Gingerbread Farm 2012

Today we continued our yearly tradition with the 7th annual building of the gingerbread structure.  Esther chose to do a farm, which we had also done back in 2008.  Here are some pictures of the fun!

Casey, the gingerbread baker

Ready for assembly!

"Gluing" the pieces together with icing

Eat some, put some on the barn, eat some...

Making progress!



Adding fish to the jell-o pond

Sheep, created by Esther

The finished product!

We even have a silo (ice cream cones and a huge jawbreaker).

The animals are drinking from the pond.

Meijer Gardens

We love visiting the Meijer Gardens during the Christmas season to see the trees from countries around the world and also the train display.  This morning the kids and I went with Karen.  We checked out the trees and spent a long time in the train area checking out the displays and watching the trains.  They have replicas of buildings from around Grand Rapids that are all made of natural materials.  They are so fun to look at and the detail is amazing!  They added several this year, and it's always fun to see the new additions each year.

Fifth Third Ballpark

On our way to lunch at Olga's with the rest of the family, we stopped at the library.  I had to post these pictures of the kids!  They had a theater area set up at the library and this was part of that.

To end our fun day, tonight we celebrated our nephew Tyler's 5th birthday!  We can hardly believe that he and Miriam are turning 5 already.  It was fun celebrating his special day with Casey's family and Jeff's side of the family too.  We always have fun with all of them.

O Christmas Tree

Friday was our family day to go cut down our Christmas tree and decorate the house for the holidays.  After a beautiful 60 degree day on Thursday for Thanksgiving, the weather turned much colder on Friday and we even had a little snow. 

We went to the same place as we did last year, Church's Tree Farm in Grant.  Since it was so cold and windy, we spent about 5 minutes picking out our tree.  Everyone agreed on one and we tied it to the roof and hopped back in the van as quickly as we could!  On the way home we stopped for lunch at The Grant Depot.  Then we had a fun day putting up the tree, decorating the house, and just relaxing.

Thanksgiving Day

So far we have had a fun and relaxing Thanksgiving weekend.  After church on Thanksgiving day, we spent the afternoon at Casey's parents' house with his family.  We enjoyed good food, a rousing family soccer game in the backyard, a walk to the park, and lots of good cousin and family time.

In the evening we went to my parents' house because Karen and Juan and my Aunt Elaine were in town.  Karen and Juan gave the kids a couple early birthday/Christmas presents:

Express Clydesdales

Today we got to ride in the Grand Rapids Santa Claus Parade on the Express Clydesdales Stagecoach!  Actually the kids and Laura got to ride while Casey was working at the VIP tent.  It was really fun to be in the parade being pulled by those beautiful horses.  Here are some pictures:

Calvin Nature Preserve

Today was a lovely, unseasonably warm day (almost 70 degrees), so we took advantage of that and went to the Calvin Nature Preserve this afternoon.  It was a beautiful day to walk in the woods!

Most of the pictures were taken by Esther: