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Back in college I was in a little group called A Cub Bella. Yeah we were a female acapella group and yeah we were pretty good. :) Ok so anyway…since we lived out of the state for nearly 5 years I missed out on a lot of reunions and get-togethers of the group. That all ended when I went to a Bella Baby Shower in St. Louis. One of our alum, Lacey, was the mom-to-be but so many years have passed that many other girls now have babies and there were others who were pregnant! It’s kind of crazy how so many of us are at completely new and different stages of our lives. Anywho…
That Saturday I hopped in the car (by myself!) and made the 2 1/2 hour trip to STL!
Once at Lacey’s house I was able to catch up with so many Bellas! It was crazy but I haven’t seen some of these girls in almost 10 years!
Amber (due any day now!), Alyssa (with one of her two darling babies!) and me (minus Owen…I was actually kind of sad I didn’t have him with me since it would’ve been so neat to have them meet him).
Lacey unwrapping all the gifts…
All the Bellas…
Me with Lacey who has now welcomed little Mallory into the world!
It was so great to see some old friends and to welcome a new Baby Bella into the world!
-Shannon
To ring in 2012 I had the audacious idea to invite our playgroup friends over…husbands, kids and all! Everyone brought food and we began the countdown to the New Year!
Along the way the kids were allowed to pretty much do whatever they wanted. The parents may have been too busy eating and drinking to care. :) Here is the mess that Owen and Allyson made in the bathroom…
Since we hosted the event I took advantage of that fact and put Owen down for bed. But most of the other kids made it! In fact all but one family stayed until 11:00 when we watched the ball drop in New York City. We were all happy to make it that long and called it a night. But before everyone left we took a quick group picture…L-R: The Carnahans – Kathleen, Kevin, Lucy & Jennifer; The Dorans – Chris, Valerie & Allyson; The Goses – Brian, Clara & Mallory (baby Tessa was sleeping upstairs); The Endicotts – minus Owen…
I am so thankful for this group of friends and that I have a new year to look forward to with them!
-Shannon
Last school year we were lucky enough to become friends with Esther. She was a student at CMU and is originally from Juarez, Mexico. Spring Break 2011 we traveled to El Paso to her former high school, LPI, and during this trip we were able to meet her entire family. This past summer Esther married Corey, her college boyfriend, and they now live in Kansas City. While we were in KC for Christmas we had the chance to see Esther and Corey and the timing was great because her whole family was visiting as well (minus one sister)!
Owen loved seeing Esther again…although it took a little remembering on his part. :)
Owen and Josie…
Josie, Enid, Esther, Owen and Corey…
We loved soaking in some Mexican love especially since they made us breakfast. :)
-Shannon
Well it’s official…we have a two year old! This past Monday Owen turned two but on Saturday we celebrated with a party. We had friends and family over for the event and it seemed to me that everyone had a good time. Even though I know the party was for Owen, I’ll be honest and admit that it was also for me! I love to throw a party and I especially love to plan for said party. So about a month ago I finally settled on a Sesame Street theme.
It was at this point that I contacted my good friend Abby, who also happens to be a graphic designer, and asked her if I could borrow some things that she used for her daughter’s recent two year old party. Once she was on board I went to town planning decorations and food! After more work than what should probably happen for a two year old’s birthday party…voila!
All the signs were courtesy of Abby…I then printed them off and used them in my own fun way! I made the cupcake stand from a kit and then personalized it with ribbon and the sign. My sister, the baking queen, decorated the cupcakes and they really made the whole party table pop! (And we didn’t just pull this idea out of thin air…I found directions for the cupcakes here) (I should also go ahead a say that if you aren’t already on Pinterest…you should be! So many ideas found there!)
More table goodies…
The “trashcans” courtesy of Abby…
The drink station…
And the goody bags…
Finally it was time for the party to begin! We had several friends from town join us as well as my family and Lucas’ family. I was just glad almost everyone could make it!
After some eating and playing it was time for the main event…At first Owen loved it!
Then he was scared we were never going to stop singing…
Finally it was time for him to get down to business…
And he blew out the candles all by himself!
Cupcakes for everyone!
We had to squeeze in a little time to enjoy the presents. :)
Lucas and I found him a balance bike which is still a little too bog for him but I’ll know he’ll love it come summer!
