Happy 6th Birthday Joel!

So I'm a total LAME mom! It's been just over 3 weeks from Joel's actual birthday and I'm just now blogging about it! There are a numer of reasons why, but mainly because both the boys and I had the flu for a full week. I was literally out of service for a week which actually put me WAY behind in so many different ways. BUT I am determined to not let life pass by without doing my little boys' birthday blog so he will know just how much he has blessed our lives! So here's to you Joely!

Happy Birthday!

In Joel's class they have a week where they are the "Star Student". For this project, they (actually the parents, right?) can put pictures of themselves on a posterboard that tell about their life. This happened to fall on Joel's birthday week. So, Dan and I decided to do a picture of Joel from each year of his life. Here they all are and I do have to say he is quite the handsome little boy! He goes from bald baby to tons of hair and curls, to a short, little boys' cut....so cute!

Joel's birth announcement! The theme for his room was wagons and kites which my sister-in-law, Amber gave to me. I just LOVED the idea and thought it was so cute. However, of course there is hardly anything out there with wagons and kites; which was very frustrating for Dan and I didn't want to let go of the idea. My mom saved the day and painted wagons and kites in his room for us. I do have to say that it was a very cute room!

Here's about 6 months old.

This is at Easter--he's just learned to walk and is one years old.

Here he's about 18 months old during the summer--still with no hair, but he's sporting his new cowboy boots!

This was at the good old "Clallam County Fair". Dan was gone on a missions trip so Nathan, Joel, Ellie and I loaded up and met our homegroup there. Of course, we had to stop and let the kids climb the tree, which is now one of Joel's favorite things to do! My sister-in-law, Katie, is a nurse at Haborview and so now the boys where helmets if they want to climb too high of a tree!

This is Easter once again! But now he's 3 and has hair!

This is our last summer in Port Angeles--isn't he just so cute!

Another one of Joel's favorite things to do is dance. Here he is rocking out at Sean and Katie's wedding.

What little boy doesn't like to run? But here he is at the annual school jog-a-thon, running like mad!

This was at Christmas time this year. The kids went with my parents to the "Stanwood Christmas Lights". They obviously had other things there besides lights. Joel, Nathan, and their cousin, Curtiss got their faces painted---isn't that an amazing tiger? Nathan got Anakin, but Joel went for his all time love--animals!


Joely, we think you are an amazing little boy and love to see all that God has for you. What a priviledge and blessing it is to be your parents!

Flat Nathan visits Austin, TX

One of Nathan's school projects this year was to color a "Flat Nathan" and send it to someone he knew "far away", who would then send a postcard to him at school and then send Flat Nathan on to someone they knew. The objective of this project was to track different places around the world. What a great geography lesson. One of the people it went to was my dear friend and college roomate, Melissa. Now Melissa is very creative and somehow not only comes up with great ideas but finds the time to carry them out (there's a novel idea)! She and her almost 2 year old daughter capture Flat Nathan's adventure on her blog---check it out---it's pretty cool!

paisleypigpress.blogspot.com

Visiting our nephews, Riley and Alex

So Dan and I absolutley love our nephews, but we hardly get to see them. It's one of the downers of not living an hour away from them anymore. So this Christmas, that was top priority for us, especially since we haven't seen our youngest nephew in 8 months and he's 18 months old. I had so much fun tracking Alex's love for all of us! He made his rounds to each one of us while Riley settled right in with Nathan and Joel like they are always around each other. What fun it is to be an auntie and uncle. Our children are so blessed to have all their uncles and aunties love them and now it's our turn to bless our nephews and get to know them and their unique characteristics!

The boys got matching PJs and pillowcases from grandma and Ellie's PJs match her baby's PJs. Ellie didn't quite know what to do with Alex as he was so intrigued by this girl at Grandma's housethat he followed her every move and wanted to share her pillow. You see she's used to being the baby and following the boys around, not having someone follow her around!

