Easter family pictures

For Easter this year we decided on the colour purple.

Family picture at church...sorry, Nathan's eyes are closed.

Speaking of church, we had a wonderful Easter Sunday service! We were able to get the big room in our building, so we just had one morning service instead of our regular two. Being a special Sunday that it was, we were glad! We handed out a ton of flyer's in the surrounding neighborhoods inviting people out to church for Easter Sunday service and a 'free' meal to follow...the free meal always helps :) We were privileged to have 184 in attendance, 16 of those being first time visitors, and 2 people trusted Christ as Saviour!! It was a wonderful day. To God be ALL the glory!!

My BIG boy! I love you Bubba!



Our growing family! The Lord has given us a wonderful family!
Sorry, we couldn't convince Joshua to spit out his soother...he was extremely tired!
Oh Grandma and Grandpa Ravert, thank you for the baby eore. Joshua was very excited when he saw it. He said "two eore!" He remembered about the other eore you gave him when he saw it. He even wanted to sleep with his '2 eore' that night!



My 3 handsome men (well, 1 man and 2 little men)!
All three of them wore matching ties :) We went to walmart on Friday and we found two purple ties that happened to be on clearance for $5, so we grabbed them right away! I just made the 2 boys ties out of a mens tie and there you have it...matching ties with Daddy (who was very proud to wear matching ties with his little guys)!

Daddy and Mommy

I love you!!

Easter *Eggs*Baskets*Egg hunt!

Here are a bunch of pictures...we have done a lot in the last few days!

Lots of Fun :)

Matthew...after a long morning at church. He is so good at church. The nursery workers love having him in the nursery; I can't imagine why they wouldn't, just look at him ;)

Oh, these 2 pictures have nothing to do with Easter, but they are hilarious!


Joshua didn't just want a small piece, he wanted the whole piece!!

Joshua and Grandma decorating eggs! Well, mostly Grandma...Joshua just picked the colours :)

We bought Joshua a Toy Story egg kit. He got to put the stickers on the eggs!

Although Joshua's first Easter was last year, this year was a lot more fun :) He actually got to do everything!

Another just because picture... Matthew loves his bath time! He just lays there and soaks in the warm water!

Matthew's basket

Joshua's basket

It is so much fun spoiling our boys ;)

Matthew giving his 'First Easter' bunny a hug ;)

Cool baby!

What a cutie!!

Matthew is well on his way with his stuffed animal collection... he only has about 50 more to go to catch up with his big brother! HAHA! Not really, but close enough!

I think Joshua got a bit more...?!?!?!

BIKES!!! The first thing Joshua grabbed out of his basket was his bikes! I found a 4 pack of motorcycles for $1, knowing that Joshua would go crazy over them. Well, when we were walking around walmart still he found them in the cart :( Thankfully he is still young enough to forget about things he sees! When we found them in his basket, it was like he had never seen them ;)

This is why Joshua has so many stuffed animals...he just adores them. He gives them all hugs and says "aaww, cute!" He found a duck that Grandma was planning to give him for Easter. I guess I need to hide things better now, oops!

"Wow, cocate pooh!" The words of a 22 month old.

Joshua loves bubbles! We found his bubble gun at walmart for $3! Nathan would blow the bubbles and Joshua would pop them...he was having sooooo much fun!

Easter egg hunt! Joshua got to find all 58! Yes, 58! When you are the only one who can participate, you get them all ;) Joshua dropped this egg and found out that this hunt was even better than he thought; there's "cocate" inside!!!!

He did a really good job finding all the eggs! He even found the eggs I actually hid!

Every time he found an egg he said, "oh more egg!"

Getting pretty full...

Matthew got a couple of eggs :)

After Joshua found all the eggs, I tried to get a picture of him with his huge find...he thought it would be better to dump out all the eggs instead! He's a boy!

Park fun

We went to the "big" park on Friday afternoon so Joshua could practice riding his bike! It is a really nice park. It has a lot of sidewalks, a huge playground and a lot of grass for playing different things on. The bonus with this park is its in a new residential area, so it's very quiet! It was a lot of fun!

Joshua and his new bike!! He bent down on his knees because Grandma did to take a picture of him; it made for a cute picture though:)

Matthew and Mommy!


Joshua trying out the playground. This was the toddler area.

Joshua on the big kids area...walking Daddy over the bridge :)

Joshua LOVES slides or "weeeee!" as he calls them, but he has to go down with either Daddy or Mommy the first time to make sure its alright ;D

This one passed the test...he loved it too!

CHEESE!!

Our pro biker!

We all love to go to the park!

BIKE!!!! Mommy!!!! Daddy!!!!!! BIKE!!!!

We took Joshua to a park yesterday after we gave him his bike. It is his Easter gift, but we knew if we waited until Easter Sunday he would want to ride it but not have the time with church. We put his bike together Thursday night and set it outside of his bedroom door, so when he woke up the next morning he would see it. When we heard him playing in bed Friday morning we grabbed the video camera and camera, knowing that he would be soooo excited! Nathan went into his room to get him and told him that there was a surprise waiting for him, so Joshua got all excited ;) As soon as he saw the bike he jumped out of Nathans arms and RAN to the bike saying BIKE Mommy Daddy BIKE!!!! He was soooo excited!! It was a lot of fun watching him! Right away he wanted on the bike...of course :) For the first few hours, he didn't quite catch on to how to ride it, so we took turns pushing him around the house and outside on the sidewalk. Later on in the day we took him to the park so he would have more space to learn to ride on his own. Still at the beginning he wanted Daddy to push him around. There was another little boy at the park on a tricycle riding very fast all over the place so Joshua was watching him very intently. Well, within a short amount of time, Nathan looked over at Joshua, who wasn't standing beside him anymore, to see him riding his bike on his own!!! He had made it about 5 feet away and was still going!! I guess he just needed a little encouragement from another little boy...boys love challenges :) The movie you watched of him was shortly after he started riding on his own! Now, there is NO stopping him...he just goes and goes! He LOVES his bike! He has already tried some hills!

Woodland Park Zoo

Tuesday afternoon we took a trip to the zoo!!

My Mum flew into the Seattle airport, so we took advantage of the "winter" rates at the zoo! We were able to see many different animals. We all had a lot of fun :) Here are a few pictures of some of the animals we got to see.

Zebra and antelope

Giraffe or "big tall" as Joshua calls them :)


Baby zebra

A couple hippos sun bathing

Monkey

Elephant

Bats

Kangaroos

Joshua is petting the steel foxes...and admiring the tunnel. He has loved tunnels ever since he got his Thomas the tank engine tunnel for Christmas!

Grizzly bears... sorry, he didn't want to look at the camera ;D

You could watch the bears lunch swimming around under water in this building. FISH!

A HUGE eagle

and his HUGE nest! I think 3 adults could easily sit in the nest without being squished!

Joshua and I watching the eagle (hey, same eyes)

Nathan and Joshua at the end of a 'tunnel'!!!!

Our big boy ;D

Tiger...he didn't want to look either. I think the tigers were trying to avoid everyone.

T-Rex. Yes, they even had dinosaurs :)

Little penguins

When this worker came out to feed the penguins she started calling them all by names and they even knew their names! She would give them each a fish and then they knew they were finished... it was so funny to watch. After they got their fish they walked away. She has them trained well!!

A Joshua with a very wet diaper...poor boy, we were all having so much fun that his diaper got forgotten about. Oops, I am a good mum really :) He was walking around with his legs far apart and saying "uh oh!" Sorry Joshua!

and Flamingos!

Matthew just snoozed the most of the time.