The house

Many of you have asked how the house is coming.  Well, here it is.  There is still lots to do:  the whole basement, a cupboard in the kitchen, finishing the kitchen floor, a mantle over the fireplace, and I can't even begin the list on the outside!  But, this is what we have so far!

here it is

We plan on removing all the green bushes and starting over on the landscaping.  Its a mess.

entrance

living room

kitchen

formal dining room ie boxes aka pantry

kitchen table - door to garage and bathroom are to the right

family room

door to garage

main level bathroom

basement  - playroom

basement - the very back will be Anika's bedroom someday

laundry room is upstairs

upstairs hallway

Jessica and Maria's bedroom

kids' bathroom

Anika and Brandon's bedroom

Matt and Carla's bedroom

Matt and Carla's bathroom- I wasn't kidding when I said our new bathroom  is  bigger than our old bedroom

Matt and Carla's closet

We also found some time to decorate Easter cut out cookies. We missed this tradition at Christmas, so it was fun to do it now.

And we took our annual Robin Bird Egg Lipstick picture.

All four kids had soccer games on Saturday.  It was busy but fun to watch them in action again.  And Sunday night game night was Peanuts.  Oh yes, I have passed it on to the next generation!  Some of you know the game as Dutch Blitz.  Good times!

Have a good week!

Thoughts on a Wednesday morning

I’m tired again today, but my outlook is different.  

First, we have been searching for a piano teacher, and I kept hitting dead ends.  Yesterday, I felt led to check Craigslist and GUESS WHAT?  There was a Calvin College graduate in the area looking for piano students and she has already emailed me back trying to set up a time to meet.  Way big God thing, hope it works out.  So excited about the possibility!

I'm still looking for a job. Jessica asks me every day if I found one, sort of like hide and seek to her. Maria has informed me I am not allowed to get a job, because she wants to stay home with me. 

I got a letter ready to TCF bank to close the account - AGAIN.  I even got it notarized.

I love going to bed and reading, although I need to go to bed earlier.

I had a great run yesterday.  I only ran over 4 miles but I ran hard the whole way.  It felt so good.

I’ve been working really hard on labeling all the pictures on our computer. I want to get all my pictures onto the computer and get them labeled so I can upload the MN ones and give my kids their books about MN.  Actually, I really want a book to look at and remember, too.

We are still trying to decide whether to put Maria into Spanish Immersion or English Kindergarten. I'm so afraid we'll make the wrong choice and she will end up struggling, especially at recess.  She is the one that has no complaints about school, so I'd like to keep it that way.

Jessica is reading like a MANIAC.  She reads at bedtime on her own now, too.  It is so fun to see.

Maria is starting to read.  We get the easy readers from the library and she can put the sounds together. This point in life never ceases to amaze me.  How they go from making sounds to getting words to come out. So very cool!

There are two girls from Anika's basketball team on her soccer team.  We also bought her a new soccer ball after practice last night so we have one excited girl.  Getting on a soccer team has been its own little challenge, but it all worked out so yeah God.

Today my devotional was about the 12 spies that entered Canaan.  Joshua and Caleb focused on God, the other 10 focused on the giants that occupied the land.  It was just good for me to hear.

"He (Caleb) was focused on the magnitude of God, not the magnitude of any giant challenges ahead. Today you may see many giants that challenge your faith — giants of time and energy, finances and resources, fear and faithlessness.

God wants you to be confident that he’s pouring his strength into you so you can do whatever it takes to defeat these giants. God says you can take possession of an abundant life because he is with you.

By seeing his hand sweep away the personal giants in your life, you’ll be even more confident that you can do all things through him who strengthens you (Philippians 4:13)."  

by Jon Walker from purpose driven connection web site

Today I get to pay the IRS and make sure our soccer calendar is organized.  Looks like a wild and crazy kind of day!

Happy Easter

Two Weeks in Pictures

The swing set is up and being used almost daily!

The neighbor girl comes to play or Jessica and Maria go to her house often.

I got in a couple of runs. This is one of my running beaches.

