The rest of March + Easter!

Happy St. Patty's Day from us very non-Irish people! But being Iow-ish is even better. :)

We've never attempted egg dyeing with J, but this year was a good year to start! He was pretty independent once I got it all set up for him. 6 is a nice age! This was actually a kit I bought like 2 or 3 years ago thinking I'd have fun dyeing eggs with little 3 year old J. I'm glad I didn't! And FYI, egg dyeing kits don't seem to go bad. This one had dye tablets, a crayon, and even glitter!

He drew a bunny on one :)

The first day of Spring was cold! But it turned a bit windy (at least at our house out in the "country") in the afternoon, so we let J fly his new kite! He has gotten several gifts from a kind man at church (they share a love of race cars), and this kite was one of them. It was really cool to watch it fly!!

Who doesn't want a porta-potty across the street from their house?!

We have had a mix of awesome spring days and cold winters days- typical for Michigan "spring" I suppose. At least our snow has been gone for a good long while- we can be thankful for that! And when those awesome spring days happen, both J and H are dying to get outside to play!

For Easter we took a little road-trip to our favorite state-- Iowa! :)

We picked J up from school at noon on Friday, and hit the road. We met my parents in IL and passed off Molly to them, and continued on our way. Both kids did really well, minus the fact that Hope slept only like 30 min the entire drive!

We stayed with our good friends, the Scholtens. Was so nice of them to open their home to us!! And I know J had a great time playing with his buddy Parker.

Our main reason for making the trek this weekend was to see J's former daycare provider, Michelle (and her family, who also happen to be our dear friends!!). They are moving to Kansas City, so we really wanted to see them before they left! 

Saturday morning we went to the Easter Egg Hunt put on by Michelle's church in Ankeny. We've done this hunt twice before with J when we lived there, so it was so fun to do it again (with Hope! And Parker and Addison came, too!).

J was so excited to see Grady, Shell, and Maddie again! They really are like his second family.

After the hunt we headed back to Scholtens and our good friends, the Paulsons, joined us all there for lunch (BBQ from Jethro's- yum!!). J had a blast playing with all his old buddies, and it made my heart so happy to see him happy, playing with friends he's basically known since birth!

Of course I got 0 pics of the bigger kids playing, but I did get one of H and her future-husband Cody. They were playing so nicely in the kitchen together!

I think H was cooking "roni" for Cody, I hope he was impressed!

Saturday evening we went over to another daycare family's house for a farewell party for the Williams. I can't even tell you how excited J was to play with his old buddies from "Shell's house!"

Shell's kids!!

Even though we moved away first, it's still sad knowing they won't be in Ankeny for us to visit anymore. However, just another reason to head to the KC area for a vacation!! :) The Williams will be greatly missed!

These 2 are the definition of BFFs!!! J and G are 2 peas in a pod for sure!

Easter morning we headed to our old church, The Bridge, for their early service. It was wonderful! It was great to be back there, and the service was fabulous. 

It was funny, when we dropped H off in the nursery, J said "Hey I remember this place!" :)

Love these 2! All dressed up for Easter.

Grandpa and Grandma Wissink drove down from NW Iowa. They joined us for church, and then we enjoyed a delicious Easter Brunch at Johnny's Italian Steakhouse. Of course I only got a pic of Hope. :)

Such a refined little lady.

The kids came away with plenty of Easter loot- Baskets from us, from both sets of grandparents, from the egg hunt, and even some from Parker and Addison's grandpa! Seriously, spoiled rotten! 

 
Sadly, Monday morning we had to hit the road again for Michigan. :(

These 3 were sad to say good-bye!!

Crazy kids!

It was a long drive, but both kids slept for a bit (and that's a pretty big deal for J- he must have been worn out!). We packed a lot into a few days, and got to see so many wonderful friends!! Such a great weekend!

