Kindergarten open house

Tonight one of our fabulous babysitters came over to watch the boys so Dan and I could take Lillian to her kindergarten open house.

We visited the school over the summer to watch the progress on the building, but tonight was our first chance to get inside.  Lillian is very excited to be in the dolphin room for kindergarten.  I can't believe we've made it to this point!

Rescue mission

Today Caleb went on a mission to try to rescue his Mater truck from on top of the shower curtain rod.  Hilarious.

Liam also had his first encounter with a sippy cup.  He was about as successful as Caleb was with his rescue mission.

Library trip

Our kids love to read books at home and at Barnes & Noble, but somehow we are not in the habit of making it to the library very often.  Today we went and the kids had a great time!

 

 

 

The kids each checked out three books and are so excited to get more next time!

Cute boy

Sometimes Caleb is ridiculously cute...

More splash pad fun

We paid a visit to the new splash pad after church today and the kids had a blast!

 

 

 

 

Snapshots of our day

It was a full, fun day today!  The morning began with a haircut, Angry Birds, and playtime...

 

 

...followed by a trip to Grandma and Papa's pool...

...and an evening trip to the mall!

 

 

  

Doesn't Lillian look like her daddy in that picture?!

Ice Cream Junction

There is a little ice cream shop on a street corner near our house that we pass by every so often.  The theme for the shop is trains so, of course, the combination of ice cream and trains excites a certain three-year old of ours.  We promised to go sometime this summer and tonight was the big night!

 

 

  

(No, we didn't really give our 5-month old ice cream!)

 

 

 

Five months old!

Our sweet Liam Daniel turned five months old yesterday!  We have been blessed with three amazing children and Liam is certainly no exception.  He is laid back, happy, and loves to smile.  At five months old he is eating every 3 1/2 hours during the day, takes three naps, and sleeps about ten hours at night.  We've been trying to get him on a schedule that is conducive to Lillian's and my school schedule and so far things seem to be working well.  He continues to be our big boy, weighing at 20.4 pounds according to our scale at home!

 

 

Our kids all seemed to be late in the rolling over department and Liam has followed suit.  He seems close and had a couple of rolls from tummy to back, but I think he just got lucky on that particular day.  We keep practicing!

And, just for fun, here are links to what Caleb and Lillian looked like at five months old.  We thank God every day for these bundles of joy!

Happy Fakesgiving!

So, last winter we bought a turkey and stored it away in our chest freezer, figuring we would find an occasion to make it.  We decided to invite my parents over and make an occasion to cook up a "Fakesgiving" feast!  It was lovely taking the entire day to leisurely pull together a super-yummy meal.  And boy was it delicious!

 Liam doesn't exactly look like a little baby anymore, does he?

Liam got into the festivities!

 And shortly after the turkey enzymes kicked in and Liam fell asleep on the floor!

Happy Fakesgiving, everyone!

Green beans and walks

Since our big little guy did so well with squash, today we let him sample green beans.  He actually did quite well!

 And, while we're at it... check out those curls! 

Later on Liam and I took a nice, peaceful walk outside while the big kids finished eating dinner.

Once Lillian and Caleb were done eating they joined us outside and our nice, peaceful walk turned into a nice, boisterous one!

Salsa Showdown and Sweet Thirteen!

Dan and I were very excited when we found out that today would be the Salsa Showdown at the farmers market.  We went last year and had a great time sampling tons of yummy salsa.  Today was no disappointment, especially since the weather was beautiful! 

 

 Afterward we high-tailed it to Flint to celebrate Anna's thirteenth birthday.  We love you, Anna!

Caleb's first year photo book

When Lillian was born I made a scrapbook for each three months of her first year.  It was a lot of fun but hard to maintain that kind of a time commitment.  I never made it past those first books and finally decided it was time to try a photo book instead.  I had a great promotional code for a Shutterfly book and made an album of Caleb's first year to have in time for his birthday party.  Of course, no one actually looked at it at his party, but I'm pleased with how it turned out!  Here is the finished product - feel free to take a look!

Classroom prep

Today the entire family took a trip to school to start getting some work done in my classrooms.  I wasn't sure how it would go with all three kids in tow, but they actually did very well.  The kids entertained themselves and Dan was a huge help in getting my keyboards set up for the new school year.  I even made progress cleaning out one of the back storage rooms, which has been a mess for the last two years!

 

 As you can see, Elvis and Liam were very happy to get acquainted.

I don't enjoy creating garbage but it felt good to get rid of things that aren't going to be used anymore and have only been taking up space.

By the way, notice the super cute Hope College tees the boys are sporting?  We went to the sidewalk sales last weekend and scored some GREAT deals on Hope wear!  Dan and I got Hope hoodies for $10-15 each and the boys got t-shirts for around $3 each!  Unfortunately they didn't have Lillian's size available but we'll be on the lookout for deals in the future!

PJ's, haircuts, and squash

Liam has a lot of hand-me-down clothes from his big brother, but these Cars jammies are all his, thanks to his Uncle Peter and Aunt Megan.  Aren't they adorable?

 

This morning I called JCPenney to schedule a FREE haircut for Lillian.  They had an opening this morning so we decided to go and make a mommy-daughter date of it.  

 

She got a few inches off and loved being the center of attention.  Afterward we went to Panera and had a lovely lunch together, just us girls.

 

Later on it was Liam's turn to be the center of attention as he ate squash for the first time.  This was his food other than rice cereal and oatmeal and he handled it quite well!

 

He's a handsome little man, isn't he?!