Friends from MN came to visit and we ate pizza at Fricanno's with a view of Muskegon Lake.

We had mystery night at school.  It was a mystery dinner.  Each of the teachers was a suspect and we had to figure out who stole the cookies from the cookie jar.  Turns out it was Peter Pan and Goldilocks.  We guessed correctly but did not get the grand prize - a jar of cookies.

We dyed eggs.

We had Brandon's former MN teacher's parents over for supper.  We taught them how to play PIT - very fun.

We went to Chicago for 3 days.

science and industry museum

Adler Planetarium

Field Museum

snack at Ed Debevic's

We had a tea party with a neighbor.

MN neighbors came to visit. Great times of playing and laughing.  Here we are at a very yummy pancake breakfast at a local church.

We had two Easter Egg grabs (the eggs were just there for the taking) and one Easter Egg Hunt (we hide our eggs and make them work for it).

We had Gino's East Pizza.  We took it from Chicago frozen and baked it up at home - YUMMY!

We had a yummy Easter breakfast in church before the service.

We had friends and family for Easter lunch.

Jessica and Maria had their first soccer practices.  Brandon and Anika are supposed to have their's this week.

There have been lots of emotions through it all.  I'm fairly certain the next two weeks aren't going to be as eventful.  There won't be any trips out of town for sure!

Hope you all are well!

What did you do today?

I am quite sure that we are one of the few people that can say we went swimming in Lake MI on St Patrick's Day.  Brandon and Anika both had friends over.  We climbed the dunes, went swinging on a twig rope swing, and played in the water and the sand.  We came home to pizza and shamrock shakes - all homemade and then mint brownies.

Tonight, we walked the circle that our house is on and met a few more neighbors.  I am writing the names down on a map so that we don't call anyone by the wrong name like we did for 8 years in MN!

Sleep well!

Storybook Character Day

Today I sent off 4 new kids to school:
Despereaux, Fancy Nancy, Ruby the Red Fairy and Roger the Jolly Pirate

It was storybook character day at school!  The staff dressed up like the character's of Charlotte's Web.  I guess Despereaux and Roger didn't make it much past a few minutes as not very many people in their classes participated, but they sure had fun coming up with ideas and creating the costumes.

Brandon had Cadet-O-Rama last weekend.  His car did not do as well as he had hoped.  The last night of working on them in Cadets, the axle of his car was cracked trying to put in the lead.  So, with 10 days to go before race day, Brandon had a plain block of wood to start over with.  He and Matt quickly recreated the same car, different color but the paint didn't have long enough to dry so that caused some problems. Then, I guess its taboo to melt lead into a car like the good old days so Matt bought some lead at the Hobby shop and attached it to the bottom of Brandon's car.  This turned out to not work so well as the screw that attached it got caught on the track and made jumping off the starting line a slow if non existent process for Brandon's car.  Next Wednesday is the race just within his cadre, so hopefully they will be able to drill out some of the car and put the lead further into the base.

Day light saving times - curses.  We still hadn't gotten used to MI time and now they go and change the clocks on us again.  We were liking the late sunset previously, but this is crazy.  Living on this side of the time zone, the sun is barely up at 8 am - makes getting out of bed VERY difficult and going to sleep at night not so much fun either- at least for the kids - its still light out!  I used to laugh at all the postcards and notifications that were sent out about 'Remember to turn your clocks ahead (or back)'.  This year however, it was one such postcard from our realtor that alerted us to the fact that we had to Spring ahead.  I think one of us would have caught it on Saturday, but it would have been pretty funny if the pastor didn't show up on time for church.

Brandon won the ticket draw in his classroom last week.  At MCS, each teacher uses the same rewards/discipline system.  You receive tickets for a variety of things varying from extra credit, homework on time, not flipping (discipline) etc.  (every child starts out the day on green, and flips to different colors through the day if things are less than grand in their world - like getting your name on the board with checks, or similar to Mrs. KP's system at CCS). Some teachers have you start with the tickets and take them away as needed, others have you earn them as the week goes along.  Each teacher uses the rewards differently. Brandon has a draw for something at the end of every week and you can put in as many tickets as you want, based on how many you have and how much you like the prize.  Brandon's teacher used to be a clown so he can make cool things out of balloons. Last week was a hat, so Brandon only put 4 tickets in - he wasn't super interested - but he won!

