Winter Fun

A nice, quiet week with some regular chaos and the usual busyness thrown was what last week had in store for us.  

Elam is quite the little entertainer around here, he knows he amuses us and sometimes I wonder if he doesn't go around finding things to make us laugh.  Last week is was laying down for a rest on his changing table.  Several different days we found he had crawled up there himself, turned on his lamp, and his sound machine and laid down quietly.

 The kids got some nice days of playing outside too!

 Elam loved climbing up and sledding down the hill with his sisters.
The girls had a great time racing down the hill and playing with Jamesen when he came over on his days off for winter break.

 They even set their efforts to building an igloo one afternoon!

 Saturday morning, we took the kids to the Grand Rapids Public Museum, using our Christmas gift membership from Uncle Michael.  We had a wonderful time together, spending over 4 hours just playing and exploring.

 The kids liked the special dinosaur exhibit.

  Elam was a little unsure at the big, moving, roaring dinsoaurs, but quick thinking Ezri told him they were saying hello to him and playing.  After that, he was ok.

 Once he discovered there were buttons to push that made the dinosaurs do something, he was all about that.

 The highlight of the exhibit was the T-Rex mouth the kids could climb into!

We spent time looking at toys, animals, and all sorts of other things around the museum.  We even went to a show at the planetarium.  While we waited to get in, the girls had some fun.

Our last stop was a ride on the carousel!

Elam did not want to get on at first.  He has had several rides with tears and knew he did not like them before.  Fortunately, this carousel went pretty slow and we picked a horse that did not go up and down.  Once we got going, he realized it wasn't so bad and even began to bounce, wanting his horse to go up and down too.

We settled in Saturday evening with our friends as the next storm settled around us with high winds.  At church on Sunday, Alex and I stepped into a new position as teachers once a month in the elementary aged kids classroom, which meant we got to teach Ezri and Alora.  They were so excited about that!  Alex and I found we enjoyed the morning more than we had enjoyed a Sunday morning in quite some time.

Our Sunday was spent doing much the same after church, the winds fortuntaely did not cause our power to go out or us to have any tree or property damage.  Now we gear up for the next big event - Ezri's 9th Birthday!

Happy Valentines Day

Last week found us in Valentines mode.  On Monday afternoon, the girls got to bake some Hello Kitty cookies from a box all by themselves!  The only thing Mommy did was turn on the oven and monitor the activity with the oven.  They did all the rest and did a great job!  They were so proud!

 We've had some more snow and winter weather, with more snow days for the public school kids early in the week, so our kids got in plenty of outside play time, thank goodness!

 Elam kept us smiling with his new fashion trend - wearing a bow tie with every outfit, not just for church!

 And he was thrilled to watch Mr. Barney move snow around one afternoon, building up the kids' snow hill.  Each time the tractor would come back into sight, he would clap and shout "tractor!"

Thursday was Valentine's Day.  The girls were quite excited to hand out their cards and see what was in their mailboxes.  They let Elam go first.

 Then Tierney...

 Then Ezri...

 and finally Alora.

 After the girls handed out their cards to Daddy and Mommy, Daddy handed out his special gift to the girls.

 After Daddy let Elam check out one of the flowers,

Elam was proud to then bring it to Mommy!

 After school, the kids and I spent the afternoon playing outside.

 That evening, the girls and I decided to surprise Daddy with a fancy dinner at an exclusive restaurant.

 After being greeted as he came in the back door by the hostess Ezri, and seated, he was given a fancy drink

Our little waitress, Tierney, took his order.

 The chef, "Chef Magoo" (Alora, of course), came out to talk to him about the special meal planned just in his honor.

 And then he was served.

 We had Daddy a bit teared up and the girls thought it was pretty great!

 After all of the Valentines fun, we had MOPS on Friday and then spent time on some projects at home Saturday and some of us caught up on some rest. 

That night,  Daddy and Mommy went away to a fundraiser dinner/dance that night while the kids stayed home with Liz, who came to babysit.  Follow that up with a potluck at church on Sunday and time with friends after, plus a visit from Grandpa & Grandma, we were all ready for bed that night!