random pictures

I could take pictures all day long every day of cute, funny, sweet and memorable moments with our little boys, but I just don't have the memory card space to do it! :) haha.

...here are a few of the moments I've captured recently.

3 boys in the back of Mark's truck. We made a road trip to Shell Rock to look at landscaping rock, it was pretty cute to have the 3 boys in a row!
Mark has finished up at his internship! (Graduation is just around the corner!!). Pastor Ed gave Mark a going away gift. How thoughtful!Isaiah has been having fun playing outside with mud, dirt, shovels and buckets. He looks so cute when he's outside playing by himself imagining different things :)Levi has been on a late nap kick these past few weeks. He's been napping in the morning and then again from like 3:30-5 in the afternoon. We've been waking him up around 5 so he's ready for bed again around 8. Mark has found a fun way to wake him up, that keeps him happy! My parents watched our boys last Friday night so we could go out for a dinner date! When I came home I discovered a few pictures were taken on my camera! Playing play doh with grandma and grandpa in their undies! Thanks Mom and Dad for watching them! We've spent lots of time outside in the sunshine and warm weather. We've discovered a new hiding spot! Both boys love to hide here and wait for me to find them...haha Jayda and Jonah came over to play a week ago or so and we had lots of fun with them! Racing across the front yard...and then cleaning up in the tub! As you can see, we've had lots of fun these beautiful Spring days!

love Cedar Valley.

Our church, along with 29 others in the Cedar Valley, spread the love of Jesus to those in our community on Saturday. Over 1200 people from the area volunteered to hand out free food at busy corners, take balloons to nursing homes, plant flowers at schools, pick up trash, paint, clean, and so much more. Click here to find more info about the project - this was the 6th annual Love Cedar Valley.

Our small group decided to give away free lunches at the bus stop downtown Waterloo. I was a little nervous about the task to begin with - a busy corner with a handful of little ones in a somewhat scary part of town- but it turned out to be perfect! We handed out 200 lunches (minus the few we used to keep the kids happy:) and what a rewarding experience for everyone. The point of handing out lunches to anyone and everyone who wanted one was to show God's love for EVERYONE. We handed out lunches to the bus drivers, bus riders, people in cars driving by, people walking and biking by. Our biggest give away was for the car that drove by with 8 kids! I know it really brightened the day of lots of people!

Love Cedar Valley starts with a worship service, the boys enjoyed the upbeat music! Levi had fun dancing on Mark's shoulders.Then off to our corner...Isaiah and Lilian had fun holding our signs to let people know what we were doing.
The three babies hung out in their strollers. They made it almost the entire time in the strollers just watching everything that was going on and eating...but poor Levi got pooped on by a bird...Handing out lunches.
Break time for the kids.
It was a beautiful early afternoon and a great time for everyone. What a wonderful way to show God's love to our community and our kids! Can't wait for next year!

Egg hunt and the ER.

Kammy loves to make people happy; she is such a giving person. Every year she hosts an Easter Egg hunt for the kids in her life. She hides LOTS and LOTS of eggs to make it tons of fun for all of the kids.

We had fun again this year searching for eggs. Levi found several eggs (maybe 10 or 15)...and then couldn't resist the park that was on the other side of the field.
Isaiah, however, found so many eggs (I'd guess maybe 65!). He filled his Easter basket (the really cool McQueen basket Grandma Michele sent last year!!), Levi's bucket and Mark's shirt!
Towards the end of the hunt, Isaiah found a few more eggs that were hiding by some very big rocks. Isaiah climbed up on one of the huge rocks and fell backwards off the rock and hit his head on another big rock! He instantly started screaming and crying. Ouch! His head was bleeding a little bit and he had several bumps on his head.

We got him calmed down fairly quickly and distracted him by opening his eggs. He found LOTS of candy! Kammy told Isaiah that her favorite was the peanutbutter cups, so when we he opened his eggs and found peanutbutter cups he gave them to Kammy. "For me!!" she said.Thank you!!
Mark checked out his head some more...
and we decided we'd better be safe and take him in. We left the hunt and went to urgent care, but they were closed (this was on Easter Sunday). So we headed to the ER. Isaiah was so brave. After the doctor examined him, his cuts and bumps and decided that he was okay. Thank goodness! What a relief!

