the cameral more. These are pictures of the house across the street as the lightening was hitting somewhere. He's decided that he wants to build a room on top of the house with glass all the way around so he can see the lightening! Silly guy!!

So the craziest thing as far as weather goes right now in Kentucky is that the temperature for the last few days has been in the 80's! From what was said on the news, this is the type of weather that they normally have in mid June, but we have it on the first day of spring! It's not humid yet, so it's perfect right now. Because it was so warm today, the kids asked to play outside in the sprinkler. I couldn't deny them. They have all been sick at some point over the last week and are now getting better, so I felt that it was only fair after not being able to play for a week, they could finally play outside and enjoy being kids. They had a great time running through the sprinkler and running away from the sprinkler!

I tried to take a picture of Gordon, but he wouldn't stop long enough to look at the camera. I actually said, "Gordon, say cheese" and he would say cheese as he was looking the other way. This is actually a picture of him saying cheese!

This is Eddie the other day. He was finally feeling better and I was taking pictures of the playset, so I thought I would get a picture of my handsome boy. I think next week I'm going to try and take pictures of all of the kids to put on the wall, so I'll be sure to post some pictures when I'm done.

I'm looking forward to a great spring and summer. Next month is the Kentucky Derby here. It's a BIG deal here with a parade, fireworks and activities for the whole family. I'm looking forward to something to replace the Portland Rose Festival and Starlight parade that our family normally enjoyed since we can't be there to enjoy it this year. We also bought our tickets for a NASCAR race this summer in Kentucky! I can't wait. Now we just have to go to Harbor Freight to get ear covers for the all of us, so we don't lose our hearing!

The Beginning of March

So, the beginning of this month has already been quite adventurous for the Hunter Family. The first day of March was beautiful. So much so in fact that a friend invited us to go to the zoo with her and her kids that morning. Celeste had school and I forgot my camera, so the pictures are horrible because they were taken with my phone, but we had a wonderful few hours at the zoo. The weather was a little chilly, but the sun was perfect and there was hardly anyone there to fight with to see exhibits. We bought a yearly pass for the zoo and the science center, so we'll be able to enjoy both all year round and the zoo is only 15 minutes from our house, so we'll be able to go often this summer. I can't wait!

The boys outside the zoo.

All the kids riding the Rhino statue.

All the kids riding the Kimodo Dragon statue.

This is Amber. I only remember her name because the friend we were with is Amber also! We got a good laugh about that!

March 2nd brought some fun in the morning. Celeste didn't have school and it was Dr. Seuss' birthday, so we started our day with green eggs and ham. The kids thought it was so fun to celebrate that way.

Later on that day, we took Kyle to work because the weather was looking a little rough. We hadn't been watching the news that morning and the last we had heard, there was possiblity of thunderstorms, but that was all. Later in the morning, we started getting tornado warnings. For us, they weren't bad and we watched a lot of the weather pass through the front window. I wish I had taken a picture of the 20 minutes of rain and hail that we had, but I didn't. Later in the afternoon is when we heard about all of the damage that the tornadoes had caused. Kyle was sent home early from work after one of his coworkers left because his home was damaged during the tornado that went through the city. His coworker lives about 45 minutes from here and no damage had occured here, but boy was Henryville hit hard.

We had planned on going bowling on Saturday, but Kyle felt like he should go up to Henryville on Saturday to help in anyway he could. Not knowing exactly how bad his friend's house was really made him want to go. His friend also had forgotten his cell phone and some other things at work when he left in a hurry, so Kyle was able to get those things to take up to him on Saturday. Because we couldn't go bowling on Saturday, we decided to go Friday night. Once again, we forgot the camera, so I only got a few pictures on my cell phone.

