Foot Frolic Frenzy

Today was the kids' annual fundraising lap-a-thon at school, the Foot Frolic Frenzy.  This is the only fundraiser they do each year, which is really nice.  It's good for the kids to feel like they're doing something to "earn" the donations that people give, and of course they're getting exercise!  It was a cool day, but also nice and sunny.  Esther and Peter each ran 10 laps, which was 2-1/2 miles!  Miriam ran smaller laps around the tennis court with her preschool class, and she did a great job too.

Post Family Farm Field Trip

This morning I got to hang out with my favorite preschooler on a field trip to Post Family Farm in Hudsonville.  It was a cool morning, but we still had lots of fun!  The kids played on the rope swing, we ate their amazing pumpkin donuts, and we took a hayride out to the pumpkin patch to pick out pumpkins to take home.  It was a great fall field trip!

Cousin Fun at the Nature Preserve

Miriam and I are taking a 4 session class at the Calvin Nature Preserve with Renee, Ty and Cassie right now.  We are meeting for 4 Tuesday afternoons, and today was our second session.  So far it has been gorgeous weather for both classes!

Last week we learned about camouflage and how animals can hide and blend in with their surroundings.  We looked for things in nature that were various colors.  We also played a game where the kids had to pretend to be mice and hide in the weeds, and the teacher was a hawk who was hunting them and she tried to spot them.

This week we learned about squirrels and chipmunks.  The kids colored while we waited for everyone to arrive:

After a puppet show and a short lesson time, we headed out to hike through the woods.  First we had to hide some "nuts" (which were actually lima beans) in the woods.  After our walk and other activities, we came back and had to find them again.  I was amazed the Miriam found all 6 that she had hidden because I would have had no idea how to find them all again!  On our walk we saw squirrels, chipmunks and a snake.  We played a game where we had to pretend to be squirrels and freeze if our leader said the name of a predator. 

After the class was finished we spent a little more time on the trails.  We had fun exploring and then the kids played hide and seek in the weeds again.

We've been having a great time and are looking forward to the next 2 sessions.  Hopefully the beautiful weather will continue!

Flag Football

Peter has been trying out flag football this fall and he had his second game today.  He seems to be enjoying learning the rules of football and having fun playing.  It's hard to get good pictures, but here are a few:

ArtPrize Field Trip

Today Esther and I spent the afternoon at ArtPrize on a field trip with all the 3rd graders from school.  We had just a little rain, but otherwise it was a great day for exploring the art!

We walked quite a bit and saw many different pieces of art in the few hours we were able to spend downtown.

Esther took a lot of pictures, but here are just a few of our favorites:

This is a series of pictures of the same boy (the artist's father as a child), each with different backgrounds.  When the pictures are all together, they create the large image of his father as he looks now.

This is an amazing pencil drawing.  The artist won ArtPrize a couple years ago with another pencil drawing. 

This was another incredible pencil drawing.  The artist was working on it while we were there.  She is continuing to add things to the original drawing by extending the picture on the wall around it.  She said it took her 1-1/2 years to do the original part!  These are a few pictures of sections of the huge drawing.  Click here to see the entire drawing.

This is actually not an ArtPrize entry--just a regular exhibit at the Art Museum.  The girls liked it, so we took their picture in front of it.

The girls and Gerald R. Ford:

This one has a fan in front of it so that you can feel like you're riding in the wind!

 

We had a great time, and hopefully we'll get back down there to see more!

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!