Sidewalk Paint

My dear friend Mandy organized a little toddler craft time the other day-sidewalk paint! She found a recipe on Pinterest (of course) and the kids loved it! They not only painted the sidewalk but rocks, leaves and their bodies:) I am soooo bummed I didn't get an after shot-they were COVERED in paint, head to toes! I'm thankful for a friend that pushes me outside of my box and picks a totally messy and chaotic craft. The kids LOVED it:)

Crosby is Clapping!

At last...the video the Grandparents have been waiting for! 

Carter is 3 Years + 11 Months!

We eat dinner every night at the Project House with 20 students, 16 staff and 18 kids. Every night before dinner we circle up for announcements and prayer and Miss Marilyn (our cook) gives us the dinner run-down. About a week ago our director asked who wanted to pray for the Summer Project and the dinner. Carter confidently stepped up and said, "I will"! He thanked the Lord for a couple of things including "this PERFECT dinner from Miss Marilyn!" After he said "Amen", the students erupted into clapping and cheering for him! He was pretty proud:)

Nana and Papa sent some cool shades for the 4th of July! Carter wears them a lot, even during his afternoon video:) 

 Classic Carty. 

 Another new thing around the Spark house (or college apartment) is that Carter loves jumping as high as he can off the coach and has also started seeing how many steps he can jump from and land on his feet. He gets really high and I have to FIGHT BACK my mothering urges to protect him from breaking a leg. Tim is gracious about reminding me to "let the boys be boys." I'll let him take Carter to urgent care!

Carterisms from the past month:

-"Remember when we went to the zoo and the monkey put his finger in his butt and then put it in his mouth? That was naughty!"

-"Spiderman is the veriest, greatest video of all time."

Cooper is 2 Years + 5 Months!

It is so fun for me to sit down and do a little monthly update for the boys. Such sweet moments, funny memories, and random details in the midst of the chaos of life. 

 Cooper still loves the color yellow. And he loves freeze pops. And he really really loves yellow freeze pops. In fact, he won't even eat a different color!  

 He also really enjoys having his shirt off!

A couple other random things from the past month:

-Cooper loves his blanket (which is light green but he calls it "blue blanket") and his pillow pet (which is a dog but he calls it "bear"). His blanket is shredded because he always chews on it.

-When you ask him his name he'll say, "I'm Pooper Nahn". I know I shouldn't giggle when he is just learning to talk. He usually removes the first syllable or changes it for some reason. It is endearing!

-He asks to read about David and Goliath almost every night

-We took family pictures a couple of weeks ago and he was not happy about. He didn't have a fit, just wouldn't smile at all!

-Coops asks to wash his hands multiple times a day. He has started sliding the kitchen chairs over to the sink just to stay on top of it. We are trying to put the kibosh on this as it is a wee bit dangerous! Often times when we are at the project house for dinner he'll run to wash his hands in the bathroom but he can't open the door to get back out so we'll hear him yelling for help! Gotta love clean hands in a house full of boys!

Happy Father's Day!

These 3 sweet boys have no idea how blessed they are!

Cros is cutting 6 teeth and Tim has taken him for middle-of-the-night drives 3 times this week already.

 These crazy toddlers asked Tim if they could throw water balloons at him on Father's Day and he jumped right in:) 

 He caught some... 

 ...but in the end they got him soaking wet!

 I'm sooooo not crafty....here are our simple cards. I asked the boys to share what they are thankful for and wrote for them. In typical Cooper fashion he said, "Dad, I love you so so so so so so much!"

 Here is Carter's list, address to "Tim" because that is what he calls him:

Thank you for marrying Rachel and Matthew (this is the first thing he thought of...how random!), wrestling with me, playing with toys, reading me the Bible, playing checkerboard (we have no idea what this is!), playing Avengers, helping me ride my bike, stickers, loving me so much, taking me to the zoo and parks, going to work (so cute!). I really love you!

Crosby is on the Move!

Crosby is doing planks and scooting across rooms...watch out world, here he comes!

Shout Out to the Grandparents!

Carter's 1st Day of "School"

 Carter has been asking us to go to school for about a year now. He watches with envy as the bus drives by our home and loves wearing a backpack around the house to practice going to school. Because of his birthday he won't be able to start kindergarten for two more years...

