Happy Easter!

We had a wonderful Easter with our families.  We went to Casey's parents' church and enjoyed beautiful singing and celebrating the joy of Easter.  Then we had dinner at their house, along with my parents and Karen and Juan. 

We gave the kids books in their

Easter Baskets this year.

Easter Egg Decorating

Yesterday we also dyed and decorated Easter eggs.  It's always fun to see the kids' individual artistic abilities shine!

Easter Egg Hunt

Yesterday our neighbor Dore put on her annual Easter egg hunt for our kids.  It has expanded over the last couple years to include our other neighbors' grandkids, so that makes it even more fun!  The kids had a great time finding the eggs and the special baskets she had prepared for each of them.

Peter was especially excited about the personalized

license plate for his bike that was in his basket!

Peter also had his 2nd soccer game of the season.

Last week it was raining.  This week it wasn't

raining, it was just really wet and muddy!

Seriously???

This is ridiculous...  I'm pretty sure we were playing in the sprinklers a week ago!  My parents watched the kids this morning while I was working, and my Dad e-mailed me this picture...

Only in Michigan!

Happy Birthday Grandpa K!

Today we had Casey's family over to celebrate his Dad's birthday.  We had lots of fun together and the cousins had a great time playing all afternoon!

A Reader and A Rock Star

Just a couple random pictures...

This is what Peter and Miriam did while I was unloading groceries from the van the other morning.  Miriam requested that Peter read Amelia Bedelia to her, but they wanted to sit outside.  So they plopped their little chairs on the driveway, and he read it to her.  It was very sweet!

Esther got to go to a Rock Star themed birthday party on Saturday.  The girls all dressed up and they looked so cute!  She had a great time with her friends.

Spring Break Days 8-10

We ended our spring break with a couple more fun activities.  On Friday we went to open gym at For the Kidz.  The kids jumped, ran, and climbed like crazy and had lots of fun.  Steak n Shake just so happened to be on the way home, and since they have 1/2 price shakes from 2-4 pm, we figured that would be a good treat.  Since Daddy's office just so happened to also be on the way home, we brought him a shake too.

On Saturday we went to Lowe's to do one of their Build and Grow Clinics.  Grandpa K. came along so that we had a one-to-one ratio of adults to kids.  He also bought us donuts afterwards, which was very nice!  Here are the kids making their Sports Pinball Games:

We took a bike ride to the park on Saturday afternoon because the weather was nice.  Casey and Esther also finished up the work on their pinewood derby car for GEMS and Esther painted the details:

We ended spring break today with an 80 degree day!  Who needs Florida when it's 80 degrees in Michigan, right?  We don't do this very often in early April...

Just as a reminder of how unusual it is to have this weather on April 10 in Michigan, click here to see a post from April 11, 2007!

What a fun and refreshing spring break we had!  Now it's back to the grind for a few months...

Spring Break, Days 6-7

Yesterday was rainy and gloomy.  Peter got to go to his friend Simon's house for most of the day and he had a ball playing with him.  The girls and I played at home, and went to the mall to ride the carousel and have a treat.  It was a nice, relaxing day. 

Miriam loves to play school.  She is always "Abby" when we play, and then I usually have the name of one of Esther or Peter's teachers.  She likes to go through the whole routine of the school day.  She packs her backpack and then we have to do writing, math, singing, gym class, lunch and recess.  Here is "Abby" doing her schoolwork while dressed as a princess.  You can tell she takes her work very seriously.

Today was sunny and warmer (relatively speaking).  Esther had her friend Alexis over, so they played and had lunch, and then we headed to the park for a while. 

This picture cracked me up. 

It made me think about how in about 10 years,

Esther will have her friends over and

Peter will be trying to hit on them.  Yikes!

Move Over Chris Tomlin...

here comes Peter!

Most people that know Peter know that he is very into music, especially Christian praise/worship music and what's playing on the local Christian radio station.  He's a huge fan of Toby Mac and Chris Tomlin and he has loved to sing since he first started talking (actually, I think he was born talking...)

He learned the motions to Step By Step by Rich Mullins in school, so he did a little performance for me the other day (in his firefighter pj's no less!)... maybe we have a future church worship leader in the house!

Spring Break Day 5

This morning we went to the Frederik Meijer Gardens with our friends who live in our neighborhood.  Our kids have grown up together and we often play outside together in the summer.  During the school year we carpool to school, but it's been a long time since our kids have actually all had the chance to just play together. 

We got there right when they opened, and it was a good thing we did!  We went in to see the butterflies and then went outside to play.  The kids just ran around playing on the tree house for probably an hour, happily chasing each other and playing games.  When we left, there were long lines both to see the butterflies and to get into the actual building, so we were very glad that we had been early birds!

When we left there, the kids and I went to Casey's office to pick him up and go out for lunch to Steak n Shake!

Checking out some newly released monarchs

Hope and Miriam

Hope (2), Miriam (3), Mary Kate (4), Esther (6),
Micah (7), Samuel (6), Peter (5)

Esther took the camera for a while and took these shots:

Steak n Shake for lunch--yum!