another update-of course overdue!!

Too much time has passed!!  We are almost into summer and the last pictures I posted there was snow on the ground!  Yikes:)  That just means we are staying plenty busy.  Sports are coming to an end which will lighten our load significantly! Riley just ran in her first 5k for Girls on the Run and LOVED it!  We are so proud of her!  Noah just scored his first goal in soccer this past weekend....and not only was it his first time, but he actually got TWO goals within one quarter!  He was pretty pumped:)  Graham has been a pretty good cheerleader at the sidelines.  Soon enough he will be playing soccer too! 

This past weekend we made it to the kite festival in Grand Haven.  It was such a beautiful day, but the wind was pretty weak-they couldn't really fly any big kites.  That's ok, we still had a wonderful time.  We have our summer bucket list started.  Hopefully we will be able to accomplish many things on the list!!  Enjoy this time of year!  We love it:)

Daddy/Daughter fun

Winter hasn't slowed down much here! I was worried that today may be a snow day and then the Daddy/Daughter dance would be cancelled, but thankfully there was only a 2 hour delay.  This is the first year that Brandon and Riley went to the dance at her school.  She wanted a cool new outfit to wear and wanted me to curl her LONG hair!  She is growing up way too fast....wish I could slow it down!  I almost cried taking these pics tonight....

 

 



Winter is here!

Well, winter has finally arrived!  My kids were so excited to play in the snow, it didn't matter that the temperature outside was in the single digits!  I am glad to see their new boots get some use:) 

Now that we have converted our fireplace to wood burning, we have been enjoying toasty warm fires on these cold days.  I even started one up myself on a day the kids had a snow day!  I never grew up being taught those things, so I have learned a lot being married to Brandon....and I'm grateful!  I just need to back down when he gets home-we all know how he likes to play with his fires!

Riley has been busy with Girl Scout cookie orders-she is a serious salesgirl:)  She went to Brandon's work and went into as many people's office as she could and worked her magic!  Noah has shot up 6 inches in the last year and continues to impress me with all that he is learning at school.  And Graham is FINALLY getting the potty thing down!  YAY!!  He has his last swim lesson today.  He even gets a report card and everything! 

I do hope to be better at more frequent posts, but I'm not promising anything! :)  I wish everyone a Happy New Year! 

End of Year stuff

Well, I see it's been way too long since we've posted anything on here so I'm apologizing for that!  Life just gets busy and there's nothing else I can say...

 

Let's start with the picture of Noah!  We discovered that he had a "bulge" down in the groin region and the doctors confirmed that it was a hernia.  He had surgery today to get it repaired and while in surgery the doctor wanted to check the other side to see if there was one there, and sure enough there was!  So both sides were repaired, he was sent home and is doing well.  He was very brave and we couldn't be happier with our experience with the Helen DeVos Children's Hospital.  We are so blessed to have that so close by! 

 

The video was taken only a few days ago.  Graham watches a show on PBS called, Daniel Tiger.  It's based on Mr. Roger's Neighborhood.  There is a song that has stuck with him from that show and this is him singing away while playing playdough with his brother.  Graham certainly isn't camera shy, which I kinda like!  It's fun to capture moments like these.

 

I wish I had more recent pictures of Riley...I'll try to work on that.  She is doing great in school, enjoying girl scouts, and we are all enjoying this time of year celebrating Christmas traditions and reflecting on what Christmas means to us.  I hope all who see our blog have a very Merry Christmas and may the New Year bring many blessings!

 

 

School Time!!

Well, today was the first day of school, and man...there were smiles coming from everyone!! :) The kids had their backpacks on about 45 minutes before we had to leave the house! I just wish this excitement lasted all schoolyear long!!  Riley is starting 3rd grade this year and has her first "boy teacher"....as she puts it.  She is excited to have some fish in a tank in her room!  Noah is starting 1st grade and is excited that some of his friends from last year's class will be with him again!  As for Graham....well, he is going to have one more year of adventures with mommy.  We will enjoy our last year home together!  Happy School time everyone!!!

 

 

 

Alaska

This summer I had the pleasure of going to Alaska on a mission trip with Eaglecrest Alaska Missions.  There were a total of 12 of us from Water of Life Community Church that went.  While in Alaska we were able to serve the community by roofing, splitting wood, yard work, building a root celler for the food pantry and other things around the community.  God was hard at work all week in both the people that we served and the team members.  It was an amazing experience that I hope to make a yearly tradition. 

 We had a cow and calf moose in camp.  They have been around most of the summer.

 This is the view from the camp fire.  We did devotions and wrap up every night to this beautiful view.

 We got to visit a glacier one day.  It is amazing how big it really was.

 After splitting wood we took a mini hike to local creek.  It was cold and crystal clear.

 View from the top of "The Butte".  It was a small mountain hike that we did one night.

Splitting LOTS of wood.  The wood splitter got a work out all week. 

Here the crew is building a root cellar for the pastor.  They will use it to store local vegetables for the food pantry. 

A day at the beach

 We made some sandwiches and had a picnic

 Building the Sand Castle with the kids

 The Brittons

 CAPTAIN SUNDAE!

We decided to head out to Holland to enjoy the beautiful evening.  We had a picnic, built a sand castle and watched the boats.  Of course we had to stop by Captain Sundae.  A great evening out at the beach!