GEMS Mother-Daughter Night

This week was mother-daughter night at GEMS.  The theme was "what not to wear" and Esther and I had a great time planning our crazy outfits and accessories!  It was a fun evening, and the main part of it was spent making a duct tape purse, which was a great craft.

Fun at the Park

Tuesday was absolutely beautiful, so Miriam and I went to the Kroc Center playground with Renee,  Ty and Cassie.  They had a great time playing and Miriam and I actually got a little sunburned, which doesn't happen too often on March 20!

Father-Daughter Banquet

Tonight was the annual father-daughter banquet hosted by the local Christian radio station that we listen to most of the time.  Esther and Casey went last year and had a great time, so they were excited to go again this year!  The musical guest this year was Chris August.  They went with 2 other dad/daughter pairs from church. 

It was a great time. Other than Casey having to give up the chocolate cake so his daughter could have it.....

Here they are dressed in their finest!  Casey took Esther dress shopping again, and I think they made a great choice.  She looks so beautiful in it!

Spring Has Sprung!

We are having beautiful weather, so we took advantage of it today and headed to Frog Hollow Park with Renee, Ty and Cassie this afternoon.  I just hope that spring is here to stay... I would be fine with no more snow until next December!

Butterflies!

Today the kids had off school so we went to the Meijer Gardens with our friends to see the butterflies.  There were a lot of butterflies flying around and they were very active!  We also headed out to the children's garden to do the indoor activities and spend a few minutes in the log cabin.

Miriam's eye, 9 days post-surgery.  She's looking good!

Trey, Jake, Peter, Esther, Ally, Miriam

Brave Little Miriam

Today Miriam had a dermoid cyst removed from the side of her eye.  She was such a great little trooper and so brave.  She never cried and tolerated everything so well.  She got lots of attention from all the amazing staff at the Helen DeVos Children's Hospital, and we were thankful for all the wonderful people who took such good care of her.  A favorite was the anesthesiologist who was talking about My Little Pony with her and discussing his favorite ponies with her as she drifted off to sleep.
Here are a couple pictures from last week of her "bump" as she calls it:

All ready in her little tiger hospital pajamas:

Sleepy girl in the recovery room:

Her eye is swollen and black and blue.  Tomorrow she gets to have the large bandage removed by the doctors, and the stitches will come out next week.  We're praying for a quick and smooth recovery!

Snow Day!

We finally had a snow day today!  It's quite rare to get to the end of February without one, but this one came at the perfect time.  We were happy to have a quiet, cozy day at home.  We had pancakes for breakfast, played and hung out, spent some time outside, and watched a movie.

Here are the kids with the mini snowpeople that we made.  In hindsight, red Skittles may not have been the best choice for eyes.  The color started to run as they got wet from the snow, and made for some scary looking eyes on the snowpeople.  The carrot noses and leftover Christmas candy cane mouths were pretty cute though.

Aw, aren't they cute?

and silly?

"Mom, take a picture of me while I'm pretending to fall off the boat!"

Little Ballerina

Miriam talks frequently of the fact that she is going to be a ballerina and a ballet teacher when she grows up.  On Tuesday, she took the first step toward her dream...

Her friend Mary Kate takes ballet, and Tuesday was "bring a friend" day, so she invited Miriam to come.  Mary Kate let us borrow a leotard and ballet slippers, and Miriam kept saying, "I feel so beautiful!" when she had it on.  She wanted a bun in her hair (since that's how ballerinas wear their hair), but that didn't work so we settled for little braids and a ponytail.  She had a great time at the class with Mary Kate and it was very cute to see her demonstrate her twirls and leaps for us.

Fun with Aunt Karen

My parents are back from Florida for a couple weeks, and Karen also came to visit for a few days. 

Esther has been raising money for our GEMS girls club at church.  The money will go to support the Esther School that GEMS is starting in Zambia, Africa.  She has been working hard at doing extra chores around the house to earn money for the water bottle that she is trying to fill with change.  She decided that while Grandpa and Grandma and Aunt Karen were home, she would do a piano recital for them, and ask for a donation for the Esther School.  We all enjoyed hearing her perform her songs!

On Tuesday, we enjoyed Karen's birthday lunch at Olga's before she headed back to Chicago for her birthday dinner with her hubby!

Since Esther was at school and couldn't join us for lunch, Karen and I surprised her at school and sat and visited with her while she ate her lunch.  She was very surprised and very excited!

Puppet Show

Oops, it's been almost a month since we've put anything on the blog!  After the busy time of the holidays and taking so many pictures, I only took a few in January.  We've been staying busy with just the regular routine of school, work, church stuff, and Calvin basketball games.   :)

This week in school, Esther's teacher talked about a project using magnets to make a puppet show.  Yesterday we were enjoying a lazy Saturday morning, so Esther decided to make one.  She used a cereal box as the stage, put the puppets on paper clips, and then put her hand in the box/stage so that she could move the puppets around from underneath the stage.  She created 3 different scenes for Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, and we had fun watching her act out the story as I read it.  She is one creative girl and loves to do anything artistic and crafty!