In Loving Memory...

of our "dog-ter"

SALLY BEAR CONWAY

June 21, 2005- December 30, 2009

Sally was a fun-loving English Mastiff, who had no idea how large she was.  She had a huge heart, and loved being loved.  Some of Sally's favorite activities included: trips to the park, neighborhood walks, tug-of-war, chasing the boys, posing as a mountain to climb and/or a horse to ride, riding in the car, playing in the hose & sprinkler, and most of all...laying curled up in a ball on someone's feet.  Sally loyaly served her family with unconditional love, affection, excitement, protection, forgiveness and most of all, patience. She leaves behind many wonderful memories.  Sally is survived by her human family: Dad, Mom, Brothers- Sean & William, and Brother & Best Friend- Henry.   

Please pray for us as we mourn our loss.  Thank you.

Birthday Boy

Today we celebrated Henry's 4th birthday.  It is hard to believe our oldest "baby" is already four years old! 

We all had such a fun day.  Josh helped the boys build the wooden model airplanes that they got for Christmas.  It came with A LOT of screws, and Henry was a trooper and screwed them all in himself.  At one point, he informed Josh that he needed to lie down (and he did), but he kept on turning that screw driver!  The rest of the morning was filled with other special activities, as well as many phone calls for Henry....which he loved!  FINALLY, at 1:30 Henry had a birthday party with some of his friends and family at Boingz (a local bounce house).  Everyone seemed to have a great time, and I think we successfully wore out all of the kids.  

Josh made Henry a Cars cake...it was really cute, and he loved it.  Here is a picture of Henry's face while we were singing to him.  

After the party, we came home and had dinner.  Henry requested eggs for dinner, so that is what we had.  I did add some bacon and pancakes, but even with that, it was a pretty simple request!  Following dinner, we had ice cream cones, and we all looked at Henry's photo album, and told him stories of his earlier years.  

Henry was pretty excited about the gift we gave him....his very own camera. 

Henry,

Happy Birthday, Son.

You have brough us so much joy, and we feel so blessed to be your parents.

You are such a caring and loving boy, we look forward to see what God has

planned for you.

Love, Dad & Mom 

Merry Christmas

We have had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas this year.  In spite of the blizzard, we were able to make it to a Christmas Eve Mass, spend time with family and friends, eat a LOT of great food, and there were a few gifts exchanged as well.

After Mass on Thursday evening, we opened our family gifts.  Henry gifted Josh and I with a clay handprint that he had made in preschool. It is precious.  I was most excited to open that gift, even though I had a strong feeling what it was.  I remember making my parents the same gift as a child, and it was so special for me to be on the receiving end of that moment for the first time...

Sean was just as happy to see one of us open a gift, as he was to open one himself.  That boy can really get excited!

We had to wake Henry on Christmas morning.  Santa visited and brought the three boys a keyboard.  Henry has been creating wonderful music, and Sean has surprised us with some new dance moves!  After gifts, Josh spent the rest of the morning shoveling a narrow path in the driveway so we could go to his parents for breakfast...which turned into lunch by the time we all made it there.  We still arn't sure how much snow accumulated, but because of the winds, we had a four foot wall of snow up against our garage, and an even higher wall at the end of our driveway.  Normally a situation like this would have had us frustrated by the inconvenience of such a large quantity of snow, but we have been able to enjoy every moment knowing that next year at this time we will be cleaning sand off of our sandles!

Bed Time

Our crib was included in the recent recall, so we are without a crib until we get a new one.  Even though  Sean climbed out of the old one, we kept him in it, and all was well.  Now he is sleeping on the crib mattress, on the floor of his room, or is he?  He has explored all sorts of places to sleep in his room, here are a few examples:

We have tried putting Sean in Henry's room so eventually Will could sleep in the crib, but that has been put on hold while Josh and I regain our sanity.  To be continued.....

The good news is that even though Will is our third son, he will get at least one new thing in his life....A BRAND NEW CRIB!!!

Henry Says....

"Mom, when I get bigger will I clean toilets and make lunch like you?"

Snow Days!

