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!

Snow Fort!

This afternoon we built a snow fort!  

Additions to the Kuperus Family

A recent poll conducted by yours truly indicated that 4 out of 5 individuals in the Kuperus Household looked favorably upon adding some pets to the home.

When a friend happened to mention on Facebook that they were looking to get rid of their aquarium, I happily offered to take it off their hands. (There's a small chance I may not have really asked anyone else about it first).

Today, Peter and I went and picked it up, along with several fish that had been happily living in the aquarium. We are now happy to report that it is set up and all the fish are still accounted for.

We are planning to let Mommy go pick out her own special fish soon.

Birthday Flowers

I took this picture and then forgot to put it on here... these are the beautiful roses that the kids and Casey picked out for me for my birthday! 

Ollie Bolen!

Casey and his mom decided to renew their New Year's tradition of making Ollie Bolen this year.  If you don't know, this is a Dutch treat, somewhat along the lines of a donut hole.  They first soaked raisins in brandy, made the dough, and then fried the dough balls in a deep fryer.  They are delicious, especially dipped in powdered sugar!  The kids loved their first experience, so hopefully we'll continue the tradition every year!

Trains and Trees

This morning we went to Meijer Gardens with Aunt Karen and Grandpa W. to see the trains and Christmas trees from around the world.  It's always fun to go there during the holidays to see all the beautifully decorated trees and enjoy the trains.  They added some new buildings to the train display this year, so those were fun to check out too.

We went out to the children's garden where they had fun activities inside.  We played there for quite a long time.  Peter loved the train table and the girls both made crafts.

We got Grandpa in on the "Mad Mom" impression...

For lunch we decided to cash in some reading coupons at Pizza Hut!