The party ended, friends said goodbye, we put Owen to bed, and then we ate pizza. :)
Happy 2nd Birthday Owen!
-Shannon
The past few weeks were spent planning, creating and preparing this…
Lots more to come soon!
-Shannon
Now that we live a whole 50 yards from CMU we thought it would be fun to throw a Campus Ministry Halloween Party! I threw up some decorations, prepared the food and planned the games for the big event. It was nice to finally host something in our house even though the place is still a giant work in progress.
Some students even came early to help with the food and to hand candy out to the kids who were actually trick-or-treating. Before everyone ate all the food it looked like this…
I even found a new idea on Pinterest (my new favorite website) and made Mummy Dogs…
I think they turned out super cute!
And I busted out 90+ of these mini-cupcakes!
For the evening attire we decided to dress up as a lumberjack family. However, we failed to take a family picture so all we have is father and son…
And that’s right…we drew chest hair on Owen so he’d fit the part of the manly lumberjack!
Owen even had a few of his friends come by…here he is with Lucy…
And with Lucy’s big sister, Kathleen…it was too cute to see them all together!
Once the actual party got underway we played lots of games. Of course we had to bob for apples and here are the brave people who dominated…
We had a balloon stomp…
And finally the costume contest! We made each contestant walk the runway for the judges…
Cleopatra took home 2nd place…
And the nerd couple came in first!
We had a great night with some awesome students and look forward to more spooktacular Halloweens!
-Shannon
Recently Lucas’ mom, Bonnie, celebrated a birthday! Her present from us was having Owen for the weekend. :) Ok really we needed to get stuff done on the house, but we know both Owen and Bonnie had a great time together. Since O was already over in KC for the weekend, Lucas and I decided to head over on Sunday to both pick him up and to celebrate Bonnie’s birthday with the rest of the family!
Once we all arrived we had Bonnie & Larry, Todd & Angie, Cousin Eli and also Great Grandma Endicott! But it seems that these days the bulk of our time is spent watching the two cousins play. And they are getting pretty good at playing together…
Side Note: For several weeks now Owen does this each time he goes to the bathroom. He pats himself to let me know he’s done something. I’ve bought a little potty seat but he seems less than enthused. I’m just trying to encourage him to keep letting me know when he goes and hopefully it will help once we really start potty training. :)
After playing with some of the animals, the boys moved on to coloring…
And I had to snap a few of Eli on his own…
I lovingly call him Bieber because of his awesome hair!
Of course Owen and Eli weren’t the only boys there. Lucas and his brother Todd spent a good part of the afternoon playing with the football. They’d see who could throw and kick the ball the farthest. They would do this by aiming the ball to the woods behind the house and take turns being the one in the forest. At one point Lucas kicked the ball nice and high, but then the unthinkable happened…the ball got stuck in the tree!
Can you spot the ball?
Here’s a closer look…
After the ball got stuck, the boys spent the next 30 minutes throwing rocks at it. :) The ball never came down that afternoon and last time I talked to Bonnie the ball was still stuck in the tree…10 days later!
I realize now that I need to take more pictures of the entire family and not just of the boys, but for now one last shot of the cousins will have to do…
-Shannon
I find it interesting that my break in blogging came right around the time of my 30th birthday. I’ve never had a problem getting older but for some reason the big 3-0 kind of threw me for a loop. We were in the middle of packing and only 5 days away from moving when my birthday hit. I woke up the morning of my birthday and had a bunch of different presents representing places we’ve been before on my birthday. It was super sweet for Lucas to think of all these past, present and future things…
Right after breakfast I hit the road and drown to St. Louis to meet my mom at the airport. Here we are waiting for our short flight to…
The Mall of America!
My mom and I had been planning this trip for several months as a way to celebrate my 30th birthday! Neither one of us had been before so it was fun to explore it together. Plus I haven’t had a mother/daughter trip in forever so it was quite a treat to take a trip with just the two of us.
We arrived in Minneapolis on Wednesday and stayed until Saturday. So we enjoyed MOA (Mall of America) on Wednesday night and all day Thursday. After shopping our tails off and walking for what seemed like miles and miles we finally saw it all. On Friday we decided to enjoy IKEA for the day! We started by enjoying breakfast at IKEA and then shopped the day away.
My IKEA spoils!
