March

Nathan braved a cold afternoon and took the boys on a bike ride to the park!  What a great Dad.

Mason can often be found looking out the window at cars and trucks.  It's super cute to see how overly excited he is for each car or truck that goes by.  He also loves to see the birds!

 Yeah!  We are loving the Spring weather!!!

 Mason loves to play outside!

 Our first family baseball game for the season in the backyard.  :)

 Levi had a lot of fun flying his kite.  There is usually plenty of wind here!

 Dorian did a great job on his first research project!  He did it nearly completely on his own!

 Levi rounded up 100 books for his 100th day of school!

 Dorian likes it when his friend Brady comes over to play.  That's an awfully big water balloon!

 We took turns taking shifts and working at the Food Pantry in Sioux Center with the older boys.  Dorian and Levi both really enjoyed stocking shelves and helping out!

The Bolkema's were excited to come over to celebrate Mason's 2nd birthday!  Beforehand, the ladies went out to get pedicures to celebrate Mom and Heidi's birthdays!

I was excited to have angel food cake with strawberries and ice cream...which is what my Grandma always made for my birthday parties when I was a kid!

 Mason loved it.  :)

Mason loved all of his gifts--the cars and books were a hit!  It was fun to watch him playing contentedly with them.  :)

March 23
It's Mason's birthday!
We had a fun morning together while the big boys were at school.  Mason loves baths and he loves cars so his new bathtub car toy was a lot of fun.

 He always likes to brush his teeth when bath time is over.

Mason was perfect for his 2 year well child visit!!!  The nurse was pleasantly surprised with how well he listened.  :)

 Yeah, he now gets to face forward in his car seat!

 A selfie that we sent to Daddy after he asked how our day was going.  :)

 Mason loves my phone!

 Snack time!

 Mason helped me make cupcakes!

When I found this bear in my boxes of keepsakes a while back, I knew I wanted to use it for Mason's cake since it was on my 6th birthday cake.

 Levi wrapped up one of his books to give to Mason for his birthday!  How sweet!

 A new scooter!  What fun to have a scooter just like your big brothers!

You knew exactly what to do!

When we ask Mason to say that he is 2, he responds by saying 3.  :)

 Looking good Mason Jay!

 Dorian and Levi were having fun with the marble maze cubes.

 Grandma Tintle came for the weekend (March 27-30)!!!  Mason loves his own phone and ipad.  :)

How special!  Grandma made a book filled with cars and trucks that she created and painted with water color!  Mason loved it and danced when he saw the picture of the bus.  :)

Nathan and I were able to go with friends to the Chris Tomlin concert while Grandma stayed home and babysat the boys!  What a treat!  We had fun getting to know some new friends and the concert was a lot of fun!

I love mornings when the sun is pouring through our windows!  Grandma read one more story to the boys before heading back to New York.

Some other things we did during the month of March:

Nathan and I went to Cedar Falls together for 2 nights.  We had a very relaxing day shopping, eating out, and watching multiple episodes of Love It or List It.  On the 2nd day Nathan had a work commitment and I had taken along my scrapbooks to work on.  It was great to have some time away together and some time alone.  And it was also great to get caught up with the boys scrapbooks this month!!!  My goal was to be finished by Mason's birthday and I made it!

Nathan went to MI for a few days for work.

Levi is taking swimming lessons on Thursday nights for 5 weeks.

The warm spring weather has been wonderful this past month!!!  We were ready for that after a cold winter.  What great memories!

February 2015

The boys have all been working on puzzles!

Great Grandma Bolkema, Grandma Tintle, and Grandma Bolkema each gave the boys Valentines! Mason loved his new car stickers!

Dorian and Levi came home from school, after exchanging Valentines with their classmates, with a lot of candy!  They were even willing to share with Mason.  :)

Dorian's friend, Brady, gave Dorian some of his football cards since he didn't have any.  This has started quite a new hobby for both boys!  I had a couple of extra binders and Nathan had extra pages, so on Valentine's Day, they took their money to Walmart to buy their first pack of football cards. They were thrilled...literally jumping up and down.  Happy Valentine's Day!

