July 4, 2007 - Annual Party and Shawn and Erin's

It has become a yearly tradition to have a pool party at "Uncle Shawn's" house on the 4th of July. This year was no different, however, we also had my niece Micah along for the day. We all had lots of fun enjoying the pool, then the kids proceeding to check out Owen's awesome play area in the back yard. The day was not complete without ice cream and fireworks ( however, I have no pictures of the fireworks...don't remember why).

June 28 - July 1, 2007 A weekend of family fun.
Once again we headed out with the camper and went camping with mom and dad. The kids had lots of fun and we were blessed with another beautiful weekend. Grandpa took each of the kids hiking individually and they got to pick out their own walking stick, which he then customized for them. They loved it. After packing everything up on Sunday morning, we went on one last hike with the family and posed for a picture up on the dune.
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June 27, 2007 - Good Morning, Sam!

This is actually quite a common occurrence in the morning. Allison seems to always need to see if Sam is awake, and if he is....up she goes. All of the sudden you hear them laughing and giggling through the baby monitor. They often roll around together and even though Mom is afraid Sam will get hurt, he seems to think it is the best of fun. A week after these pictures were taken, we had my niece Micah staying with us for a few days. We got home late at night on the 4th of July and I don't think Allison had any clue that Micah was sleeping in the top bunk of the boys room. When Allison woke up and started to climb into Sam's bed Micah very gently said...no, no Allison. It totally freaked Allison out and she started crying, sobbing and cowering in the corner. Papa soon came to the rescue, but Allison remembers this and often says "Micah scared me" as she recalls the situation.

June 25, 2007 - Vacation Bible School

Two years ago, Nicholas attended vacation bible school with our neighbors. Last year, we were camping during that particular week. However, this year it worked out that he could go again, and this time Gabrielle was old enough too. Miss Shannon, as the kids call her, picked them up in the morning. Gabrielle was super excited as this is her first experience with anything like it. She barely said good-bye to me, she jumped right in the car and was ready to go.

Gabrielle shows off her first vacation bible school paper.









Nicholas and Gabrielle after the main group meeting.


Allison joins in for an after bible school picture, and a tootsie roll from big brother.

June 20, 2007 - Don't forget Me!!

As you have seen in previous posts, the girls often play dress up, and Nicholas has gotten some of his previous Halloween costumes out so that he can participate. On this day, Nicholas decided that Sam should participate as well. Sam actually cooperated and left this hat on for several minutes. What a pose with Woody I, and Woody II.

tpvan-June 21, 2007 - Nicholas on two wheels

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June 18, 2007 - A prize well earned!

The kids earn tickets during the week for doing their chores. At the end of the week they count out their tickets with us and we are teaching them to put some in their piggy bank and give some to church. With what is left they are able to choose a toy to save up for, we post a picture of the toy on the cupboard and we have a graph of sorts that we color in as they get closer to their goal. This time, they decided to pool all of their money together to save up for this water activity toy that they saw at Target. It took them a while to reach their goal, but we finally got to make the trip to the store to realize their "dream". The hose hooks up to the pool and after it fills with water their are holes in certain places to make it like a sprinkler, the pool ends up being about 3 inches deep once it is filled with water. The whale is a slide, and there is a ring toss of sorts, and a dolphin to "ride". They have had several fun days with their new toy.

Excitement with Learning

(This post will be a little out of order because I am behind on posting right now, but I had to post this while it was fresh in my mind.)

We were camping last weekend (pictures to come in a future post) and we took the kids up to the lookout to watch the sunset for the first time. Nicholas was full of questions as we explained to him the sun was going to sink down and look like it was going into the water. His questions led to trying to explain that when the sun goes down here, it is coming up where someone else lives. Paul has always loved astronomy, so we thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to spark Nicholas' interest in the subject as well. This could lead to some real quality time in the future. So we told him we would look things up on the computer at home.

This morning, Nicholas asked if we could go to the library, which we did this afternoon. I prompted Nicholas to ask the librarian if they had any books about the sun and the planets. She pointed us in the right direction and I found a couple of books that appears to be something he could grasp. After leaving the library, he had to call Papa at work to tell him what he had found.