Anyways, we found a VBS program out here in Colorado that accepted kids 3 and older which is rare but such a blessing! We had talked up this week of school for quite a while and last Sunday night Carter was soooo excited! He even asked to set out his favorite outfit so he would be all ready. 

Each day when I went to pick him up he was sitting so quietly and had a very serious look on his face. It's so hard to understand what is going through his mind! His teacher said he did great but by Thursday morning he was done with it. We let him stay home and then with some encouragement talked him into returning on Friday for his last day. 

Water Balloons

One of our favorite things to do this summer has been playing with water balloons. I say "our" because I am pretty sure Tim and I enjoy it as much as the boys! We have many games we play with the balloons.  They love trying to catch them off the deck and get splashed, they love launching them and trying to make them "explode", we try to hit targets with them...oh the things you can do with water balloons!

 The kids have played a lot this summer with their friend Zoe. She always jumps in with the boys and is up for anything!

 I can't remember if he was aiming at a plate we set out for a target or if he was trying to get dad:)

 So fun!!

Crosby is 8 Months!

 The other day my friend Mandy set Crosby down, and instead of laying him on his back she sat him up. Turns out he can sit up on his own and I didn't even know it!! I feel total mom guilt about that...poor 3rd child! As you can see from the pictures he is LOVING this new position and seeing the world from a whole new perspective. 

He is also starting to scoot. He'll often get into the push-up position and then propel himself forward. He can really get around well! Crawling is not too far into his future.

He is still eating a lot...don't you love his cheeks??! I'll feed him around 7 pm when he goes to bed for the night and he will wake up again around 10 and then again in the middle of the night. We are trying to give him rice cereal and some pureed veggies during the day but this hasn't changed his night schedule. He seems to like the solid food though for the most part. All in all, he is turning out to be a pretty content and adaptable baby!

I guess that is about it for now-the eat, sleep, poop, scoot update:)

Random Pre-Colorado Videos

Feast or famine with the blog...here are a couple videos from the week before we left. Carter made a bumblebee hat at church one Sunday and kept trying to buzz Cooper:) The 2nd video is from one of our daily dance parties. Coopers signature move is the "spin" and Carter's go to move is the "leap and kick"!

Carter is 3 Years + 10 Months!

One of the biggest events happened in Carter's life last week. He pulled the fire alarm in the sorority house that we are living in! Yikes-the fire trucks came and he even had to have a one-on-one chat with a fireman. He was rattled to say the least and kept asking us, "why did I do that?". It was a sincere mistake so we really had to love on him and help him through it. Good lesson to learn early I suppose:)

A couple other things from the past month:

-Maybe this is TMI but Carter never ever wants to go to the bathroom. He doesn't have any accidents and can seemingly hold it FOREVER! Maybe I'm just comparing and he outlasts me but wowza.

-He is super sensitive and came upstairs a couple weeks ago crying after watching part of Charlotte's Web because the spider dies (sorry if I gave away the ending hahahaha).

-We had a CRU staff conference in May and the boys were in childcare for part of the day. Carter LOVED being around new friends and when I came to pick him up he burst into  tears. The only thing that would console him was the fact that he could come back the next morning. After he calmed down he asked if he could hug all his new friends and the workers. 15 hugs later we made our way to our hotel room for bed! How sweet is that?

-After months of trying he hopped on his bike one day and away he went. I guess he knew when he was ready. 

-His new favorite game is "Avengers". He is always Spiderman, Cooper is Hulk, Dad is Captain America (of course), and I have the privilege of being Miss Venom (the evil one that they try to destroy). Hmmm...I'm guessing this is just the beginning with a household full of boys!

Carterisms from the past month:

-"Mom, can I get a motorcycle for my birthday?"

-He said something funny on the phone to Grandpa and followed up with, "Did you catch that Gramps?"

-While on a walk with Mimi they had picked some flowers. Then they saw a group of older boys playing hockey in the street. Carter yelled out, "HEY GUYS, wanna smell my flowers?" They didn't :(

-I came up for bed one night around 11 and Carter came out of his room sort of groggy. He looked at me and said, "Mom I had a dream about ghosts and crocodiles. Ok, I gotta go back to bed and have some more great dreams!" And he was off...

