Mother's Day and Tulip Time

Since I am now a couple of weeks behind, we'll cram two weeks of activity into one big long post, so get comfortable.

April ended and May began with the girls again taking pictures with the hat and horse.  I have noticed that the poor horse and hat are getting awful ragged after 6 years of monthly abuse!

 Two Saturday's back, we had a car fixing party at our house, and the girls got to play with their friends Ayla and Dresden much of the day while the moms went to garage sales in town and the guys worked on cars.

That evening, they got to play with Travis and Emmett and enjoyed a dinner and some dancing at the high school in support of the FFA. 

 Mother's Day followed on Sunday.  After church, I was treated to lunch out at a Chinese restaurant. Ezri and Alora were excited to give me cards that they had made for me.  Alora had picked out some flowers a few days earlier with Daddy and had already given them to me, but made sure I still remembered she picked them out :)  Ezri even made me a sandwich for dinner - peanut butter and raisins shaped in a heart!

 Last Wednesday, the girls and I went with Becci to Holland to participate in the Tulip Time festivities.  We explored some things I had never seen before, despite my years of participation in Tulip Time.  We checked out the Maarktplaats and discovered a man hand carving wooden shoes.  We were all quite interested in watching him work.

The girls even tried on some real wooden shoes!

It turned out to be a beautiful, sunny and warm day, despite a forecast calling for full cloud cover and wind.  We got to have a picnic lunch together and also watched the Dutch Dancers perform in the street right in front of the spot we had found to watch the parade.  For a few moments, the girls sat and watched...

Then Alora and Tierney couldn't stand to sit anymore and got up to dance.  Ezri declined the option to dance with them, choosing to just watch instead.

A while into their dancing, another little girl came along and wanted to dance with them, so they included her in the fun too!

When the big girls were done with their dance, they motioned for my girls to come and join them for their last little bit.  This was where Ezri was suddenly very interested and Tierney opted to sit it out.  So, Ezri and Alora got to dance down the street with "real" Dutch Dancers, and they were so excited!

Soon, it was time for the parade to start.  The girls waited so patiently and enjoyed the snacks of popcorn and caramel corn we purchased while we waited.

 We had such a fun time together watching the parade.  The girls especially loved the bands, as always.  After the parade, we decided to check out Centennial Park for a while instead of waiting in traffic to get out of Holland.  The girls really liked the fountains and the fish pond.

 And, of course, all of the colorful tulips!

 Alora was excited about the penny she found in the grass, and insisted I take multiple pictures of her with it.

 Then, we found a big hill and the girls spent some energy rolling down and running back up it (or in Tierney's case, crawling up and down).

After all of our adventure, we had some very tired girls and headed home.

The rest of our week was filled with the usual.  Ezri is doing great with school, and has come so far with her reading and math skills this year.  I point it out to her regularly and am so proud of how much she enjoys learning.

 

We had a piggy tail day one day, and it was the first time we convinced Tierney to keep any type of hairdo in for more than a few seconds.  

We spent last weekend helping Grandpa and Grandma finish up some last minute big item moves as they have sold their home and are now building again.  The girls are having a bit of confusion about the situation, especially Alora, but they sure enjoyed running around the woods for hours while the big people worked.