I trust everyone had a happy pi day.  We did not have pi or pie.  Maybe next year.
We are gearing up for celebrating St Patrick's Day.  Shamrock Shakes and mint brownies!

I got another long run on the beach today.  It was incredibly foggy all day, but the further from the water, the clearer the air.  We live close, so it was foggy!  Some day I'll take my camera with and take a picture of what I get to see when I run.  Today was literally on the beach so I had to choose between running on the hard sand and risk getting wet feet or running - ok I stopped to walk twice - on the soft sand and working really hard to not get very far.

Tomorrow, I'm going to clean the house.... maybe.

Twins

I haven't updated lately because I didn't feel there was much to update.
I realized I hadn't looked at my birthday/anniversary calendar for friends and family in a LONG time and so, some of you had your special date completely missed by our family - Sorry.  Happy Birthday and Happy Anniversary!
I spent 7 hours in the basement yesterday organizing and repacking boxes.  This may seem silly. but I am organizing and packing everything up as though we are moving again. I love to have things organized, and when/if we do this move thing again, I want to be more prepared. I go through every box and take out what we will never use.  We have a nice size pile ready for the Goodwill.  Mainly I did our Christmas stuff and the girls' clothes.  I have purchased more plastic tubs in the last 6 months then I dare to count.  A friend and I commented on how we paid lots of money to put the clothes we got for free into a tub.  Sort of backwards, but it works.  Maybe it would make more sense to not save clothes, not spend the money on tubs, and then go and buy the clothes when we need them.  But the clearance section at Kohls for the next season is oh so hard to pass up.  I did discover that I could outfit an army of little girls in the size 7 and 8.  Really.  The tricky part is, when we go through the boxes, both Jessica and Maria will probably only find 10 things they like.  The rest will head to the Goodwill or some other lovely little girl.  With Jessica, things are never 'cute' or 'pretty' enough.  She needs bling on her clothes.  This is how she was dressed for school the other day and could not be persuaded that she didn't match.  She definitely has her own style!

For Maria, things have to feel and fit 'just right'.  She needs sleeves that are tight on her wrists and pants that are tight on her ankles, or dresses and skirts with tights.  She rolls the waist over on some of her pants so they fit her the way she wants them to feel.  Reminds me of a 15 year old I know in MN!

We enjoyed some spring and some winter.  There is a dusting of snow again after a 60 degree day on Wednesday.  Last Sunday we went sledding.  There was just enough snow covering the hill nearby.  We had a couple of spills where the sled hit sand and it stopped and the person/people riding it did not, but overall it was a good outing. Brandon snowboarded the whole time.

And that brings us to what we have done every night this week.  PLAY PRACTICE.  Weeks ago, a high school girl from church told Matt to bring Jessica and Maria to play tryouts because they needed little kids for their spring musical, Carousel. We had never heard of it but Jessica and Maria were quite excited about it. They tried out, got two of the parts, and practiced every Saturday for a few weeks. Tonight is opening night and tomorrow they do a matinee and an evening performance, so every night this week from 7  - 9 PM, we head out for play practice.  They are on stage in three scenes for probably a total of 5 minutes, but its pretty cute.  Maria listens to every possible instruction and follows it to the letter of the law. Jessica feels she knows a better way and tends to do as she likes, thus she isn't always in the right spot or looking at the right thing.  They have the girls dressed as twins, which they think is ridiculous.  So many people think they look alike, we don't see it, but here's a picture so you can decide.  They are part of the Snow family, they are two of the 9 Snow children.  We weren't all that impressed with the play, but now all four children can sing songs from it after being at so many practices!

The7 youngest Snow Children, looking rich and snooty, this is how they walk around the  stage.

Today, it is my turn to clean the church.  I don't know how long that is going to take.  Will it be one or two movies for Maria?