With his new biking skills Carty is always wearing a helmet!

Silly drinking glasses from Nana and Papa

Carter is sooo physical and always wants to wrestle...even with Crosby:)

If you ask him how old Cros is, he will say Zero and make a fist:)

Cooper is 2 Years and 4 Months!

Cooper told Tim the other night that he was shy. He might have just been overwhelmed by the arrival of all the students on our Summer Project but we'll see...maybe he will be a shy Spark. On the other hand, all it takes is a mere suggestion and he'll break into dance in front of anybody that is around! 

Coops is growing more and more independent, wanting to do everything "all by myself", getting really angry about wearing a bib at meal time, never ever wanting his diaper changed, and starting to have different opinions from his older brother. This is great but can cause a good deal of conflict...they are refining each other right??!

A couple other things from this past month:

-Coops has developed a LOVE of school buses. Every time we pass or see a bus he yells with total joy, "School Bus"!! 

-When we asked him what animal he was most excited about seeing at the zoo he told us, "A cow! I want to see a cow!" I guess he is a true Midwestern boy:)

-When Cooper says the ABCs it comes out as "ABDC ABC ABCD ABC..." 

-When the boys misbehave we often talk about consequences. This word is used very often in each day and it is a challenge for Coops. He doesn't really try anymore, just calls it a Cah-cak. Carter often calls it that now too:)

Denver Zoo

We had our first day off last Wednesday and decided to head down to the Denver Zoo. Our friends the Higginbothams joined us for a pretty successful adventure with an almost 4 year old (Carter), 3 year old (Zoe), 2 year old (Cooper), 1 year old (Titus) and 8 month old (Crosby). In print that sounds like a disaster but the kids held up despite not getting naps and the weather was great!

 The kids seemed to like the bronze statue animals more than the real animals...oh well!

 Carter and Zoe checking out some birds

 Part of our entourage...love that Mandy jumped in the wagon!

 Cros got pretty fussy in the stroller after a while but did great in the carrier. He took a nice long nap which we were grateful for! You'll notice that I hardly have any pictures of animals...Cros was really hungry and it seemed like every time I was off feeding him the gang saw all sorts of animals and then when I returned we were eating lunch or doing things like the Merry-Go-Round and train. 

 Another highlight for the boys...they sure love the Merry-Go-Round!

 And who doesn't love a mini train ride? Cooper really did like it despite his lack of smile:)

Funniest part of the day to me was when we got in the van to head home. We asked the boys what their favorite part of the day was. Carter, in full volume excitement, belts out "My favorite part of the zoo was the stamp I got on my hand when we left!!!". 

Our "Colorado Home"

Wow. We've been in Colorado for almost 2 weeks now and here is why this is my first post:

-16 hours in a van with 3 small children

-1 sleepless night in a hotel

-Adjusting to our new life in a sorority house with 29 children (12 and under) and 26 adults. 

-Community bathrooms with no women's restroom on the floor that our bedrooms were on.

-Lots of meetings, new babysitters, and adjusting for the kids.

-After 10 days in this crazy house we had to pack everything up and move into an apartment.

-The kids don't really know what has hit them...we pulled up to the apartment last night and Cooper started hysterically crying because he thought we were going to our Grand Forks home not our "Colorado home".

I'm sure there are more reasons...like Crosby is still getting up multiple times in the night and I am very tired, but for all of the hard things it has also been a blast! We get to spend 8 weeks with the Higginbothams (some of our best friends that we rarely get to see). We get to spend a summer investing in college athletes and see the Lord do some really amazing things in their lives. Tim and I get to work more as a team in ministry and in parenting as we are doing things more together this summer. The boys have lots of friends  to play with and there are seemingly endless fun things to do out here. The boys get to be around college students and staff kids that love Jesus and love on them. My list could go on! I'm really wanting to grow in stress tolerance and flexibility this summer. Part of that for me is in seeing the blessings that the Lord gives in each day-in the fun surprises and challenges that draw me closer to Him. There will be lots of both this summer for sure!