My mom and I were both super tricky and planned for our purchases so we each packed a small bag for our clothes and then put it in a bigger bag so when we traveled home we could check the 2 bags and get all of our purchases home with us! Plus we flew on Southwest so there were no baggage fees!
Clearly we were busy shopping so I didn’t have much time for taking pictures and once I got back home things really got crazy. I arrived home on Saturday around 6:00pm and after arriving home Lucas and I immediately got back in the car to go pick up our moving truck. The next day was spent moving everything from Boonville to Fayette! So this trip came at a somewhat inopportune time but I’m so thankful I was able to enjoy some time away with just my mom.
And now that the dust has settled some in our new home I’m especially glad we made the trip!
Thanks for a wonderful birthday!
-Shannon
Back in July we headed over to KC to celebrate Cousin Eli’s 2nd Birthday! Owen only has one cousin and they are only 7 months apart. When Os was first born that seemed like a huge difference but as time passes they just get closer and closer in age.
Angie, Eli’s mom, had some great decorations with pictures of Eli…
And the cake looked pretty yummy too!
Before we enjoyed the food and presents, there was time to enjoy the slip and slide outside! We didn’t bring Owen’s swim stuff so we just stripped him down to his diaper. Apparently he felt like a crazy man because as this picture shows he’s clearly doing something Eli doesn’t want him to do and he has a pretty funny face while doing it…
After dissed cousin Eli at his own birthday party, Owen was forced to play by himself. :)
Oh good! The cousins play together again…
Finally it was time for the presents! Owen gave Eli a bubble mower…
…and then proceeded to play with it for the rest of the party. :)
We had a great time seeing family and hanging out with Eli at his party! Happy 2nd Birthday Cousin Eli!!!
-Shannon
Earlier this summer Lucas and I made the decision to try and bring some students into our home to live with us. This decision first began after we both had an amazing experience at Lydia Patterson Institute this past spring and this past summer it was put into full effect when Lucas took a trip with some LPI students to the east coast. It was after the second trip that Lucas and I made our decision (during the car ride home) to bring students here. We didn’t how it would all work out but over the course of the past 2 months we’ve both worked hard to see God’s calling come to fruition.
Soon after we made the initial decision Lucas worked hard to solidify the money aspect of the whole thing. Even though we were planning to cover room and board (i.e. have the student/s live with us) we still had to find enough money to pay for schooling. In the course of 4 or 5 days Lucas essentially found enough money! We were thrilled!
We already had one student in mind to bring for this year and there was talk of even bringing two! Through lots of discernment on our part and the second student we both decided he would find a better home at another university. This let us focus all our efforts on bringing one girl here this fall. But when planning out this entire adventure we decided to try and bring 3 students total. So for this school year we have only one but next fall we will hopefully have two more wonderful girls join our household!
*Side Note: We have meet and know all of these students. We kind of hand chose them. :) So while what we’re doing is kind of crazy, it’s also not completely crazy…we feel like we kind of know what we’re getting into. Emphasis on the kind of. :)
So back to this summer…time passed and we tried to prepare for our student’s arrival. This turned out to be a hard thing to do while in the midst of selling a house. Do we fully prepare a room in this house or do we wait until we are hopefully living closer to the school? So about a week before the big arrival we finally started doing some work on her space. It’s still a work in progress but we’re all in it together.
After much anticipation the big day arrived! Last Wednesday Lucas, Owen and I went to KC to pick our student up the airport. We were so excited to see her and I was especially anxious to see her again. Lucas is the one who really got to know her and I felt like I had been missing out. But I guess we have the next 4 years to get to know each other. :)
So without further adieu I introduce you to Stephanie…well really it’s Estephanie but she lets us call her Stephanie…
After dinner together with Lucas parents we headed back to Boonville admist Owen’s cries. He missed his afternoon nap and was letting us all know he wasn’t happy about it. I’m pretty sure Stephanie wanted to head back home after that car ride but she seems to have recovered and is still here! :) She is an amazing girl and I can’t wait to get to know her even better as we enjoy life together. She already feels like such a part of our family and hopefully she’ll feel at home here too.
Oh and because a post without Owen is like a day without sunshine, here you go…
By the end of the evening he had eaten that entire dish of pasta! And yes, Lucas is giving him bunny ears…silly boys!
-Shannon
