Happy Easter!

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead..." 1 Peter 1:3

Our friend Caleb came over to play the other day...it was a beautiful day, so we just spent the whole morning outside...

snacking

loading

hauling

swinging

digging

"cooking"

flying

sun-bathing (actually, I think he said he was making a "dirt angel")

more snacking

running

and just hanging out with friends

Hope you are enjoying spring too!!!

"on the fly"

Boden absolutely loves doing crafts....he asks everyday, probably 2-3 times a day if we can make a craft.  If I were wise, I would have ideas ready to go, maybe do some research in the evening, or buy a book with ideas, but alas...I haven't.  That leaves me with coming up with ideas "on the fly."

For some reason, Claire prefers pencils to crayons...she still thinks crayons are snacks.

and the toilet paper roll was much much more interesting to her than the butterflies

Boden, however, made a whole flock of butterflies  (do butterflies fly in flocks??) 

Our friends from St Louis, Adam & Jenny came to stay with us at the beginning of March for a week. Adam is a student at Regent and had a week long modular class here, so Jenny and the kids came along and we spent the week wrangling kids and being pregnant together.  :) We had a great time playing outside, checking out a new park, and playing on the beach (although we didn't stay long - it was super windy!)  Boden and Addie are just about 6 months apart in age and while they love to play together, they also fight like siblings.  It made for a fun, but challenging week.

apparently this slide was really fast - the kids would come down in and go flying into the sand...they loved it.

check out the fun playground on the beach (and the adorable pregnant Jenny)

we found another huge, fun playground.  Adam met us there after class and brought yummy, sugary drinks for the kids...Claire was in heaven

Isn't Thatcher just adorable? Smiling and laughing at his daddy

playing nicely....as long as they each had an equal amount of the same blocks!

we even did a little "school"

and of course - the new additions coming soon to both families! We are both having little boys due just 1 week apart!

a new teacher in town

I've probably mentioned before that Boden's favorite activity is "school work."  He loves to sit down and do worksheets, practice writing his letters, and drawing and coloring.  Claire has recently expressed an interest in coloring too - mostly just because that's what Boden is doing I think...she always wants to do what big brother is doing.

Apparently, the other day, Boden decided to take advantage of the situation and decided he would be the teacher and he would teach Claire some new words using his flash cards.  I walked into the room and overheard "Claire, say unicycle....c'mon Claire, you can do it.....say uuuunicycle!"

I noted the blank stare on Claire's face, and suggested to Boden that she might not be ready for a word that big.  Maybe we should start with something a little easier.  He went back to his pile of flash cards and returned a moment later saying "Claire...say rocket ship!....you can do it.....say rocket ship!"

I just had to laugh....it was was sweet.  He was so intent on teaching her new words and was genuinely upset that she wasn't saying them.  He loves being a big brother, and I love watching them together.

an afternoon out and about

Hey! Look what we found!!!

Last Sunday we ventured out to explore the area here....and we found a nice walking/jogging/biking trail only about 15 minutes away.  Its called the Great Dismal Swamp Canal Trail, it's an old part of a highway that is no longer used.  It's tree lined and beautiful and has a canal that runs along side of it.   We had lots of fun running around (ok, I wasn't doing a lot of running, but the other 3 were).

yep, there's the belly.  I did try to run to catch up at one point and I'm pretty sure I got laughed at by both Michael and Boden. :)

With about 3/4 of a mile left to go, we got the great idea to let Claire out of the stroller so she could get some exercise too.  She had lots of fun pushing the stroller, watching the dogs pass by, and pointing to all the birds she saw.  It was fun for awhile, but then she refused to have anything to do with the stroller again....and our pace was a little...um..slow.  I think we walked 1/2 mile in 45 minutes.

Boden loved chasing Daddy....looking for bears....and finding all kinds of "treasures" along the way.

the closest thing I got to a picture of the kids together

At last....she finally caved in and agreed to let daddy carry her the last tenth of a mile to the car 

A day at the beach

A few weeks ago we had a beautiful Friday to enjoy at the beach.  It was in the upper 70s and sunny and the kids loved the sand!





Daddy & Claire buried Boden in the sand....



we dug holes with our new sand toys....



made sand angels....



ate some sand... (of course...every kid has to try it at least once, right?)



made some sand castles...





and smashed some sand castles...



that was clearly Claire's favorite part. She went around and smashed every single one. Thankfully Boden thought it was funny and wasn't upset about it.

and for those of you wondering what I'm looking like these days, we did manage to take a photo. I have been terrible about documenting this pregnancy.



We are excited to be living so close to the beach for the first time in our lives. We really look forward to enjoying it this summer when it gets warmer!