Picture of God?

Luke has always asked a million questions about Jesus and God and heaven, etc..
We can tell he is trying to make sense of it all and to figure it all out in his head. Lately, his questions seem to revolve around what God looks like. These are difficult questions to answer so we usually tell him that our spirit see God in heaven not us. This morning he came downstairs:
He said, "Mommy, my spirit is going to go to heaven but my body will stay on earth"
I said,"Yes buddy"
He said, "So I'm going to tell my spirit to take a picture of God and bring it back to earth so I can see what he looks like. Right Mommy? Then we can all see what he looks like"

OH GEEZE....

Papa's for the long weekend...

We took advantage of the long weekend by heading up to NH for a much needed get away. The kids (all three) love it and it is nice to get away from the everyday "things" we are always doing at home. Not a lot of snow up there which was nice and not unbearably cold...double nice!

Hiking through the woods -

Found some animal tracks -
Yes, everyone is congregating on the lake...a bit weird for me to get into but after a while I kind of forgot we were on frozen water -
The ice fishers showed Luke their catch for the day, the ice bucket -
Back inside and all warmed up, making apple pie with Papa -
Dueling Deere hats -
Not too close -

Happy Valentines Day!

Hard at work making valentines for everyone. Luke planned ahead. He took weeks drawing pictures for each kid in his class. He told me exactly who each was for and he signed them all. I was trying to get Paige to try her name. She doesn't know how to spell it but she can spell L-U-K-E.

Super Bowl -

Kids were a wild mess during the game, as soon as the halftime show came on they were mesmerized!

Birthday Fun Continues -

Another weekend full of birthday fun. Saturday, we went to our friends Katie and Jonathan (and parents) house for a birthday celebration for ALL the older kids since their birthdays are within a few weeks of each other. Highlights included cupcakes and pin the tail on the donkey. The kids are ALREADY talking about the annual Storyland trip...they've got a long way to wait!

Sunday, Luke has his "kid" party with his friends Charlotte from school. He was SO very excited about his party. He kept asking me if his school friends were going to know how to get there and did I make sure to invite them. A few of his local friends came too. We had it at the gymnastics place in town. A 1 hour tumbling class, pizza, cupcakes and pinatas! What more could they ask for!

Katie was so cute, putting out the place settings for all the kids (now I know that Luke is not the only one who does this!)
Storytime -
Happy Birthday to us -
Party games -
Luke's birthday party, stretching -



Waiting for our pizza in the party room -
Charoltte -
Mr. I'm Five!!
Paige, not doing much damage to the girls pinata -
Boys, going to town on theirs -
Boys broke theirs, raining sugar -

Tommy -

Tommy is a boy that lives in Dartmouth. He is a very good boy, never does anything wrong. He always listens to his mommy and daddy. He has lots of toys at his house. He rides his bike without training wheels, always eats all his vegetables and puts his shoes on himself. He always says please and thank you and most impressive, Tommy is always up for pretty much anything. Oh yeah, one last thing, Tommy isn’t real. But the kids don’t know that.
Jay plays the Tommy card sometimes when he is trying to get the kids to do something. It might go like this:
“Oh, you aren’t going to finish your dinner, I’ll just give it to Tommy, he will eat it”
“You know that Tommy already had his training wheels off”
“That’s fine if you don’t want to go to Home Depot with me, I’ll just bring Tommy”
You get the psychology of it. From what I’ve gathered, this is a tatic Jay’s nana used to use with them growing up.
The kids totally buy into this story. They think Tommy is the real deal. So much so that every once in a while, Luke will ask for a playdate with Tommy. Tommy travels a lot so is not often around to hang out.
This morning, Luke said, “Is Tommy going to be at my birthday party tomorrow”

Luke made a book at school and read it to me...

sledding videos...

SNOW!

It finally snowed!! The kids have been asking for snow for weeks. They were so confused when it didn't snow on Christmas. Luke said, "God must be tricky that he isn't making it snow".
We decided to brave the storm and make our way to Westport to a great sleddind hill. It was pretty crowded but we found a side hill much less crowded and more managable for the kids. Luke was LOVIN' it. Jay is convinced that he is ready for skiing after today. He was face-planting in the snow and loving it. Paige was such a trooper. They both did great.

We got a dusting on Friday morning, kids were so excited but disappointed to learn it was not snowball/snowman making snow -

Second storm. We got a good 10 (ish) inches. A real snow! Paige was lovin the snow tube -
Luke preferred the turbo sled -



Much needed hot chocolate and rest after a long day of fun in the snow -

The Marriage Dress -

This is what Paige calls her "marriage dress".
She saw a picture of us from our wedding and said, "MOMMY YOU MARRIED!" as if this were quite a revelation. She then told me she was going to marry daddy. I told her he was already taken, "I married him Paige." She did a very dramatic and frustrated "AAAAHHHHHHH!"