More Thanksgiving weekend....

Yes, we put Claire to work as soon as the tree was set up. No more fun....get vacuuming!!

We also like to cage our children and let the puppy have the run of the house....she did this herself and needed assistance to get out. :) I think Louie was starting to think something was seriously wrong!

We celebrated Christmas with Joel's mom and dad and sister and brother-in-law that weekend too. We had a great Christmas dinner here at our house and had lots of fun opening gifts. Claire was so excited for this "real" microphone....we were not quite as excited.

Ethan has turned from being a huge Nascar fan to a huge NFL fan. This kid has to be talked into taking this jersey off!! He likes to get all dressed up in his gear to watch a game.

Better post some fall pictures before Christmas!!

For a few weeks this fall we were lucky enough to have my grandparents in GR. We had them over for dinner and here is my 90 year old grandpa with all the great-grandkids plus great-grandpuppy.

Here is Claire just before being dropped off at preschool modeling a cute hat I got for her at a craft sale. She will not wear it again so here is your only look... :(

This year, we enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner at Susan and Scott's house!! It was so great because Susan wanted to learn how to make an entire Thanksgiving meal and wanted Donna to teach her....you can guess what that meant for me....NO COOKING!!!!! I only brought the stuffing....it was so great not having to make tons of things and Susan and Donna did a wonderful cooking job!
Those of you who know this family know what a miraculous picture this is.....no one is smiling wierd...they all look great!!

Since we are trying a white Christmas this year (i.e. not going to Florida as usual) we decided to cut our own tree instead of using the lovely pre-cut trees at Fruitbasket. This our tree and it is so beautiful. The kids thought it was very fun to walk around and decide which one we wanted. We even got it before the big snow came!!

Forgot to post costumes!!!

Claire was a cheerleader this year which I was very thankful for....we had this entire costume in our dress-up clothes!

Here are Ethan and two of his friends at school. At this point, I'm glad he's still satisfied with sports figures and not anything gross like his friend. Yikes!!

Anna the leopard. When she was talking and thinking about her costume, she said that she would also need to go and find her stuffed animal deer so that she could carry it around in mouth. Nice....apparently she takes after Joel b/c I would have suggested carrying a leopard CUB around and not her latest kill.

Here are all three before hitting the streets for trick-or-treating!! Candy and cavities...here we come!!!!!

Some Halloween Fun!

Pumpkin carving was fun this year....although everyone truly wants to do all cutting themselves. Thank goodness for those kid-friendly pumpkin carvers they sell now. We carved up on our new island which made cleanup very easy. Another plus for our new space! :)

We carved pumpkins on Friday night right before Halloween....the kids had their school parties a few hours before and Anna was a leopard this year. You can still see the remnants of her face paint and a tattoo on her arm.

Ethan and his scary pumpkin....done entirely by himself with NO help from either parent!!

Puppies and Kittens!!!

Here is an updated picture of Louie. He is almost 4 months old now and 11 pounds. He's now as big as Bea which kind of stinks for her. They still do not get along great. Or maybe this is just how it will be....Louie chasing Bea - Bea whacking Louie in the face...Louie barking at Bea hoping to GET chased and then giving up.

And.....this adorable kitten showed up in our woods on Sunday. If I could choose my ideal cat, I would pick this one. She is beautiful...smoky gray with very blue eyes. She's super snuggly too and eats like a pig. She has been happily living on our deck until we find her a permanent home. Of course, Joel had to inform me that if we hadn't gotten Louie, we could have kept the kitten. Great.

This is why we cannot keep the kitten.....lots MORE hissing and dog and cat antics....I have enough with Bea and Louie and can't really add more. :) She really does think she is one tough girl going up against a rowdy barking puppy!

A few more construction updates

Here is the island and some of the countertops...

Another view.....

Here are our wood floors...which we totally love!!!! It warms up our house so nice and I'm even getting that kind of worn, cottage-ish look I've been wanting for so long! :)

More remodel......

OK....here is what we let the kids do to the wall for the 2 weeks prior to knowdown. It's our own personal Artprize entry!! They had so much fun and couldn't believe we were letting them draw on the whole thing. Check out the previous entry for more "Before" pictures.....

