Happy Valentine's Day!

Renee made one of these adorable shirts with the matching hair clip for Cassie, so she decided to make them for Esther and Miriam too.  They looked so cute and loved it that they were made by Aunt Renee.  We will have to get a picture of all 3 cute girls together in their matching outfits sometime soon!

Silly shot!

Showing off the hair clips!



Snow Day Triple Play

This was a crazy week full of unexpected surprises.  My parents are home from Florida this week (picked a great week to come back!) and originally I was planning to take advantage of their babysitting services to work my regular days and also go on a field trip to Blandford Nature Center with Peter, and another one to the Children's Museum with Esther.

By early in the week, we knew (from all the weather media hype) that we were in for some major snow.  Tuesday night it was pretty obvious that Wednesday would be a snow day, so I didn't pack lunches, prepare backpacks or anything like that.  By the end of Wednesday, the snow had stopped.  Although many roads weren't plowed well, I assumed we'd be back to school and work on Thursday and did the necessary preparations.  By 10:00 p.m., I learned that both the kids and I had another snow day for Thursday.  On Thursday, I was sure that Esther would go back to school on Friday and we'd have the field trip.  Again, I had everything ready, but around 9:45 p.m. the Grand Rapids Public Schools closed.  They stated that too many sidewalks and side roads remained unshoveled and unplowed.  I figured that our school would follow suit because they typically do, and it turned out they cancelled as well.

So, what did we do with our 3 snow days?  We had lots of wonderful, relaxing time with no schedules.  It was so great to spend 3 days straight with the kids and just have fun being together.  We read books, played games, colored, did crafts, played with dolls and Legos, and baked muffins.  We spent Wednesday at home, playing games and reading and watching a movie.  We also played outside in the big snow piles in the afternoon.  Thursday we spent most of the day at my parents' house and also went sledding there.  Today we ventured out to For the Kidz gymnastics for their open gym time.  The kids got lots of energy out and loved playing there.  We ended our week by meeting Casey for dinner at Applebee's since we had a gift card to use.

Now we still have the whole weekend ahead of us!  It will be good to get back to the normal routine on Monday, but I am definitely thankful for these last 3 wonderful days. 

A Party for Peter

Today Peter got to have his friends from school over for a birthday party.  We did this for Esther when she turned 5, and Peter has been looking forward to this for a while.  He was so cute about it all.  As we'd get the RSVPs, he was so excited that all of his friends were going to be coming over.  Three of the boys couldn't come, so we had 8 boys here including Peter.  Originally we were going to have Esther and Miriam go somewhere else during the party, but Peter wanted them to be here.  He told us that he wanted them to be here to meet his friends and to play the games with them.  So sweet. 

Casey was convinced that we could just dump a bunch of cars and trucks on the floor and they would play for 2 hours.  His other idea was to just put in the Cars movie since it was a Cars-themed party.  I of course had to plan some things, so we did play a few organized games including "pin the hammer on Bob the Builder" (those drawings Casey did on the basement wall come in handy sometimes!), a basketball competition, a relay race, a few games of Hullabaloo, and a Cars bingo game.  We ate cupcakes, opened gifts, and the rest of the time they played cars and played with Peter's geo trax and hot wheels track in his room.  It is a really nice bunch of boys, and they played very nicely together and were all kind and polite.  The girls also did a great job hanging with the boys, although when Casey asked Esther if she'd like having 8 brothers, she didn't seem too keen on that idea.

Here are a few pictures of the fun afternoon:

Playing cars

Hullabaloo

Do a funky dance!

The birthday boy (with a crown he made in school)

Cupcakes and ice cream!

The whole crew... plus Miriam!



Trains!

My school often seems to have different breaks and days off than all the other districts in the area.  Sometimes it's a pain, but today it is great!  While everyone else is going back to school, I am enjoying one more day off.  This morning we went to the Meijer Gardens with Renee, Ty and Cassie to see the trains one more time before they take them down for the season.  It wasn't busy at all, so it was a good time to go.  Ty hadn't seem them yet, and he was definitely enthralled with them!  It was fun to watch him.  We also checked out the turtles before we left.

Dutch kids in front of the Netherlands tree

Waiting for the train to come out of the tunnel...

We love Cassie!



Christmas in Florida... the rest of the week

It was much cooler during the rest of our time in Florida, but we still had lots of fun.  We played games, went out for ice cream, walked on the beach a couple times, played at the playground, and did some biking.  My dad brought the tag-along bike down, so one afternoon he and Casey and I rode on one of the trails with the kids.  We took Esther with us on the way, met everyone at the playground, and took Peter on the way back.  We got to watch airplanes land at the little airport, and also saw a couple armadillos!

We are so thankful for the opportunity to spend quality time with my family during our time down there.  Thanks Mom and Dad for having us!  It was a wonderful week!

 

Christmas in Florida... so far!

We're having a great time in Florida with my family!  So far we swam twice, went to church twice, played a lot of games, celebrated birthdays, relaxed, ate, did crafts, relaxed, ate, biked, walked, read books, relaxed, and ate some more.  The weather forecast for the next few days is very cool, so our swimming days may be over for this trip.  Good thing the kids got a lot of fun indoor activities as gifts from Grandpa and Grandma and Aunt Karen and Juan.  Here are some pictures of our time so far...

Florida style Christmas tree!

This was a joke.  Karen got this tote bag weaving kit for Esther which was for ages 7+.  Between Karen and me, we probably spent 5-6 hours making it.  Esther did help a bit too.  We kept laughing at this phrase on the box... "It's SOOOO Easy!"  Yeah, whatever.  It does look super cute all finished though--picture to come!

Dinner at Myakka River Oyster Bar