Christmas with the K's

We spent Christmas day with Casey's family.  We all went to his parents' church together and then to their house for the day.  It was a wonderful, relaxing day filled with lots of good food, playing Wii, and opening gifts.  It was great to have a whole day together like that.  Here are some pictures of the day...

Christmas Eve

Today was our day to celebrate Christmas as a family. We started the day by giving the kids their gifts from us so that we could play with them during the day.

After we got ready, we headed to Marge's Donut Den. Yes, for those of you who are keeping track, this was the 3rd trip there in 4 days. We are obviously not worrying about eating healthy this week! We had to go back today because it is Marge's birthday and the kids made cards for her. Obviously it would be rude to just walk in, hand her the cards, and walk out without getting donuts, right?

This afternoon we played with the new toys and Miriam napped. I think Esther and I played about 20 games of "Guess Who?" and Peter and Casey spent a lot of time driving Peter's remote controlled truck. Then we had our special dinner of chicken cordon bleu (one thing that all the kids will devour) along with sparkling apple juice. We finished our Advent calendar, and then after baths and pj's, we had popcorn, read our new books and opened stockings.  It was a wonderful day!

Tomorrow we are looking forward to going to church and spending the day with Casey's family!

The frog sisters waiting for Peter to
wake up to open presents.

Opening gifts from mom and dad.

Photogenic girl was the only one who would pose

for a shot with her gifts--she was very excited about

her new skort and sparkly top with the striped tights!

Opening stockings before bed.

Happy 4th Birthday Peter! (Part 2)

Today is Peter's actual birthday, and we had a super fun day celebrating our special guy!  It was wonderful that Casey and I were both on vacation and we had a great family day.  Peter actually slept in a bit this morning, so we were all up waiting for him when he woke up.  He came downstairs and Casey picked him up and said, "Happy birthday, Peter!  You're such a big boy now!"  Peter replied, "I feel like a big boy!  Do I feel heavier Dad?"

He opened his presents from us, and I seriously don't think there's a more genuinely thankful kid than Peter.  He is so sweet about saying thank-you in a very genuine voice and is so excited about everything he gets!  It makes it really fun.  He wore his Lightning McQueen hat and watch the rest of the day and told us quite often what time is was.  He also had fun setting up and playing with the fire station addition to his Geo Trax system.  The fire truck is the first remote controlled vehicle he has for his Geo Trax, so he was pretty happy about that.  He and Casey also had a good time putting together his Lego tow truck this afternoon.

After breakfast, we headed to Marge's (2nd day in a row for everyone except Mommy!) for a donut.  We were joined by Grandma K and Aunt Renee, Ty and Cassie, which made it extra special.  Casey called Marge's this morning and told them we were coming, so they prepared a special birthday donut for Peter.  Can you see why Casey goes there every week?  It's pretty neat to go into a place and have the owner and other workers greet your kids by name and make them feel so special.

Peter's request for his birthday was to go to Rivertown Mall and ride the carousel (he's pretty easy to please), so went there next.  Then we came home, had lunch, watched a movie and played with the new toys.  He requested Pizza Hut for supper, so we went there with our friends/neighbors, Tony and Linda.  We went to a Pizza Hut that recently opened near us, and when we mentioned something about Peter being the birthday boy, the waitress apologized that they didn't have a birthday song or anything like that.  A while later she came out and asked him his name, and shortly after that about 7 or 8 of the workers came out and sang "Happy Birthday" to him and gave him an ice cream sundae.  Apparently our waitress decided that they did need to do something for birthdays, and Peter got the inaugural presentation! 

All in all, we had a great day celebrating Peter.  He's such a fun little guy who can talk to anyone (just like Daddy), is funny, is a great brother to his sisters (most of the time), and brings lots of joy to our lives.  We are thankful that he has been a part of our family for 4 years and can't wait to watch him continue to grow!

Christmas Cookies

Casey, Esther, Peter and I (ok, mostly Esther and I with a little help from the boys) had fun making Christmas cookies on Saturday afternoon while Miriam was napping.  They turned out really cute and are super delicious!

3 Crazy Kids

The other day I was doing laundry and I walked back in our room to find all 3 kids "reading" on our bed. It was so cute, I had to grab the camera. Then they wanted to do a photo shoot which included taking all kinds of crazy pictures, but most of them didn't turn out because they were all moving so much!

Grandpa and Grandma

Casey's sister Renee takes great pictures and she e-mailed me these 2 tonight, so I had to add them to the other ones from Peter's party yesterday...

Happy 4th Birthday Peter! (Part 1)

Today Esther and Peter had their Christmas program at church.  Esther did a great job reading her scripture verse and singing songs. Peter and his fellow 3's and 4's classmates did a very cute and entertaining performance of Jesus Loves Me.  We figured since Grandpa and Grandma K. would be coming to church for that anyway, we'd just celebrate Peter's birthday with Casey's side of the family after church.

After church, Peter was very excited to start his birthday celebrations. We will celebrate with just our family and give him our gifts on his actual birthday (December 22), and then we'll be celebrating again with my family in Florida after Christmas.

Peter received some cool gifts and very much enjoyed his Thomas the Train cake that Grandma painstakingly made for him. She was worried that it was going to tip over, but it looked great and of course it tasted delicious! It was made to order for Peter, with no chocolate at all.

Introducing Frosty!

This afternoon we all headed outside to build a snowman and play in the snow.  Apparently Miriam thought that the sun might actually shine in Michigan in the winter.

We had fun sledding down the driveway and the slight incline of our cul-de-sac, especially when Daddy went with the kids piled on top of him!  The snow wasn't packing the best, so Daddy came up with the idea of packing it into buckets to form the body parts.  Here is the result...

Esther told Peter that he could pick the name, and he selected Frosty.  As you can see, Frosty is a very healthy snowman, as all of his facial features are made with fruit.

Perspective

It's amazing how big and old Miriam seems when she's holding Cassie!  She loves her little cousin and the other day she wanted to hold her.  She was so sweet and gentle with her, and even wiped the "bubbles" off Cassie's mouth with a burp cloth for her.  Cassie seems pretty happy and content with the situation too!

A Glimpse of Miriam

Miriam is a funny girl.  One of her latest tricks is taking her clothes on and off.  On Saturday during naptime, she took everything off, hung her dry diaper neatly over the crib rail and proceeded to pee in the corner of her crib.  Nice.

Today while Miss Gail was babysitting she took all her clothes off and re-dressed herself like this...  shirt inside out and backwards, and pants backwards.  Can you see why she makes us laugh so much?

Happy Birthday Miriam!

Today was Miriam's actual birthday, so after supper we gave her a few gifts from our family and ate leftover cake from yesterday--yum!