So there was Isaiah's first (and hopefully last!) trip to the ER.

Thank you Kammy for hosting such a fun Easter egg hunt! You are wonderful!

we were big helpers.

My sister and her family moved on Friday from Mount Pleasant to North Liberty! She is now only a little over an hour's drive away!! (Mount Pleasant was about 2 1/2 hours.) We went to help her move, and let me show you that we were a lot of help! :)

We made sure their new swing set was all set for Liahna to use.We entertained the dog.
and we made sure the counter was sturdy.
all of this while the men were working hard moving lots and lots of stuff! Oh, and we woke grandpa up before 6:30am Saturday morning so he could get back to work! :)
Congratulations Nichole and Jay on your new home! It's beautiful!

violets and a little boy.

When Isaiah and I walked into the backyard this morning we found lots of pretty purple violets throughout the yard. I hadn't noticed them before, but I think after reading Megan's post about Emily having so much fun with violets I was looking for them. Emily is just a few weeks younger than Isaiah so I thought he might like to pick them too. So we each picked a few flowers and I ran in to get a cup and some water. By the time I got back, Isaiah had a handful of dirt in his hand and said, "I got this dirt to help the flowers." So he poured it into the cup of water and I encouraged him to pick more flowers. He picked one more and then got more dirt. He then said, "you pick the flowers and I'll get the dirt" I ended up picking a cupful of flowers...
and he continued to play with dirt and rocks for another hour. we did find a little tree that we picked and put in the old dog dish that I let the boys play with. He kept putting rocks around the tree. He said, "I have to use these rocks to protect the tree." He wondered if it would grow. But before long the tree was old news...
when he realized the dirt turned into mud...that he used to "paint" the boat.
Goes to show that my Isaiah is such a boy. which is exactly what he should be! :)

cousin time.

A week or so ago I got to watch my niece for the morning! My boys had so much fun with her, and I think she had fun learning how to be wild and crazy from them! :)

The binky babies being binky babies. :)Isaiah and Liahna having a morning snack..."trail mix" of cereal...dumped all over the table. (It did start out in the bowl and they were sharing so nicely and within a minute or two it was all over the table...and then in another few minutes it was all over the floor... haha. oh well. can you see the grin on her face?Time to play outside! Liahna loved the worm. Jayda loves that worm too, must be a girl thing!What a sweet little girl.

The morning went by way too quickly! Can't wait to go see her again tomorrow as we help my sister's family move!! North Liberty here we come!

handsome boys...and a funny story

I must say I'm not one to buy new outfits for holidays (except Isaiah's first Christmas when he was 3 months old). My boys have always just worn something "nice" from their closet. Usually I have this outfit picked out ahead of time, but I was not with it for Easter this year and decided what they would wear Easter morning. I thought they looked pretty cute and had just a few minutes to spare to take a couple pictures...

the best i could do! :)we're out of here!

So as we were walking out to the car I noticed that Isaiah's pants looked awfully short. I had just gone through his pants and tried to get rid of most of his 2T (yes TWO T) pants because he is finally in almost all 3T pants, but I figured I must have missed this pair.

By the time I picked him up from Sunday School his pants were looking VERY short, as in you could almost see the tops of his socks :) HAHA. but I figured, "oh well" and we went on with our day (I'll have to post about that later -- as it included Isaiah's first trip to the ER!!!) and by bedtime when he took the pants off I looked at them a little closer to make sure I remembered to put them in the too little box. I laughed out loud when I saw that they were Levi's pants 24 months. (Although I'm not sure Levi has ever worn them, as they are a little longer than most 24 month pants we have)

So for Easter Sunday, Isaiah spent the day in his little brother's pants! HA HA :)

dance moves

Head over to Laura's blog to see some really great dance moves by some really cute kids!

little bunnies

We tried to make this Easter about Jesus and very little about the extra stuff, but who doesn't love 3 little bunnies.
My mom found a few left over ears at work and brought them for the cousins.
They all thought they were hot stuff in them.
And boy did they look cute...
for the few minutes they actually had them on! :)

Thanks Mom for the fun ears!