Oh, it turns out J was also not feeling 100%. He complained about his ear Monday night, then again after school on Tuesday. So I got him in to the pediatrician Wednesday morning (I'm so glad I did- he was miserable Tuesday night! He woke up several times crying because it hurt so bad). And they determined it was not 1, but 2 ear infections! Sheesh! And H had just finished antibiotics on Monday for an ear infection of her own. If you're keeping track, that makes about a million ear infections between the 2 of them since October. Or maybe it just feels that way, but Oh. My. Word. They have both had so many!! The Dr said after this, if J gets another one it might be time to see an ENT. And we'll see at Hope's 18 mo appt what they have to say about her. May these be the last of our ear infections for a good long while!!

Thankfully J was feeling well enough by Wednesday evening to go to the end of the year carnival for Wednesday night Kid's Klub at church. He had been looking forward to it for weeks!!

Today got up to a lovely 66 degrees! So of course H needed to go "yide."

 J is officially on Spring Break now, and our temps all next week will be in the 30s and 40s. Booooo. We'll have to come up with some fun indoor activities to keep busy! Then next Thursday we're heading to WI to see Grandpa and Grandma Wiers. We are making a surprise stop on the way (spoiler: Lego Discovery Center in Schaumburg!). Can't wait to see J's reaction when we get there!! :)

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

This and That

This girl. Oh, she is such a joy and keeps us laughing! She talks so much and has such a funny personality. Some of my favorite things about her at this age/stage (16.5 months!):

~ She was watching Adam peel some hard-boiled eggs, and she was saying her standard "biiiiiiite, biiiiite, biiite." Adam was ready to give her a bite when I stepped in (like any good egg-hating mommy should), and said, "Oh, no you don't want those. They're yucky! Can't you smell them (sniff sniff sniff)" And Hope said, "(Copying mommy sniffing) POOP." And quickly decided she did NOT want a bite. Ha! We pretty much died laughing at that one! And finally someone agrees with me!!

~She is obsessed with 2 shows- "Baby Genius: Baby Animal Songs" on Netflix (she calls it a-mols) and the first 15 minutes of the movie "Frozen" (which she calls mo-man aka snowman). She requests/demands one or both of these multiple times a day! It's cute/annoying.

~She is such a stinker, and thinks she is such a big girl. 

~She gets easily frustrated by Molly, which is too funny. If Molly is in her way, or sitting on my lap when Hope wants to sit by me she loudly declares "Woh way, Mah-yee!" (Translation: Go away, Molly!)

~She substitutes the "w" sound for a lot of consonant sounds, I have no idea why. So for fish, she says "wish". French fries are weh-whys (um, don't ask me how she knows what those are). For zebra she says "wee-wuh." After dinner we have to wipe her "wace." And she also likes to give people "wive" (five). :)

~Now that the weather has warmed a bit and our snow is gone, she is OBSESSED with going outside! I think she could just walk around our neighborhood all day long.

~She learned how to do a lovely little cheesy smile!

~She really is my sidekick- we do most everything together! Last Tuesday we voted. Despite our best efforts, Trump won Michigan (BOO). Hope was obviously concerned that would happen.

~She has started saying something like "way-tol" and it sounds suspiciously like Rachel. I don't know what else it could be! Stinker.

Blankie head-scarf is always a fashion-do.

 Jeremiah is cruising through Kindergarten. So proud of him- he has passed all of his sight word lists already! I just *LOVE* listening to him read and sound out words in books! 

 

I love seeing his school work, too. This was an activity on needs/wants. He needs water and food. He wants a pool and a toy sugar cane harvester (look at his awesome attempt to sound that out!!) Also, where does one buy a toy sugar cane harvester?!

J had "Family Fun Night" at school last Friday night, and he was SO excited for it! Greatest highlight for him was that we had to park at a church a few miles from school and ride a school bus over to the school (and back.... in the dark!)!

Adam was super excited, too!

So was Hope.

What the heck?

We had pizza/chips/ice cream for dinner at school.

And then it was time for games! 

