Christmas Vacation

NC Museum of Natural Sciences

Museum lunch break- in the car

Chinese Light Festival

Who loves pandas?

Best display

A unicorn

Weekend at Steph and Ben's

The afternoon hike- that turned into 4 hours

Sister love

Carriage ride thru Charleston

Charleston Aquarium

View from our condo

And then it snowed

Palm trees look sad in the snow

Walking in a winter wonderland

Just another day at the beach

-From Cleveland we drove 10 hours to Raleigh, NC and stayed with Steph and Ben for 3 nights.
-We visited the NC Museum of Natural Sciences, Ben took the older boys TPing, Julia made brownies with Steph, Nate took everyone on a "short" hike, we played games and ate all their food.
-We went to the Chinese Lantern Festival which was very cool. We enjoyed the acrobat show and Lexi declared, "I can do that." We had 4 adults for 5 children and yet we lost Stephen. We all walked away from the dragon display and after a couple minutes we realized he was gone. Thankfully he had been smart and stayed put, told the adults his Dad's name, and Nate could hear him crying. Gpa and Gma J flew down for the weekend to join in the fun. 
-On New Years Eve we drove to Charleston, SC and rented a condo.  Steph/Ben joined us for one night and we celebrated New Year's Eve with them.  The older boys made it to midnight with us.
-Everything was closed on New Year's Day so we played games, ate snacks, and watched movies.
-On Tuesday it was 30 degrees, but that wasn't going to stop us! We took an hour long carriage ride of downtown Charleston and froze ourselves. We then had an amazing lunch at a seafood restaurant. It may have been amazing because we were frozen, but we warmed up with hot cider/hot chocolate and let the kids try some Charleston cuisine- grits, hush puppies, fried crab legs and popcorn shrimp.  After that we went to the aquarium- very over priced for not much to see. 
-On Wednesday it SNOWED- about 3 inches so everything shut down.  We tried to make the most of it- games, snacks, movies and playing charades.  We took a drive to the beach and saw the Atlantic Ocean- looks like we are in the arctic.
-On Thursday everything was still shut down so we said, that's enough, time to head back to MI where we have snow clothes and nothing shuts down because of snow. So we left for home a day early.

When we made plans this summer to spend Christmas in Charleston it sounded like a great idea. Usually temps are in the 50's/60's- perfect for taking walks, riding bikes and so forth.  Well, this trip was not what we had hoped for.  But, we still had fun and made memories together! 

December 2017

First piano recital

Jongsma cousins

The boys

Decorating cookies

Christmas

Lego fan

New Karaoke equipment

Good picture, not his favorite present

How does he look so grown up?

Handmade gifts are the best

She got her panda

Another cute handmade gift

Hammocks!

Aunt Jess and J.R.

Game time

Proud uncle

DeMaster cousins

-Isaac and Julia had their first piano recital. They each played a Christmas song and did fabulous!
-We spent a couple days in Hastings along with Tim/Jenny's family.  We decorated cookies, played games, Nate and I took the older boys to see Star Wars and opened gifts.
-On Christmas Eve we had Enedina, Nolbi and Santos over for supper. We played Pie in the Face, spoons and Uno with them- lots of fun! Nolbi and the kids clicked right away and we gave Nolbi some Cars 3 gifts- his favorite movie.
-Christmas Day we went to our church and then opened gifts.
-A couple days after Christmas we got in the car and drove to Cleveland.  We spent a night in a hotel and saw Pete/Jess/J. R. for a couple hours. 

November 2017

Teenage Mutant Ninja Cake

5 years old

Thanksgiving pic

Sinterklaas in Holland

Telling Santa she wanted a panda 

Cuteness 

There goes the old carpet

 Band Concert

Broken foot

Going after the turkey drumstick

Asha and Julia

Nutcracker Tea with the Petersons

-We replaced the carpet on our stairs and 2nd floor. Moving furniture out of 4 bedrooms- challenging! The carpet looks great.
-Julia, Asha, Rebecca and myself attended a Nutcracker ballet tea in Holland.

-We celebrated Stephen's 5th Birthday! He loved his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cake. His favorite toys right now- Star Wars lego starships. Stephen loves school, he is starting to read and his handwriting has improved so much since September! He wishes he could stay all day at school. Stephen has developed a stutter. Right now we are monitoring it, may just be a developmental thing. He loves to be included with his older brothers and is Julia's playmate at home.  Stephen and Lexi have a close relationship. They fight, but they play well together. Stephen still likes to cuddle up and smell me. Stephen jumped off the playground at school because there was snow and he thought it would be soft- oof. Turns out he broke his foot, not very bad. It was in his metatarsals and the bone buckled.  He wore a boot for a couple weeks. He is in the 90th percentile for height and weight and brings joy to our family. We are blessed by our sweet boy.

-We celebrated Thanksgiving in Wheaton. It was good to see Great Grandpa/Great Grandma and to stay at a hotel and swim with cousins and Gpa/Gma J.

-Caleb had a Christmas band concert.  The trumpet section is quite good.  Caleb finished out his basketball season- he grew in confidence and skills, had fun and was one of the better players. Caleb is doing fantastic in school and he is firmly in the middle of puberty. Caleb wants to hang out with friends more on the weekends, but he is still ok hanging out with the family too.  Caleb and his friends play chess sometimes during lunch break. He is taking a season off from sports and will play lacrosse in the spring. We are appreciating that Caleb can babysit the kids for short periods of time.

-Julia participated in sacred dance at church for the first time and it was beautiful. She is enjoying gymnastics and becoming more flexible- she can almost do the splits! The orthodontist put a device on the roof of her mouth to help her stop sucking her thumb. She only sucks it during her sleep and its an unconscious thing, but it's messing up her mouth so hopefully this will help. Julia sees Miss Molly, her therapist, twice a month.  Sometimes she complains, but she mostly looks forward to seeing Miss Molly. Julia is doing well in school and has a good ear for piano. She doesn't enjoy practicing, but she picks up tunes quickly. Julia can usually be found reading a book or listening to music. 

-Isaac is playing basketball thru Holland Christian on Saturday mornings.  He is athletic and enjoying the game.  He is doing well in school, but the teachers this year are not his favorite.  His closest friends are Luke and Levi.  Isaac is a typical 10 year old boy with alot of energy.  He loves to tease and mess with his siblings- he sees it as good natured, they may not always agree. Isaac can play with any of his siblings, loves to laugh and make others laugh.  He is good at piano, but he still thinks about playing the drums in 5th grade band next year.

-Lexi is now staying dry at night! She is independent and wants to do everything herself.  It makes me smile to think we used to be worried about her language development.  She speaks clearly and isn't afraid to share her mind.  She often speaks in declarative sentences- You do this, I am going to do this.  She spells her name, saying L E X I, "yexi." She can say L when spelling her name but not when saying her name, its cute.  Or it's "toot" as she would say. She is drawing people and can be very focused and meticulous when coloring.  She likes school and wishes she went more than twice a week. Lexi acts like Stephen's guardian at times and she melts my heart when she squeezes my neck and says, "I love you lots and lots Mom."  Her baby and panda often come along on errands.  People always ask her what their names are and she says, "baby and panda." Obviously.  She loves listening to the Frozen soundtrack and now wears the Elsa dress- just like Julia a couple years ago.