Cousin Fun at the Gardens

This morning we had a spontaneous outing to the Meijer Gardens with Renee, Ty and Cassie.  We're so glad they invited us because it was a beautiful day and we had a great time!  We spent a couple hours playing in the children's garden and then enjoyed a picnic together. 

Ty wasn't so into doing the "Mad Mom" pose.  You can tell I make my kids do this every time, so they just comply to get it over with and move on to the fun stuff...

Ty and Peter could have played here all day!

Neither Renee nor I brought clothes for our kids to change into after playing in the water. 

 

Next time we probably will!  They sure had fun getting themselves soaked!

 

Family Pictures

A few weeks ago Casey's sister Renee took family pictures of us in my parents' backyard.  She has been doing more and more photography, and wanted to get some practice doing families.  We love how the pictures turned out, and she got some great shots and really captured our kids' personalities!  She tried to get pictures of our kids with Ty and Cassie and the Kuperus grandparents, but not everyone cooperated for those shots.   :)  Guess we'll have to try that again sometime!

Here are some of my favorites:

Catching up with Friends

Today we got to spend most of the day with our friends Miss Gail and Anna.  Gail and Anna babysat our kids for 2 winters several years ago, and our families became good friends.  A year ago they moved to Washington when Matt took a call to be a pastor there.  They are here for Matt to take classes and to visit family, and we're so glad we could see them!  We miss them a lot, and it was great to have time to catch up and let the kids play together.  The moms and kids spent the afternoon at the children's museum, and then we had pizza with the Dads and hung out for a while this evening.  It was a wonderful day!