A new baby is born!!

Jesse and his baby boy!




Congrats to our friends Sally & Jesse on the birth of their new baby boy Buster late last night! He is of course adorable and so much fun to cuddle with!! His stats are 9 lbs. and 22 inches long. Baby and Mommy are doing well. Looking forward to watching him grow and getting my baby fix when I need it! :)

All Emily could say on the way to the Hospital today was how she was going to hold him and rock him and sing "rock a bye baby"! So we get to the room and she would not hold him!! She did like him a lot and told us she would hold him when she got bigger!!

Happy New Year's!

I can't believe that it is December 31st already! I remember as a child thinking that the year and time in general went by pretty slowly. Now I believe as an adult that time flies by. Every year goes by quicker than the one before.

Maybe it is just the busyness of being a mom, wife, volunteer, friend, etc. that makes the day/week/year speed by.

I had not even thought about the fact that this is the end of a decade already! I am looking forward to 2010. 2009 was a great year. I love seeing my kids grow, change and learn every day. I love being married to my best friend. I am looking forward to what the new year has to bring.

I never really make any New Year's Resolutions. I think they are fun, but I never really stick to any of them for more that a month or so, but I would like to work on being healthier and losing some weight this next year. Let's face it, I am not getting any younger (will be 34 in just 16 days!) and have a family history of diabetes and high blood pressure. The thought of both of these is very scary and I need to focus on being healthier.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year's Eve tonight. We are headed over to Kyle's Mom's house for a family friendly night of board games, Wii and card games.

See you all in 2010!

Happy New Year's!

MOPS Brunch

Today was our last MOPS meeting of 2009. Our steering team catered in our brunch and all I can say is "YUMMY"! We had 2 different kinds of quiche, fruit and dip, cinnamon coffee cake, little barbecue hotdogs and lots of yummy chocolate desserts and cheesecake. We also played a Christmas Trivia game. It was a very nice morning spent with some really great women.

I have come to really look forward to every other Tuesday mornings! It is so nice to spend time with other Christian women/mother's of preschoolers. MOPS stands for Mother of Preschoolers for those of you who have never heard of it. I always wanted to join when James and Hannah were little, but was not able to since I did Daycare from home and the meetings tend to be in the mornings. I joined my local MOPS the fall of 2007 when I was very pregnant with Emily. They welcomed me with open arms and hearts. =)

CLICK HERE to learn more about MOPS.

Pumpkin Picking!

In late September we spent all day Saturday picking pumpkins at my brother in law Nick's house! He planted around 2 acres of pumpkins in the spring and he ended up with a ton of pumpkins! We picked them, loaded them into a trailer and then unloaded them in his front yard for him to sell! We only had Emily for this weekend, the older kids were not with us that weekend. Emily had a lot of fun and even helped take the little pumpkins from the trailer to the $1 pile! It was a fun but long day. Nick had lots of family and friends out helping him with his pumpkin patch.

Vacation at Silver Lake - Day 5

On our last day at Silver Lake we spent the afternoon at Lake Michigan! It was a beautiful day. The water was actually warm and nice to be in. We all played in the sand, built castles, forts and rivers and took turns burying each other in the sand. It was a great way to end our family vacation. I had a hard time leaving. I love Lake Michigan. We all came home with nice tans. After dinner that evening we all went to the Whippy Dip for ice cream! We have to go at least once when we are at Silver Lake. After we had ice cream, Kyle and I took our 4 kids to climb on the sand dunes for awhile. We went and checked out all the trucks and quads coming off the dunes at sunset. It was a great vacation and I can't wait to go back next year!

Emily enjoying the sand.

Brayden and Emily building in the sand.

All the kids playing together.

Jesse riding the waves of Lake Michigan in one of our kayaks!

James loves to build in the sand. He was finding sticks and logs to build with.

My 4 wonderful and beautiful children at Lake Michigan!

Emily loved rubbing sand all over my legs.

There was tons of lady bugs at the beach and Emily loved playing with them.

Kyle kayaking out into the Lake.

Hannah and Emily enjoying some sister time. One of my new favorite pictures!

All of us at the Whippy Dip!

Vacation at Silver Lake - Day 4

Okay, I am finally posting the rest of our Silver Lake Vacation Pictures! Summer has been so busy.

Kyle and Jesse went and played some golf at a local course, so Sally and I took the kids to the pool at the campground for a few hours. Later, we had tonka pies for lunch and then we had some rain came in. The kids played board games and we all just relaxed for awhile. After dinner, we headed down to Craig Cruisers to play some putt putt golf, ride some golf carts and play some arcade games!

Emily taking a break to have a juice box.

Brayden having some fun in the pool!

James diving in!

Hannah doing a pencil jump in to the pool!


Hannah concentrating on getting a hole in one!

Emily getting some help from her Daddy!

James and Brayden competing against each other.

Off Camping again!

We are headed to Grayling for a long weekend to go camping and Kayaking! Will be back Tuesday I believe. I promise to finish posting pictures from our vacation. I have 2 days left! Been busy, busy, busy! I hope everyone has a great weekend and enjoy the heat that is headed to Michigan!

