Elijah Patrick LePage

Make a Smilebox photobook

#6 Baby and #2 Boy

We’re very excited to announce that we’re expecting Baby Six around November 1 of 2009!

We’ve been assured this one’s a boy! Josiah stood there with his four sisters watching that sonogram intently. Suddenly, the sonographer put up on the screen the message, “I’m a boy!” When Josiah read it, he smiled a big smile and pretended to faint.

The pictures posted here were taken at six months. Beth and the baby are both doing well—though Beth is dealing with gestational diabetes and is pretty tired by the end of the day.

But we’re all very excited and we feel blessed that God is entrusting us with another child.

Isn’t he handsome? Baby six sonogram shots – around six months.

Representing Home Education

This picture appeared in the Lawrence Journal-World on Monday, February 2. You can click on the picture to go to the newspaper's website and read the story.

We were recently interviewed by the local newspaper, Lawrence Journal-World. They were doing a story on the fact that there was a spike in the number of home-schooled children in the past year and that more children are homeschooled than ever (since they started keeping stats).

It was an exciting adventure for us because they also did a TV spot for the local news. You can view that by clicking here. We were also interviewed in May 2007 for a series of stories about home schooling in Kansas. In that series, Abigail and Josiah made the front page in a pretty neat action photo.

We’re not really evangelists for home schoolinig, but when we’re given the chance to explain why we do it we will happily do so.

Like I said in the interview, we don’t ever want to come across as judgmental toward those who don’t home school. We just think we’re choosing what is best for our family.

Update on 5 great kids

Beth wrote this in an email to some old friends who recently contacted us. We thought it was a pretty good update to start the new year:

Hannah is in 3rd grade and very artistic and creative. She’s very slow and careful with her work – she wants it to be just right. She’s very sensitive, very helpful to her mother and plays really well with the younger ones. She’s always making up “shows” that they (the oldest three or four) perform for us.

Abigail is in 2nd grade and loves to read and to write her own stories. She’s very quick to get her work done so she can play. She’s also very helpful and plays really well with the younger ones and has a great imagination.

Josiah is in kindergarten this year and loves to be “reading” like his big sisters (he guesses the words based on the first letter sound). He adores his little sisters and is constantly hugging and kissing them and laughing at the funny things they do.

Lydia is 2 ½ and thinks she’s just as big as everyone else. She’s very outgoing and independent – so different from the older girls. She’ll disappear into her room several times a day and come out with a different outfit on sometimes matching, sometimes not, or completely naked, we never know what to expect.

Mary is 11 months – she’ll be one on February 15th. She’s very, very sweet and laid-back. She didn’t crawl until just this past month – she was just content to sit with a few toys and watch everyone else run around. She hugs all her toys, especially baby dolls, and says “aaaahhhh” and pats them – she’s very loving.

Christmas Play

Hannah and Abigail were angels. Josiah was a sheep. It was a simple Christmas play on Sunday, December 23, but they had a great time and we were all impressed. The entire thing was memorized Scripture. All the kids memorized a portion of Luke 2 and it was excellent. Here are a few snapshots.

Mary Hope LePage

Mary Hope LePage was born early this morning (4:51 a.m.), February 15, 2007. She and Beth are doing very well despite the fact that they had to endure an emergency C-section. The umbilical cord was wrapped around Mary’s head and every contraction was cutting off her blood and oxygen. Her heartbeat kept dropping dangerously low, so we ended up in OR instead of L&D.

Mary weighs 9 lbs, 2 oz. and is 21 inches long. She is very strong, healthy and alert. She is also very pink and her lungs are clear. We are praising God for watching over these two ladies and for having mercy on us. After the doctor told me what she needed to do, I asked if I could pray for her. She said, “Please”. After I prayed for her — and Beth and Mary, of course — the doctor looked up and said, “I prayed too on my way here this morning.” Somehow I knew things were going to be okay.

Homeschool Field Trip – Kansas Day

One of the great things about homeschool is that the whole family can go along on field trips. We all went to Topeka for Kansas Day on this beautiful day in January. We started out in our covered wagon and then spent the night around a camp fire (actually just the Kansas Museum of History). The kids got to do lots of hands-on things including walking through a real train, going into an authentic Indian tee-pee and getting to dress up in pioneer clothes (is that Laura Ingalls or our Abigail?).

After the Kansas Museum of History, we stopped by the Capitol Building where we got a photo-op with Abraham Lincoln and the two big girls ran up the capitol steps.

A day in the snow

The kids have seen snow before, but rarely (before we moved to Kansas) did they get a chance to play in several inches of it. So, we got all bundled up, built a snow man, threw some snowballs, created some snow angels and just had a great time together.

Another Baby!

God is blessing us with another child! We are expecting our fifth child in February of 2007! When we told the big three (Lydia is oblivious) they literally jumped up and down screaming with excitement. Beth and I are enjoying the fact that – more than ever – our whole family is expecting this child. When we were expecting Abigal (#2), Hannah was oblivous to what was going on. When we were expecting Josiah, Hannah was aware enough to make it fun (in fact, she had actually prayed for a baby brother). When we were expecting Lydia, Shaun drew a picture of a family with four children and showed it to Hannah, Abigail and Josiah. Hannah and Abigial cheered. Josiah was oblivious. This time, though the big three are very much involved. They’re making name suggestions and talking about how life will work with another kid in the mix. It’s exciting to share the experience so much.