Andrew's Birthday Party!!

It has taken me awhile to post pictures on Andrew's party (a month ago) but it was a fun time! Nana and Grandpa Jerry even got a chance to come. We had his party at a park with a playground. There were tons of kids running around and playing which was awesome.

We decided on a 'Hungry Caterpillar' theme which turned out super cute. There were tons of free printables on Pinterest that you could print out and use! I made sure that we had pretty much all the food that was in the 'Hungry Caterpillar' book.

Luke was pretty cute. Weeks before Andrew's party, he had a countdown going. He was super excited for the birthday party, which of course meant CAKE! :)

Cake time did not go as we expected...unfortunately Andrew decided to put out the candle with his finger :( Not a good idea, but he learned quickly! Poor guy. We kept thinking he was going to stop crying but then he kept going...

He eventually calmed down and was able to enjoy his first taste of sugar!!

I think Andrew overall had a good time! Here are some of his baby friends...

Luke definitely wore himself out. The next day Luke started the countdown for Mommy's birthday, which we recently celebrated by going to the Children's Museum! It was fun. 

The biggest news that we have now is that we are in the process of selling our home! We have been in our townhome for two years now and after much research and many talks, we decided that now is probably the best time for us! It has been on the market for a couple weeks now, which is a really bittersweet feeling. We love our neighbors and the area we live in but we also know it is time to upgrade! Our dog needs a yard to run in as well as the boys. It would be nice to have a guest room and an office area for homeschooling. Please pray for our house to sell at God's perfect timing and that He would already be preparing the next place for us. We are looking for a place to be in for a long time! Also, it is beginning to wear on us as we prepare each day for showings by keeping a perfectly clean house with two little boys and we keep having to go out (to eat or during naps) because of showings. We are hoping this process won't last much longer! We will keep you all updated though! 

Thank you all!

The last couple of months in pictures...

Luke loves running around our house in Mommy or Daddy's shoes. He is always telling us that he is going to Grandma's house or off to work. The video was from a Purim party that we had at our church :) Luke got up on stage during the dance party and busted out some moves...sorry the video isn't the best quality but it is still pretty cute!

I am loving the fun ideas that I keep getting from Pinterest for activities that toddlers can do! I feel like Luke is so smart that I have to keep up with challenging him with fun things to do. He currently loves puzzles and I am amazed at how quickly he can put them back together all by himself. We just bought him a 24 piece puzzle that I figured would be way above his level. It took him a couple of hours to figure it out and now he can do it all by himself!

Tom and I are trying to exercise and get out more so we bought some bicycles and a trailer for the boys! They LOVE it! They are pretty cute with their helmets on cruising the town...

About a month ago, Luke accidentally hit his mouth on our hard wood coffee table and his tooth got pushed back up into his gum :( It was pretty gross and sad but the dentist said it should heal fine. He just now has some crooked, bruised teeth.

Andrew is growing like a weed!  He is not quite walking, but he pulls himself up to standing and is crawling around like crazy!  He is a very active boy - so once he starts walking we're going to have quite the duo on our hands! It's amazing how different he is from Luke, but how similar he is at the same time.  He is now able to eat most of the same food we do, as long as we cut it up small - but he has especially developed an obsession with Cheerios!  He gets really excited and starts bouncing up and down whenever he sees us bring them out!  He is a huge joy to us and loves to cuddle. :)

 It was Andrew's first Easter!! I was so excited to finally take Luke on an Easter Egg Hunt! We woke up early on Easter weekend to go to one at the YMCA, I felt pretty sick but forced myself out the door because I was so excited to share this experience with Luke. The whole drive over I was quizzing him and pumping him up on what to do and how he had to 'run, run, run!' When we got there it was packed! By the time we got out on the field, all the big kids had taken all the eggs :( Poor Luke, I felt so bad. I felt even worse when he started saying, 'I want to get Easter eggs Mommy!' Needless to say, I almost cried and we will not be doing that ever again. We came home and did our own hunt for him with stickers and m&m's in each egg. A much better idea!

