Special Outing with Grammie

Big J was blessed to get to go out on a special outing for ice

 cream with his Grammie for his birthday.

For those who have spent time with Big J 

around food and meals, you know that he is not 

the quickest at finishing his food.  He is easily

distracted.  And, believe it or not, he 

doesn't even finish sweets quickly. 

So, as they were out for ice cream,

Big J took the time to use his candies to make a

picture of his Grammie.

Sword in the Tree Party

Big J a long with some of his friends read the book "The Sword in the Tree."  Aunt Fell was in charge of then throwing a party for the book.  The boys had so much fun dressing up as Knights and going through some special training before the Queen announced they all had passed the training and were official Knights.

Thanks Aunt Fell for a fun day.

                                

Seven Years Old!!!

Did I just say SEVEN?  I know it is said the years fly by, and I am yet another mom who can attest to this statement.  I can't believe our Big J is now seven years old.

We are so blessed to have this boy in our family. 

He has such a fun personality that I often find 

myself laughing with him throughout the day.

He is such an encourager to his siblings and truly

does love them all so much.  He continues to be our

bookworm as well as our Lego creator (as he calls himself).

The theme for his birthday this year was 

"Build your house on the ROCK"

He loves playing with his Lego's - so we 

made a Lego cake to go along with the building theme.

His new favorite color is PURPLE (Grammie will love this), 

since we read in history that Kings used to wear purple.

For his birthday we went to a play called Skyzone, 

which is a big indoor tramboline play area.

The girls had fun jumping

As did Big J.  The pictures are a little blurry -

but that orange thing below is Big J trying

to touch the rim on the basketball hoop.

For his birthday his daddy

got him a paint ball gun!

I am sure the boys will have a lot of fun 

with it this year at the land.

We had a nice day celebrating his birthday.

Like all year round, we praise the Lord for him

and the blessing he continues to be to our family.

Walker with Many Faces

Little J really has taken off with his walking.  I would not give him the official "I am A WALKER" certificate yet; however, he enjoys walking and can go quite a distance before he plops down and decides to crawl.  He also will take off on his own without any encouragement now.  Thankfully, unlike his two oldest siblings, he is slow and steady and knows how to fall down (on his butt instead on flat on his face or into corners of walls- 

if you remember our two oldest at this age you know why I say this).

The other day I was taking pictures of him walking and I in a matter of seconds he gave me so many faces as he worked so hard to walk across our deck.

5:45AM SMILE

Nine times out of ten, this is the usual site I see coming into my bedroom at about 5:45AM.

Purple Girl with her baby doll and blankets.

Dress Up

Big J and Purple Girl came out of our closest dressed up like this the other day. 

They enjoyed pretending to be a mom and a dad.  

I love this first picture of the two of them and how Purple Girl is looking at her Big Brother.  

She loves him so much.

Walker

Little J is starting to take steps.  He actually can walk quite well when he wants to. 

 However, he prefers to crawl and at this point will only walk if we encourage him too.

Favorite Toy

Little J found this toy at his GiGi's home and she was generous to let him take it home.

He loves to carry this bat around and hit everything in sight.

Lego Creator

Big J loves to build with Lego's during his quiet time in the afternoon.  

It is fun for mom to come in and see his creations. 

He was very excited to show me this one and it certainly warmed mom's heart too.

Big Guy!

Fun at the Park

Spring in Iowa is unpredictable.

It is exciting when the days are nice 

it is wonderful to get outside.

11 Months Old

Our Little J turned 11 months old on March 6th.

I can't believe how fast this year is going by 

and how much he is growing up.

He is such a fun little boy.

And he is all boy!  He loves to throw everything

he gets his hands.  He enjoys hitting cars, his bat, or

whatever he has in his hands against the wall or floor to 

hear a loud noise.  He grunts and screams and loves

to hear his siblings smile and laugh at him.

His new saying is "uh-o" whenever 

he drops something.  