Henry and Sean are loving the 12 inches of snow that we got a week or so ago.  Josh has been taking them sledding, and he helped them build a snowman.  They have logged many hours in the backyard playing and eating snow.  Sally loves chasing the boys around, and has been a good sport, taking her fair share of snowballs in the face. 

It took a few tries, but we finally found a solution to Sean's hat issue...now he is able to see what color of snow he is eating!  The first day I sent the boys out, it was "just for 10 minutes" while I made lunch, so I didn't put their snowpants on...lesson learned...."just 10 minutes" turned into an hour, wet pants, red faces, and runny noses.  Apparently Sean didn't care, he threw a fit when I dragged him inside!

William

Will is growing up so quickly, I can't hardly believe he is 4 1/2 months old!  He is rolling over, reaching for and grabbing toys, laughing, drooling, and trying to sit up....did I mention that he is drooling?!  Here are some recent photos of our sweet baby boy.

Pumpkin Carving and Halloween

Here are a few pictures from carving pumpkins.  The boys loved it, and with a few years of dental school under his belt, Josh is a pumpkin carving expert.  Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures of the finished products (I think we had all melted down by that point), but you will have to take my word for it that they were masterpieces! 

The boys were pretty excited this year about dressing up and getting to trick-or-treat. 

Will was a great baby, sleeping through the evening's events. 

Sean is extremely excitable, and apparently if you put a monkey costume on him, he can't stop running and screaming, "I A MONKEY!"  I think the whole neighborhood enjoyed watching him go from house to house.

Henry was so sweet and polite.  It went something like this:

Henry: thank you (after receiving a piece of candy)

Person handing out candy:  no response

Henry: thank you (no response)

           thank you (no response)

           thank you

Person handing out candy: your welcome

Henry: good job! (running down the driveway)  Mom, Dad, they said 'your welcome'!

Funny Henry Moment:

Person handing out candy to Sean:  "You are an adorable monkey."

Henry: "I'm a door bell too!"

Needless to say, Josh and I found much joy watching our boys have a wonderful time, but we were very tired!

Another Mai Tai Please.....

We got the call today....we're going to Florida! Josh was accepted into the AEGD residency at Eglin. We're all really excited, and really surprised to get stationed there. We'll be there for 1 year, then will move to another base after residency. Looking forward to warm days, sandy beaches, and palm trees....a far cry from the moose, salmon fishing, and icebergs of Alaska.

Valla's Pumpkin Patch

Here are some pictures of our visit to the pumpkin patch.  The boys fed the goats, we took a hay rack ride to the pumpkin fields, walked through the corn maze, watched the pig races, rode the train, and participated in many other activities they have.  We had a great time, and the weather was perfect.

Touch A Truck

The Child Saving Institute sponsored a free event for children called "Touch A Truck".  They had every kind of truck, car, rescue vehicle, construction vehicle, and utility vehicle you could think of parked in a lot for children to climb in, on and touch.  I have never heard so much honking in my life!  The highlight was the helicopter.  We were probably only ten yards away when we watched it take off...pretty cool!  Sean wasn't a big fan of all of the gravel and water that was flying in our faces when it took off, but he recovered quickly.  It is a toss up whether the boys enjoyed this even more, or their daddy did!!??

A Teaching Moment

We are in the process of teaching Sean that not all things are meant to be thrown, and that there are other, more gentle options to get items from one place to another.  This process is taking much more time and effort than we had thought.  Here is a photo of one of those "teaching moments" in progress.  As you can see, Sean isn't too fond of this process either.  The Good Lord really did bless him with a good arm!

Tower of Testosterone

My sister Chrissy and her five children drove from Ohio to be here for William's baptism.  Here is a picture of our boys with the Schmiesing boys.  It was so fun having them here.
From bottom to top:  Jacob, Max, Jude, Henry, Sean & Will

Baptized into Christ

William was Baptized on September 20th.  We were blessed to have so many family present for the ceremony and celebration. 

A family friend made this traditional baptismal gown for us.  I loved it, thank you Fran!

First day of preschool

Henry started preschool this Fall, and he LOVES it!  He could hardly hold still long enough for us to get his picture.  It was bitter sweet for Josh and I to drop him off on his first day- he was so excited, but all we saw was our baby boy growing up way to quickly.