A day at the park

This is a little park by our house that we can walk to...and it even has swings! The other one that we walk to doesn't have swings, so we alternate to keep both kids happy (the other one has really big slides and other big kid toys that Joel likes).

We had lots of races down this slide and had fun playing with the "continuous shot" feature on our camera.
"Like a race car"

The main attraction
A valiant effort at getting a good family picture...
The girls.

Outdoor Adventures

We have been having amazing weather (until Saturday, when it snowed again) and love getting outside to play. These pictures are from Camelback park, which is close to our house...Greg and Joel went one day, and we all went again a couple of days later. When the boys went they hiked up one side of this mountain and then slid down this really big hill on the other side. Then they climbed back up and went down again!

Enjoying the view from the top. Buddies.

When we all went back, we played at the park (at the bottom of this hill) then decided to climb to the top...boy am I out of shape! :)
Maren LOVED sliding/being dragged down the hill. We all came home full of sand but happy!

Little Girl

Maren is no longer our little baby...she is growing up so fast and she is so much fun! Here are some recent pictures of her.

Watching cartoons with Daddy
Wearing Mommy's scarf
Trying out her first pair of croc's (knock-off's from Target!)
Smooshed and loving it!

Sledding!

Greg took Joel sledding one beautiful Monday afternoon and they had a blast! (Notice the make-shift sled! That exercise mat is FINALLY getting some use!!)

Contemplating the hill...

Whoo...Hooo!

That was fun! Let's do it again!

The climb back up is the hard part...

Here's the hill they were sledding on...pretty big for a little guy, but he did great!

Thanks for a fun afternoon Dad!

Working Woman

In case you didn't know, I (Jen) have been working for about a month. I got a part-time job at a financial company called Clearwater Analytics doing accounting-type work. In another couple of weeks I will be able to work from home, which will be great. I have been loving working - getting out of the house, using my brain, and making some money! We only have to get a babysitter two mornings a week, as Greg has been able to be home the other three days. It has been working out great, and we are so thankful that I got this job!

New Year, New Camera!

Here are a bunch of random pictures from January...it was a pretty uneventful month overall, but of course we managed to get some cute pics of the kids with our new camera!

"guy time"This beautiful kitten showed up one snowy day and we (Greg) took pity on her and fed her and then let her sleep in our garage for about a week. Then my cousin Carolyn and Amit adopted her and we get to visit her often!

Beautiful Boise.

We took the kids to Planet Kid, which is a big indoor play place - full of slides, tunnels, balls and all kinds of things to clinb in and on! They loved it!

It was hard to get a good picture of Joel because most of the time I couldnt' even see him! The things went way up high to the ceiling and then had big slides to get down. He had a blast!

Maren was NOT interested in sitting still for a family picture!

"Matching" outfits - Joel didn't want to smile for the camera today!

Joel has been going to the Awana program at our church since September. He is a Cubbie and here he is in his vest. He memorizes verses each week and gets patches every couple of weeks for saying his verses on Wednesday nights. It has been so fun for him, and he is really good at memorizing the verses!

Merry Christmas!

Like I said, our camera died today, so we only got a few (not very good) pictures of the kids. But we did have a really nice day and, thanks to our families, the kids had a lot of really fun presents to open! Here's Maren with her first My Little Pony!
Uncle Matt and Aunt Nikki sent this Rody (bouncy horse) for Maren and Joel - they really do like it, despite Joel's less than excited look here.

Christmas Eve

Thanks to Grandma Connie, the kids had new outfits to wear on Christmas Eve! They were so cute!

Greg led did the sermon at the hospital chapel for any staff or patients wanting to attend. There was one other lady besides our family so it was really small...but Greg did a great job!

Joel kept busy by working on his new lace-up cards...thanks Mimi! (Maren pretty much ran around the whole time, so I was pretty tired by the end of the whole thing!)

We're back!

So, as you probably noticed, it ias been a LONG time since I have posted any new pictures. Well, our camera completely died, on Christmas Day, and we ended up having to get a new one. And then I was waiting to get our new high speed internet hooked up - now it shouldn't take 30 minutes to upload 2 pictures anymore! So, over the next couple of days I will be getting our blog up to date - keep checking back for new pictures!

December Fun

We got to spend an evening with Bruce (from Greg's program) and his wife Shirley...Joel got to help make orange bread!
Both the kids had so much fun at their house, and Greg and I did, too! These penguins came in their stockings from Bruce and Shirley (above).

My aunt Jennifer and Uncle Steve and 5 of their 8 kids were in Caldwell visiting some other family, so we got to spend the day with them there (it's about 45 minutes from here). They are from France, so this was Greg's first time meeting them, and it was so fun to be together. Our camera is on the fritz, so I only got this one sweet picture with Rose and Maren playing the piano, but there was a lot of action with that many kids around! Hopefully we will get to see them again in Tacoma before they head back to France in the spring.