April 4, 2010
Easter Sunday

Ready to check out their Easter Baskets

We headed over to Cory and Catherine's for dinner. Grandma and Aunt Catherine had set-up an Easter Egg Hunt. But before they could begin, Grandma had a few guidelines to explain.

Sam finds one of his orange eggs

Owen and Sam check out the new tube for pulling behind Uncle Shawn's boat this summer

Our best effort at a group picture. Every time we try this it gets more and more interesting. I think this is one of the only shots I got that you can actually see all 8 faces at the same time.

April 3, 2010
A Busy Day

The day started off with our first try at the annual Ravenna Easter Egg Hunt at Conklin Park near our house. I don't really know why we've never done this before - maybe it was just weather related. The kids seemed to have a good time and we'll probably do it again another year.

Allison and Sam await the start for their age group.

Nicholas and Gabrielle followed Papa's advice and headed straight to the farthest point and started gathering eggs while many of the other kids started at the beginning.

Checking out their treasures

Then it was a trip into Grand Rapids for my nephew Owen's Birthday Party at Chuck E Cheese.
Allison loved the clock swing

Pedalling herself up into the air.

The kids table

What a picture - Owen really gets into blowing out his candles.

Opening the Butterfly Garden we bought him

Sam checks out Scoop

Nicholas tries the pedal helicopter too.

March 26-28, 2010
On the road again - at last.

With a brand new trailer purchased late in the 2009 camping season - the winter seemed oh so long. We were so excited to have a crisp but beautiful weekend that we could get the trailer back on the road and enjoy a wonderful weekend away.

Camping Season 2010 has begun!

First hike of the season

"Sledding" down the hill on our bottoms
(the hill was steep and the leaves were slippery)

First campfire of the year.

Some parts of the hiking trails don't seem to encounter a lot of sun
- so we found a few stray snow piles here and there.

A brief stop along the hiking trail

On our way back - what a view. A perfect early spring day!

On two wheels. Allison got her training wheels off on our last camping trip last November - but needed a little bit of re-orientation to figure it all out again this year.

March 22, 2010
Making of a Masterpiece

I have no idea what they were pretending to make here - but they made a huge mess of my cupboards. However, I think they pretended to cook for almost 30 minutes without any fighting or arguing. Sooooo worth the mess!

March 6, 2010

Destination Imagination Regional Competition
Weighty News

This year's theme for D.I. was designed around a new broadcast. As before, the team (shown below) is responsible for writing and acting out a skit, as well as designing all of their own costumes and props. This years skit not only was in the form of the news, but had to include a commercial break and include a structure that could fit inside a 3x3 box and was made entirely out of newspaper and tape.

Nicholas' team wrote a skit where 2 ice fisherman catch a VERY LARGE prehistoric fish. They call for the marine biologist, Nicholas - who has the fish transported to his zoo. The news team comes on site and interviews the fisherman, as well as Nicholas. Their commercial involved the food pyramid. The fish they built was huge - but unfortunately the only pictures I have of it are on video instead of a still shot.

They all did a great job and earned a certificate of completion as well as a medal of participation. (They don't win place awards until the 3rd grade and higher). The program for these younger kids is decided to encourage them in their efforts and not so much about "beating" the other teams.

February 27, 2010
Day Trip To Cadillac

Paul enjoys spending time on the DNR website looking for new and exciting things to do and places to visit. This time he discovered the State Park in Cadillac was offering free dogsledding for the kids. It was snowy and cold, but a beautiful winter day just the same. So, we loaded up the truck and headed up north. The kids had a great time and would love to do it again sometime.

Allison and Gabrielle wait for the sledding to begin.

Sam and Gabrielle went first

followed by Nicholas and Allison

After the dogsledding - they got a chance to do some computerized skeet shooting.

We also got free hot chocolate and cookies to warm up when we came inside.