We had so much fun spending a Sunday afternoon at the Wallace's.  After lunch, we played lots of games and had time to talk while the boys were busy together.  I guess we stayed a little long, because Mason fell asleep right behind me on the couch!

Nathan biked with all 3 boys and Molly to Children's Park on one cold weekend afternoon.  I was told that Molly was the most uncooperative, but it was a good adventure for all of them.  We warmed up by the fire when they came back home.

 Laundry day!  When I wait a whole week to do laundry, the pile is quite large!

Nathan, Dorian and Levi have been (in my opinion) obsessed with playing Mario Brothers lately. Yesterday they unlocked another new world!  I'll be ready for them to get all of the star coins so that they can move on to other things.  :)

Nathan hired Dorian and Levi to help with grading this afternoon!  :)

Also keeping us busy this month:  I attended the IF: GATHERING conference with a friend February 6 and 7.  We had Bible Study with friends the 13th and 27th.  I organized a cooking day at my mom's house on the 13th.  We went to a Cultural Fair at Dordt on the 21st which the boys really enjoyed.  I went to a friend's house for a spa night to learn more about Essential Oils.  Nathan and I attended the Q Commons event at Dordt together.  And tonight, our boys are heading over to the Clark's house so that we can have a quiet evening!

January 2015

New Year's Day:  Nathan worked and we met him at the Dordt sledding hill late in the afternoon.  It was a lot of fun to try out Dorian and Levi's new sleds!

The Boogerd and Ross families joined us to mix homemade laundry detergent into empty milk cartons, which we were able to donate to the local food pantry.  We even delivered them and got a short tour of the services that they provide here in Sioux Center at the Food Pantry.  It was a great project!

Dorian was pretty bummed that he missed out on roller skating when he was sick over Thanksgiving, so I took Dorian and Levi over their Christmas break!

We knew our carpets needed to be cleaned, and it was even more obvious once we moved all of the furniture out!

 Dorian and Levi each did a great job working on the puzzles that they got for Christmas from us.

I transformed our coat closet into a game closet!  :)  I spent an hour one afternoon taping boxes and organizing it which was a lot of fun.  Now if I could get the boys to just put everything back as they found it...that would be a miracle.  :)

Snack time after school is so much fun.  And thanks to my dad for painting the fireplace room which you can kind of see in the background.

 Yeah...it was warm enough to enjoy playing outside!

 If I couldn't see the sunrise in the morning, I think I would have to move!  LOVE it.

Nathan took Dorian and Levi ice fishing.  It was a new experience for all of them and even though it was a pretty warm day, they all agreed that ice fishing was mostly just cold.

 They also tried on snow shoes for the first time!

Hopefully we can finally get Levi over his strep infection and Mason over his ear infection.  I'm learning to be more thankful when we are all healthy!
I enjoy being home and having things in order.  For the most part it's been a pretty low key month, for which I am very thankful.

February 1 was Super Bowl Sunday.  Since there was a snowstorm, both church services were cancelled that day.  We had already planned for a night at home to watch the big game with the boys. As the boys sat down with their favorite food (Jack's pizza and chips and salsa) watching the beginning of the game, Levi wondered when the party was going to start.  When we asked what he meant since we didn't have anything else planned, he said that it wasn't a party unless there was cake.  :)  Love his quotes!

Mason's vocabulary is growing more every day!  Apple, butterfly, Molly and baby are some of his new words.  He's been color matching objects, doing puzzles, and continues spending much of his time playing with matchbox cars.

There are many nights when it feels quite chaotic with 3 boys, but tonight wasn't one of those nights.  Nathan took out his coin collection to show Dorian and Levi since Dorian is learning about money at school right now.  They were so intently looking through everything and they even found some more coins to add to the collection!  Precious memories!