...so this post won't be too exciting, but I do have a bunch of little things and pictures that I thought I would throw all together here today.
Collage of kids playing in the beautiful leaves that dropped from the tree in our driveway all on one day a few weeks ago.
New fall dress from Nanna (my Gma K)!! G loves this dress and especially the twirlyness of it. (we made her take off the sunglasses before leaving for church =)Now about dear W. He is a boy through and through and there are so many differences between boys and girls even at his young age that you really don't realize fully until you have one of each. But being that he has an older sister and older sister things to play with...well, you'll see.
Early morning tea party with Dadda - W does love his tea parties!
Dressing up like sissy - he loves his purses too! That's my boy!
This was taken at our last Ladies' Night Out with the church ladies, Nov 11, I believe. There are 3 of us pregnant at church now and we lined up for a belly picture! I am due January 11 and am at 31 weeks here, J in the green is due mid March, and B in blue is due end of May! Funny thing is that while our church is located centrally in the cities and has people that drive there from an hour south and an hour north and all inbetween, the three that are pregnant all live up here in our area within 5 miles of each other!
This was what G played while W took a nap this morning. She brought me a baby and asked me to wrap it up in a blanket for her, and when I gave it back to her, she said "It looks like baby Moses in the bathtub!" (long explanation from cousins and vacation in Oct), and proceeded to find a basket for baby Moses, build a river out of books, and then hide herself behind the chair to watch for the princess like Miriam did. Stay tuned for a more exciting post later this week...
Last Friday was S's 30th birthday. Big milestone? yes. Did it really feel like that for him? not so much. I think we both still think we are college age sometimes. A small realization of oldness occured this summer when we realized we were older than most of the athletes competing at the summer Olympics. The last time we watched the summer Olympics we felt like we were in about the same age group. Oh well, aging is inevitable and for that we are thankful. Anyway, here are the highlights from the festivities from the weekend!- birthday hugs from G&W to wake up to as well as many many renditions of "Happy Birthday"
- ice cream cake and a couple of bags of S's favorite candy from his co-workers
- J&C babysat the kids Friday night so we could go out to eat for supper! (Yay! Thank you!)
- wonderful meal (start to finish) at local Canyon Grille
- birthday cherry pie and ice cream at J&C's with our crazy gang afterwards
- present - tickets to Wild hockey game for S and his brother J (Nov 20 against the Canuks!)!
- game night with friends from church on Saturday night - Trivial Pursuit, Balderdash, pizza, munchies, kids having fun, and the above pictured sour cream pound cake made by friend B with more ice cream for S's and B's birthday (B's was on Saturday)
Happy Birthday dear hubby - I am very thankful for the 30 years God has blessed you with and I look forward to sharing many more with you!
We had a wonderful vacation to MI. It was kind of split up into 3 parts. Part one was traveling by train from MSP to Holland, MI and staying a few days by my brother M and s.i.l. A. The train was definitely the best form of travel for us with 2 wiggly little kids! We got on at 8 in the morning on Thursday, and would have gotten to Holland by 9:30 that night, but there were some mechanical difficulties with our train and then another one that we came upon on the tracks along the way, so we didn't end up getting in until midnight. LONG DAY, but the kids did great and it was so nice to be able to just focus on them and not having to strap them in and try to drive. It was also neat to see the beautiful colors in the trees the whole way out!
M & A live about 5 blocks from the train station in Holland and came and picked up our luggage with their car and we walked with the kids to their house as to not have to mess with the car seats. Friday we hung out with Uncle M and Auntie A and their bunnies, R & C (more on them later!), and just recoop'd from the trip and had a great time catching up and playing together. We walked downtown Holland and ate at Froggy's (great hamburger and fries joint!) then spent the afternoon at a park and got some fun pictures.
Saturday morning was also just fun hanging out with M&A and also making a trip out to Holland's thrift stores looking for swimsuits for all of us since we left ours at home. (Found ones for all 4 of us for less than $10!) We then headed out on part 2 of the vacation for Hudsonville to S's Uncle D and Aunt S's house. S's whole immediate family had also made the trip out to MI and Uncle D and Aunt S hosted a big Aukeman gathering (S's mom's side of the family) since we were all there. We had Gpa A, all his children, all his grandchildren and great-grandchildren (26 of us) there which was a lot of fun! It was good to catch up with Gpa A, cousins, and aunts and uncles and we had a great time chatting and eating yummy homemade pizza. We of course took big family pictures too, but on someone else's camera so I don't have those to share right now. I did get a 4 generation picture for W (he is named after Gpa A) and a family shot of us though!