 

The kids had a BLAST! Gordon has never been bowling before and the other two have only been bowling once or twice before this. We have to pass right by a bowling alley to get to Kyle'ss work and the kids have been asking for weeks if we could go. We told them weeks ago that if we got the garage all unpacked and put away we could go bowling. Then we got that finished, we just haven't had a chance to go, so we told them we would go this weekend. Gordon was so funny about it. The first time, Kyle helped him throw the ball down the lane and watch it hit the pins. Then Kyle tried to help him again and he pushed Kyle away and said, "Get off the wood, don't help me." From then on, Gordon refused any sort of help getting that ball down the lane. Sometimes we had to sit for quite a while as the ball FINALLY made it's way to the pins, but he LOVED every minute of his time there.

 Eddie was our star. He didn't get the highest score, but he did the best. I loved watching him jump in the air as he threw the ball. Of course with my phone, I never got a picture of it, but we promised them we would go again and I promise to take my camera next time!

Celeste was quite the character. Often she wouldn't even look at the ball after she rolled it down the lane to even see if she got any pins. She enjoyed it, but wanted to eat more, so she had an attitude near the end. This picture is just her though. She's not mad, just watching because we told her she needed to watch her ball go to the pins. She's so funny!

Then Saturday was the day Kyle won't soon forget. He made the 45 minute drive up to Henryville with his boss to do whatever they could to help. They weren't allowed through at first until their friend saw them and told the authorities blocking the road that they were there for him and to help. Kyle was able to get quite a few amazing pictures of the damage, but I've only added a few.

The side of his coworker's house. It's still standing, but it has such severe damage.

This is the pock marked ground from the baseball size hail.

The next day would be Sunday. We were invited to our friends, Sterling and Arien's home in Lexington, which is just over an hour away. I was so excited to see them. Sterling was like another brother to me growing up. He was friends with my brother, Mike, and we had a lot of the same friends in high school. It has been a long time since I had seen him since he has lived in Lexington going to school for the past six years. Of course, we just move here and they just sold their house and are getting ready to move to Colorado because he finishes school in June. Sad. We had a great time at their house while we were there though. Their daughter, Regan, is just a few months younger than Gordon. She wasn't sure about having to share her toys with some crazy boys, but she did alright for sharing with strangers and my boys loved playing in a new place. It was so fun catching up and learning about what they have been up to lately. I'm sad they are going to be leaving because I wouldn't have minded getting together with them every once in a while for dinner, but Sterling is almost done with school and wants a real job, so they have to do what they have to do!

Gordon and Regan playing on the couches. They had a great time jumping off the couch and running through the house.

This is Annie. She is so sweet.

Sunday night I let the dog out to go potty before bed and saw that we really need to watch the weather report on the weekends more. There were huge, wet snowflakes falling. I didn't know if it would stick, but was pretty excited about the idea of having snow again.

The next morning we looked outside to find SNOW! There was about 2 inches covering the ground and slush on the street. Celeste still had school, which she was actually okay with, so this is what the school looked like when we got there.

 

Our house with snow covering the area.

That evening we had signed up to have the missionaries for dinner. I had been wondering what to make for dinner all weekend and couldn't decide until Monday morning. I decided to make Hawaiian Haystacks. Then I talked to Kyle about it and he suggested we have a flexible dinner as well. For those who don't know what that is. A flexible dinner is where you basically dump the dinner on the table and then you scoop out what you want to eat. It worked really well with the Haystacks. We dumped the rich in the center and then dumped the rest of the stuff around the outside of it and then it was a free for all. Of course we passed the gravy around because that would be horrible, but the missionaries loved it.

You can't have a flexible dinner without have a flexible dessert as well! We kept is simple and just had ice cream. We dumped the ice cream on the table and then had toppings to go on them. It actually worked perfectly to have ice cream sundaes because we already had coconut, pineapple and cherries for the haystacks, so we just had them for both! The elders had a good time and the kids did pretty well at eating all of their dinner as well.

I can't believe we are only in the 6th day of March and I have already written a novel. I'm hoping that we'll have more adventures this month, but I'm hoping they are all fun from now on. I'm expecting that at least March 15th will be fun, for sure! I don't know if we'll have a kid free game night like I usually have, but we'll have friends over and cheese cake will be plentiful! Mmm, I can't wait!