February 18, 2010
The Spoiled Brat

Nicholas had to present a Shel Silverstein poem in front of his class. They were supposed to be as creatives as possible in their use of props, etc. At first Nicholas wanted to take the easy way out and just read his poem, but with a little prodding he let his imagination take over. We checked with his teacher and found out that it would be OK to use his sister as one of his props. Allison was the spoiled brat. The more we practiced at home - the Gabrielle and Sam wanted to take turns as well. By the time, he presented it to his class he did the presentation twice - once with Sam and once with Allison. Allison did a wonderful job - but the sound on the video didn't turn out very well. The run through with Sam however, had better sound and ended with a hilarious moment where I actually had tears running down my face from laughing so hard.

The Spoiled Brat by Shel Silverstein
The spoiled brat cut a hole in her hat,
The spoiled brat put a coat on the cat,
The spoiled brat got into a spat
‘Bout whether a rodent’s a mouse or a rat.

The spoiled brat broke a bike with her bat,
The spoiled brat told the policeman to scat,
The spoiled brat told her sister was fat,
And sat on her birthday cake ‘til it was flat.

The spoiled brat, she cusses and she spat,
The spoiled brat pulled the wings off a gnat,
The spoiled brat fell into a vat,
Got cooked up for dinner and that was that.

But in spite of the pepper,
The salt and the sage,
The onions and garlic and oil,
Nobody would touch
A bite of that brat
Because she was so spoiled.

February 1, 2010
Off to Space we go

Allison, Sam and I go to story time at the library every Monday morning.
We read several books, sing a few songs and do a craft.
This week we talked about space and they made a rocket ship.
The rocket ship was made by recycling Crystal Light canisters and adding a cone on the top and fins on the side. Then they decorated their rocket with stickers.
It was such a cute craft that the director gave me extras to take home. When Nicholas and Gabrielle got home from school they were very excited to hear that they could make one too.
Here they are with their finished projects.

January 30, 2010
Sam's 3rd Birthday Party

Diego Cake - the orange frosting was much more
difficult to make than I had thought it would be.

Mater the Greater set from his aunts and uncles and cousins

Diego Adventure Doll from Grandma and Grandpa

What he really wanted - Geo Trax Airport

Blowing out the candles

January 25, 2010

Happy Birthday Sam!
3 years old already

Foldable fire and rescue matchbox car set.
We figured this would be great to keep in the trailer this summer.

Sam kept asking for Diego toys whenever we would walk through the toys department.
His wish finally came true.

He'll have to wait until his birthday party to get his birthday cake.
For today - it's a candle-topped brownie.

January 10, 2010

Kamikaze Sam (as Aunt Catherine likes to call him) strikes again.
This time we escaped stitches but barely.

First - a few days ago he bumped his left eye leaving it nicely bruised. Then he was at Lowe's with Paul and hit his right eye on a metal shelf and split it right open. I was able to pull it back together with some steri-strips and it appears that it will heal up OK.

Apparently, we can't take him anywhere.

January 6, 2010

Once again a crazy kid. You never quite know what Sam will be up to on any given day.
On this particular morning, Sam spent the entire morning walking around the house in his pajamas, his winter hat, and his scarf. When will this child cease to amaze me?

January 3, 2010

Since Gabrielle has been learning how to read,
she if very quick to climb up into Paul's chair with a stack of books and read to Sam.
It doesn't mean every word is correct, but she sure enjoys doing it.
I figure the more she tries, the better she'll get
and she definately isn't getting any complaints out of Sam.

December 31, 2009

My parents have been coming out to our house for New Year's Eve and spending the night the past couple of years. It has sort of become a take off of spending every New Year's Eve with my grandparents when I was growing up.

This year, they brought my grandpa's old carom board.
The kids really enjoyed learning how to play this new game,
and it was a bit fun trying to remember all of the rules.

December 28, 2009

Sam decided today was the day to be Woody from Toy Story.
Don't you love the pink cowboy boots?