All of us B's stayed in our favorite Grand Rapids hotel Saturday night (good prices, pool - hence the need for swimsuits, insanely good hot breakfasts, nice rooms - although we did stay on the 2nd floor rather than the 3rd this time and had a lot more stomping above us...some suspiciously 6'9'' sounding =). We didn't get to enjoy as much time together at the hotel Saturday night as we all stayed longer at Uncle D and Aunt S's so had to get kids down right away. Sunday morning we all went to different churches. We attended Ideal Park CRC where parents of our good friend N K go. It was fun to surprise them and chat with them a little bit! Then off to Gma B's apartment for the B gathering (S's dad's side of the family) where we had a nice lunch and visit with all of us, Gma B, and Uncle S and Aunt B. Once again we took more family pictures on someone else's camera, but I did get another 4 generation shot for W. It was beautiful weather out both Saturday and Sunday so it was nice to be outside to take pictures and let the kids run around and play.
We then all headed back to the hotel and the kids fell asleep on the way back. Gpa A was kind enough to let us borrow his van while we were there so we didn't have to rent a car. Thanks Gpa A!
We swam in the pool back at the hotel. This was by far G's favorite part of the hotel stay! We then went out for supper with J&C and family and hung out the rest of the evening. Funny note, I brought my camera down to the pool and wanted to get a pic of the cousins playing together, which they were very nicely! But when I told them all to just look at me and smile, they proceeded to line themselves up on the top step first - do you think they had been in just a couple of organized pictures in the past 2 days?
The rest of the B's headed back towards MN on Monday, but we stayed a couple of extra days back with M&A for part 3 of our vacation. We took it pretty easy on Monday morning though, swimming in the pool one more time, packing up, then eating at noodles for lunch. We wanted to get one more visit in with Gpa A and Gma B, and also get both kids a nap. So to shorten the process, we went and picked up Gpa A and took him with us over to Gma B's for a visit. It was nice to visit with them without so much chaos of the big gatherings, and I think they had fun visiting with each other as well - they are friends from long back. S's parents actually played together as kids! Our kids had fun too - W wheeled Gma B's walker all over her apartment! Then we headed back to Holland to Uncle M and Auntie A's. We hadn't been there more than 5 minutes when G asked about the bunnies! Oh, the bunnies! I will have to get more pictures of the kids and the bunnies from M&A to share as the kids absolutely adored these 2 french lop fuzzballs. W knows the sign for bunnies and would do it excitedly while running after them. G had fun trying to help take care of the bunnies and get them to do tricks (yep, they know tricks!), although her favorite thing to tell us was that "bunnies don't listen to me very well!" The gray one is Charlie, and the brown one is Rufus.
Strangely enough, Uncle M was not there on Monday when we got there. He actually flew to Minneapolis over the weekend to attend a classis meeting. So Monday evening we had pizza with Auntie A and she introduced us to the best movie for our kids, hands down, The Adventures of Milo and Otis. It is all about a kitten and a puppy born on a farm and their adventures, and our kids just loved all the animals in it! And it wasn't too scary for G either (she is very sensitive about scary stuff in movies or on tv), although she did get nervous in a few parts. And it was so much fun watching W watch the movie - he would get so excited about all the animals and be signing what each one was and making the noises!Tuesday was our last day of vacation in MI. We soaked up all the time with Uncle M and Auntie A that we could and also got packed and ready to go. Uncle M and Auntie A spent a lot of time reading books to G & W the whole time we were out there. The kids loved it, S & I loved it cuz it gave us a break from reading them (I actually read a real book over vacation!), and I think M & A loved it too. G also got to make Auntie A's favorite cookies with her Tuesday morning! Auntie A does not like chocolate, so these ready to bake sugar cookies are what she likes for a treat! And G thought it was so neat that there were pumpkin faces in them! G & W also had fun playing Auntie A's very nice electric piano and particularly liked the voice setting - they sung with as they played!
