The Kissing Hand

For those of you who aren't familiar with it, there's a very cute book called The Kissing Hand about Chester racoon, who doesn't want to leave his mommy to go to school. To make him feel better about it, his mom kisses his hand and tells him to press his palm to his cheek whever he feels lonely, and he'll be able to feel her kiss. Sometimes when Esther is sad about me leaving to go somewhere without her, we will give each other kissing hands.

We've been talking a lot lately about Esther going to school. This morning at breakfast Peter asked, "Is Esther going to school?" I told him she'd be going next week, and he said in a very sad voice, "But I don't want Esther to go to school!" In the sweetest voice Esther replied, "Buddy it's ok; we'll do the kissing hand before I leave!"

Peter Quote of the Day

After a successful experience in the bathroom, we were getting Peter's pull-up back on and he announced with much enthusiasm, "I LOVE going pee-pee on the potty!"

Busy Little Bee(keeper)s

We had hoped to go to the Meijer Gardens today, but due to the rain we ended up at the Children's Museum instead. A lot of other people had the same idea for this rainy day, so it was very busy. The kids still had fun and we enjoyed our time with our friends Erin and Anna. Miriam also played in the Crawler's Corner for the first time and loved it!

Miriam on the Move

Miriam has been rolling to wherever she wants to go for a while now. Over the last couple weeks she's been working on her crawling skills and seems to be pretty proud of her accomplishments. She can now get to a sitting position or up on her knees from lying down. She rocks on her knees and does a few "steps" of crawling before she usually decides that rolling or army crawling is easier and faster. She's going to be zooming around here before we know it! Unfortunately that means putting gates back up too.

Popcorn

I grew up eating a lot of popcorn. My Dad was the popcorn maker in our family, and for years he had an old heavy-duty pan in which he popped the corn on the stove. I remember the loss we felt when the pan finally burned through on the bottom after years of use. Then he started using a Whirly Pop, which was just as good. I think we had popcorn at least 3-4 times a week growing up. I still love it when I go over to their house and there is leftover popcorn to eat.

Apparently our kids inherited my love of popcorn, because Peter and Esther can down a bag of microwave popcorn (there's no comparison to my Dad's popcorn, but it's easy) pretty quickly between the 2 of them. Tonight Esther wore her popcorn pj's since we were having popcorn for a snack. When I asked her if I should take a picture, she was totally into it. She even asked if she should put her leg up so we could see the popcorn on her pants!

Sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa's House

Monday night Esther slept over at Grandma and Grandpa K's house, and she had loads of fun. Grandma picked up her Monday afternoon and they went swimming at their neighborhood pool with the neighbor kids. Grandma and Esther had pizza for supper, while Grandpa had steak and potatoes. Then they went out for ice cream! Can you guess that she had Supercow? (Apparently in Hudsonville, that's what they call Superman ice cream.)

Tuesday morning Renee and Tyler as well as Grandma's sister Wilma and her grandson Aidan came over to shuck corn. Esther helped for a while before being relieved of her duties to play with Aidan and the neighbor kids.

We picked her up at lunch time, and she fell asleep on the way home. I guess she was just worn out from all the fun she had!

Grandpa Knows All

Conversation between Esther and Mommy after Esther asked a question and Mommy said, "I don't know."

Esther: How come you don't know?
Mommy: Because I don't know everything.
Esther: How come you don't know everything?
Mommy: Because only God knows everything.
Esther: And some Grandpas too?

Wow, Esther must think her Grandpas are pretty smart guys!

Sweet Precious Miriam

I found a website where I could definitely waste time... but it's super fun! I'm not really into scrapbooking. Putting pictures in an album and writing a few things on the memo lines next to them is about as fancy as it gets for me. However, I think I could have some fun with this! Here's my first quick attempt. Check out the website: scrapblog.com

Fun with Friends

We had a great time getting together with good friends last weekend. One family is from Detroit and the other from Minneapolis, so we usually only get together once or twice a year. We always try to take a picture of all the kids, and this was probably the most cooperative they've been! It's fun to see how the group has changed in the last few years and we always enjoy spending time together and catching up on each other's lives.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today is my Dad's birthday, so my parents came over for dinner tonight. Esther guessed that my Dad was 40. He was pretty happy with that. Then I told her to guess a little higher, so she guessed 80. She had fun giving him the card she had made for him and we also all enjoyed a walk/bike ride together after dinner.

Amazingly, all 3 kids cooperated for a picture with my Dad, and it even turned out well!

Happy Birthday Dad! Thanks for being such a wonderful father and grandpa. We love you!

The Towel

My cousin Betsy has always done amazing things with cross stitching. One of our favorite baby gifts for each of our children has been the hooded bath towel that she made for each of them. Betsy embroidered their name and water-related pictures on the hood and they are so cute! Since they are full-sized bath towels, they are really cozy for them now, and they'll be able to use them for a long time.

Betsy brought Miriam's over today, so she tried it out tonight...

Hiking

This afternoon we ventured over to the Calvin College Nature Preserve for a hike in the woods. We packed our backpack with snacks and water and headed out on the trail. Along the way we saw...

• Many beautiful flowers
• 2 snakes, both spotted by Esther
• 1 chipmunk
• 1 Daddy Long Legs Spider
• Lots of butterflies and dragonflies

I asked the kids what they liked best about our hike...

Peter: "I see the animals. I saw the frogs." We kept looking for frogs in the ponds, but didn't see any. Apparently Peter did though.

Miriam: "I liked being able kick my legs like crazy while hanging out in the front pack!"
(I'm pretty sure that's what she said when I asked her.)

Esther: "The ponds and the dragonflies and the snakes."

I think we need to teach the kids about animal habitats because as we were leaving, Peter asked if we were going to see any cows. Maybe he just wishes he was back in New Jersey!

Tricycle Taxi

Esther and Peter love riding this tricycle at my parents' house and giving each other rides. (This video if off my phone, so the quality isn't very good, but you get the idea...)