5 Year old Jacob

Although it has almost been a month since Jake turned 5, I finally got his portraits done. I had everything set up already for a different job, so my mature, well-mannered, easy going 5 year old son sat down and did all the posing himself! I think this had to be the easiest shoot EVER!!! Hope this trend continues. Especially when baby comes!

The following are all Jake- inspired poses. I had nothing to do with the hand etc.

and one of the ever-sweet little sister....

one more of the big 5 year old for the road....

WAHOOOOOOOOOOO!!! YIPEEEEEEEEEE!!!EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!

So no real, logical, or educated words are forming in my brain. Nor am I really trying I guess.
Wanna hear the most exciting news of 2010 (and one of the top for 2009?!?!)???
My sis and her hubby are leaving any day now to go meet, greet, and bring home their two sweet sweet babies in Ethiopia!!! YIPEEEEEEEEEE!!! This has been a long long wait. A hard wait that goes beyond words. But the end is near!!! Meshki (almost 2 yrs) and Paulos (almost 4 years)will soon be sleeping in their own beds in their own home!!! And my favorite part of the story is that Little Meskerem will have her 2nd birthday on Feb 28 and will be with her mommy on that special day who is also celebrating her birthday (far far from her 2nd though). In other words, Ramona and her sweet little girl have the same birthday- i have been praying and praying that they can be together for it. And despite all the many many many MANY hardships and mountains that were in the way (not to mention real geolographical obstacles like an ocean and half of the world) God pulled through yet again!!! What an amazing God we serve! For many years we have prayed for more blessings to fill the home of my sister and her husband and now in a few short days (well, weeks, until they come home) they will have a houseful (zoo?) of 6 people!!! (two kids at home already).
Anyway- if you see me in person ever you will know this story and can read the happy happy ending that is taking place! Ramona, I didn't know how much I was allowed to share... Can't wait until I get permission to post photos of the two adorable little kiddos on here!
Thank you Jesus for your love and your blessings!!!

SPRING IS HERE!!!

The sun came out the other day and so did the camera.

My first flower blooming in my flower bed!!

Liv making friends with earth worms... until the big brother came along and cut the worm into pieces.....

random things

We (ok, just Dan) redid the bathroom and finished it up yesterday! Now all we need to do is some patchup work on the walls and paint the wainscot white. NOT BAD, Huh? He did the tile flooring while I was away over New Year's. What a talented Hubby I have!

Our bunny, Hippo, has been neglected lately. I picked up a nifty little bunny harness (and will never hear the end of it from Dan) and Jake now can take Hippo for a walk in the backyard!

and last but not least, here is Livi with her friend Amelia playing dress up!

Little Swimmer Boy.

Jake just started swimming lessons. This was his third lesson. He is doing so well! His teacher even talked to us afterwards on how impressed he was with Jake! That sure made us proud parents!

Here he is swimming by himself! Just flippers on the feet! No life jacket!

He would NEVER jump like this before lessons. I love the confidence this is giving him!

Here is his teacher's "I'm so impressed with you!" speech.

J floated on his back for 15 seconds during lessons!

and in other news... (we still have another kid (or two!) around here...) Here is Olivia with a plan Dan brought home from work. He has been so busy lately that he had to take a plan home to bid. It's bigger than Liv!

The big 5!

Jake is 5. WOW!!!!!

Yesterday we spent the day celebrating his birthday! We met a friend at the Park (Jake was sick with a cold so we called off the morning playdate and decided at the park they wouldn't be contaminating each other so much!).

Here is Jake and his buddy Joshua (who was sick and couldn't make it to the birthday party)

And here are Livi, Joshua, Jake, and Annalise (she just turned one).

After the park and Daddy came home from work we went to Red Robin for dinner. Here is Jake being sung Happy Birthday to at the restraunt. Poor guy. I have never seen his face so red. He was mortified. And yet I got pleasure from the torture. This is exactly what I had to endure as a kid. How sick am I? I still have issues because of my parents doing things like this to me!

Good boy. He'll still smile on command for me to snap a photo even after I do that to him!

Then we went to Dan's club and went swimming! Jake just started taking swimming lessons so he was eager to show me how he can swim with out a life jacket (I guess I will have to take photos at lessons because I didn't capture it yesterday).

Here are some photos from his birthday party. We had a small party- which was PERFECT! It was Mario Kart Wii racing theme. Pretty low key- just the way we like it!

My super awesome cake! I am so happy with how it turned out.

The "big kid" showing the others how to play wii.

The partiers: Kevin, Livi, Abbie, Jake, and Jeffery. (He and Jeffery are new buddies from preschool. They share the same birthday and the same favorite color! )

While the boys played wii, Livi and Abbie dressed up and I caught them "practicing" a song for Jake in Livi's room. Later they preformed all dressed to the Nines.