Angels from the Realms of Glory (they are doing "wing your flight", while the boys are trying to play it cool next to them =)
And don't forget cute big cousin K singing too!
I love watching and listening to kids sing at Christmas, and it makes it even more special when it is your own children or nieces! (Oh, and W may not have been up there, but he can do all the actions to the girl's songs too!)
Sometimes G & W can play so nicely together! This morning, while I was trying to finish up a few computer things, G helped W up on the loveseat, they asked me for books, and they sat and read together. G even "reads" outloud to W! (now of course, this only lasted for about 3-5 minutes and then they were screaming at each other because W grabbed G's book, but that's how sibling life goes...=)
Those of you who know us know that this was a long long process involving:
W signing "bunnies" at Rufus in his cage.
G relaxing like Rufus - when the bunnies would lay and relax they would stretch out their front and back legs and G thought this was funny.
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!
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. 
Cut and core and put on stove to cook
The lovely pinkness that results from leaving the skins on!
Feed cooked and smushy apples into magic attachments on Kitchen Aid mixer (thanks Auntie C for helping and letting us borrow them!)
All kids take turns smushing the apples through (then clean up kids)!
Beautiful hot pink applesauce comes out
Put into quart freezer containers to be frozen (kids sneak bites)
Big thanks to Mom B and Auntie C and kids that played well together all afternoon! This is a homemade treat that we will enjoy all year! Storebought applesauce is easy and can be good, but nothing really compares...
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!
