October

Happy Fall! 

Trying to keep up with four little ones makes the time goes by so quickly. There is very little downtime around here anymore! And all I've got to show for my efforts are four beautiful children. :) That is, assuming beauty isn't affected by whether their hands and faces have been properly washed in the past two weeks.

But there is life and energy to go around, let me tell you.

Keenan at one month old (a month ago)

All the kiddos at the same age. 

Mom had a couple outfits of my dad's so we tried them on Keenan...we learned that this one was knitted by a Gehring relative in Switzerland!

Another 53 year old outfit...this one was a little tight so he wasn't quite as fond of it. :)

Micah put Keenan to sleep and was so proud of himself! 

Keenan and Russell, the 2020 Massner babies.

How did Matt the project guy spend the last days of fall? Landscaping, honey extracting, and cider pressing.

He ordered the boys some bee suits so they could help him out.

One of his coworkers came over one Friday evening to help extract the honey!

We ended up with about five quarts of fresh honey! Now he is getting the bees all filled up on sugar water to get them through the winter.

Andrew and Matt got out their new and improved cider press and made about five gallons of cider! We still have more apples to press if we ever find the time.

This boy did such an impressive job of coloring inside the lines, I couldn't help but take a picture.

One more way in which two brothers can be complete opposites...one colors inside the lines with one color, and the other boy makes a very colorful picture totally unaware of the lines! 

Did some fishing with Daddy

Had a nice hot day for swimming at the beginning of September! 

Mommy and Joanna were matching for church one night! 

Uncle Johnny brought Joanna (and me and the rest of the kids) out to Brian and Cindy's to meet her newborn namesake, Joanna the calf. She was pretty excited until she actually got into the pen with the calf. Then it was pretty terrifying! A couple summers ago, Jonathan had helped them out so they had named a cow Johnna after him. Johnna had a calf this fall so he chose Joanna for the name. 

Our kids are so terrified of real live animals! Here they are petting the bottle calves...ha. Nope, I don't think any of them ever worked up the courage to touch a calf.

Johnna and Joanna

My mom was getting rid of some big rolls of poster paper so we've been having fun with it.

About time we get Daddy's downstairs office decorated!

Levi was in charge of breakfast one week. This was one of his concoctions.

This is how we do date night these days... :) Someone brought us pizza for a baby meal and we had just gotten this old children's table from Grandpa Schulz!

My one canning expedition of the year...applesauce! I forgot there was a lid shortage right now so I had to freeze the rest. Hopefully this will last us a year because last time we ran out in March.

Using up some more apples with an apple crisp...sugar free of course. :) Turned out pretty good!

His favorite way to sit on the couch.

So sweet...Levi put his brother to sleep reading to him. :)

The first full week of October, Matt had to be gone for work. Keenan, Joanna, and I had coughs so the appointments we had scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday got cancelled and I instead got tested for Covid just to rule it out before going on with our week. Tuesday evening, we learned Matt's Grandma Marie Knobloch had passed away in Lester. She had been in the hospital battling Covid, and we were very thankful her family was allowed to be with her in her last hours.

In desperation, I took all the kids with me to town Wednesday evening to get groceries. It was a disaster of course, but I hadn't gotten groceries for a month and still had pending Covid results so I couldn't get a babysitter (it came back negative when I got to town). The next day the kids and I left for Lester around noon. We picked up Matt in Altoona and arrived at Uncle Lance and Aunt Kristi's around 9:30pm. We weren't able to attend the evening visitation, but were very blessed to be there for the funeral. We are thankful for Grandma's sweet example and that she is living in Heaven with Jesus now.

When we picked up Matt we made a pit stop at Bass Pro Shops.

We arrived home around 9:30pm on Friday night. Saturday, we got ready to host Burlington church for a wiener roast. Covid made its round through several families that week, so between the people who were sick and those who were quarantined due to exposure, there ended up being only 30 people at our wiener roast. It was a nice sized group and a good evening of fellowship as we don't get to spend much time with our church family outside of church these days.

Handsome little guy all ready for church!

Levi's first day of preschool with Aunt Timna! She does a weekly preschool for the church kids. He missed the first day because of the coughs we all had, but he was SO excited to go the next week and he had a great time!

Our seventh anniversary was Tuesday! Last Friday, Matt and I got away for an afternoon and went out to eat in Columbus Junction and visited the swinging bridge park there. It was beautiful, as the scenery always is around the time of our anniversary! Afterward we went on a scenic drive for a couple hours with Keenan in the back seat...

...and found a few local gorillas. 

It was supposed to frost last Sunday night so Matt worked on getting the garden and yard ready for winter. Our garden didn't get much love this year so we were left with enough veggies for a nice bowl of fresh salsa and a few meals' worth of sweet potatoes! The yellow summer squash was the only thing that was a big producer this year. It obviously does not require any maintenance. We are ready to be done eating yellow squash.

My newest food pet is milk kefir! I ordered some grains and they arrived this week! It is fun to figure out new things in the kitchen. Kefir is SO good for you and this should be much cheaper and healthier than the store bought kefir! I can see I am going to have kefir coming out my ears soon.

This was a crisis. The baby swing broke Monday night so Matt spent Monday night and Tuesday morning getting it fixed. I didn't realize how much Keenan's happiness depended on his swing until it broke! Eeek! I have the most impressive husband who can fix ANYTHING!

The kids came upstairs all dressed up after lessons this week! Piano lessons have started up again since my baby break. Between preschool on Tuesday, lessons on Wednesdays, and doctor's appointments the past few Thursdays, our weekly schedules have been filling up. 

