A Glimpse of Play Time

Jay will line up these toys and move them around this table and through the barn many times throughout the day.

Notice the tongue that he sticks out when he's really focused and concentrating...

Quality Dad & Jay Time Together

The last few weekends have been great quality time together for us as a family and especially for Matt and Jay. Here are some photos to prove it.

Above: President's Day Weekend at PopPop and Nana's house
Below: Last Saturday at a neighborhood park

Below: Saturday afternoon returning from retrieving the mail

We took a walk around the big park close to where we live Sunday afternoon. Jay enjoys playing in the rocks, of course. Boys will be boys!

Tonight he decided to try on Daddy's shoes and walk around the house in them for a while. He sure loves his Dad!!

President's Day Weekend

This past weekend we took off Friday afternoon for a weekend in Oregon to see PopPop, Nana, and Uncle Mike, Aunt Shawn (Matt's sister), and our nephews Alex and Josh. Love, love, love you guys!


Alex and Josh are both involved with the Upward basketball program January through March. For the third year in a row we were able to be there to watch one of their games. Josh's team played first (at 10:15 a.m. on Saturday). Josh is the one shooting the basketball in the photo below.
Mike is one of Josh's coaches. Here is coach Dad giving some pointers to Josh during the game.

Point guard Josh taking the ball down the court.

Here is the gang of onlookers/fans from left to right:

Randy, Ken, Matt, Shawn, Mike's Dad Fred (from Ephrata), PopPop Jim, Nana Carol, little Jay, and Alex. (I sat next to Alex.)

We had an hour and a half "break" before Alex's game was scheduled. We used that time to grab a bite of lunch at the nearby McDonalds. The three cousins enjoyed some play time together on the free video game consoles there.

This is Alex's last year with this particular Upwards basketball program since he "ages out" next year. His age group keeps track of the score. His team won this past weekend.

Alex playing "Big D" against the opposing team's point guard.

We all gathered together at PopPop and Nana's house for a FABULOUS Valentine's Day dinner Saturday evening followed by a fun game of Ticket to Ride using the 1910 expansion I received from my sister this past Christmas.

We had a GREAT time this weekend. Thanks for hosting us again PopPop and Nana! We sure love you!

Fun with Aunt Molly

Thanks to my sister Molly, Matt and I enjoyed an early Valentine's Day date last night. (We enjoyed dinner and a movie out.)

Molly pulled out her camera and captured some moments with Jay. He generally only gets to watch DVDs on long car trips and when a babysitter is here at home. Last night he chose to watch "God Made Me," a baby faith DVD put out by the Integrity Family, so that is what you can hear playing in the background.

This first video clip you get an idea of how busy he is these days. He LOVES climbing.

This second video clip is Molly's and our favorite. We love the "Ta Da" moment at the end.

Super Bowl Sunday

This past Sunday afternoon some of our Sunday School class families gathered together at church to watch this year's Super Bowl football game. Turns out the college group was gathering together too, but the room they were going to use at church didn't work out for them to watch the game so they "crashed" our party. We didn't mind at all! They had pizza, pop, and snacks and our group had chili, cornbread, chips, dips, and cookies - we combined our "eats" and enjoyed watching the game together as a larger group.


There are quite a few kiddos in our Sunday School group and all the kids had such a fun time playing together. Here are a few photos of Jay's activities on Sunday...

Above: Jay took the time to precisely line up these matchbox cars on the play rug (a typical thing for him to do)

Below: One of the family's that came was wise and brought along their computer with a VeggieTales movie. The kids would wander over to this corner of the room from time to time to watch a portion of the movie until their attention span waned.

Below is a video of Jay loving to pull this toy bus around on its string. He and I were playing a mini game of "chase" as I tried to capture his joy on video.

What a fun Super Bowl game to watch this year! We had a great time visiting with our friends and we went home with full bellies from all the good eats.