Tuesday afternoon Uncle M and Auntie A took us to the Critter Barn! Auntie A works here part time in the office. What a fun outing not only to see where Auntie A works, but to visit and pet all the animals. There is something about our kids and farms and farm animals...
Tuesday night, both kids went down easily and slept really really well as is always the case on vacation - they finally get used to a place and sleep well the night before you have to leave. But it was nice for S & I to be able to sit and have a good chat with M & A without being interrupted by waking kids every 15 minutes! Big big thanks to M & A for their wonderful hospitality while we were visiting. They both are so good with the kids and also make it so easy to stay with them - stocking up on favorite and kid-friendly food, letting us use their bedroom with the kids, and by just being plain fun to visit. We all love you very much! =) Wednesday morning we were up early to catch the train at 7:30 (when actually it left at 8:30) and on our way back home. We had a fairly good trip back - W was dealing with teeth and not happy most of the way, but nothing terribly disturbing to the other passengers. We had a fairly long layover at Union Station in Chicago which we spent most of the time in the Grand Hall letting the kids run around (I am at 28 weeks in the belly shot). Then we actually were home a little ahead of schedule and arrived at our house by 11:00 that night. Yay for vacation and fun, but a big yay for being home too. =)
Last night I did something I never ever thought I would do. I cut (well, clippered) W's hair! My good friend A gave W his first and second haircuts. She did such a nice job with her clippers even though W screamed the whole time. But then their family moved to Orange City, IA since A's hubby graduated from medical school and finally took a real job. Now that is about a 4 1/2 hour drive, and as much as I would like to, it is way too far to drive to get W's hair cut. So the next time he needed one, we took him into Kids Kuts right by our place where G gets her hair cut. G just loves it and it is a great place for kids. But W is still too little and screamed the whole time and the lady cutting his hair I think was a little thrown off by his screaming and just wanted to be done so it didn't turn out that great. W really needed a haircut before we went on vacation last week, but I didn't want to pay $12 for another iffy haircut for him. So my b.i.l. J lent me his clippers so that I could try it myself. This is something that sounded great in theory, but I was really not ready to do! I have seen and received enough bad haircuts in my days that I never want to touch anyone else's hair. S asked me to cut his hair in college because both of his roommates girlfriends cut their hair, but I refused. I actually have cut only one person's hair in my life, and that is my brother L. He gets uber short buzz cuts that look great on him and are almost a no-fail haircut to give so I was happy to cut his hair a number of times with my mom's clippers. So I told S if he wanted that hair style I would be happy to give it to him! Anyway, back to last week. Needless to say, I was too chicken, so W looked a little tufty over vacation. We got back Wednesday and yesterday I was just going to take him into Kids Kuts and get it done, but I don't know if I was channeling A, or if I was just plain crazy, but I had a surge of confidence (plus knowing they needed to go right in the tub anyway), and S held W and I clippered him while he wailed. It is not as good as A's haircuts, but better than the one we paid $12 for and it didn't cost us anything! Will I try it again for W? I think so. Will I ever cut S's hair, or even G's hair for that matter ? No way.Before:
After:
P.S. I know I should have a post about our vacation to MI first, but I have to sort my thoughts and pictures out a little more before I do that - not to mention have a little more time! =) So stay tuned...
Collage of kids playing in the beautiful leaves that dropped from the tree in our driveway all on one day a few weeks ago.
New fall dress from Nanna (my Gma K)!! G loves this dress and especially the twirlyness of it. (we made her take off the sunglasses before leaving for church =)
Early morning tea party with Dadda - W does love his tea parties!
Dressing up like sissy - he loves his purses too! That's my boy!
This was taken at our last Ladies' Night Out with the church ladies, Nov 11, I believe. There are 3 of us pregnant at church now and we lined up for a belly picture! I am due January 11 and am at 31 weeks here, J in the green is due mid March, and B in blue is due end of May! Funny thing is that while our church is located centrally in the cities and has people that drive there from an hour south and an hour north and all inbetween, the three that are pregnant all live up here in our area within 5 miles of each other!
