Dinosaurs!

The Dinosaurs have come to Des Moines!!

Blank Park Zoo has just added an awesome dinosaur exhibit. The dinosaurs are all lifelike...they move and roar! Cole was loving it, but they were a little to real for Elise. She didn't want to go anywhere near them and kept hiding her face in my shoulder.

We also got to pet a real alligator! Cole was a little hesitant, but El had no fear. Probably because the alligator didn't roar like the dinos :)

I know I've said this before, but it's true:

I LOVE our zoo!!

Nature Is Our Backyard

I love our backyard! There is a big hill with lots of trees that are the perfect size for my little kiddos. We love to play outside with our friends. Today we had our good friends Anna and Nelson over to play so we took full advantage of our backyard playground.

Elise and Nelson love to play with each other. I hope they get married someday :)

Cole loves to play with girls, especially sassy Morgan and sweet Anna.

My little monkey and her monkey pal

We love Iowa and our backyard, but especially our friends!!

Rocket Scientists

Ben is officially finished with his 2nd year of medical school!!! No more classwork. Clinical rotations for the next two years. He still has to study for boards, but he did take today off to celebrate with us. We decided to go to the Science Center. We were going to see an IMAX about tornadoes because my boys love watching storms, but the online times weren't correct so we missed it. Instead, Ben decided to be our rocket scientist while Cole built lego cars to race. Ben built an incredible rocket and the kids shot it off into space. Well, the space in the room anyway :) Ben's rocket was the best one there by far. It flew all the way to the end of the test area, which was 50 feet.

Today was a nice break. It was so fun to get to spend time with Ben! We are all counting down the days until boards are over and we can have our Daddy back!!

Picnic at the Park

The weather has been so nice that we couldn't resist a picnic at the park with our friends. It was perfect:

The Moms all hung out and chatted,

The Dad's (and Elise) tossed the football around,

and all the kids (except Cole) dug in the sand pit.

Travis Tidwell helped the kids dig a big tunnel, then he pulled a few of them through it :)

Cole was in costume (he has been Spiderman for the last two days) and couldn't sit still long enough to dig in the sand. He ran around being Spiderman and making new friends. He had a two year old girl following him around, and then a little Indian girl that didn't speak much English followed him around. I'm not sure if he just likes making new friends or if he was trying to find friends that he could talk for and would do whatever he told them to :)

It was a perfect night! We are so blessed to live in such a beautiful place with awesome friends!

Preschool Party!

Today was Cole's last day of his first year of preschool...and the school had a fun family park day to celebrate!

Cole loved his teachers Miss Monica and Miss Stacy

(Miss Stacy was his favorite if you can't tell)

It was a great way to end the year...despite the full-mouth bite welt on his shoulder from his best friend and a hole in his bottom lip from the swings :)

Let summer begin!!!!

Spring!

I LOVE spring in Iowa!! It is so beautiful here. We could spend all day outside playing and soaking up the sun...and we usually do :)

Friends

We are so lucky to live where we do. Our branch is our apartment complex so we have a lot of friends close to us. To top it off, we have the best building in the complex! We sure lucked out to get kids in 6 out of the 8 apartments. Between Nyah, Eden, Zyan, Angel, Morgan, Aubrey, Kaleb, Mylee and Mercer there is always someone outside to play with! Here are a few pics of the kids "best friends" these days:

Zyan, Morgan, Eden, Elise and Coleson

Morgan has been Cole's best friend since she moved in next door to us.

Eden has taken Ellie under her wing, even though they are four years apart in age. El is always dragging Eden around by the hand :)

I realized the other day that all of my pictures are of Cole and Elise and their friends and I have no pictures of our adult friends. Thanks to Danna I do have a few to throw in here. Danna, Rindee, Andrea and I had a girls night for Danna's birthday and Rindee moving in a few weeks for residency. We went to dinner at Panera's and to a movie!

We love all of our Iowa friends!