James's program 5-25-10

James had his end of year program last night! It was adorable, and this was the first year James got really into it. Our church has the worst lighting for pictures and video, but it still turned out somewhat well! James is on the top row with the red shirt.

Jack 5-25-10

This is a video of Jack that I took this week. I wanted to get him pretending to talk on the phone, because it always cracks me up. On the second half, we are making faces at each other. It's hard to believe this boy is almost 18 months!!

Our Spring

This has been such a wonderful and blessed Spring! I have neglected my blog lately, but I'm making myself sit here and write it all down before I forget all of these memories! We had about 4 or 5 weekends back to back where either Josh or I said, "This is my favorite weekend we've had as a family!" It doesn't always happen this way, but it's just been a particularly sweet time with lots of fun family activities!

I will have to do this in installments:

Family Camp-Out~
The family camp-out we went to was one of them. We packed up all of our outdoor gear (we hardly have any, but we brought everything we had) and headed off on a Friday night to go camping about an hour from town with some wonderful families at our church! We had a ball, letting the kids run around outside and enjoying the great weather with no working cell phones and beautiful scenery to enjoy! We enjoyed a devo by the campfire, roasting marshmallows, we slept fairly well (for camping), had great food, got to explore and see neat things, and enjoyed the company of all of the families that went. One of my favorite parts was watching James have a ball with his friends (of all ages). I feel tremendously blessed to have so many families at our church who know, love, and spend time with our kids. James just eats it up, and I know these relationships he's formed and is continuing to form will bless him throughout his growing up. He was so sad to leave when it was time to go, and he kept running around making sure he'd said good-bye to every person. We had to roll down the window so he could yell good-bye to the junior high girls walking on the path. :)

James' 4th Birthday~
James had a great 4th birthday. On his actual birthday, Josh took the day off, and we went to breakfast and the zoo together. James was a bit of a birthday monster, and every time someone would call to wish him a happy birthday, he'd say (in an Eeore tone) "Thaaank youuuu". Even though he'd talked about it for months and months, it just fell flat for him. :) By that night, though, he was perked up when we went to dinner at Ninfa's with Nana and Deedah. We still really enjoyed the day, just being with our little 4 year old, and celebrating him! The next day was his birthday party day, and he was so cute and excited all day! This was the enthusiasm I'd been looking for in him! It was such a sweet and special day, seeing him get so excited about his party. We went out and bought party favors, and he got really into helping me put them together. He couldn't wait to give them to his friends! His anticipation grew as we ran last minute party errands! We all had a great time at his party! It was at The Jumping Party, which is such a great place to throw a party. We thoroughly enjoyed James run around and play with his friends, singing happy birthday to him, and just celebrating our precious boy! I am so thankful for each person who came to help celebrate James turning four. My family headed back to our house afterwards for coffee and more presents. Below are pictures from his birthday and birthday party!

Birthday




We were so happy to run into James' buddy, Creighton, as we were walking in, and James wanted to be with him the rest of the time there.





Party Day

The Faces of Baseball

I was taking pictures in motion mode of James playing baseball and cracked up at all of the different faces of his I captured! He makes all kinds of crazy faces when the ball's coming at him! He's also making a lot of his silly faces in here. He makes these faces all of the time right now. His most common one is a silly eye roll, usually after trying to fake me out and saying, "jus kidding!" Make sure to turn up your volume!

Enjoy!! ;)~



The pictures of Josh at the end show you where James gets it from!

Buddies

I can't stand to look at that dirty tv picture anymore, so I'm putting up some pictures of my boys this past week. They are just the sweetest little buddies to watch play together. Jack adores his "bu-boo" and James almost always wants his "little buddy" around. They giggle together all throughout the day, play ball together (somewhat), play funny little made-up games together (of course at the attention span level of a 17 month old), and it is such a joy to watch their budding friendship!