Notice that Alex has made his way over to Nathan--check out what's next!

Alex is playing the Nintendo DS!

After Alex spent time sitting on Dan's lap with Joel, he started up the game (that Dan would only do with Alex and Riley) of climbing on Dan's shoulders and walking over to the Christmas tree.

When Riley picked up on this, he had to join the game as well! As soon as Riley would get on Dan's back, Alex would shout, "No Riley!". Those were the only words we could understand.

He also ran back and forth between Grandma and I and got his kisses! What a fun evening with our nephews!

The Christmas Spirit (or the lack of)

Dan and I joke that all we have to do to ensure foul moods in all our children and in us is put Christmas clothes on them and then proceed to say, "It's picture time!". You can have one without the other and everything is fine, BUT if you combine them--forget it! The normal problems seem to arise like getting the camera to focus when the kids are actually smiling and getting the kids to not move after I put them in the right place or getting them to look at the camera. EVERY YEAR these are the issues--you think we'd learn.

Cute, but look at the lovely blinds in the background.....

Check out Nathan's frown--I think I threaten to take away the DS if he couldn't "be happy" about taking pictures.

The threat worked, Nathan has a smile and Joel and Ellie look adorable, but oops I cute Nathan's head off. At this point I gave up! Fun times, fun times...maybe next year I'll remember to not combine the two instead of dreaming that this year it will be different.


I just can't give up on the idea of pictures in Christmas clothes this year. So, as we're leaving the church I try again---don't think that will be the picture to send out!

Happy 4th birthday my sweet ballerina!

Elizabeth is a ballerina at heart! She loves to dance with her daddy to "Cinderella" by Steven Curtis Chapman. So when it came time to decide what kind of birthday party we should have there was no question. We were blessed to have two of our high school students, Grace and Laura, who dance with the Performance Team in the Dancing for Joy program (they are quite good, and I'm not just saying that because I'm biased) come dressed to the hilt with makeup and hair done. After we colored, made necklaces, did our hair, make-up, and fingernails Grace and Laura taught them a dance and they performed it for all the moms (and Dan). We had a great time and I'm sure Ellie will want the same thing next year!

Happy 8th birthday Nathan John!

It is our tradition in the Pursley household to hang streamers up on the bedroom doors for our kids to wake up to on their birthday. This year, Nathan reminded us and told us to not forget to do that after he went to bed!

Nathan and Austin getting ready to be "given" water. They were reinacting Indy's father being sick and Indy getting a special kind of water to heal him.

One of Nathan's best buddies, Austin, has his birthday 2 days after Nathan's (the same day as our nephew's). So, this year we decided to have an "Indiana Jones" party together. I used my emotions (and not my brain) and thought we shouldn't leave anyone out and invited all the boys from the class and some from church (Austin's family goes to our church as well) and well all of them came and we had 16 2nd graders! Thank God it wasn't at my house (sorry Kim) because you all know how that would have freaked me out.... Dan saved the day and had amazing activities for them to do. I couldn't understand why my husband, the youth pastor who has 50 middle schoolers in one room for an 1 1/2 every week, was freaking out about 16 2nd graders. Well it was quite a show and let's just say Nathan and Austin had a blast (and so did all the other boys). Happy Birthday Nathan!

Joel the Kindergartner

This month has been filled with celebrations for Nathan, Dan, Ellie and I couldn't leave Joel out of the postings, so I'm writing about him first. Joel is quite the artist. I bought a sketchpad for him a while ago and he has now filled that and used a ton of computer paper to draw his pictures. I was just commenting to Dan that every time I turn around the fridge has another picture he has drawn. He loves school and is just "scary smart" (Dan's mom came up with that expression). He has the memory of a computer--and I'm not kidding. He's reading and spelling already and loves to be the "helper" at school. Will you pray with us that Joel will always use his abilities and gifts to honor the Lord and to serve other people?