Happy Birthday Grandma K.!

Today we celebrated Grandma K's birthday over a Sunday dinner of Casey's beef roast followed by Casey's cake for dessert.  He's definitely trying to give his mom some competition in the cake department!  It was a nice day and we're thankful that we could celebrate our wonderful mom and grandma.

Grandma and her girls

It is seriously so hard to get a good picture of these 5 crazy kids!  This was the best one of 5 shots.  I wonder if they'll cooperate when they're all teenagers?  Probably not.

Grandma and her cake!

Miriam's First Soccer Game

It seems like we just wrote posts about Esther and Peter's first soccer games, and now Miriam is playing!  She is very excited about playing soccer and also about the fact that she gets to play with cousin Tyler!  It was a beautiful day for soccer today and both sets of grandparents and Uncle Nick came to watch too.  Miriam seemed to enjoy it and have fun.

Waiting for instructions with Ty:

Getting some tips from Daddy:

Getting into the game!

These 2 cuties had lots of fun on the sidelines!

Miriam's First Day of Preschool!

Today was the looooong awaited day.  Miriam finally started preschool!  She woke up and got all ready this morning and could hardly wait to leave.  She did allow time for a few of the classic pictures...

Disclaimer:  This is one of Esther's old backpacks from several years ago.  After I bought backpacks for Esther and Peter from LL Bean last year, I decided I will only buy backpacks from there in the future because they held up so well!  Miriam picked out the backpack she wanted online and by the time I tried to order it, it was sold out.  She chose another one, but that one was backordered until November!  She is using this Dora one until then.  Maybe we will have to take another picture with her "official" backpack when it comes.

Seriously, could she be any cuter?

 

She was very tired after her long day, but she said she had a lot of fun.  She enjoyed playing with the baby dolls, said they sang some silly songs and read some books, and she loved playing on the playground.  I think she's going to love preschool!

Miriam's Preschool Visit!

Today was Miriam's preschool visiting day.  She has been in the room a couple times already at the spring and fall open house, but she was really excited to go to her visiting day today.  She got to play, meet some new friends, have a snack, hear a story and sing silly songs.  She was lucky enough to have Daddy and Mommy both there!  She was so busy having fun that I forgot to take pictures until we were ready to leave, so we just got one by her locker:

 

She is very excited to go to school all day next week Wednesday!

First Day of School!

Today was Esther and Peter's first day of school!  They had a great first day and are both very excited about their teachers and having some friends in their classes.

Miriam has her preschool visiting day this week and officially starts next week, so stayed tuned for her first day pictures!

A third grader already!?

That backpack is loaded down with school supplies!

This kid is very excited about first grade!

Miriam was not going to be left out of the picture taking...

Country Dairy

Today we drove up to New Era to visit Country Dairy, a family farm.  Casey and Peter had camped near there a couple summers ago while we girls were in Chicago, and they had visited Country Dairy then.  We have been wanting to go back, so we decided to do that today as part of our family fun day to celebrate the end of summer.

We arrived for the 10:30 tour which was perfect because it wasn't too hot yet.  We started by seeing a video of the history of the farm, which dates back to 1907 when some good Dutch immigrants started farming there.  The video also talked about how careful they are about what they feed their cows and how they never used growth hormones, even when other dairy farms did.

After the video, we rode the wagon to the bottling plant.  They milk about 1300 cows, 3 times a day and they pasteurize, homogonize and bottle all the milk on site.  While we were in the bottling building, we got to wear these lovely fashion accessories.  As our tour guide said, nobody likes hairy milk.

We also were able to see the heifers (cows who haven't yet birthed a calf), the show barn where the best or highest milk producing cows are kept, and the calves.

Miriam was a little grossed out by the fact that I let the calf suck on my hand.  She did love petting them though.  They are so cute!

That is the end of the pictures, but after the tour we enjoyed a delicious lunch which included a "bottomless glass of milk" and of course we had to try their homemade ice cream for dessert.  It was fantastic!  It was a great way to spend our last Saturday before the crazy start of the school year, which begins on Monday!

Hudsonville Fair

Two years ago Grandma K. treated the kids and I to an afternoon at the Hudsonville Fair.  Last year the tradition continued with the addition of Renee, Ty and Cassie.  I didn't go last year because I was spending the day with Karen on the day before her wedding.  Today was the 3rd annual Hudsonville Fair day and we had lots of fun!

The kids enjoyed seeing the animals, checking out the farm equipment and riding the rides:





Seriously--who let those 2 drive?

Buddies!

Riding on a Gator with Grandma!

The kids were in awe of the size of this tire!

 

Farm girl at heart!

They got to milk a fake cow...

...and a real one!  Grandpa K. should be proud!

Peter and a new friend doing a little racing

Those girls look like they mean business!

Esther and I enjoyed the view of the fair from the Ferris wheel!

What better way to end the day than with a treat!?

Thanks Grandma, for a fun day!  We can't wait until next year!