Playgroup Easter Egg Hunt/Train Ride

This year's playgroup egg hunt was a blast! Kathryn had the GREAT idea of going to the park and taking a train ride and having a picnic lunch. The boys were SO excited!

Ayden, Claire, and Ethan waiting for the train!
Miss Ellie waiting very patiently
Ayden and Ethan on board!

Ellie and Colby

Mommy and Isaiah

Ethan, Ayden, Colby, Ellie, and Isaiah

Let's go!!

Kathryn read a story to the kids while the eggs were being hidden!

And they're off!

Me and the boys

Jennifer, Ayden, and Colby

Very tired after the hunt...

But excited to see what was in the eggs!

Ellie checking out her goodies too

NS Easter Egg Hunt

The annual egg hunt was a lot of fun this year! They always split the kids up by age because there are always so many who attend. This year Isaiah was old enough to participate and there were over 35 kiddos just in his group!!! It was fun to watch him find the eggs and put them in his monkey basket!

Where is it?

I tried to get a picture of the both of them but only Ethan was willing to pose! He's so cute!

He really got the hang of it pretty quick.

Ethan was READY for his turn!!

He sped off so fast I barely got any pictures of him! How many do I have? (They are allowed to have a pre-dertermined number based on how many kids are in the group; that way its fair for all kids) Ethan found his 10 eggs in a matter of 1 or 2 minutes!

Gigi and the boys

Cars, Cars, and More Cars

Anyone who knows my boys knows that cars are a HUGE thing in our house. So for a while now Ethan has been making traffic with his cars (note the window). He gets so proud sometimes and he will run to me and say, "Mommy come look at my traffic!" Anyway, today Isaiah took an interest in building his own traffic. Ethan was nice enough to share some of his cars with him, but started to get a little jealous when Isaiah was doing such a good job on his masterpiece.

I was pretty impressed with the job Isaiah did!
Ethan went for a "check up" on Isaiah and started counting...he wanted to make sure he had more cars than his brother! Isaiah got pretty protective over his own cars. Looks like we will have to get Isaiah his own cars so we won't have WWIII!

The Joy of Boys

So the weather was beautiful today and I sent the boys out back to play and run off some energy. They have recently peeked an interest in sticks...and not just any stick...long sticks. I know you are thinking I'm crazy to let them play with sticks but I'm trying to let them be free to use their imagination...and yes, I supervise. Here are a cute pictures I caught:

How many can we find?

Oh, so cute!!

They do love each other!

February Birthday Bash

On Josh's side of the family, we now have 6 birthdays in February: Ethan, Laura, Cody, me, Logan, and Danica. (We also celebrated dad's birthday too since the party was so close to his, Mar 13) We decided it would be better on everyone's schedules to have ONE big party. Since Logan was due in mid February we thought it best to not plan the party until we knew exactly when he was coming. So as luck would have it, he was born on MY birthday (yeah!) but we then had to wait a couple of weeks for Shawna and Logan to recover before we could party it out! SO...first chance in March we got we took! It was alot of fun and everyone had a great time!

Ethan 4 yrs

Logan 3 weeks

Danica 2 yrs

Sweet Avery

Look at those legs!! Don't you just want to squeeze them??

OH SO CUTE!

Bragging On Ethan...

So I have to brag a little about my smarty pants. I have to say that much is credited to the PBS show Dinosaur Train, where he learns crazy stuff about dinosaurs. Anyway, I don't know if anyone saw, but the sky was absolutely beautiful tonight as the sun was going down. Well on our way to church Ethan said the following:

Ethan: "Mommy, look at the beautiful sky!"

Me: "Yes that is beautiful!"

Ethan: "How does it do that?"

I didn't even get to answer when he explained: "I think that at nighttime God brings out the beautiful sky. (Pause) That's just a hypothesis!"

And yes, he does know what hypothesis means...Oh he cracks me up sometimes!

God Is Love

So I have decided to use this blog not only for something to look back on about my kids but for me as well. I am going to start using it sort of like a journal...writing about things I am struggling with, either with the kids or personally or amazing things that might have happened in my life. I know some of you do this already and I'm jumping on the bandwagon!

Today my heart was spoken to, not in an "eye-opening" way (because I already knew these things about myself) but in a convicting way. At LBC today the lesson was on God's amazing love. WOW, Kayren did a fantastic job delievering the message God wanted us hear! Thank you so much Kayren!!! Many things she talked about rang true in my own life. I too have major struggles with anger, which leads to yelling, which is all coming from impatience. I was reading Kayren's blog and man does she just write like it is! We are all struggling mommies and wives, and we are all (at least I hope) striving to be SOLD OUT for Christ.

So as a warning, sometimes I might blog just because sometimes it feels good to get the conversations I have in my head out. Don't feel like you need to read it but hopefully it can be encouraging to some to feel God's love and strength through my words. Not by a long shot will I get it right all the time and sometimes my words might not even make sense to you, and that's ok, but hey we are all sinners battleing Satan. But thanks be to God who covers us all with his grace because of Jesus' blood!!


Ephesians 3:17-19 "..so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know that this love surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

I ask that you pray for me as I openly (which is very hard for me) struggle, to grasp God's love for me, and to really live (not just telling myself I will) not for myself, but for God and to bring God glory each and every day.