Our Fall trip up to the cottage....

We ventured up north to our cottage one last time for the season in mid-October. We celebrated Joel's 35th birthday at the Empire Bar....thanks to my mom, he HAD to wear the Golden Oldie birthday hat. You know he will NOT be happy when he sees this blog.....which makes it all the more fun. ;)

We had fantastic weather while we were up there. The colors were so beautiful and Old Settlers Park was covered in red, yellow and orange crunchy leaves. We had to spend alot of time playing there since the smell of the leaves and the sound of their crunching was so great.

Awwww...big sister and her little brother.

Here is Anna with Brett's dog, Kingsley. She totally loves this dog.

More cottage fall pictures coming.....

Happy Belated Halloween!!

Fall has been too busy around our household. I am way behind on pictures and will catch up our blog soon but I thought I good way to get back on track was to start with Halloween. Here we are carving pumpkins....we all missed Aunt Jesi who is very creative with carving but now lives in Denver. Claire is doing who knows what in this picture, as usual. I guess she's excited to carve!

This year, Ethan was a pirate, Anna was a vet and Claire was a bunny. It just goes with the territory this year that I never got a good picture of the three of them in their costumes. Here is what I did manage to capture....

This is Ethan at his class party enjoying some lovely sweet treats....

This is our lovely, cupcake eating, vet - also at school.

Here is Claire trick-or-treating. She was so sweet this year. She ran up to each house and yelled out "Trick or Treat!!" at the top of her lungs. People thought she was adorable, which of course, she was. :) Her friend, Katie, is in the background as Ariel. They went around together and were quite a cute pair.

Pirate Ethan and his friend Carson as Harry Potter

And last but not least, the glamorous vet with her sick dog Kingsley. :)

Claire has more teeth than Anna and Ethan combined. They have each lost 7 teeth. Ethan lost 2 in one day this past Tuesday to reach the level Anna has been at. Now neither kid has full top front teeth and partially in front bottom teeth. They are very happy that they can w/out any loose teeth for the moment.

A new post will hopefully happen soon so keep checking back. I'm hoping to get back to posting every other week or so. :)

Ballerina Claire, Napping Claire and Bear....

Claire has FINALLY started a dance class and for those of you who know Claire well, this has been a long anticipated event. Neither girl took dance last year and this year both are taking a class and loving it. Claire is taking ballet/tap and Anna is taking jazz/ballet. Here is Claire in her outfit before her class.

Here are two sweet pictures of Claire napping on the couch. We've been out having lots of fun since it's just the two of us during the day and sometimes we stay gone too long and she ends up "resting"on the couch. Amazingly enough, she sacks out every time.

Joel went bear hunting this past weekend and my cousin shot this huge bear. Thankfully it went home w/my cousin and not my husband. :)

Back to School...

And we are off to another fun-filled school year. These pics are about a week or so late getting posted but these were taken on the morning of the 1st day of school. Here is Ethan - all excited about starting 3rd grade. I can't believe my baby boy is already in 3rd grade.Which leads me to my 2nd (toothless) baby.....off to 1st grade! I think it might be harder for me to adjust to her being gone all day every day but so far so good. She likes it but says it's kind of long to be gone. :) Just so you know, there is yet another loose tooth in that mouth.

And the true baby of the family....little Claire who is stuck home w/mom. She's really been missing them but we're having alot of fun together. Her favorite things so far are to go shopping and out for lunch....I am in serious trouble. :)

And the whole gang....

Pools, Fairs and Beaches....

Here is where we spent many summer days....at the pool! Here are a few of the kids enjoying the hot tub.

Please notice the lack of teeth in Miss Anna's mouth. :)

Our tiniest glamour swimmer. By the last day the pool was open she was SO close to swimming all by herself. She really did great this year and loves to check out E. and A. underwater w/her goggles.

They have a huge waterslide and Anna was finally tall enough to go down this year. It took 20 minutes of convincing the first time around and then for the rest of the summer she want down about 20 times each time we were there.

