a sparkling fourth of july!

this 4th of july was full of new experiences for our kids! it was caroline's first time to enjoy fireworks, and it was ethan's first time to hold sparklers! just like last year, we celebrated the 4th with dinner at church, along with some patriotic praise & worship. we then headed down to the marina with our friends and family to get ready for the big show! ethan was a big boy this year and sat with his friends on the back of andy & cindy's truck. he was so excited about it, so i couldn't make him sit with us... we were right down the row of chairs from him, but i really missed sharing the fireworks with him! (just a glimpse of the reality of him growing up, huh!?) my mom said she felt the same way and finally went over to the truck to watch the finale with him! she couldn't stand it! :) caroline loved the fireworks and only took her eyes off of them to let me know she needed a popcorn refill. brian got some great shots of the fireworks again this year... but the wind was blowing in our direction, causing the smoke to block the perfect view of the show. the finale ended up being a lot of smoke! but despite the smoke, i think these still turned out pretty well. good job, honey! :)



i don't know what caroline enjoyed more...
the fireworks or the all-you-can-eat popcorn!
thanks, aunt kristie, for the hot air popcorn!
ethan with his buddies, joseph & avery,
on the truck with andy & cindy (joseph's grandparents)
here's caroline, savannah, and karina just loungin' after the fireworks show
for one second, i thought i was gonna get a picture
of all 3 girls sitting in their cute little chairs... almost!

afterwards, we hung around awhile instead of sitting in traffic, and cindy let the kids go to town with sparklers. i did not in a million years expect ethan to want to hold one. even avery, who i consider fearless, was apprehensive of the sparklers at first. after a few minutes, the kiddos all loved them. brian taught them how to make a circle with the fire, and he got some really neat shots. the kids got a big kick out of looking at the pictures of the circles they made!

ethan began enjoying the sparklers with me right beside him...
but before i knew it, he was happy to do it all by himself!

karina was such a big girl with the sparklers!
once aaron convinced avery that the sparklers were safe,
avery had so much fun!we have the cutest video
of avery spinning HUGE circles with these things!

ethan and natalie spinning away!
our sweet friends, jonathan & tammy w/ natalie, joseph, & claire...
thanks for organizing our spot at the marina! it was a "blast"- haha!

happy fourth of july from our family to yours. may we never forget the blessing of the independence of our nation, which was founded in dependence on our God.

4th of july- then and now

as i have been working on my july 4th post, i keep clicking back to the shot i got of the kids last year on the couch in their red, white, and blue. i can't get over how much they've changed in a year, especially caroline. so i thought i'd remind y'all of what caroline looked like before the curls took over!! :)

here's this year...



and here's 2007...



and "firecracker" does not even begin to describe this child...



more star-spangled blogging to come very soon!

interview with a 3 year old

i've been keeping a running list of funny things that ethan has said lately. i have forgotten several, but here's the ones i managed to jot down before they escaped my mind. in a week, i'll probably have another list this long! ethan, like most 3 year olds, keeps his family chuckling! one minute, something comes out of ethan's mouth that makes him sound so old and grown up, and then the next minute, he says...well, some things like these! :)



one day after breakfast, we were talking about heaven. thinking about the verse in matthew 6 that he knows, ethan commented, "there are treasures there!" i went on to talk about how we can't wait to be in heaven, and we will worship God forever there. ethan said he wanted to go to heaven, too, but "let's get dressed first."

anytime we see a drain in the floor, like in public restrooms, ethan exclaims, "nemo lives in there!"

ethan has been answering questions in complete sentences, such as "yes i am", "no i do not", and "no i ant" (no i am not). it sounds like i have sent my son off to boarding school, but really, we just require "yes" instead of "yeah". he's done the complete sentences thing on his own.

a very common one these days- "i am so exciting about _____"

one day, we were discussing how daddy works 5 days a week, and then he is home two days. i said, "saturday is a family day, and where do we go on sunday?"
"africa!"

anytime we see a man with a farmer's type hat on (like at sam's and the grocery store the other day), ethan yells at full volume, "there's an old macdonald had a farm man, mommy!"

if ethan says he's cold, i'll tell him that i'm going to go kick the air up. i can only imagine what he is picturing in his head because he always says, "kick up the air with your feet!"

after a yucky rainy day the other day, the next day was full of blue skies with a few clouds. as we were driving, i commented, "it's a beautiful day, isn't it?" ethan replied, "yes! there's room for the clouds!"

this first trimester i've been taking naps every day when the kids take their naps. as i put ethan in bed, he usually says, "have a great nap, mommy!" well, one day last week, he said, "have a great day sleeping, mommy." oh, if only! a whole day to sleep! :)

today, caroline did something to disobey, and she was upset after being disciplined. i was holding her, and ethan immediately brought her little pink Bible to her. in the most caring, brotherly voice, he said, "caroline, here's your Bible to read to obey."

that sounds like a good place to end this post. :) check back soon for 4th of july pictures!

it's birthday time, race fans!

