February

We signed Jake up for a beginning karate class every Tuesday night for 5 weeks. It was really cute...he learned to stand at attention, do punches and kicks while saying "ha-ya" and then ran through an obstacle course at the end (his favorite part). But...if this was any glimpse into how he'll be as a student in school...we'd better gear up for many parent-teacher conferences:) He was a wild child running all over the room constantly and bouncing off the walls, while all the other kids stood still practicing their exercises. At least he's still got a couple years to let that energy run loose:)
Hallelujah! The trash pile in our yard got cleaned up! I was beginning to wonder if we'd just leave it there forever. This is the before picture. I just realized I didn't take the "after" picture...but you can imagine it:) I'm just so happy kids can go outside and play again, without the danger of old rusty nails sticking out from pieces of wood.

We went to Knotts with Shannon and Lindy for the day...the boys had a ton of fun. This is them on a ride that brought back childhood memories for me. I remembered being a little girl going on this ride and feeling like I was in the backwoods of a thick forest, on my own, moving my car along, and yes...enjoying nature. Now as an adult I stood and looked at it...the whole track is in full view from the park and there's a couple trees...haha. That was funny to see. But it still gave me full satisfaction to now be sending my child on the nature ride experience. Of course about two-thirds of the way through he gave up on pumping and just laid back in his car.

This airplane ride was the first one they did. You have to pull a lever towards you to make the airplane fly up high. Jake was in a plane with some random girl and they both couldn't figure it out. Every other plane was up high in the hair and Jake's was riding along the ground. He was pushing the lever the wrong way with all his might and looking up at Luke in his plane yelling "it won't go up!" over and over. He finally gave up and just started waving hi at Luke and Seth in their plane. I felt bad for him but it was the funniest thing to watch. Me, Shannon and Lindy were all trying to yell through the gate to pull the lever the other way.

Don't these boys look so big? It's like they're riding a real roller coaster

This is Valentine's Day...a very happy boy with his candy
We made heart shaped sugar cookies during the day and took some over to friends. Jake likes to help me in the kitchen...especially when he gets to keep dipping his finger in the sugar:)