Bike Riding

This week I took the kids on a bike ride.  I got Colin a new bike helmet, gave Joel the old one and put Joel on the back of my bike.  I'm not sure what he thought since this was his expression:

We only went for a few minutes and then spent the rest of the time playing in the yucky pond near our house (colin calls it the yucky pond and i agree :) but we were trying to catch some baby tadpoles. Great fun)  But today we all ventured out for a long bike ride.

Dont you love when you can place the camera on a utility pole and get your picture?  We went on two loop-de-loops as our family calls them. 

I think Joel enjoyed it for the first part.  And then as you'll see in the next picture he was done.

Poor little guy.  Colin rode fast.  Always had to be the one in front going super fast. 

I think it was the Christmas socks pulled up high that made him fast :)  But the funniest moment was when Colin told Brent and I to stop.  "Stop!  I have to tell you something"  (or as colin says dumbthing.... haha its too cute to correct sometimes)  But we stopped and he got of his bike and then proceed to sing us this:

Its a little shaky since I was sitting on a bike and laughing. (he says "I go fast fast fast." in the video)   He gets his moves from his daddy :) But it was overall a success and as the weather starts getting cooler (hopefully) we'll be going on a lot more bikes rides.

Playground

So Joel isn't left out of lots of pictures here he is at the playground on one of those ride on toys with the springs that you bounce back and forth :)

hummm.... let me figure out how this works

here we go!

woah  - i just made it move

Pauses and thinks about this for a moment.

 Starting to really get into it

Loving it!

Then Colin decided to hop on the back and watch the football practice going on next to us. Joel isn't too thrilled

Its hard work pushing your older brother too.

 All his again. And very happy about that. What a cutie.  

And as a side note he picked out this outfit that day. I was holding him while looking in his closet and had picked another outfit but he kept pointing and saying "ball" and when I looked he was pointing to this one. The one with a ball on it.  He was very excited to put it on.

Conquering the Diving Board

Our pool took out the diving boards long before we moved here.  Today Colin got to see a real diving board. We went to my grandparents pool to swim and he really wanted to go off the diving board. Only thing is he had to get over his dislike of getting his face wet and underwater.  I loved watching the progression so here are a ton of pictures.

Thinking about going off the diving board.

First time on a diving board.

He was very excited and loved how high he was...

But I guess he didnt realize how far he would have to walk out to jump

So he climbed down and decided to try the other diving board

This one must be it.  Look how excited he looks

ummmm.... maybe not

Maybe the first one really was better

So he went back to the first one and did a little of this

And a little of that

And listened to Uncle Jeff talk about how he used to just throw Mommy off the diving board into the pool when she was younger than Colin. 

Until finally he went for it. 

And he finally did it.

"Look Mom I DID IT."  (Meanwhile Brent is slowly drowning in the background.)

After going off once Colin kept wanting to go off again and again. I'm so proud of my little diver.

Mud Run

A few weeks ago Sarah and I ran a 5 mile Mud Run.  To see what we did check out this link.  It was a lot of fun.  There were about 600 people who signed up for it and everyone was just there to have a great time. The run was beautiful.  We saw some deer and fawns running beside us.  The army crawls under the flags, jumping over hay bales, running through the river, and climbing up a cliff just added to the fun.  Sarah is a FAST runner. She has one speed and thats fast.  I'm more of a slow and steady person but I tried to keep up with her and really felt it the last mile.

At the very end you had to army crawl through a mud pool.  A disgusting deep mud pool.  I had figured out doing the other army crawls that it was faster to just baby crawl it so thats what I did through the mud pool and didn't get as muddy as I thought - or as Sarah did.  Guess she's tougher than I am :)  Maybe next year. But if you click on that link above and look at our official race pictures (type in our bib numbers - mine is 390 and sarah's is 389 - they definitely took more pictures of me crawling through the mud.  My technique must've been photo worthy! or they liked the part of me licking mud off my face...i dont remember that part. ha!)  We ran 5 miles in 45 minutes and thats including all the hay bales, army crawls, etc parts.  Pretty good I thought.  This is definitely a race I want to keep doing. Anyone else want to do it with us???

Roar...

What Does a Dinosaur Say?

ROAR!!!!!

Bike Riding

Joel loves getting on Colin's old bike, now Joel's bike and getting pushed all around the garage and driveway. And this boy who hates wearing any type of hat will fight Colin over who gets to wear the bike helmet.  I need to get Joel his own - or Colin a bigger one. 

He's getting better at holding on and waiting until you stop before he hops off.

Good thing because he's not ready yet to ride on his own.  Give him another month and he'll grow another couple inches :) We may even venture out on our walking paths in our neighborhood soon with both boys on their bikes. 

