Creativity

I am daily amazed at the boys' creativity and the joy that they have in creating different things.

Both of them love anything Angry Birds. Isaac made his own angry birds and a big pig out of Play-doh.

 Caleb brings home fantastic artwork from preschool. We take pictures of the glitter artwork as a memory since the glitter falls off when we hang the pictures.

Isaac spent many painstaking minutes stacking his colored pencils.

Caleb is now a big fan of getting painted at preschool. This candy cane was compliments of Looney Dooney, one of his favorite preschool visitors!  (Not sure what is going on with his shirt...)

Who needs gifts when the box in which they come is perfect to use as a fort, hiding place, and a canvas for their drawings.

They are both really into Legos and spent a lot of time after Christmas putting together one of their Lego sets with each other.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year to you!

The pictures above are some of our favorite moments from 2012 which included our summer vacation with family, the first day of school for all of us, and a wonderful trip to Martha's Vineyard to be part of Brad and Kara's wedding.  

Fun with Grandma B

Grandma B came for a visit for a few weeks in to watch the boys while we had teacher meetings and to also spend Thanksgiving with us and the Leonards.  It is always a joy to have a visit from Grandma, and this visit was no exception.

Below are some pictures from our little weekend getaway to a local hotel. Unfortunately, the pool was closed for maintenance so we came up with our own alternative activities.

Enjoying the snacks during happy hour

Playing Skip-bo

A little silliness before bedtime

We also made some time to bake and frost cutout cookies. The boys thought they should do it shirt-less.
 

The boys got to open presents from Grandma while she was here.
 

Thanks for a fun visit, Grandma! Visit again soon!

Thanksgiving

For what do I thank God this year? After spending a full day with so many members of my family, I will say that at the top of my list are family and friends. God has blessed us so richly with loving families and wonderful friends who not only love us but also encourage us to live our lives for Christ and grow in him.

I am especially thankful for this wonderful man who has been the joy of my life for the last 16 years since he popped up in my inner tube at a Dordt pool party.  And I am thankful for my boys and the joy they bring to our lives each day.

God has blessed us over and above what we deserve. We pray that our lives will be an act of worship towards our Creator and Heavenly Father in the upcoming year and that we will praise him in both the good and the hard times.

Happy Weekend!

How can you not smile at the obvious joy of these two?!?  It is just a shame that they do not have enough cars with which to play.

Still More Dress-up

Today was "Crazy Day" at the elementary school, and this is how Isaac and Paul looked as they left for school.

Paul originally had his Coke pants on and posted a picture of his outfit and partially shaven face on Facebook this morning. Within minutes many people made comments on his outfit including a college friend alluding to a pair of bacon and eggs pants that he wore throughout our college years. (Actually he and two of his close friends each came back after Christmas break with a pair of these stellar pants that had been Christmas gifts.) 

As soon as he read that comment to me, I figured he could pull off wearing them one more time despite the fact that they were ripped since he was wearing shorts over his outfit. And the bacon and eggs pants were resurrected for another wearing. 

The shirt was also a gift from Paul's mom who thought they might work for one of his dress-up days. Boy, was she right on that one!

Isaac was so excited to put his hair in a mohawk. He also kept adding to his costume and switching out shirts as he thought of more creative things to wear. I was very impressed that he went so all-out for this day since he usually likes to lie low and not draw attention to himself.

We are enjoying our dress-up days and look forward to the others that are yet to come.

Little Man

This post is solely dedicated to our little man who brings much emotion (both joyful and not-so-joyful) to everything that he does.

Here is his second "face painting" that happened at the preschool--a snake just like he said he was going to get.

Being painted by Miss Vicki

Unfortunately, he washed his hands and part of the snake away before we snapped a picture of it (much to his great dismay which we heard as he wailed when he realized he had wiped off part of his snake).

He still loves both his football guys and his baseball guys. Here he is having his baseball guys participate in the World Series. These guys were in our living room for quite a few days since he insisted on finishing the series and having them play all the games just like the real World Series.

Finally, here are a few art projects that he has made at preschool this fall. He is bringing home many pieces of artwork thanks to the great teaching of the preschool's new resident art teacher, Mrs. Lisa.

A scarecrow

Learning about healthy eating

Cubist art (the second picture)

Fall leaves and colors

More fall pictures with acorns and twigs

And our playroom walls are being adorned with the weekly letters. His letters are different than Isaac's letter collages, though, in that each letter is actually an animal (alligator, bee, caterpillar, dinosaur, elephant, fox, giraffe, and hippo).

It is a joy watching him learn and create new things and live life to the fullest every waking minute of each day.

More Dress-up

Our high school just celebrated homecoming week. As part of the weekly festivities, each day was a designated dress-up day which included Magical Monday (Disney themed), Twin Day Tuesday, Workout Wednesday, Tired Thursday, and School Spirit Friday. Being a freshmen teacher, I got to participate and dress up as well.  Only one day's outfit had a picture taken so I thought I would share it:

The curlers were the extra special touch and were a bit of a distraction to both my students throughout the day and to all the cars driving past school in the morning as I supervised the crosswalk with the crossing guards (my regular Thursday duty).

Talent Night

All four of us had the opportunity to participate in our church's talent show this past weekend that was held to raise money for a new keyboard for worship. The title of the night was called "Crossroads Has Got Talent." 

Paul was the MC for the night and did a fabulous job providing comic relief and segues between each of the 14 acts of the night. He was funny and had a full arsenal of appropriate and funny jokes. He also participated in the show by singing in a men's barbershop quartet, playing a solo on the crash cymbals, and being part of the bottle band. Here is a little snippet of Paul's men's quartet practicing their song.

I sang "Lollipop" in a women's trio plus two and also was part of the bottle band (sorry, no pictures or video).

The boys sang "Jesus Loves Me" and then jammed out on the instruments on stage (bass guitar by Isaac and drums by Caleb) with a bunch of their friends. Their act was called "Crossroads Future" and was so cute. We were very proud of them for going up front and singing. They actually got third place for their number and were so proud of their mini trophies.

After accepting the trophies 

Showing off their trophies and the sign Isaac made before the show

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012 looks very similar to Halloween 2011 (here and here) if you take into account that the boys are bigger, their pumpkins have different designs, and they are wearing different costumes. (Check out Halloween 2010 when the boys were Lego bricks.)

We enjoyed carving our pumpkins again this year--but this time with the official pumpkin carving set that so many of our friends insisted we should have for safety reasons. This year Caleb chose Phineas (of Phineas and Ferb) while Isaac chose a storm trooper from Star Wars.

Look at the growth off of the seeds!

The pumpkin's yucky innards

Carving Phineas

The end product with their Skittles ghost eggs

All lit up

A ninja warrior and Wario (from Super Mario Brothers)

The annual stop at Miss M. and Aunt Nita's house

We had a wonderful time carving our pumpkins and joining our friends for our annual chili dinner and trick or treating in their neighborhood.

Excited about their Halloween goodies from Gpa and Gma N.

Crazy Good Times with Camille

Still in the dream-of-summer mode here so one more post about our summer happenings. I feel like we have been so spoiled with so much time spent with family and close friends. We were blessed with a visit from my niece Camille during July. She went on a mission trip to Mexico with her Spanish class and stayed for a while after her trip to visit with us. The boys had a blast having her around each day--they fished out my headbands so they could be just like Camille!

We also made a special trip to Hollywood and the Santa Monica Pier so she could see something other than the San Diego area which is what she has always seen when visiting. Thanks, Jill, for making that day happen!

And then we got to see her a couple weeks later when we were in MN and ND!  So glad you could visit for a short time, Camille!

Friends...

Although I did not take a ton of pictures this past summer, I did manage to snap a few pictures of some of our favorite friends who happened to be in southern California for most of this summer and with whom we spent as much time as we could manage while they were here.

We made a few trips with them to the San Diego Zoo and the Wild Animal Park. (Unfortunately, I forgot my camera for most of our trips.)

Isaac with J snuggled up next to him

At the Wild Animal Park

We also had the pleasure of having the boys at our house a few times.

Cheering for the high divers during the Olympics 

Trying to keep J by him on the couch 

"Cheers!" with their little goldfish crackers snack

Enjoying Cheetos at their own dinner table

Also enjoying Cheetos & being a little silly

 It was such a joy having our friends in the area this past summer. We miss all of you VW's very much!!!

Summer Days...

I know that I did not take as many pictures of things this past summer as I usually do. I think that I just lived in the moment as much as I could while I wrapped up details at church and prepared for a job change (and big life change for our family).  Although I did not have a full camera when school started, I did manage to snap a few pictures that I found today and smiled just thinking about the relaxing days of summer. (This past weekend's overcast and rainy days have made me nostalgic for the long and sunny days of summer.)

The boys took swimming lessons from a fellow teacher. She was fabulous, and we were thrilled to see how much the boys learned over the two-week period.

Isaac: practicing his dive

Caleb: practicing his diving skills

The elementary back stroke: "Soldier, monkey, airplane"

The summer Olympics fueled our boys' interest in practicing their swimming skills in our pool. They ran many relays with each other and loved diving off the diving board at a friend's pool. They were so caught up in the Olympics action that they decided to put on their own Olympics gymnastics competition with their cousins. Each child was assigned a country they he or she would represent, and Isaac made flags for each person.

We also planted and grew tomatoes. Unfortunately, I have not been very good about timing my planting so that the tomatoes are ready when we are actually at home. Most of my tomatoes were ripe and ready for the picking while we were visiting family in the Midwest which allowed a few of our friends to enjoy them in our absence. I was excited to come home to a few tomatoes on the bushes:

 We had fun harvesting the day we got back and enjoyed fresh tomatoes throughout most of August. We even managed to can a few jars of salsa!

In addition to lots of swimming and spending time with family and friends, we played many games with each other. Some of our favorites this past summer and year have included Hawaiian Go Fish, Junior SkipBo, Qwirkle, and Sorry.