The dumpster has arrived!!! Let's fill it up!!

Here are Mark and Joel most of the way through the knockdown. Awesome!! I think the kids were a little shocked at what the house looked like when they got home.

The next morning....Ethan is wondering where his kitchen has gone.

Stay tuned for more.....

Bringin Down the House...or Kitchen....

Ha!! I'm so excited that I can finally upload pictures again to our blog! Too bad I can't get them on Facebook. :( Anyway, we are at the beginning of a huge and very exciting change in our house. We have knocked down our wall that divided our kitchen and living room and are making an island instead. We are so thankful to have our very good friend Mark and his company doing this remodel for us. So far things have gone very well. We have a temporary kitchen set up in Joel's workroom downstairs and it works great since we have a fridge down there and plenty of shelf and counter space. So far....so good. This is as close to roughing it as I get...as many of you know.

Here are some pictures of our kitchen BEFORE........

Meet Louie, our new sweet puppy!

Finally we have our sweet little puppy! Joel has officially caved...actually we wore him down and then made a deposit when he wasn't there. :) Louie is so good....doesn't cry in the night and loves to play. Even his new dad can't resist him! He's 8 weeks old.

He doesn't even mind being held for long periods of time by Claire. :)

On another Claire note, the other day we were getting ready to go to the pool and the girls wanted to bring Barbies to swim. They went running downstairs to find them and get them ready to go swimming. The trouble is we only have one Barbie bathing suit....Claire came upstairs sobbing, "Mom, Anna has the zucchini!" Translation, "Mom, Anna has the bikini!" Barbie bikini, that is.

One more Claire story....We were at the Barry County Fair looking in the cow barn and I pointed to the dairy cows and told her that these cows give us milk. Then we got to the beef cows and I told her these cows give us meat like hamburgers and steaks. She looked at me and asked, "Well, which cows give us gravy?" :)

Happy 9th Birthday, Ethan!!!

Gosh, it's hard to imagine sometimes how fast time goes. It seems like not long ago at all we took our baby boy home from the hospital and now he's 9 years old. This is our sweet boy that we prayed and prayed for and we are so thankful to have him in our lives. He adds alot of fun and spark into our lives. He's our clown and king of silliness. Ethan has taught us all about Nascar and the NFL. We know more than we would ever have hoped too. We have more little Nascar racecars in our house than I ever thought possible. :) He is a terrific big brother and in typical, or so Joel assures me, big brother style - he has taught his sisters the finer points in 3rd grade "cool talk"...like every other word is "dude" and also has satisfied his dad's longing for a kid who loves gross bodily functions and baseball as much as he does.

Of course, he still needs to snuggle with his mom even though he acts like there is no way on this planet he would do this.

We got Ethan a Michigan State helmet, jersey etc and he totally loves it. He has been wanting a helmet for so long....he wears it constantly and has discovered he does have to take it off to eat, which is good. This also came with fake shoulder pads - also a good thing because he used to put on a t-shirt that was 2 sizes too small, put a little foam ball on each of his shoulders (under the shirt) and pretend that those were his pads. Foam balls do not stay in place after having been fake tackled.

We made him wait until the end of the day to open his gifts....we thought he might burst with excitement! Ethan also got a pitchback which he loves and his dad loves even more. :)

Yippeee!! I can upload videos now!! :)

OK..I can finally put some cute videos on here that hopefully aren't too grainy like the ones from my camera were. Here is a very cute one of Claire saying the Pledge of Allegiance....we have no idea how she learned this but we love the new "dog" spin she has put on it. I had no idea Dalmations were such a part of US History.

A few more fun pictures from our trip...

Look who's on a roll now!

Here is part of our big gang that was down in Florida...in addition to our own family, we have Uncle Brett, Aunts Sarah and Erin and Uncle Rich. We were posing during our ice cream eating. :)
Do we look like sisters??

Holy cow, Ethan is beyond excited to be at his favorite restaurant Da Ru Ma....the Japanese steakhouse near our condo. Bring on the the food!!!!

Ahhhh...a peaceful morning on the Gulf. How I wish I could be back there right now!

Beautiful little Claire at our Christmas Brunch.