Mr.Creative!

Derek is so fun and creative! I love to see the ideas he comes up with! And it is so fun to watch him learning so much! He can write his name now, and he is recognizing letters all the time! He'll point out letters to us on the cereal box, in books, etc. It's so fun! Recently for preschool every student decorated a puzzle piece with things they did over Christmas break! I love how he chose to decorate his -naming some of his favorite presents, playing wii bowling, confetti, and my favorite is the drawing of our family!!

A few weeks ago Mauri and Lins came up - and Derek and Mauri decided to have a picnic! ....with snow on the ground! haha! It is often hilarious to watch the two of them together! ...last week we were at my moms and Erica and I were talking about how nice it was that Mar and Derek could just play and have fun and we don't have to check on them every minute. Then I went down to check on them and they had strung Christmas lights all over the basement! Mauri's explanation: "We wanted to have a celebration!" haha! I wish I had a picture of that!
He got some legos for Christmas and he has so much fun building and creating things!
Using an old shelf as a jungle gym! It made us really wish we could find these cool toys called "pipeworks" that Ry and Matt played with when they were little! Derek took this apart & put it back together a bunch of times! Oh, and climbed on it too, of course!
This picture is from October - we were drawing on the white board and Derek drew the cutest little pumpkins!
We love his sweet smile! He is one of the sweetest kids ever - he's always ready with a hug if anyone feels sad and he is such a big helper! He'll just see that one of us needs help with something and he'll just jump in and help - lots of time without us even asking him!! We're so lucky to have such great boys!!

Mr. Messy!

Cooper J. is such a funny little dude! He is always cracking us up! I get quite a kick out of how messy he sometimes is when he eats!! ...I don't remember what this is on his face, but look how adorable he is?! Oh man, we love that sweet little face!!
Here he is enjoying some heath cheesecake! Mmmmm...we all enjoyed that quite honestly! haha!
Mashed potatoes in his hair!

Powdered sugar...must've been from french toast or something!
The mystery mess!

And just in case you missed it at the top - look at this darling little face! He is seriously such a sweetie and brings so much joy to our family!

Valentines Day!

We started our Valentines Day with some chocolate heart shaped waffles!

Ryan and the boys surprised me with these flowers! They are so dang sweet!
We painted some valentines for daddy! It was really fun!


We love you Daddy!
Ending the day with some hugs of course!!