ethan has been talking about his racecar party for the last few weeks...to everyone who asks about his birthday. i really cannot think of any other way to have celebrated his third birthday. he is still as into driving his little cars all over the house as he was this time last year! pregnancy has taken over a significant part of the planning portion of my brain, so the preparations for ethan's party this year were somewhat last minute and slightly thrown together. but ethan had his friends, his cake, and his cars there. and brian and i finished the racecar sign at midnight the night before his party. so all was well. :)

the hit of the party was the racing ramp that brian built. all the kids, big and small, loved choosing their favorite matchbox cars to race. most cars had some major alignment issues and did not make it to the finish line before falling off the sides, but that just added another challenge to the race. :)



i love these next two pictures... i didn't realize this until today, but the first shot is of the daddies, and the next picture is of their sons in almost the exact same positions! how sweet is that!!



brian really enjoyed racing with the kids. it was nice to just sit back and let him entertain them!


i'm not sure what has caught caroline's attention in this next picture, but apparently it was something pretty exciting! that is her new "turtle face"... daddy loves it!



gram made another cute cake this year! as soon as ethan saw the racetrack cake, he exclaimed, "i'll put more cars on the cake!" thank you, mom, for your hard work on the cake.




here is ethan with his sweet friends...
they helped him blow out his candle after he tried a few times.



our little cake cousins!


i forgot to take a picture of the whole setup, but basically we had tables set up around the racetrack ramp. i tied checkered flag balloons to bottles of oil (you can see them in the background of some of the pictures), and we hung racing banners around the room. the "sponsor" for the ethan 300 was chickfila. :) very appropriate since that's what we ate in a hurry right before his party!




we chose to ask our family and friends to not bring gifts this year. i am SO GLAD that we did it this way! ethan was not concerned about presents in the very least, and for that i am thankful. we wanted the focus to be on praising God for another year of his life, not on the things people could give to him. (a sweet friend of mine asked a few weeks ago, "ethan, what do you want for your birthday?" and he gave her a blank stare and said nothing! he has never been asked that question by us! it made me smile!) he is so happy and content with the toys that he has, and we surely do not need one more toy in this house. we gave him a t-ball set, complete with "waffle balls" and a bat "with a baseball man on it". the grandparents gave him "experience" type gifts... an annual pass to the zoo, and a session of soccertots that he will go to with daddy once a week in the fall. (and my mom also gave him the cutest dry erase and magnet books!) even with just a couple of presents to open at his party, he was totally content and did not notice that a pile of presents was missing. i also appreciated that today, he enjoyed playing with his t-ball set most of the day instead of being completely overwhelmed with a mass of new toys! i do not say all of that to imply that we have not been thankful for the generous gifts given to our children in the past... but that it was very freeing to not "follow the norm" for ethan's birthday this year in the way of gifts. we may not do that every year, but it certainly was the right decision this year!



sweet 6 year old natalie was so cute about the non-gift idea... she gets so excited about picking out just the right gift that her friends will love, so when her mom told her that they weren't bringing a gift to ethan's party, she said, "no gifts? really?! REALLY!? well, i'll just draw him a picture!" so she brought ethan the cutest little picture of a person in the shape of a letter "B" getting a lot of presents from his friends on his birthday ("b" for birthday, she told me!). :)

ethan loves his nana, pappy, and gram! thanks for celebrating with us! notice the trophy that gram conjured up for the party. :) so cute!



oh! i almost forgot about the tire-toss game! this ended up being really hilarious. i had it in my head that a fun game would be for the kids to toss balls into an old tire. well, i didn't take time to hunt down an old tire, but at the last minute, i happened to find a "tire" inflatable innertube at walmart. so brian hung it from the ceiling with fishing line, and we were ready to play! well, the kids got to the party, and everybody started hanging on it as if it were a tire swing. it was just irresistible! a few minutes later, we looked over, and the tire was almost completely deflated! the fishing line had sliced the float open! a big 3 inch gash! so we just taped it up and blew it up again. by the time we got around to throwing the balls through it, it looked pathetic! the kids still had a great time attempting to hit the hole, but it was a bit floppy. :) i couldn't stop laughing at it.



so another year has gone by, another party is over. ethan has grown up so much in this last year. as i've been writing this post, i've looked back at his 2nd birthday party pictures at least a dozen times. and though he seems like such a big boy now, we will probably look back at these pictures of the kids racing cars 10 years from now and just gush about how they were just babies! i do praise God for every day of his life. it's so easy to take it all for granted. every day truly is a gift. thank You, God, for the gift of ethan!

happy 3rd birthday, ethan!

my baby boy is three years old today. this morning, we started off breakfast with a special birthday brownie (your birthday's only once a year, right!?), and he got to put on his "birthday boy" shirt from nana. you can see ethan in his shirt talking on the phone to nana this morning. he was "so exciting" that today was finally his birthday! he cannot wait for his racecar party tonite!! i have several things to do to get ready for his party, so his "i can't believe my baby is 3" post will have to wait until later.

for now, happy birthday, sweet baby ethan. God has blessed us with a wonderful three years with you!