South Carolina

May 4-8
It took the entire day (16 hours), and 4 airports before we arrived in Greenville, South Carolina which is now home to Jillian.  We had to wake the boys up very early in the morning and the first thing out of Levi's mouth is "This is gonna be great!"  Dorian was having a dream where he was telling his friends that he was going on vacation.  They were both so excited that it took about an hour of driving before they fell back to sleep, and by that time we were almost at the Sioux Falls airport.  :)

We were excited to see where Jillian lives, went to college, and to watch her graduate!  Furman University has a beautiful campus.

Grandpa and Grandma made a delicious supper at Jillian's apartment for us.  The boys were both very excited about having sweet corn.  They often notice it in the grocery store and I always tell them that it's too expensive since it's not in season yet.

Since we were only 4 hours from the ocean, we had made plans to stay there for a couple of nights before flying back to Iowa.  Quite honestly it reminded me of Lake MI.  :)  Nathan's mom came with us as well.

We all had fun flying the kite since it was super windy.

The boys had fun jumping in the waves, collecting shells, building sand castles and playing with grandma.  It was a very busy 5 days, but it was fun!

Spring Photos...

...from the Picture This Photography MOPS fundraiser.  So, I've had some not-so-fun photo shoots before, but the boys were perfect for this one!  I can't believe how big they are getting.  Aren't they adorable?

I've written down some fun things over the past few months that were too cute and wanted to share them.

Here are some quotes from Levi.
As I was putting him to bed one night he whispers to me, "You're my best friend ever......for 20 days."  And then another time more recently he says, "I kind of love you mom."  And both times they were so sincere that it melted my heart!  :)
One day I asked Levi if he was hungry and he said, "I'm a 100 hungry."  I got the point.
Levi was overflowing with love and started by saying, "I love you Dorian." Then it was, "I love my whole family and the Lord."  Then, "I love the whole earth."  I think he got pretty much everything covered that time.  :)  How sweet!
Levi's favorite number lately is a million and 12.  :)

Here is a story about Dorian.
Levi was punished (don't remember why) and Dorian explained to us why he wanted to take Levi's punishment for himself because "That's what Jesus did."  Wow!  What do you say to that?
You can tell we now live in Iowa since we were talking about tornadoes.  Levi calls them tomatoes.  :)  One day Dorian realized that he was saying it incorrectly and broke down the word for him to help him say it correctly.  "No Levi, it's not tomato.  You have to say tornado.  Say tor  na  do."  It was super cute.  After all of Dorian's hard work, Levi still calls them tomatoes.  :)

April Memories

Easter.  Nathan always loves to hide Easter eggs for the boys so we had a little hunt for them before we left for church.  There are moments when it feels like this is our first year here (which it is) and I remember having one of those moments.  The eggs weren't in their "usual" hiding spots.  We don't have a church home.  We were going to have Easter dinner and an egg hunt with my sisters which we had never done since I had moved away.  All of these new things are wonderful..just new.  The new is good, just not familiar if that makes sense.  Sometimes it's hard to believe that we are still in our first year here.

It's Ag Day at Dordt College!  I wouldn't have been so excited about farm animals and tractors if it wasn't for my 2 little boys.  Their eyes were big with excitement to sit up in the tractors and combines.  It makes them look so little next to the huge wheels!  We also met up with our friends Heather and Wyatt.

Playing outside at our house.

What else were we up to in April?

1. Cleaning up after Molly who was sick while Nathan was gone to a conference.  :(  Not so good timing.

2. Helping Heidi and Ryan with fundraisers for their next adoption.  Tip night at the Pizza Ranch which we didn't do any work for, just had to eat my favorite pizza and broasted chicken.  :)  And then we hosted a HUGE garage sale at our house for a week.

3. Date night with Nathan to a Casting Crowns concert to make up for the concert that we didn't get to go to together in January.  Love Casting Crowns music.

4. Flew to MI to be with friends who had lost their dear son after a long battle with cancer.  And to enjoy seeing good friends that we miss. 

March Memories

Dorian loves Molly and carries her around everywhere.  As you can see from the picture, Dorian wanted me to lock him in the kennel.  :)

Typically it doesn't feel much like Spring in March, but it did this year!  The weather has been exceptionally nice ever since we moved here!  We decided to go and explore a new place together.  We drove out to Oak Grove and ironically, the only other people there were my brother-in-law and my nieces!  We walked around by the river with them and then we left to go hiking on some more trails in the woods.  We ended up at the campground area where the boys found a huge sandbox!  It was windy, but it was SO nice to be outside in the warm sunshine.

Yeah!  Holli and her 3 children came to visit for a couple of days!  It was so nice to have them stay at our house.  The kids loved playing together and Dorian mentioned multiple times after they left, that he wanted them to come back.  :)  We love visitors.