Little J enjoyed his daddy playing with him the other evening.  

Somehow while we were having lunch the other 

day he got himself under on the chairs.  

He is such a blessing to our home -

We just love him so much!!

Clapping

Girl and Her Babies

Lately Busy Bee has really enjoyed carrying around an armful of baby's and pets.  

She has to take them into every room we go.  It takes a little time to load up all these

animals and baby's.  But she loves them so much.

Brotherly Love

Big J enjoys playing with his little brother.

Lately he has enjoyed putting him inside of things.

This morning it was the hamper.

Of course Little J thinks this is really neat.

Last week it was the tote with cars.

Little J loved throwing the cars out 

and watching his big brother pick them up. 

South Carolina - Random

While we were in South Carolina, my dad and his wife were able to come and visit.  

They just live a few hours away in North Carolina.  So, we enjoyed a nice day at the park with them.

Purple Girl enjoyed making some

chocolate chip cookies with Grammie.

She enjoyed eating them too!

See the picture above and Pepsi - my mom 

is a Pepsi drinker and has given Purple Girl

random sips here and there.  (very small sips).

So, now whenever Purple Girl sees a Pepsi machine

she will ask "Mom, can we grab a Pepsi? I am thirsty"

Finally, we went grocery shopping with my sister to make

her some meals she could freeze.

(I am sure she appreciates me putting this picture on the blog)!

But she is a FUN aunt and our children love her so much.

We were blessed to go visit and hope they can come to Iowa soon.

We miss them already!

We once again want to give all glory to God

for a safe trip.  All our connections were on time with

no complications flying and my family back at home 

were kept safe and healthy while we were gone.

We know our Lord once again provided for us

and watched over us!

South Carolina - Little J and Cousin C

Little J was excited to meet his new cousins.  

He especially enjoyed trying to play with his five month old Cousin C! 

He tried to play with her walker while she was in it; 

however this did not go over well.  Little J tends

to scream with JOY when he gets excited and 

I think he scared her.

They went to the park together and enjoyed the nice weather.

After a few days of being together, they warmed up to one

another and finally did enjoy "talking" together.  Cousin C 

just found her voice and can "talk" with the best of the baby world.

So, they would go back and forth "talking" rather loudly.

Trip to South Carolina - Outside!!

While we were in South Carolina the weather was absolutely gorgeous every day - 70's and sun every day.  So, we of course had to get outside.  This was Purple Girl's and Little J's first time outside in nice weather this year, so they were more than overjoyed!!

Purple Girl wanted to swing and swing and swing!

She also discovered that she can go up and down the 

pole all by herself.

Little J was so sweet.  He was scared of the swing,

so he cuddled right in.

Although he wasn't a fan of swinging,

he LOVED picking up the wood chips and

throwing them over this bar. 

(And of course he had to try a taste of one the 

wood chips too)

It was so much fun being outside!!!

Trip to South Carolina - The Animals

Although Purple Girl was SO excited to meet her new cousins, if I am honest, I believe she was the most excited to see her Uncle and Aunt's pets.  They have 1 BIG dog (A Newfoundland) and a 2 cats.

Little J was very intrigued by the animals as well. 

He wasn't afraid to get close to Bear (the dog).

The picture above is funny.  After Little J reached Bear, 

who is a very gentle sweet dog, Bear then went to give Little J a "kiss." 

This scared Little J and he started to cry.

One of the days we took a trip to the Dog Park to let Bear

run around. (It was GORGEOUS weather while we were there-

in the 70's every day).

At the Dog Park:

Purple Girl's favorite part 

of being at the dog park was watching

a different dog run up and

jump on her Uncle.  She loved petting all the different dogs.

Unfortunately I do not have any pictures of Purple Girl with the kitties.

They are very nice cats, however, not cats for Purple Girl to hold.

She was able to pet them and LOVED constantly walking and

checking on them.  

She is an animal girl and has hopes of having a kitty of her own one day.