Robots

I let the kids draw on our french doors with dry erase markers.  They come off easy and it's like a built in white board for them.  Recently Jonathan took to drawing robots.  I was particularly fond of them and thought they were very creative so I thought I'd share.

Tea Party

Nana won certificates and treated the girls to a tea party complete with cupcakes and dress-up fun.  The girls liked getting all dolled up and even got their make up done.  Joel and Jonathan went to a local coffee shop for some treats of their own while the girls were busy.  It was a nice treat on a cold winter Saturday.  Thanks again, Nana!

Awesome Day at the Zoo

We went to the zoo this past Saturday for 4 hours.  We didn't intend to stay so long, but we were having such a great time we ended up closing down the zoo for the day.  There were hardly any people there and the animals were out and active as a whole as we haven't experienced before.  In Joel's own words it was possibly the best trip to the zoo we've ever had as a family.

We got to look eye-to-eye with an orangutang with only a panel of glass between us.  He mimicked some of our expressions and stuck his lip out at us playfully.  The lion was out and prowling.  We got to see him roar too.  It's always so impressive the massive volume that comes out with such seeming ease.  We fed parakeets by hand and saw kangaroos napping in the sun right under us.  We sat and watched the otters swimming around like corkscrews in the water.  Something that I never tire of watching (I'd seriously love to be able to swim like an otter - it just looks like a blast!)  We also saw an 8 week old calf being bottle fed and then Joel, Jonathan & I got to let it use our fingers as a pacifier (the girls didn't want to experience baby cow slobber on their hands).  We finished the day going through the amphibian house and seeing many cool things up close including a light blue caterpillar - never seen that before!

We literally saw the entire zoo and had a blast doing so.  It was a great afternoon and we all agreed it was a special gift.     

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the day.  Joel took them all so unfortunately he's not in any of them.

Exciting Morning

We had an exciting morning last spring.  We were cleaning up our backyard one Saturday morning and unearthed an active gas pipe!  Joel could detect the faint smell of a gas leak so we headed inside quickly and called the local gas company.  They sent out the fire department to check out the extent of the leak.  So we had firemen in full gear in our backyard!  They determined it was an active small leak and let the gas company know so they could come out an cap the line (which they did a few days later).  Our exciting morning also made for a great photo opp for Jonathan with the firefighters in front of their truck.

Soccer 2014

Jonathan played soccer again this fall.  Joel co-coached his team.  We tried a different venue this time and liked it a lot better.  Practice and games are all on the same day each week and it's right up the road from our house.  Jonathan had a monster season scoring 14 goals for his team (more than any other player).  He's going to play again in the spring, and Joel will coach again as well.  It should be another good season!

Here's how Joel described Jonathan's season in a Facebook post: "So proud of Jonathan this season. He was my top player again. He scored 14 goals, 2 assists and had 10 saves this season. He did it all with grace and humility. We are both already looking forward to next season in March!"

 

First Days 2014

We had a smooth transition back into the school year.  Emily is now in 5th grade and Jonathan 2nd.  This year is different because Katherine got to begin pre-school 2 days a week.  She was & continues to be thrilled to go to school like her big sister and brother do.  She even gets a homework sheet once a week and loves it.  We are very pleased with all 3 kids teachers, which is literally an answer to prayer for the right classroom for each of them yearly.  Here are some photos from their first days back.

 

Katherine doing her first homework sheet ever.  She was really excited!

Fall Festival

Our church had their annual fall festival this week.  The weather was perfect and we had a great time.  The kids came home loaded down with enough candy to last quite a while too.  Emily went as Belle, the brave princess from Beauty and the Beast.  Katherine was Tinkerbell - one of her favorite characters at the moment.  Jonathan chose a fitting Spiderman costume as he loves to climb on anything possible right now (and he's really good at it, I might add). 

The church had some of their theater-inclined young people wandering around dressed up and totally in character to interact with the kids. Emily came across a fellow Disney princess, Arial.  Katherine bumped into Tinkerbell herself, which made her very happy (it was pretty cute seeing her interact with "big" Tink).

Jonathan bravely tackled climbing a mock coconut tree and he made it all the way to the top!  We were impressed as it was about 20-25 feet tall.  This just further emphasized his true Spiderman-like abilities.  He was very proud of himself too, and rightly so!