September 2016 Highlights

Extra Time with Isaiah

We enjoyed babysitting Isaiah while Jon and Chelsea had a 5-year-anniversary trip to New York over Labor Day weekend. (Jason and Amy and family watched him for the first part of the trip.) Isaiah's such a sweet, easygoing boy that it didn't feel all that different to have one more boy in our care. He joined us at church, on a run, and to Walmart, and we had lots of playtime at home, too. It was fun to have the extra time with Isaiah, and we were so happy that Jon and Chelsea got some couple time.

Visitors from Up North

Our friend, Melissa, who we attended church with when we lived in Michigan, came to our area to visit her husband's family. Nathan and I had so much fun spending time at a park one morning with Melissa, her sweet girls, and her husband. The children got along nicely and most enjoyed feeding the ducks and nutria. I loved the chance to catch up with an old friend!

Lowes Build and Grow

We met Amy and her boys at Lowe's for their children's building workshop one Saturday in September. The boys enjoyed building their boats. Ian was able to make his without much help, and Ryan was surprisingly good at hammering in the nails. Nathan most enjoyed checking out Lowe's demo showers while his older brothers built. All of the boys were proud of their finished products.

Grand Opening

A credit union near Kim's parents' house sent flyers to advertise their grand opening celebration, inviting anyone interested to join them for a free lunch and fun games/activities. Our boys loved the free face painting and balloon-animal creations (they all asked for a sword). My parents joined us for the yummy hamburger lunch. Matt and I each won our basketball shooting game brackets and were able to enter the "money machine" to grab as many $1 bills as we could. We came away with over $100. It helped that Matt grabbed a $50 bill. What an unexpectedly fun morning!

Family Fun Night

Ryan's school hosted a pickle-themed Family Fun Night for all of the school families. It was so cute! After a pizza dinner, the pickle activities started: decorating Twinkies to look like pickles and creating pickle stick puppets to use for a story that the early childhood director read to the children. They also had a pickle-eating contest between one father from each of the early childhood classes. It was fun to spend time with Isaiah, Jon, and Chelsea, too, since Isaiah attends Trinity as well.

Random Events

Here's a collection of pictures from throughout the month ....
The younger two enjoyed making apple prints...

and then painting their own designs.

Ian transformed a cardboard box into a car. (The boys LOVE boxes!)

Nathan loves sitting on the riding lawn mowers at Lowes.

Ryan built a fort using the piano bench and a blanket.

Ryan loves to create buildings out of Magnatiles.

One day, while I was making lunch, Nathan was playing in the living room. In the five or ten minutes it took me to gather the lunch together, Nathan must have laid down and fallen asleep on the couch. I was so surprised to find him this way when I came to tell him lunch was ready.

Matt is getting back into biking, and Nathan loves when he can come along for the ride.

Nathan is obsessed with sunglasses.

This picture of Ryan's was hanging outside of his classroom. It's a picture of Ryan helping Daddy make the bed. So cute!

The 4-year-old cousins love to dress up in costume when they play together.

Nathan doesn't want to be left out. :)

My heart melts when I see an older boy read (or "read") to a younger brother. :)

Ryan's class did an apple-tasting test of green, red, and yellow apples. Ryan decided he liked the taste of the yellow apples best.

We thank God for a fun September!