Firefighters and Two Excited Boys on a Rainy Thursday Morning

Every Thursday, during the school year, we drive to West Des Moines to take Ethan to his enrichment classes for a few hours (he has Science and Art for an hour and 50 minutes).  Everett and Elliot are too young for the classes, so we end up going to the Valley Church Community Center to let them run around and play while we wait.  

Today, as we were in route to the community center, we noticed some firefighters running some drills in the near by parking lot.  We decided to stop and watch.  

When they were finished I drove over so the boys could meet the firefighters.  Everett got to shake their hands and they ran the drill again before we left.  It was a nice break from our regular Thursday routine.

Playground Fun at Yellow Banks Park

The weather was warm today so we decided riding bikes and playing on the playground sounded like a fun idea before napping.  It was nice to be outside, playing in the sunshine!

Elliot is getting so big!

He loves to go down the slides all by himself!

Everett had fun "balancing" around the edge of the playground.

This kid loves to run!

It was a beautiful day!

A is for Apple (That I Like to Bite)

Elliot is so cute at times, I can't resist taking his picture.  Today this is how I caught him eating his apple at snack time.  He is so silly!  He will eat the whole thing, core and all!

 

Winter Melt at Yellowbanks Park

Today the temps started to rise, so we put on our rain boots and spent the whole day outside.  It was a beautiful day!  We ate lunch outside, rode bikes, explored, played on the playground and had a lot of fun just soaking up the sun at our favorite park!  I am thankful that God has provided a day like today to get out of the house and burn off some energy!  I needed it as much as the kids, and it is such a joy to my spirit to feel the sunshine on my skin and the warm weather for a change!  Tomorrow the cold is supposed to return.  Happy Spring while it lasts!

Today Everett decided to try the fire pole all by himself!

He did it!

  

Elliot loves the slide!

Ethan showed off his skills too!

It was a beautiful day to swing!

Lunch outside!

I bet you didn't know that rainbows migrate too, did you?

Big brother Ethan helped Everett along.

Elliot was excited to ride outside in his car!

  

The sky was a beautiful blue!

After we left the park, we stopped to see if we could find a geocache near the driving range in Pleasant Hill.  We were unable to find it last fall.  Sure enough, Everett spotted it!

Everett found this geocache all by himself.  One proud little boy!

2014 Sparks-a-Rama Games

2014 Grace Church Awana Sparks

This is the first year for our family to attend the Sparks-a-Rama Awana Games.  It was an experience for sure.

Ethan takes competitive games pretty serious, so you can only imagine his attitude towards the event.  Focused and ready, he was so excited to play the games and see how our home church, Grace Church, stacks up to the competition.

He told me about the games and what ones were his favorite, but I will admit, that I would only get confused about the concept of the games without actually seeing it in action.  Today it all came together, and it was very entertaining to both watch and participate in.

Grace Church has won the last 10 years in a row (or something impressive like that) so they were eager to defend their title!  They ended up taking home the win again this year!  Way to go Sparks!

The kids have to keep the balloons from falling on their side of the line.

Watching them run around, attached to each other, made me think someone was going to get hurt.

They did a really good job of staying together.

I love the look on his face while he talked with a friend about the last event.

All the games were about teamwork.  The kids had a lot of fun.