river – Shay Thomason

We may have had a major event in our lives this week with the birth of our third child, but that doesn’t mean that life here has just stopped. I had this realization today as I took Titus to school and picked him up today. His teacher handed me the photo above of his class which you may remember from the day they took his class photo a little more than a month ago. As I quickly found Titus in the top row middle, it was as if I just realized we have three kids. They are all at different places in their lives, especially Titus who plows ahead with Czech schooling and learning tons of new things. Avery continues to make us laugh, especially with all her new questions about baby Karis. As for Karis, she just loves to eat and sleep but I know it won’t be long before her preschool teacher is handing me a photo of her class. Life keeps moving.

Bethany’s dad (aka “Papa) and I spent a ton of time today mapping out our plans for the next week. Papa and Nana we will heading back to the States next Saturday and we are still hoping for them to see a little more of Europe. They have thoroughly enjoyed their time here, but Nana’s birthday is on Sunday so we’re going to try and take her to Krakow to celebrate. It’s only a 2-hour drive from here so we figure we can make that happen for her, even with a newborn. We’re hoping to leave tomorrow at some point so you’ll just have to read that blog and see what happens!

We had a handful of visitors today who came to see Karis for the first time. A few of our missionary friends came by to meet and hold her, many of whom came bearing gifts as well as our landlord who came down with flowers, new clothes, and a winter outfit (shown below). I love having all the pink flowers in the house and it was just nice to see our friends and even have the opportunity to introduce them to our family. You’ll also notice in the photo below a little card from our landlord which we couldn’t completely understand but was so nice (I should also note that along with the clothes and card, she handed me a bag with a bottle of champagne). Again it’s just fun to have people here in our home celebrating with us!

Karis is doing great and again gave us some good chunks of sleep last night. It’s never easy to adjust to a new baby sleep schedule, but Bethany has been incredible this week and I’ve been doing my best to help her. It’s a little different this time around as I still feel the pressure to spend time with Titus and Avery while also helping Bethany take care of Karis and this is just part of the transition from two to three kids, I guess. It’s definitely nice to have the help of Papa and Nana and I’m doing my best to convince them that they could adjust well in Europe.

Papa and I took Titus and Avery for a bike ride / run this evening and we discovered a great new place at the end of our street. I’ve never gone down to the other end of our street (barely two blocks), but tonight we went there and discovered the river and Polish border. We’ve been to the river and border many times but not right at the end of our road which was new and fun. The weather was perfect of a bike ride and I grabbed a few photos. The first photo is literally at the end of our street, about a 1/4 mile away from our driveway.

Finally, Titus found his kid-friendly razor and shaving cream that he got for Christmas and all day has been talking about “shaving” or saying “I gotta shave.” Tonight he finally convinced me to let him (note: it’s just this Spiderman themed foaming cream and plastic razor–no blade). So in keeping with tonight’s blog title that “life keeps moving,” I present this photo of my five year old. How is it that my third child is born and my five year old starts shaving in the same week!?

It’s possible that it could still happen with three and a half hours left, but there has been no delivery of the baby today. However, contractions have begun and things are definitely moving forward at this point. After I posted yesterday’s blog, Bethany was having regular “events” (as I’ll call them) with contractions happening about every hour. We were able to sleep last night even though she was contracting through the night. We honestly thought things were going to start heating up this morning so we decided not to try to get everyone to church in case something happened. But even though things have stayed constant, it’s still not enough to warrant a trip to the hospital. That being said, as I type Bethany has had some really regular contractions about fifteen minutes apart so we’ll see how this evening goes.

So without wanting to get too far from home, we tried to just stay around town today with the family. Mostly, we let Bethany rest at home and the kids, Papa and Nana, and myself walked the town a bit, played at the park, and played a lot in the back yard. Of course I kept watch on my phone, just waiting for any news from Bethany that would cause us to turnaround and head back towards our house, but still had a lot of fun walking and enjoying our little town here in Czech. I especially love showing Papa and Nana around and seeing their reactions to this little place. It reminds me of almost a year ago when we first arrived and had all of those same emotions. It’s wonderful to remember those days and to be to sort of relive them again.

I took a ton of photos today form our adventures, so here they are with captions beneath each.

Throwing rocks and sticks in the river is something we haven’t done in a while. You can see Titus on the right with his new sunglasses enjoying the beautiful weather and water. It’s still so fun to be able to walk to these places which are so close to our apartment.

Late this afternoon, after everyone had a nap, we spent some time in our landlord’s garden just sitting and swinging. Papa made some coffee so he and enjoyed some great conversation and time together. Later Titus joined us and wanted to swing with Papa so I got this photo of them. Hopefully Titus will learn from his Papa much wisdom!

Here’s a view I have often of Avery when she wants me to hold her. I was pitching to Titus in this moment but looked down and saw just how cute she was, so I got a photo.

I couldn’t resist. I had to get another one of Avery. She was showing me how she could twist her arms which she thought was pretty awesome.

While walking to dinner tonight we saw this ice cream cone that was freshly dropped on the ground.

We took Papa and Nana to a local Czech/Italian restaurant tonight (Bethany came too!) and the waitress brought the kids some colored pencils and coloring books. Titus was really proud of this one and said, “Dad, take a picture.”

After dinner we caught the tail end of a little kids festival in our town square, so we ended up buying a couple balloons. Avery had her heart (and eyes) set on this flower balloon which I couldn’t resist buying. This was her face when we got it tied to her wrist which was just hilarious.

Finally, here are the kids running towards our place with their new balloons. Even though we’re still waiting for baby, we’re enjoying the time together and having fun!