Easter was also pretty fun because it was the first time we got to start sharing with Luke about what Easter is really about! We read through the book, "Benjamin's Box", which goes through the passion week and shares the story of Jesus rising from the dead. It was cool to see how much Luke picked up from that story alone! I also paired it up with a preschool version of the 'Resurrection Eggs' and he really soaked it all in. Just the other day he opened an empty easter egg that we haven't put away yet and said 'Jesus is gone. He has risen'. We pray as parents that these little seeds will take root in their hearts to bring our children to the Lord!

Luke learning about Baking Soda & Vinegar for the first time!

It has been pretty exciting for me to be home with two of my best friends and share life with them! Tom and I just took an amazing parenting class that is based off of "Growing Kids God's Way" and are so excited to be implementing some of these new tools that we have learned! I have loved playing with Luke and helping him learn and I continue to see myself homeschooling him! We will see how things go though. It is not in our hands! In two weeks we will be celebrating Andrew's first birthday! I cannot believe how fast time has gone. We really are truly blessed. Keep praying for our family. Pray for patience in parenting and for us to honor Him in all that we do! God bless.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day to Everyone! We started off our day with some yummy homemade crepes, strawberries and cream. Delicious. I am pretty sure we are going to have to continue that tradition...

Also, in our journey to be good parents, Tom & I have been praying through whether or not to homeschool our children. There are a lot of good reasons for either option but lately we have really been feeling like homeschooling would be the better option for our family! It is kind of a scary thought but fun too. Here are some of our reasons behind it so far:
1) We think we could do a better job at building a unique education that fits the needs of each of our children
2) We want our kids to learn wisdom and not just knowledge each day and we feel like homeschooling helps to really cultivate an atmosphere for that. Let's face it, teachers really don't have a lot of freedom these days to shape character in kids unless they are really acting bad
3) I like the idea of our kids learning constantly. There would be no big break for summers (for us) and the world can be our teacher
4) You can do a lot of unique things with homeschooling like swim classes or skiing instead of the 'mandatory PE'

Happy Boys...

5) Schools have cut out a lot of the Christian perspectives that we want our kids to learn from the beginning. We don't want to be competing with other authority figures in teaching our kids truth.
6) I love the flexibility of it! We could take a vacation anytime we want! We could spend a whole year traveling the world and still be homeschooling our kids...
7) We want to teach our kids some good hands on practical things for life. How to cook, balance checkbooks, how to set up a tent, go fishing...I would love to incorporate that into school
8) We could also explore Classical Education and not spend a ton on a private school in the process.
9) We want to shepherd the hearts of our children with the precious time that we are given with them. Time goes by fast! I want to build solid relationships with them.

Andrew fighting Luke off

10) There are also a bunch of reasons why I don't like public schools. I think overall it makes kids grow up too fast. Especially, in todays society. There is so much peer pressure, bullying, violence, sexual influences that squash children so quickly. We don't want to shelter them completely. We just want to be the ones to expose them to the harshness of the world after they have a more solid worldview.

I am sure that we will have many other reasons to add and edit on the list but we are pretty excited! I have heard over and over again that homeschooling is a journey. You really have to take it one day at a time, and you can change it at any point you want. I really have a peace about it now but who knows? Maybe in a few years, God will be leading us down a whole different path. :)

I have also been experimenting more in the kitchen. 

I have turned this...

Into this... (chicken stock)

As well as cutting up and cooking lots of other pieces of chicken! Wow! Quite the process. I definitely was dramatic at first when I was popping bones out of place :( I got used to it though. 

It will be a lot healthier for our family too to be using chicken stock rather than just bouillon. Also, we are now able to switch over to organic chicken this way because it helps a lot more with the cost to buy a whole chicken!

On a side note, Luke now has sunglasses!! :)

Our Family

Just in case anyone is still wanting to be updated on our family and mainly want to see pictures of our little boys:

Luke singing the ABC's.

Also, Andrew is now standing!! I am not quite ready for two walkers yet...

We have also started into the adventures in potty training :) Luke has actually adapted really well! It is amazing what that little boy will do for chocolate. I guess it is amazing what Tom & I will do for Taco Bell though. We have been trying to eat more healthy and whole foods, but I guess sometimes we splurge. We are trying for the 80/20 rule!