Vacation at Silver Lake - Day 3

Our 3rd day of vacation was Hannah's 9th Birthday! We spent the day at Michigan Adventure in Muskegon! We had a big breakfast at our campsite and headed about 1/2 hour south to the Park. It was so nice, it was not busy at all and the weather was beautiful, warm but not hot and humid! We hit the regular rides first. Kyle and Jesse took the older kids to do some of the roller coasters and Sally and I took Emily and Lilly to do the kiddie rides. Emily loved them but did not want them to end! We headed back out to the parking lot for our lunch. We decided that this year we would not be buying food inside the park! It is way to expensive and not that good. We filled up on sandwiches, chips, cookies and drinks and headed back in to the water park! The kids were so good about eating our lunch that we brought, no whining about wanting expensive "fair food" as I call it. I explained to them that in order for us to do more fun stuff we would make a sacrifice. They totally got it! A great teachable moment about being frugal, but still getting to do fun things. By the way I was able to save us $15 off our tickets with a coupon! I am coupon crazy. Emily was able to get in for free!

The water park was a blast. I spent a lot of time in the Kiddie pool/wading area with Emily and Kyle did the water slides with the older 3. Emily fell asleep on the lazy river with Kyle and I, so she got a good nap in her stroller!

We finished the day with more rides and a few games. We took some loose change we had from home and let the kids each play a couple games. We all sat down and played a game where you roll the balls into some holes to make a dog run across (kind of like Skee Ball) and since there was so many of us playing we were able to play for the biggest stuffed animal I have ever seen! I ended up winning and let Hannah have her pick since it was her birthday! She picked out this cute big dog, she was so excited and he hogged the back seat all the way home to our camper. Kyle was very happy to get me on their new roller coaster "the Thunder hawk". I think I surprised him when I said I would go on it with him. I loved it. It was probably one of the best roller coasters I have ever been on. I highly recommend riding it if you are visiting Michigan Adventure. Last time we were at Michigan Adventure I could not ride the rides since I was about 7 months pregnant with Emily!

We were going to try to have a cheap dinner on the way home to celebrate Hannah's Birthday, but it was late and nothing really was still open that would let us celebrate Hannah's birthday with free dessert and some Happy Birthday singing. She was bummed but was being really good about not showing it. I happened to see a little bakery in Silver Lake and I had Kyle run it and see if we could get Hannah something (like a cupcake) for us to stick a candle in and sing to her. It took him a few minutes but he came out with a birthday cake and it was even personalized with "Happy Birthday Hannah"! The bakery had a cake from that day that somebody never picked up so they sold it to us and even decorated it with her name! We surprised her with it. She was so happy. We sang to her and she made her wish and went to bed a happy 9 year old girl that night! Everyone slept great that night.

We really enjoy spending the day at Michigan Adventure. It is much closer to home than Cedar Point, cheaper and has a lot less people which in turn means less time waiting in line. I don't think we waited more than 5 minutes for any ride that day!
The kids ready to spend the day at Michigan Adventure! As you can see Emily was really ready to go and did not want to sit still for a quick picture!

James on the Tea Cups!

Kyle and Emily on the Tilt a Whirl! Emily loved it and they rode it twice.

My beautiful Birthday Girl Hannah!

Kyle and Emily on a Kiddie Water Slide!

Kyle and Emily on the Merry go Round.
Kyle, Jesse and the boys ready for their ride on the swings.

Eating our lunch in the parking lot, tailgate style!

Emily getting a good nap in so she could play happily rest of the day!

Hannah and her new doggy friend Coco!

Hannah and her cake! She looks so happy.

Vacation at Silver Lake - Day 2

Our 2nd day we woke up to some fog and a light mist. We decided to drive up the coast, hoping to head towards some sun! Kyle has been wanting to take us to the Ludington Reservoir. This is where they produce power using water out of Lake Michigan. It was a long hike up the steep hill to check out the inside of the reservoir but worth it. It is huge! The kids had fun trying to run back down the hill. You can also see down the hill where the power plant is located on the edge of the Lake. It's pretty cool and was very educational for everyone. It was also free, which is a bonus!

We then headed north. I knew Emily would take a nap. The weather was clearing up by now too! We ended up in the Frankfort area. We had lunch at the beach where the lighthouse is located then headed up the road a few miles to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lake shore area. We found a great beach where the Platt River comes into Lake Michigan. We unloaded our Kayaks and hit the beach. Everyone took turns with the kayaks in the river. It was so warm and pretty shallow. We found cool rocks and even saw a bald eagle flying above us! We played for a couple hours then loaded up and headed back to our camp site. On the way we decided to have dinner at Pizza Hut since it was getting late and it was Jesse's Birthday! We were able to surprise him and the wait staff sang Happy Birthday and brought out free Cinnamon Bread sticks! Yummy! Everyone slept good that night.
The kids all smiles and ready for our day!

We stopped and checked out this cool tank! The boys loved it, big and small!

Hiking up the hill to the top of the Reservoir. You could feel the burn in your legs!

The power plant on the shore of Lake Michigan.

The light house in Frankfort.

Brayden floating down the river after he kayaked it.

James and Hannah taking a turn with the Kayaks! We are going to have to buy them each their own some day. They love it.

James had one leg in Lake Michigan and one leg in the Platt River in this picture!

Emily playing in the sand!