The Highlight of His Week

Aden LOVES LOVES LOVES all things related to yard work and especially enjoys watching the various gardeners who work on our neighbors' yards. It has actually become so much a part of his routine that we know which day and what time slot each gardener comes =) It is amazing how such a small thing can bring so much excitement to this little boy.

If you look closely you can see Aden sitting and the bottom of the driveway intently watching the men work.

Here he is watching the men load their equipment into the back of their truck.

This is later that same day watching different gardeners at a different house. His little eyes are glued to their every move.

He's such a serious worker. He'll say, "Mommy, I need to get working on my job. I need to mow and edge and blow and do the weed whacker and hoe and rake."

He's very thorough too...even mowing around the planters =)

And when he's done, just like the gardeners, he loads his equipment into his "truck" and onto the "trailer". It took me a couple of weeks to figure out why he always stacked all of his lawn stuff onto the glider and ottoman. Then one day I heard him say, "And put this on the truck and this one too..." as he set stuff on top of the glider. He's definitely got an imagination!

Bucket Head

Jonathan's latest form of entertainment...

In three years time...

Jeremy and Serena Kidder have been staying with us this week for the Shepherds' Conference and last night we had a get-together at our house with several friends from the past. We enjoyed Daniel's yummy homemade pizza and we spent time gathered around Jeremy and his guitar, singing and worshiping together. It was just like old times but we were amazed by how much the group had grown in just three years time...by nine to be exact. Here's a shot of the nine ranging in age from 4 weeks to 3 1/2 years.

Aden's 3rd Birthday Party

Aden loves firetrucks so we decided to do a firetruck theme for his party. Here he is proudly holding one of his gifts (which happened to double as a party activity.)

Auntie Stacy (and I think Uncle Jakey helped too!) made this AWESOME firetruck cake! Aden was SO excited about it. When Jake and Stacy arrived that morning (with cake in hand) Aden's whole face lit up, he ran down the hall into his room, put on his fireman hat, came out and said, "I'm gonna fight fires!" It was very cute! He couldn't take his eyes off the cake. Thank you Auntie Stacy and Uncle Jakey for all of your hard work and creativity. You really made Aden's birthday a memorable one!


I didn't plan any party games because the kids are still on the young side for organized games but they sure had a blast playing with the balloons. They were dancing and jumping and squealing. I wish I had video of it to share with you!

My sweet little fireman!

Working hard on his puzzle

Joshua and Aden (and the plastic dinosour) working together to complete the task at hand

The moms assigned the task of "puzzle assisters" to the dads. It was cute to see them all working together.

Aden's "To the Rescue" firetruck t-shirt was a gift from Jonathan. Hooray for Kohl's clearance rack!

God is so good! It had rained the entire week before Aden's party and it rained for several days after but on the day of the party is was sunny and clear. What a blessing to be able to spend some time outside! As always the bounce house was a huge hit...especially when the dads starting throwing the kids into it from the opening on the top =)

Make a Wish!

Here's sweet Auntie Stacy getting ready to cut the cake.

He couldn't contain his excitement...especially when Auntie Stacy and Daddy let him dig into the whole cake with his fork!

Jonathan found someone's plate of cake and helped himself to a bite or two.

And here he is helping himself to Auntie Stacy's soda. Poor second child...clearly he's learned to fend for himself. =)

Aden got a card in the mail that day from the Foil kids. He was very excited about his three $1 bills that Cora gave him. Right away he asked to put them in his piggy bank...the first ever bills to go in there! Thanks Foil family for remembering Aden's birthday. And great job coloring Evan...we were all very impressed!

Mr. Independent

A couple of days ago I heard the "gounk, gounk, gounk, gounk" sound of lots of liquid spilling and turned the corner in time to see Aden sitting on the table straddling an upside down FULL gallon of milk as he attempted to pour himself a bowl of cereal. My biggest questions was WHY on earth did he have the sofa's throw pillow on the kitchen chair during this act of independence?

It's a good thing our carpet is already thrashed or I probably WOULD have cried over spilled milk!

An Apple A Day...

The other day Aden asked me for an apple and (of course) as soon as Jonathan saw what Aden was getting he wanted one too. So off they went, each with an apple in hand. A few minutes later I found them sitting side-by-side so sweetly munching on their mid-morning snack.

Jonathan is a scrapper when it comes to food so he is always a willing recipient of Aden's leftovers. Apparently Aden passed off his half-eaten apple to Jonathan who proceeded to carry around both apples for much of the day. At some point they disappeared only to show up again several hours later in Jonathan's hands. Who knows where he stashed them? It was pretty funny. Anyway, by the end of the day they were pretty gnarly looking but he had actually eaten quite a bit of the fruit.

An Explanation...

... for the lack of posts lately.

1) Daniel's family was in town for a few days.
2) Aden and I were sick for a week.
3) Jonathan had his surgery.
4) Morning sickness.
5) Jonathan was hospitalized for two days.
A couple of days after his surgery Jonathan got sick too. He sounded awful! We ended up taking him to the ER late Sunday night (well, 1:30am Monday) because he started pausing between breaths (yeah, quite scary!) He was admitted to the hospital where he received breathing treatments and doses of oral steroids for two days. Thankfully he's doing fine now! They don't know if it was something like RSV (a respiratory virus) or if it was the result of damage done to the tissue surrounding his airways from his breathing tube during his surgery. Either way, we're relieved to be home and healthy! This is a picture of him sleeping in his hospital crib.

Anyway, I hope to start posting more often but (because of #4) I can't promise anything.