Supportive/bored little sister took it all in!

Looking forward to more spring-like weather, Easter, and J's Spring Break! :)

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

J's 6th Birthday (and other stuff)!

We had a wonderful time celebrating our big 6 year old! But how can he be SIX?!?!

Oh my heart!

I swear he was just born. But, he insisted that we not just let his birthday pass by and make him stay 5. So, he's 6!

Feb 12-15 J had "Winter Break" at school, so he had off that Friday and Monday. We decided to take a weekend trip to Wisconsin to see Grandpa and Grandma for an early birthday celebration!

Friday we arrived in the late afternoon, had dinner at Chik-Fil-A (I love that place!!!), and then went to my cousin Maddy's basketball game. J thought that was REALLY cool to see all the "big kids."

J read a book to Grandpa all by himself!

Saturday we took the kids to a fun place to play called The Big Backyard. Since it was like the coldest day of the year, it was nice to let them run around and play inside! They both had a great time!

Hope monopolized this car for the majority of the time!

We never had a Cozy Coupe for J when he was little, surprisingly. I'm on the look out for one on Craigslist for H to play with this spring! She loved it!

Saturday night Uncle Ben came up from Chicago (it was kind of a joint b-day celebration for Ben on the 8th and J on the 18th) and we went out for dinner to the restaurant of Jeremiah's choice- Red Robin! Then it was back to Grandpa and Grandma's house for presents and cake!

He opened his presents from Grandpa and Grandma and Uncle Matt and Aunt Cheryl!

SIX!!!

The birthday boys. Ben is not 6.

Hope was around, too!

The blankie scarf is her new fashion statement.

Sunday (Valentine's Day!) we went to church and hung out with Grandpa and Grandma, and then headed back to MI on Monday. As soon as we got home, J wanted to get out his gear set and get it set up!! Daddy helped, of course.

Thursday the 18th was the big birthday!! J was very excited to bring a birthday treat and have the class sing "Happy Birthday" to him (WITH the cha-cha's, by the way).

I was surprised when I asked about birthday treats that his school allows homemade treats. Yippee! 

These cookies are to die for- I got the recipe from a former student's mom (always was a highlight to see her cookies in the lounge!). So I was excited to make them for J's treat, and they got rave reviews!

We let J open one gift before school, because he just could not wait!!!

The rest he opened after school.

He got to go out for a special birthday breakfast with Daddy before school, which I am quite sure was the highlight of the day for him. :) We also went out for dinner to the Pizza Ranch (his choice, of course!)

then did cake and ice cream when we got home.

I still can't believe he's 6! Love this boy so much!!

In other news, we got haircuts this past Friday night and decided it was time to get Hope's baby mullet trimmed- her first haircut!! It really kind of kills me that I didn't get a picture of just how long it was! :(  It was not growing very evenly, so I know it was time, but it was still sad (for me.... I don't think anyone else cared)!

She was pretty concerned about what the heck was going on, but she sat nicely especially after we gave her a sucker (which she has never had before, and which we had to pry from her death grip later). I think the haircut makes her look even older! 

Saturday was the Calvin/Hope basketball game. We didn't go to a satellite location this year because we were kind of disappointed last year, and why go out when you can lay on the couch and watch it on WGVU?! I did get H in her Calvin sweatshirt, though. 

Last year and this year!

H is just so darn cute, it is hard to not take pics of her all the time! So I pretty much do take pics of her ALL the time.

Flashing her big blue eyes at Daddy. The pigtails are kind of a pain to do, but just SO cute!!

Feeding baby George (Jo Jo, as H calls him!)

She loves books so much, and can entertain herself with them for quite awhile. I just love to catch her "reading" to herself!

That's about all we've been up to lately. We've had some pretty good weather lately (by MI winter standards) and all of our snow melted. It was so nice having a few days where we didn't have to send J to school with snow pants, etc! And tomorrow, more snow. Waahhhhh!!!!! We're so ready for spring!