Busy Summer!

 We have had a very busy summer at the Fernau household.  Levi has kept us busy with many walks and bike rides and many, many trips to the back yard to visit the neighbors horses.  Levi loves to be outside and dig in the garden or help grandpa pick up sticks.  He loves to see any truck or car drive by the house and loves to go to Grandma and Grandpa Fernau's house to play and see the trains down the street from their house!  He is getting excited about Baby Fernau coming in a a few months and loves to give the baby kisses and hugs!  He is starting to form full sentences which is so fun for us to hear and we are also working on the Alphabet with him!  He can make it all the way to "F" before he gets bored with it :)

Here are a few pictures from our summer!



Levi loves to dig in the garden!





The end result after digging....ready for a bath!








Papa Schrock at the Kalona Days Parade!





Just like Daddy!



At the end of July we had a wind storm one evening and the neighbors tree blew over onto Joe's car.  Our Amish neighbor, Henry, came over the next morning with his chain saw and took care of the branches for us.  He wanted to wood for firewood.  Thankfully no one was hurt and there was not major damage to the cars or the houses.



Grandma and Papa Fernau were down helping us with
baby sitting the week of the wind storm so they were
able to help with the clean up as well!



Levi, of course, was a huge help as well!  He still talks
about the "tree, boom down, on dada's vroom vroom"
(the tree fell down on daddy's car) :)





First tase of sweet corn for the year! Yummy!




Joe and Levi visiting Henry's horses behind our house. 
Levi loves to see the horses and feed them apples!

We also have some GREAT news!  We have sold our house and will be movning to a bigger house in Wellman!  We are so excited about this and have been praying this will happen before baby Fernau is born in October!  It is all working out so well and we know its all a God thing and we are so thankful for all the hard work our Realtor Karen has done for us!  We will be moving to Norm and Joyce's over labor day weekend and hopefully to the Wellman house the next weekend!  Thank you everyone for your prayers and support during this process.  We feel so very blessed that this is working out!  Also we feel so blessed with a healthy pregnancy and healthy Baby Fernau!  My appointments have been going well and I have had no problems with this pregnancy.  We are so blessed with a normal pregnancy and can't wait to welcome this new little one to our family this fall!

Levi's Big News!

Levi has some very exciting news to share with you!  He is going to be a BIG BROTHER!!

Baby Fernau #2 is due October 20th!  Joe and I couldn't be more excited about this baby and Levi seems just as excited about "baby!"  So far the pregnancy is going well although I am finding that it is a lot different with a toddler at home to chase after.  We are looking forward to expanding our family and feel so blessed at this time!

Easter



Here are a few pictures from Easter this year. 

Levi's Easter outfit





House for Sale

As many of you know we have decided to put our house on the market.  We are working with a great realtor, who seems confident that our nice, cozy house will sell quickly.  We love our house on 3rd street and have a lot of great memories here.  I ventured into world of home ownership in 2006 with this house and for a few years it was just me and Tucker!  Then Joe and I shared our first married years here.  We brought Levi home from the hospital here.  Levi first crawled here, first talked here, took his first steps here.  Levi loves to look out the window in the front door for any car or truck driving by or any birds or squirrels in the yard.  A lot of great memories were made here.  We will miss our house on 3rd but we are just out growing this cozy, comfy house.  Hopefully, it will be filled with other great memories for some other family!

Airplanes and Winter Games

Joe and I both took some vacation last week and were able to enjoy some different things with Levi as well as get some stuff done around the house.  On Monday we picked up mom and headed for the Cedar Rapids Airport to visit my dad.  Norm likes to share with his family his love for airplanes so we thought it would be fun to take Levi to see the airplanes.  We met Dad at the front door of his building where we had to sign in and get our visitor tags.  Levi even got a tag to wear!  Then we headed out to the hanger to see the airplanes.  Levi seemed to enjoy looking at the planes and even got to sit in the cockpit with Grandpa!  Then we enjoyed lunch together before heading back to Kalona.

 A picture with Grandpa

 Levi had his very own visitor tag to wear!

 Levi sitting in the cockpit with Grandpa!  I'm sure he would have loved to play with all those buttons!

 Daddy and Levi coming out of the airplane

 Sitting on the wing of the airplane!

Special Olympics Winter Games!

On Tuesday we loaded up the car and headed for Dubuque for The Winter Games for Special Olympics!  This has become a favorite thing for us to do as a family for the last few years and we were glad we were able to help out again this year.  We helped out at Sundown Mountain Resort with the cross country skiing event.  Each athlete goes through a time trial on Monday and then the competition starts on Tuesday.  I stayed inside with Levi most of the day but Joe was able to help outside with getting the athletes lined up and ready to start and he also helped with timing the races.  It is something that he has helped with for the last 10 years and it has become a special thing for him.  Levi and I are so happy to be able to share these kinds of events with Joe and make a new family tradition each year!

 This was Levi's first real experience with snow and he seemed to really like it.  The boots were a little challenging for him to walk in at first but he quickly got the hang of it!

 Joe was helping Levi make a snowball



Christmas!

December was a very busy month for the Fernau house.  We were able to celebrate Christmas with most of our family members.  Levi had a great time playing with his Grandpa's, Grandma's, Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins as well as tearing into the many gifts.  Here are a few pictures of Levi enjoying the different parties we were able to attend!

 Christmas Jammies!

 Spending time with Great Grandma Leichty at the Big Leichty Family Christmas at Bethel Mennonite Church in Wayland, Iowa



Levi with Grandma and Grandpa Schrock and cousins Tori and Kenna as well as the picture of Leah.  We definitely missed Ryan, Sarah, and Leah this year. 

 Joe helped Levi open his gifts from us.  He seemed to enjoy the boxes and paper much more than the actual gifts :)

 Christmas in Waterloo at Michelle and Mike's house with cousins Tye, Emma, and Megan.  Levi loves spending the night at Grandma and Grandpa Fernau's house and especially loved playing with Daddy's old tractors and cars!  We were also able to spend time with Joe's Aunts Katie and Mary and cousin Connie!

 Levi's new lawn mower from Grandma and Grandpa Fernau

 We were able to enjoy a walk outside on Christmas Day with Michelle and the kids!  Hard to believe we could be outside without having to bundle up!

(notice the absolutely adorable sock monkey hat from Aunt Sarah and Uncle Ryan!)

 Here are a few pictures from the Big Schrock Christmas at Grace Church in North Liberty.  We had a great time with many games and a wii tournament! 

Hmm what in the world is going on? 

Well, the Schrock brothers (minus Gary who had a back injury at the time) were talked into playing "Just Dance" on the Wii.  They obviously were really getting into the moves of the dance and were having a great time!

2011 Christmas Card preview

We have learned that it is not easy to get a good picture with a one year old, a dog and a cat.  We took several pictures, trying to get everyone looking at the camera and smiling.  We finally got a pretty good shot where Levi wasn't trying to run away, and Tucker and Khloe were both looking at the camera!  Here are a few of the pictures we decided not to use for our Christmas card. 

I have to admit the funniest thing about the photo shoot was watching Norman do and say all these crazy things to get Levi to smile and to keep the attention of the pets while Joyce took the pictures!