Two happy brothers:)

Little guy was 2 months old yesterday! We love his smiles and coos as he becomes more aware of everything going on around him. He is sleeping 5-7 hour stretches at night and is generally content during the day, but it goes in spurts. His favorite place to be is in his swing!

As I said at the beginning, we are very busy managing this growing household. I can hardly keep up and sometimes lose my mind, but if there's one thing my husband has taught me over the past seven years, it is his most common quote:

It'll be fine.

It isn't always what I want to hear, but it is always true. We take one day at a time and know God will provide grace as we need it! :)

Keenan Duane

We are thrilled to announce the safe arrival of...

Keenan Duane Schulz

Monday, August 24th, 9:44am

7lb 13oz; 21.5 inches

He is so precious and worth every bit of the long wait! 

Labor Story (if you don't like these details, skip to next section): Twelve days late, I was quite thrilled when contractions started on their own (without my water being broken as it always has in the past)! They started 3-5 minutes apart at midnight on Monday morning. I wasn't really sure how fast or slow it would go since I've never been in labor at home before, so we made our way to the hospital after an hour and a half and arrived at the hospital at 2am. I had been dilated to a 3-4 on Friday and was at a 4 when we arrived. The midwife on call said we could probably go home for a few hours, but my husband didn't think that sounded appealing so we decided to hang out there. He laid down and got some sleep while I power-walked the halls until 5am. At that point I was dilated to a 5, and again we were given the option to go home, hang out there for what may be a long time, or get my water broken. Since I had already lost a night's sleep and wouldn't be getting any rest until the baby was born, I agreed to have my water broken. Contractions were still five minutes apart, but were getting longer and more intense by 7:30 when I decided it was time to wake up my husband so he could kick into gear and help me through the last couple hours. At 8:15, my regular midwife came on call (she was quite thrilled that I had waited for her shift to have my baby!) and I was dilated to a 7-8. I labored in the whirlpool tub for the next hour. Around 9:15 I was dilated to 9 cm and started pushing shortly thereafter. Contractions were still spaced about five minutes apart, which was great because I got some nice breaks, but it also meant the final hurrah took a little longer than the past couple babies. Keenan Duane arrived at 9:44am! Many prayers were answered as everything went quite seamlessly, all praise and thanks to God!

The Pandemic Experience: I've had several people ask how Covid-19 affected our hospital experience. Since we weren't suspected to have Covid-19 (no symptoms, exposure, or positive tests), we had a fairly normal experience. Worrying about exposure to Covid had really been a major stress factor for the last month of my pregnancy because I couldn't imagine having a baby without Matt by my side and being confined to the operating room during labor. Again, thanks be to God for His providence. As far as our time at the hospital, we were expected to wear face masks any time we left our room. We were not allowed to leave the labor and delivery unit when I was in labor (in the past we have been allowed to go up and down stairs and walk all the hospital halls). No visitors were allowed, not even our parents or children. Matt was only supposed to leave and return once a day, which made him a little stir crazy after awhile. And many mothers are choosing to be discharged after 24 hours rather than two days, an option we were happy to accept! That way we could see our children sooner, enjoy the comforts of our own home, and stop getting our naps interrupted by vital checks! :)

The Name: Keenan Duane. Simplest explanations first, Duane is Matt's dad's middle name! The idea for Keenan originated from the Bible name "Kenan" in I Chronicles 1 which is just another spelling for Cainan/Canaan, Adam's great-grandson. So far all our children have Bible names, which wasn't necessarily a criteria of ours, but it would keep up the pattern if we found one we liked. At one point we mentioned that we had a J, L, and M name, but no K. A couple days later, I came across the name Kenan and we both loved it! The main issue we struggled with was whether we should spell it in its original form of "Kenan" or add an "e" to make the pronunciation obvious (though the new spelling would turn it from a Hebrew name to an Irish name with a completely different meaning). An hour after he was born, we settled on giving him an easy-to-pronounce name rather than a meaningful one. ;)

And we love him. :)

We were discharged at 7:30pm on Tuesday!

We made a couple stops on the way home to visit the ones who would have normally visited us in the hospital...

Grandpa and Grandma Schulz

Our shirts from Mom Schulz!

The children's first meeting with Keenan! (And the Best. Dad. Ever.)

They were SO excited and in love!

Micah is the sweet, affectionate one.

Joanna is a baby lover. She loves to take care of her little brother!

And then there is Levi...who also is also infatuated! Levi is the playful one who can't stop waving Keenan's arms, wiggling his legs, picking him up and bouncing him and flopping him back down. Keenan does surprisingly well at tolerating him...he must admire his big brother!

Our first picture as a family of six! We are so blessed with such a handful! 

Grandpa and Grandma Massner

Our first visitors at home...Camille and Shelby spent a day with us before they headed back to school! 

Hannah and Rebecca stopped by!

Bill, Vienna, and Russell meet Keenan!

The Massner cousins:)

More visitors...Justin and Jesse!

Uncle Johnny and Uncle Travis

The first week home was kind of overwhelming, as normal. Thankfully I have a very helpful husband! And also thankfully, he is still working from home so he is right downstairs if I need him. The second week went very well. Keenan was a very good baby the first two weeks! He took on to nursing right away and his nights have been great (he has been giving us six hour stretches at night this week!). The third week, he has become quite high maintenance when he's not sleeping. I'm hoping it's just a growth spurt and not the new normal. 

The rest of the children have adjusted well. Sometimes they have too much love to give their baby brother, but we can't blame them for that! The biggest win for Mommy has been getting all four kids to nap simultaneously THREE times now...WAHOO!!

Oh, we are in love! Welcome to the world, sweet baby!