Tonight, before bed, Paul took Nicholas in the other room to read his book while I kept the girls in the other room. When they were finished Nicholas came up to the girls room and had to tell me the following:

1. The sun is very, very, far away. (Paul prompted him further and he told me 93 million miles)

2. The earth is smaller than the sun. (Upon Paul's prompting he recalled that 100 earths would fit into the sun).

3. There were two scientists. One discovered that the earth circles the sun and his name was Nicolaus, and the other invented the telescope which has two parts, legs and another part--he used his hands to demonstrate).

When I asked him why the sun looks so small, he informed me that it was because it is so far away.

I was so proud of his comprehension of what they had read. He is quite concerned that this book is not going to explain how and why the sun sets. Hopefully, future chapters will satisfy his curiousity and his interest in the subject will continue and this can lead to some special father/son moments in the future.

June 15-17, 2007 - Church Campout at Chinook Campground

We signed up for the church campout this year. They go to a campground that turned out to be only 20 minutes from our house. We had a great time. People didn't seem to mingle a lot, everyone just kind of did their own thing and most of the families went tubing on the Muskegon River on Saturday afternoon. Our children are little young for that, so we took the opportunity to let the kids explore the 2 different playgrounds that they have, as well as spend some time in the heated pool (we went twice). We had a great time, and are so grateful to have the opportunity to spend this kind of time with our kids while they are still young, it isn't very often that we can totally dedicate time to the kids without being drawn to laundry and other chores. We will never forget these days.

June 13, 2007 - A Day in the Pool!

The other day was so hot, I was starting to feel sorry for Sam not being able to get any relief from the heat. Then I remembered this tiny little inflatable pool that I purchased at the "dollar" store when Gabrielle was a baby. I dug it out and filled it with warm water. I then retrieved our bath seat (which he hasn't yet taken a bath in) to see if he could handle sitting up in it. He actually did very well, and enjoyed his own little pool for almost 10 minutes. Is this Allison, or a drowned rat?
Gabrielle borrows Nicholas' mask and snorkel.
Sam hanging out in the pool, while gnawing on a toy.

June 8-10, 2007 Inaugural Camping Trip with the New Trailer.

We originally planned to take the trailer out for just one night, to figure out how things worked and what we forgot to bring, etc. before our upcoming church campout. However, as the weekend approached we decided at the last minute to stay two nights, and at the very last minute mom and dad decided to join us. We had a great weekend of weather, cool, but beautiful. It was kind of nice to know we weren't even going to try to go swimming with the cool water temperatures of Lake Michigan. It put a relaxed spin on the weekend. First breakfast in the trailer
The kids show off their 'zoopals' plates
The kids and Grandma return from their nature hike with buckets full of pinecones.
Sam plays for a while in his swing, he seemed to enjoy the weekend as well.

He holds the honor of being the first one to sleep in the new trailer, as he needed a nap.

June 7, 2007 - Let's Talk...

I just couldn't resist posting this picture. I thought it was so cute seeing the two boys having a little confab on the floor.

Sam is 4 months old!

Can you believe that Sam is 4 months old + a week. He is such a happy baby. Continues to sleep through the night, as a matter of fact he often sleeps 11-12 hours. He is picks his head and chest up very well as you can see above, and he rolls around a lot. He is often found sleeping on his tummy now, as he rolls over in bed. He has also taken several opportunities this week to roll again from his tummy to his back. This morning he actually rolled from back to tummy, tummy to back, back to tummy. Then he looked up at me a giggled, as if to say "did you see that mom?" He loves to play with toys, it seems to me like he plays with more toys than any of our other kids did at this age, at least they seem to hold his interest longer.

Doctor's Appointments

Sam had his 4 month checkup today, as well as Nicholas 5 year appointment. All is good all around.

Nicholas had his first hearing and eye exam. He passed both...his eyes are 20/15 with both eyes and one of his eyes is 20/15 and the other 20/25. He weighs a whopping 35 pounds (30th percentile) He is 43 1/2 inches tall (50th percentile) He just keeps going up and doesn't gain any weight....looks like he is averaging about a pound an inch as he gained 3 1/2 pounds and grew 3 1/4 inches in the last year.

