Joshua is full toddler

Welcome to the toddler years! Joshua is curious, creative, and fun-loving. Recently, he's gotten into a lot of pretend play. Here are some of my favorite pictures of his recent toddler-play explosion!

Joshua has become very attached to this baby. He loves to feed it, push it in the cart and sleep with it.

Here, he was practicing sleeping on his nap mat for school.

He reenacts a lot of our daily routine, especially reading the Bible and playing the guitar, like we do every night before bed.

Joshua loves to paint!

Paul emptied a dresser drawer. Joshua climbed right in and made himself comfortable--complete with his elephant and blanket.

Joshua is obsessed with smoothies and our blender. He has taken the blender out of the kitchen a number of times to make "elephant smoothies."

"Piiiiieeeee!" Joshua loves to explore everything--and have his picture taken!

He still loves the water and splashing in the rain puddles.

With all of this play, Joshua has become very verbal as well. He talks all day long and says something new almost every day. He had gotten really good at using sign language and he still signs some things, but he's quickly replacing all of his signs with words. It's amazing to watch him grow and mature so quickly!

Happy 5th Birthday!

The celebration actually began at school a day before their actual birthday. The boys chose to take "grape lightsabers" and cupcakes with Angry Bird Star Wars toppers. Micah chose strawberry frosting while Eli chose mint.

The party day finally arrived! Eli (right) and Micah (left) were so excited! They asked me at 6:30 am, "Is it time for our friends, yet?" Ummm.....no, not until 3 pm! This year, they chose to invite just 5 friends over for their party. They didn't want any "babies" or other grown ups at "their" party. 

The kitchen set-up. Thanks to Mobile Home Mommy for the garland idea and printables.

 The food--a Yoda hummus, a Darth Vader from black grapes (with red cherry eyes), cupcakes with lightsaber-like candles, and lightsaber breadsticks.

As their friends started to arrive, Eli and Micah sat and read a couple of Star Wars books we had picked up from the library. 

Then, the fun really began....with a lightsaber battle. Poor "Darth Paul" was completely outnumbered by Jedi. 

Happy Birthday to Eli!

 Happy Birthday to Micah!

Then, came the life-sized sling shot. The kids had a blast with this! 

...and so did Paul. :-)

We took a small break to play Angry Birds Star Wars Bingo while we waited for parents to come back for pick up. Eli and Micah had a great time celebrating their birthday with their friends. They can't wait for their next birthday!

Some of their favorite gifts: 1. Cash! 2. UNC shirts. Eli (with his thumb up) was showing it to Paul. 3. Star Wars Angry Birds shirts for their party. 4. Super hero capes.

Eli has been saving every penny for quite a while to buy his very own Nintendo DS. Some of our family and friends gave him cash for his birthday, which gave him just enough to buy this DS and 4 games to go with it! He still has a little left over and is saving for a new game. 

When Eli became really serious about saving his money for a specific purpose, Micah wanted a goal, too. He decided he wanted a Glo-Fish tank for his bedroom. He worked hard and saved his money to finally purchase the tank, rocks, decorations and one fish. He also moved his snail from his home in the kitchen to this new tank.

Paul and I feel so blessed to have these sweet, energetic, curious and determined little 5 year olds in our lives. We are glad to celebrate every birthday (and every day!) with them!