Well Used Toy

We were VERY fortunate to get some wonderful baby gifts over the years. There are many outfits that Worthy was given that I still remember who bought them for him or who gave us certain books and toys. Unfortunately, I can't remember who bought us this exer-saucer, but it has been well loved over the years!
Worthy at 6 months (5 1/2 years ago)

William at 6 months (2 years ago)

Calvin at 6 months (almost)... yesterday

Kazakhstan Chocolate

This past week Dan had a week-long class at Reformed Theological Seminary. One evening Worthy was asking him about his class and classmates. Dan remarked that one of the students was from Kazakhstan. Worthy is very interested in other countries and was curious to know what the capital of Kazakhstan was. Dan passed on the question to his classmate and the next day his classmate brought a Kazakhstan chocolate bar to give to Worthy.

I still don't know what the capital of Kazakhstan is,
but I now know that they have AMAZING chocolate!

FYI - the capital of Kazakhstan is Astana.

My Little Baby

My sweet, sweet Calvin is getting SO big.

I love how he smiles up at me. He gets so excited when we sees Dan or the boys. He's babbling and cooing and making all those wonderful baby noises. I love how he cracks up. He has an easy laugh about him. I adore his bald hair and wish it would stay that way a long time. He's rolling around quite a bit now and just the other day rolled into our TV stand. He's teething like crazy and loves to eat his hands. I'm so crazy about this Little Man.
That's my baby!

Will's Love Affair with Heart to Heart

While we were at MTI, William fell in love with Kashi's Heart to Heart cereal. He wanted it morning, noon and night for his meal. At MTI, I would get his dinner for him and, inevitably, as soon as I set it before him, he'd say "chu-chu"....which means Cheerios (it also means trains and tissue as well...). Since we've come home, his love has not diminished in the least.

Honestly, I'm not a big fan of it and think it looks disturbingly similar to cat food.
He doesn't seem to mind

Passport Pics

This week we took the passport photos for the kids. William already had his from when we visited 2 years ago. There's a great website that helps you to format home digital photos for the correct dimensions for your passport. We saved a good $16 in the process.

Family Play time in Colorado

One weekend we went to Focus on the Family's visitor center. It was a fun, free afternoon. It was wonderful to have fun and watch the kiddos run around.

Hide & Seek



We also went to a Colorado Springs Sky Sox game. The kids loved the snacks and screaming..., um, I mean cheering for the players.
Did I mention that William liked the snacks?!

Frisco, Colorado

One weekend while we were in Colorado, we drove up to Frisco and spent the weekend at a friend's parents condo. It was SO relaxing and fun. A great way to see the mountains. We ended up going on a hike with the boys. I was a bit unsure how Worthy and William would fare, but they had a great time! Calvin slept most of our hike :)

We were rewarded with a beautiful view...

MTI

We just got home from spending three weeks in Colorado. We were there to do training before we head over to Vienna in September. We did this training at Mission Training International.

I was a bit apprehensive about what this training would involve or what our days would look like while we were there. We had an AMAZING time. We learned a tremendous amount and consequently feel more equipped and (simultaneously) more unprepared than ever.

There were about 30 people. Missionaries & Church Planters going to (to name a few): Uganda, Honduras, Middle East, London, Spain and Cambodia. We had classes during the day that helped to prepare us for working with teammates, handling stress & conflict, and raising families in cross-cultural settings. The programs were tremendously insightful. The kiddos ended up learning similar things in an age-appropriate way.

One of the lessons focused on the transition from our home country to our host country. We did an exercise (with the older kids) to help illustrate the transition and the need for strong community in the midst of that. You can see Worthy crossing the "bridge of chairs" here.
The kids each had there own classes too.

Worthy really enjoyed his class. They went on 3 different field trips during our stay there.
William only had one other child in his class, but I think he thrived on the attention. He adored his teacher and we even heard a noticeable jump in his vocabulary.
And lastly, Calvin had a delightful time in the nursery with his "teacher".
Another staple of our day was the Playground. They had a fantastic playground that the kids loved playing on. And of course, all the other kiddos playing there added to the enjoyment!
with a beautiful view...

Last Day of School

Ahhh... it's been a busy, busy couple of months - which is a bit annoying, because (generally) we're not uber-busy people. Things have finally slowed down to a normal pace and everyone is healthy and home, so I thought I'd get around to cataloging some recent pics of our life.

Worthy finished his last day of preschool back in mid-May. He had a WONDERFUL teacher this year, Mrs. Jann. We were so grateful for her love for the kids and all the encouragement she gave Worthy. He also enjoyed his classmates - mostly girls. And this year Worthy perfected the art of every day being "fine". Needless to say, he usually is not too chatty about his daily activities - such a boy already.
The last week of his time in school, we celebrated his summer birthday with his friends. He wanted a chocolate-chocolate cake and I was happy to comply.
We're so thankful for another WONDERFUL year of preschool.