Sam has made significant strides in his growth. He is up to 13 pounds, 14 ounces (35th percentile) and measures 25 1/2 inches (75th percentile). So even though it took him 6 weeks to gain back his birthweight he's gaining an average of 5-8 ounces per week ever since. What a growing boy.

New Trailer

As most of you know we spent last year camping in a tent with 3 kids. Well, this year we decided that there was no way that the tent was going to hold 6 people, so we started looking for an older pop-up that would fit into our budget. Over the holiday weekend we found one at a local dealership and we got to pick it up last night. We are all super excited to get to use it for the first time. It is a 1998 Camplite. The box is 12 feet long and it has a slide out dinette. It also has a porta-potti area with a shower, which will come in very handy with young children. Potty training, or just to "hose them down" before heading for bed. The zipper on the awning bag needs to be replaced but other than that, there is only normal wear and tear. Looking forward to a summer of camping.

Memorial Day Weekend We didn't do a whole lot over the weekend, except work on some projects...but it did finally get warm enough to warrant blowing up the swimming pool. Nicholas got a new life jacket at a garage sale (seeing as how he outgrew his old one), so he wanted to try it out...well of course, that meant that everyone needed life jackets. They had a lot of fun.


Sam hung out in the Bumbo seat, on the picnic table under the umbrella with mama.

May 21, 2007 - End of the Year Class Picnic

Nicholas had his class picnic for preschool at a park near our church. I was asked 2 weeks prior to chair the committee. At first, I thought there was no way I could do that, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that organizing the picnic ahead of time would be much easier that needing to do a lot at the picnic while taking care of my own 4 children. So, a weeks worth of phone calls and organization got the job done. However, I didn't anticipate that when the picnic day arrived that none of the volunteers just stepped in to take over their responsibilities, they were all looking to me for what do do and when. YIKES. It all worked out in the long run and ended up being a great day. The kids love to play on the playground, so we let them do a lot of that and then we had a few organized games.










We also had ours and Shawn&Erin's shaved ice machines and the kids all got to have a sno cone. They were a big hit. It was a cold, cloudy day, but the kids had lots of fun.

May 19, 2007 - Church Campout
Last weekend, we visited Grandma and Grandpa at their church campout. Nicholas and Gabrielle went with them after graduation the day before and stayed over night. Then we came up to spend the day on Saturday. Lots of fun, for the first trip out of the summer.

Over the past several weeks, Sam has decided to roll over. This newfound freedom has also proved to be very frustrating for Sam, as once he gets on his stomach he doesn't really like it much. However, the more he does it, the more comfortable he is getting with playing on his stomach and loves be able to reach for his toy of choice. We have had to get our "back sleeper" contraption out to help Sam stay on his back through the night, otherwise he rolls onto his stomach and gets really restless. He is slowly learning however, and has taken a couple of naps on his tummy.

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May 18, 2007 Graduation
I cannot believe that Nicholas just finished his 2nd year of preschool and is ready for Kindergarten. It seems like just yesterday that we dropped him off for his first day and he was only 3 1/2 years old. He has matured so much over the past two years. There were several moments that I really realized that he had no idea what was really going on. Several of his fellow classmates were also there last year, so they have been in the same class for 2 years. However, none of them are in our same school district. So when he sang "it's time to say good-bye to our friends" at graduation, he did not understand it like I did. Thankfully, several of his classmates do attend our church so they will still be in Sunday School together. Nicholas has two best friends in preschool....Celine and Taryn. What a little flirt he is, I think. Celine follows him everywhere. She also has a little brother that is only 1 month younger than Sam so we may end up planning some playdates over the summer. Check out excerpts from his graduation.
(I edited the best that I could, but it was hard to know what to leave out).
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It was time for Sam's 3 month pictures, so we did Nicholas' 5 year pictures at the same time. As long as we were all there, I decided to go ahead and try for an updated group picture as well. Sam changes so quickly at this age and the package I purchase comes with an extra 8x10 so I figured that we might as well get a group picture every time we go.