Green supper

Matt and I celebrated St Patricks Day supper with a true Irish meal on Saturday evening with friends... corned beef with boiled cabbage and potatoes.

On Monday night, I made a green meal.... pesto with chicken on noodles, lime and pear jello, shamrock shakes, olives, pickles, cucumbers and broccoli.

Story book character day

Please meet Bink and Gollie (books by Kate DiCamillo) and Harry Potter.  Don't you just love reading month!?

The Easter door

Yes, the p's and the s is backwards.  Jessica is sure we need to change it. I'm not!

Do you want to build a snowman?

So, for these snowmen, we stayed in the house and used marshmallows, frosting, chocolate chips and candy corn!

Pinewood Derby

This year the Cadets entered the cadet-o-rama instead of just racing against each other at our own church. Brandon was not able to participate due to the musical - bummer for him - but Matt brought both cars to the event and one of Brandon's friends raced his for him.  He didn't win anything, but Matt came home with Best in Show for the boat!

Walk on Water

A huge iceberg frozen ridge - 12 feet or more

on top of the berg

At the side of the berg - it was slippery!

We walked on water - the frozen kind. We were told this was the most frozen lake Michigan has been in over 20 years. People were driving out from Grand Rapids to look at it and walk out on it. I convinced the family that it was an adventure we couldn't pass up.  They weren't so sure. I hear lots of groans when I suggest an adventure - but we all went.

It was beautiful.  Truly, these pictures don't do it justice.  We walked out on the lake (not on the cement walkway) because it was much flatter and easier terrain on which to travel.  I wanted to walk out to the light house where the 'blue' chunks were.  From shore, you could see these bright blue bricks in the distance and I wanted to see them up close.  We made it!  There were HUGE cracks in the ice, but you couldn't see any moving water anywhere so I never felt we were in danger.

Carla (with broken foot boot) and kids walking back to land

Volleyball and Spirit Days

Anika will tell you that she was forced to play volleyball.  I did tell her she had to play, but I'm not sure what I would have done if she flat out refused.  When you only have so many girls in your class and you understand how to hit the ball, I felt it was necessary to step up and help out the team.  She has one good friend on the team which has made a world of difference!  She is the main setter - which still cracks me up. You don't play organized volleyball here until 7th grade, so they aren't the best. Only 1 of them can even accomplish an overhand serve regularly, but I think over all she has been happy with playing.  Her knees and ankles hurt a lot lately - not sure if its volleyball or the fact that she just keeps on growing!

They had spirit week at school. Below you can see a few of her fashion ideas.  I went out and bought two super hero t-shirts in adult sizes after she wore this 7/8 superman pj shirt to school. Good grief.

Super hero day

Erkel day

My Gorilla Baby

Several months ago, it was announced that the high school would be doing Tarzan for their musical this Spring. We knew a few people that were going to participate and as time went on, it became known to us that they needed two young boys to be the young version of Tarzan and the young version of Terk (his gorilla buddy).  Brandon was unable to go to the original try outs but they offered him his own try out time. We were informed the next day that Brandon had not gotten either of the parts, but would he consider being a young ape in the ape ensemble. Brandon decided he wanted to give it a try and so began weeks of practices. He typically had to practice twice a week for 2- 3 hours each night. The rest of the crew was there 4 nights a week. He also had to be there every Saturday afternoon.  There were several things he had to give up or not commit to fully - which was hard for him.  More than once he wished he hadn't said yes. The final two weeks were every night for 3- 4 hours. He was tired, he was having fun, but he still hated missing out on other things, and he was quite sure he was too busy.  

Dress rehearsal evening.  His teacher had talked to the director and planned a 5th grade field trip.  He would buy pizza and any 5th grade student that wanted to come and watch the play (see Brandon on stage) could come.  Brandon was so excited his classmates were going to be there.

I head back stage with him to help him get dressed. He has no clue about make up and I wasn't sure what they wanted on him for makeup, but I had brought along some essentials.  I got the foundation, eye liner and mascara on, then we turned it over to the volunteer make up artists.

Once he was finally ready, we walked out into the hallway, where we were greeted with several high school girls, all swooning over how cute he was, and how great he looked, and OH MY I HAD TO LEAVE!  So, I asked him if he was  good, and he said yes, and I went and found my seat.  Since, I have learned that he was this cute, funny kid that all the girls adored. A little brother sort of thing. He was having a blast.

Brandon and his 'ape mom'

The musical was a success. Afterwards, the class all surrounded him and big Tarzan came over for a picture with them all - it was pretty cute.  