Dorian came home from preschool with a volcano!  It was fun to watch all of the boys make it erupt again.  :)

Dorian went to Kindergarten Round-Up at Sioux Center Christian where they did a few assessments and he got to meet the Kindergarten teachers. He really did not want to go...at all. Nathan dropped him off and I picked him up. I was nervous for him and so badly wanted him to have a good experience. I was SO surprised when I picked him up and he had a big smile on his face. On the way home he told me that "it was awesome" and I couldn't hold back the tears of joy! He is excited for Kindergarten and I couldn't be more thrilled about it.

With all of the warm weather, the boys have been playing outside a lot.  And I'm thrilled that they are finally getting to know our neighbors better.  Now when the boys are outside, the neighbors will also come out to play with them.  And the girls that live behind us are so polite and sweet so it's wonderful!

Dorian is wearing his shirt that he got from the Sioux Falls Specialty Hospital.  Yep, after years of debate, he had surgery to have his adenoids and tonsils removed.  He did SUPER!  He was outside playing at our house like 8 hours after the surgery.  He did have a few really rough days and it took a full week before he was off of his pain meds, but there were no complications and everything went as anticipated. 

Our living room walls were rag-rolled.  I was not a big fan.  So I was so excited to pick out a new paint color and have it painted!  Dad and Nathan blocked off an entire day to paint and I took the boys to mom and dad's house so that they wouldn't be in the way.  We played in their newly remodeled basement with blocks for a long time and also had fun being outside since the weather was absolutely perfect!

When we came home, they were nearly finished!

Levi was happy to help with clean-up.  :)

We finished out the day by eating supper outside on the deck!

Mom turned 60 and Heidi turned 30 so we had fun celebrating together!  The adults ate out at a nice restaurant and then we ate cake for dessert at Kerry's house with all of the kids.  Every year is a gift!

After the birthday party on Friday night, our family stayed overnight at Kerry's house since Nathan had to fly out of the Sioux Falls airport the next day for a conference.  It was warm enough on Saturday that the kids were in their swimsuits enjoying the slip-n-slide!  Yes, it is March!!!!!  Unbelievable!

January/February Memories

Here it goes.  I'm getting ready to post pictures from the past 5 months!  Since this is my "photo album" I didn't want to just start with the current happenings.  And where has the time gone?

I intended on taking pictures of the boys playing with each of the new toys that they had received as Christmas gifts and then emailing the pictures to the gift givers.  I thought it would be nice, especially for family who doesn't come often, to see the boys enjoying all of their new toys.  Well...that never happened.  It was a good idea.  But I guess there isn't time for all of the good ideas out there.  :)  We did spend lots of time in January and February enjoying the many wonderful toys and gifts that we were so graciously given. 

The boys really love the new Wii!  I'm finding that it works as a perfect motivator for the boys.  :)  One day Levi said "May I play Mario Car WooHoo please?"  They call it Mario Car instead of Kart, which makes perfect sense, even though we've corrected them.  And Levi added the WooHoo which was funny because that it what the game says when you turn it on.  :)  Love it!

LOVE to see the boys having fun with each other.  This time they were dancing. 

The boys were both very sick for a full week on back to back weeks in the middle of January.  It was around that time that I decided to move the train table downstairs and the small table and chairs up to the toy room.  It's the little things that make me excited!  We had only used the table downstairs once so it was fun to have the boys use it as a craft and game table.  And the train table ended up being where we dropped all of the toys that were on the floor so it never looked nice, and Molly had figured out that all of the toys there were within her reach.  It was a good switch.

Levi wants to walk in his daddy's shoes (or boots)!  And Molly always wants to be wherever we are!

Enough snow for a snowman!!!  I was actually excited for snow this winter because it took so long for it to come.

I love babysitting Aniah and Eden.  On this afternoon, I thought of a couple of crafty things for them to work on.  I think it was mostly because I wanted to organize the craft cupboard.  :)  We had a ton of colored straws so Dorian and Aniah literally spent over an hour having a blast cutting straws into pieces.  They looked pretty in my glass vase...in fact, they are still on my kitchen counter.  :)

One time when Levi was cooking at his play kitchen, he wondered if I wanted a "hamboni sandwich".  He makes me smile!

I only took one picture in February and here it is!  Nathan was super excited that his team won the Super Bowl and posed for a picture with his colleague who is also a native New Yorker and Giants fan.

I'm looking back at our calendar to see what else we did in the months of January and February. 

Dorian took an ice skating class at the All Seasons Center.  A lot of boys play hockey here, so we thought we'd see if he liked skating.  He did awesome.  We went ice skating as a family one night and I was reminded how difficult it is to stand on the ice, let alone skate!

Levi started Kindermusik.  A wonderful class that teaches kids about all different kinds of music.  And he loved every minute of it!!!  He is especially fond of his new purple Kindermusik t-shirt.

Nathan and I went to some Dordt basketball games, which are always packed and a lot of fun to watch.  We were supposed to have a date night to watch Toby Mac in concert in Sioux City, but it was when Dorian was really sick and we were unable to leave him.  So as it turns out, Nathan stayed home with the boys and I had a date night with my sister instead.