Of course, our summer is never complete without a trip or two to the Lowell 4-H Fair. Ethan found a few super cute cows that were so gentle and loved to be pet.

Claire wouldn't dare get near this one! :) Too much bigger than her I guess.

Sadly, they love the rides more than the animals so we had to visit the midway. This is E. and A. on the Paratrooper. Joel was worried that Anna would fall out of the bar...I was very sad that he brought that up b/c that ride was going super fast.

Claire rode the more tolerable rides. She was queen of the motorcycles. :)

This really doesn't need any explaining.... they all loved sticking their heads through this sign. It was too big to get the whole sign in the picture though.

Here is a better picture of Anna without her two front teeth. Since this picture, she has lost another one on the bottom for a total of 5. Ethan just lost his third but still has his top two.

We also took a trip out to Holland this summer but the wind was not our friend that day. It was super windy and almost chilly. We still had fun watching all the boats and playing in the sand.Now that Ethan and Anna are back in school, expect a few more regular updates as I know have somewhat of a life again. :)

A very fun Sunday....

Today we decided to have some fun. After church we packed up the kids and headed to Michigan's Adventure. We hadn't been there since Claire was 1 and at that time, we had to worry about her nap etc. so things were much more enjoyable this time around. The kids were so excited to go and we had a blast. Here are a few pictures from our day.....

This is the brave dad on the Sea Dragon w/Ethan and Anna. Anna felt that the bar was not going to hold her so she only partially liked the ride.
Here is a mom who is very scared of heights trying to be brave on the huge ferris wheel. No one could notice that my eyes were closed behind my sunglasses. :)

E. and A. on the Frog Hopper. This thing goes up and just randomly bounces the kids down. They all giggled throughout the whole ride...it was super cute.

Anna on the Airplanes....

A fun boat ride....this is about the only really good picture I got of Claire although she had a great time. She was able to ride all the little kid rides. Her favorite was the motorcycles that did "wheelies" and the 50's cars that you drive around on a track. She loved that she would stop steering and the car would hit that track that runs down the middle. I was riding with her so that was great fun for me. :)

Sadly, I could not get any pictures of the most fun part of the day. Ethan is now a total roller coaster lover just like his mom. He was a little apprehensive on the first small wooden one but had SO much fun. Awhile later we went on a regular sized (big and fast) wooden one that was AWESOME! I could tell he was hooked. By the end of our time there I got the kid on the Corkscrew (the one that goes upside down) in exchange for a ride on the Nascar Go Karts. He was loving life and was very brave to do that crazy roller coaster w/his mom. He wants to go again tomorrow.....

Catch up....

I've been having some annoying troubles uploading pictures to the blog this summer. I've finally been able to get some on so you can see what we have been up to this summer.

First of all, we had some trouble with our trampoline, as you can see. This happened at the end of June during an awful windstorm. I was not here but this is what Joel saw when he drove into our driveway from work. The wind had picked up the tramp and literally wrapped it around this telephone pole which was about 10 ft away from it. Needless to say, we no longer have a trampoline.
Another view, you can also see our dog cousins Rio and Kingsley at the bottom of the picture. Rio belongs to my step-sister, Sarah and Kingsley belongs to Brett.

At the end of June, we went back up north with lots of family and spent a few days at the cottage. Here is Claire with her great-grandma Gigi.

Claire, Violet and Ethan snuggling in a very old chair that we all sat in when we were kids.

Anna and her favorite Uncle Brett at the sunset (that you can't really get the full effects of).

Fast forward a few weeks....these pictures were taken in late July. We had the opportunity to buy a few large maple trees for our backyard. Joel and his dad are trying to get them to our backyard. :)

Joel and Ethan standing in the tree hole they had just dug. We're hoping our new trees will give us some much needed shade on our deck.

Our first fair visit of the year was to the Barry County Fair. Here is Claire getting to know a cute little goat.

Ethan bonded with this little guy....

And here are all three enjoying a little bit of a horse show that was going on....Aunt Jesi, we wish you were still showing so we could watch someone we knew. :)

More to come, now that I think I have this picture problem fixed. :)