An Early Birthday Celebration

Hope had a mini early birthday party celebration with Grandpa and Grandma Neil tonight.  They were on their way to Iowa so they stopped to spend the night and celebrate Hope's birthday.  Because Hope's birthday party will be Easter weekend this year, Mom and Neil won't be able to come to her party.  We had a fun little party though!  Samuel was such a little helper (as you can see from the pictures) and Hope was so kind and gracious with letting her big brother be the helper.  I can't believe that my little girl is almost 4 years old!

A fun weekend with cousins!

Daryl's brother (Kevin), his wife (Karin), and their 4 kids (Ephraim, Noel, Selah, and Wilona) came to Kalamazoo for their first ever visit!  We were so excited to have them here.  The kids were even more excited!  Selah and Hope are just a couple of months apart and they have so much fun together.  It makes me smile to see them together.  Samuel loved having his older boy cousins around and they loved teaching him cool things - like how to jump on the trampoline, fly through the air, and dunk his basketball into his hoop!  He loved playing soccer and hockey with Ephraim and there were numerous cousin "Uno" games that happened over the weekend too.  I think that between all 7 of them, they had every single toy out that we own at one time or another!  Wilona and Aliyah had a little bit of a love-hate relationship going on.  Two years old is a hard age to be friends - that egocentric age where they want everything for themselves. :)  They did have fun in the bath tub together.  

Hope and Selah had a cute little conversation on Saturday night about skin color.  Selah initiated it by saying that she wished she had brown skin.  That led to talking about if our skin stayed the same color the whole time we are alive or if it changes color.  Then Hope asked, "What color will our skin be in Heaven?"  A question I could make an educated guess on, but don't really know the answer for sure!  

The guys were able to go up to Grand Rapids on Saturday night to watch a Grand Rapids Griffins hockey game.  Samuel loved it!!  Such a special and fun thing to do with cousins.  My Dad also went along as well as my Dad's little boy that he mentors through KidsHope.  

Sunday morning was a little rough because we had Daylight Savings Time the night before and had to turn our clocks ahead an hour.  We all made it to the second service at Church and then had a relaxing afternoon and evening at home.  The weather was cloudy but in the 50s so we took advantage of that and played outside with the kids for awhile.

They left this morning after going to open gym at The Point with everyone.  

Such an enjoyable weekend with Kevin, Karin, and the cousins!!

Spring, Come Quickly!

My kids have Spring Fever!!  We are all anxious for Spring around here.  Today was sunny and beautiful - a high in the 40s.  When we got home from Hope's dance class they all wanted to play outside - specifically ride their bikes in the driveway and have Mommy draw a road for them with sidewalk chalk.  They had so much fun!  They ended up playing in the snow piles after a little bit, but we were outside for over an hour.  It was wonderful!!  I'm hoping for many more days like this (and warmer!) in our near future. 

31.5 weeks

Left to Right: Samuel, Aliyah, Baby #4

We're getting there!!  8 more weeks to go.  My biggest complaint with this pregnancy is the back pain that I get while I sleep.  I've had to sleep in a recliner a couple of nights because that is a lot more comfortable for me.  Baby's heart rate is consistently around 160.  I've gained just under 20lbs so far.  At my last doctor's appointment I was measuring 29 weeks and I was almost 30 weeks.  So far, so good!  My c-section is scheduled and so now I wait and enjoy these precious last weeks with this baby tucked away safely inside of me!  We still don't have names picked out . . . our lists our quite long but we're having trouble narrowing it down.  I'm getting anxious to find out if this baby is a boy or a girl.  Based on the pictures above, I'd say it's a boy!!

March 7, 2013: Happy Birthday Savannah!

For the love of books!

Samuel used the little tikes grocery cart to get all of these books from the living room to the sunroom.  I love how much my kids enjoy reading and looking at books!  And, even with all of these books piled high on the loveseat, our bookshelf still wasn't empty!!

Emails to Aunt Anna

With Aunt Anna being in Australia my kids have been missing her a lot and talking about her a lot.  I finally sat down with them so that they could write an email to her.  We wrote this right after we went to Shedd Aquarium in Chicago which I have not blogged about yet (but I will! I promise!) so don't be too confused.  Here's the email, it's pretty cute:

Hey Anna,

Your email was lovely.  We had a lovely weekend as well.  We spent Saturday at the Shedd Aquarium.  That was also lovely.  Okay, I'm already sick of that word.  I'm done.

Samuel says:

We saw a shark and a sawfish at the aquarium.  We saw jellyfish and Mommy said she got stung by one when she was swimming.  And we saw Nemo!  We saw crashing waves at the aquarium too.  I didn't like that.  I put my hands over my ears.  We could stand above the sting rays on glass and watch them swim around.  We saw a King Crab and it said that they live in Australia.  Have you seen one?  We saw eels eating squid with little fish inside.  That was fun.  The dolphin show was fun and one dolphin jumped really high.  I hope that you come back to Michigan soon because I want you to come back in one sleep.  (Please don't let this sway your decision as to when you come home - they all really miss you!!)  Is there anything to play with in Australia?  (I think he's worried you might be bored - haha!)  I have one more thing to say: That was so nice of Daddy to bring Mommy those flowers.

Aliyah says:

I don't want to say anything.  **5 minutes later after she got braver, she decided she had some things to say: We saw the dolphins jump all together.  We saw the sharks swim.  

Hope says:

I love my sister.  I don't have a fever (she has had one the past few days).  We went to the aquarium and we saw a sea otter and some dolphins.  We saw some sharks.  We saw some whales (beluga) and dolphins jumping.

**Now they are all distracted by arguing about if boogers stink**

So now I can't remember what I was going to tell you.  The kids also wanted you to know that we got an alphabet puzzle from Abigail and Isaac Mulder for Christmas and the "K" animal is a Kangaroo.  They are always very quick to point out now that it is not a Kangaroo, it is a "Roo" and it doesn't start with K.  Smarty pants.  

Alright, gotta go.  All the kids are pulling me away in different directions.  Open gym today at The Point so we are headed over there later.  A Broncos game tomorrow night with Samuel.  Savannah's birthday party on Thursday night.  Kevin and Karin and their 4 kids are coming to visit next weekend.  Daryl, Samuel, Kevin, Ephraim, Noel, Dad, and Caden are going to the Griffins game on Saturday night.  And now I'm pushing it . . . gotta go.  Love you!

Sara

And then the next day, Samuel decided he had more to tell his Aunt Anna:

Samuel has more to say to you:

At the aquarium, all the fishes like each other and the sting rays don't sting the fish.  Some of Mommy's flowers on the table are getting dead (2+ weeks is an impressive length of time for me to keep flowers alive!).  Last night WMU basketball lost by 4, 89-85.  I went to the game with Grandma and Grandpa and Daddy and me.  The Broncos were white and the other team was red.  Number 21 and I think number 32 on white are a pretty bit taller.  And that's all I want to say to her!!  Oh, I want to say, "I miss you Anna"