To say the adrenaline was flowing and that he enjoyed himself would be an understatement.  Saturday night's performance was the finale and he had so much fun. He came running up to me afterwards all excited. He and I stayed quite late cleaning up. When we got home, he went in to say goodnight to Matt.  Matt's description was 'BEAMING' - and its a good one.  He's already trying to figure out whether or not he should try out next year!

his ape family - mom and sister

Basketball

Basketball season is all wrapped up for the year.  Jessica thought it was the best thing ever, Maria wasn't really so sure.  The two of them played in a city rec league put on by the local high school. Brandon enjoyed playing with his classmates against other 5th grade teams from private schools in the area. His team only lost 2 game throughout the season but met one of those teams in the semi-finals of the tournie. They only lost by a few points, but were sad they didn't make the championship.

Concerts and ice skating

We spent a late afternoon into the evening with Aunt Kathy.  First, we went to a brass concert, which I thought was well done. The kids liked the cookies afterwards.

Then we went to downtown GR to do some ice skating on some real ice - not the bumpy stuff on our road!

Cousin fun

The Indiana Eburgs came to visit for a weekend. The two adult boys went to the wild game dinner at church.  The rest of us just sort of hung out and did life. All the kids spent some time skating on our road! And Anika and Elyse did Grant's hair!

Too old to play soccer!

One of the things I have enjoyed about living here is I am 'Carla' to many people. In MN, I was Matt's wife, Mrs E, A - B - J - or M's mom, pastor's wife, youth group leader, etc. But to very few people was I Carla. I love my job and it has led me into the lives of some wonderful people. Particularly some lovely moms who play soccer once a week all year long. Well, we take a few weeks off here and there, but pretty much all year. And to them, I am Carla. Most of them haven't even met the rest of my family. I love to be active. I love to run. I love being part of a team. And I love to kick a ball .... hard. I have always been fast over short distances, so that has transferred nicely onto the soccer field. I hadn't played soccer since before Anika was born. We had a fun coed team in MN for a bit.

But, these ladies asked, and I showed up, and the rest is history. And its oh so much fun. 

Until Feb 19.

I was so going to score a goal. Really. Matt was there and he agreed. Just me and the goalie. The cleat on the bottom of my left shoe popped off. Yeah, I didn't know that was possible either, but it is. I caught my fall with my right foot, only to have the outside middle cleat pop off of that shoe. Really. Two in one second. On two different shoes. Crazy. My foot folded. I fell. Seriously scraped up my knees and had to be helped off the field.  Of course I had to leave promptly because I was in charge of picking the kids up from church and I knew it was going to take FOREVER to get to the van on a foot that didn't work so well.  Matt grabbed the keys (he had a game right after ours) and pulled up the van.  Driving was interesting - I quickly learned I had to brake with my left foot, but I got to the kids on time!

Right foot front, left foot heel

That night I was quite sure it was broken. My body was in shock... nauseous, short breaths, light headed, etc. But I slept great and could put weight on it in the morning. I could so do this.

The morning after, purple on top and swollen

As the days went on, I was told by many to get it checked out. By now, I was pretty sure it was just sprained. I had biked, been on the elliptical, swam laps. Things were fine. Besides, if it was broken, they just put a boot on you and tell you to keep going. I didn't need a doctor to tell me that. But a few people mentioned that if it was broken and displaced, I was going to have bigger issues down the road.

A week later, purple toes, purple arch (bottom of foot) and purple all around

In comes a little boy at Little Peeps, the program for preschoolers at church on Wednesday night that I was the helper this week. He is an active little thing and knocks over a chair onto said foot. After I crawled back down from the ceiling, I had an epiphany. Matt was taking the kids home from church, I was going to the urgent care.

The urgent care is a story in and of itself, but these pictures tell the rest of the story. 

You can now catch me walking through the parking lot with a boot!

boot and scraped knees from the fall

To the future!

Let's Play Hockey!

The Muskegon Lumberjacks is a USHL team right here in town. Many of them are high school or just out of high school kids - I can't imagine leaving home to go play hockey in another town!

We had some free tickets and were planning on going to a game. The day I was going to go pick up the tickets, I got a phone call. I had signed all four kids up to be the junior announcer at a game and Anika's name had been picked - so we got four more free tickets! She got to go out on the ice and shout 'Let's Play Hockey' right before the game began.

A few weeks earlier we had played 3 on 3 hockey with our family. The high school made an ice rink in their parking lot to play broom ball and we made use of it! Good times!  

Olaf lives - for a bit

We are huge fans of Frozen here - can't wait for the DVD! So, when the snow starts to melt a bit, it packs really well. We decided we needed an Olaf! He never did get a nose before he melted - I was all out - but he was cute while he lasted!

snow much fun

We have had so much snow this winter. And we have tried to have plenty of fun with it. This was several weeks ago already, but it was snowing huge fluffy flakes - several inches already, and we went to have some fun in it!

covered in the fluffy stuff

Anika going over the jump

snow angels and watching the flakes fall - they are SO pretty

Anika, after a trip down the hill

Matt and Maria after a trip down

Brandon catching some air on his snow board