Arts Camp

This past week Colin and I have been busy with Arts Camp.  I guess you could say its our church's version of VBS.  But the kids are enrolled in different classes : art, rhythm, dance, photography, creative writing, and audio/visual, singing.  There might have been more. Each kid was signed up for two classes and Colin chose singing and art.  I helped out in one of the Art classes as well.  The whole theme was construction "Work in Progress" which just thrilled my little construction worker.  It was so much fun.  A very busy week and lots of late nights going to bed but Colin just loved it.  I did too as I got to know so many people from the church.  We've only been going to this church since November so it was great to be able to really serve and feel apart of it all. My favorite part was just hanging out with Colin.  The drive there and back every day.  And also seeing him interact with other kids and having fun.  He was so cute every day when he walked past me and gave me a big smile and wave on his way to his class.  Today was the kids big performance day.  Colin has been learning "Blessed Assurance" in his singing class or as he said "Washed in his blood song mommy."  I wasn't sure how he would do but oh I wish we could find the cord to upload the video from our video camera.  It was so precious.  All the little boys loving singing into the mic, Colin belting out the song with his whole heart. He really sang.  Loud and well.  And very expressive.  Family members you will not be disappointed to see this video (we do have the cord to connect it to the tv) Oh it is the most precious thing.  I get teary eyed watching the video each time.

Before and after Arts Camp all the kids were learning motions to "Satisfy Me." Colin and I would sing and practice it together at home and his favorite part was "you're beautiful... you're more than all this world can give... you're beautiful... you're love is all I need to live." And he would sing that part at random parts of the day.  Well today at church he managed to belt that part over 78 kids and music really loud and just loved singing it. He wasn't trying to be a ham up on stage - just sang his heart out it seemed just for God.  Brent said its one moment he'll always remember and we wished we had gotten on video tape.  Again precious and more tears for me watching. But then seeing all those kids singing that song every day would bring tears to my eyes.  All the kids did wonderful and there is always something so precious and cute about watching kids performances.  Colin is very sad its over and can't wait until next years Arts Camp.

One of the art projects was to decorate a silhouette and we talked about how God made each one of us unique just like all of their pictures were unique.  Colin did an alien.  He was very proud of it and talked about it all week.  His alien is now hanging on his art wall in his room.

Joel

This boy keeps us on our toes.  And is so much smarter than a 12 month old should be.

Any animal is a baa but says da for duck and  oofff oofff for dog (and someone in the nursery said he looked at a picture of a horse and said horse very clearly) His animal noise is mostly "RARRRR" - especially dinosaurs

can climb onto any couch, chair, bench, ottoman in our house. He can get down off most of them but it still makes me a little nervous. Especially the ottomans under the front window. Thats his favorite place right now since he can look outside the window. Sometimes after nap time I catch him trying to figure out how to climb out of his crib.

The other day I walked into the dinning room and Joel was dancing on top of the dinning room table - he had climbed up a chair and pulled himself onto the table

Loves loves loves books and will bring me book after book and plop right into my lap to read them.

Can climb up a slide and then go down by himself now - small slides - i'm a little too nervous to let him do the big ones by himself

will wave to any car that passes by

when he gets upset he will run crying right for momma.  Love that :)

He likes to go into rooms and shut the door. Then can't get out. Yesterday I walked by the bathroom and heard "momma!!!!!" I opened the door and Joel was in there.  He hasn't said momma in a while - lately its all dadda :)  At least he knows who to call when he's in trouble.

Likes to put money in a piggy bank. It will entertain him for a long time.

Also likes putting thing together, putting blocks back in the box, or toys in their bins.  He also loves to help me put the sippy cup straws together - the little straw into the bigger straw.  He'll concentrate on it for a while but is very proud of himself when he gets it. 

Joel watches anything Colin does and then tries to copy it.  Colin was playing with those plastic army men and going "boom boom boom" and shooting the bad guys and Joel found an army man and came to me and went boom boom.

I'm sure there is more but he just amazes me every day.  He's still my baby but acts so much older.  In fact this week we had some friends over and Colin leaned over to Noah and said "Noah I have to tell you something. Babies are bad news!"  (since joel has been into everything Colin does - a few days before Colin told me that babies are trouble) Noah looked at me and said "When is Colin going to get his baby?"  Noah's baby brother is 6 months old and  I guess he doesnt consider Joel to be a baby.  Especially when all the big kids have to deal with Joel wanting to do everything they do.

Its a fun stage to watch them learn all this.  Just didnt think it would be so soon. Joel you will outsmart us soon enough - if you haven't already.