St. Patrick's day fun

We may not have much Irish blood in us, but we still take two days to celebrate St. Patrick's Day!  The fun started on Saturday at Holland's annual parade.

I love the expressions on the kids' faces in these next two pictures!

After some celebrating on Saturday, we continued the fun on St. Patrick's day with Lucky Charms for breakfast and four leaf clover waffles for dinner.  Can you tell our kids love breakfast?!

Lillian even rounded out the evening by making some green cookies in her easy bake oven!

Happy St. Patrick's day!

Christmas Day 2014

We've all been looking forward to Christmas and today it is finally here!  The kids woke up (in their Christmas jammies, of course) and were excited to open up their stockings.

Afterward we read the Christmas story from The Jesus Storybook Bible (our favorite) as we lit the Advent wreath and ate monkey bread for breakfast.

After filling our bellies we opened presents together. 

If you ever stop by Dan's office he can show you the book he received for Christmas.  You won't want to miss it (and the holographic cover)

While the kids played with their new toys, Dan and I loaded the van to head across the state to Swartz Creek to celebrate with Dan's family.  Apparently we left in too much of a hurry because we left our duffle bag (full of clothes, toiletries, diapers, etc) at home.  Whoops.  We had a great time with Dan's family - opening presents, eating Mexican food, and just spending time together!

Christmas Eve

This morning when the kids woke up they found one present waiting for each of them under the tree. 

 They were excited to open them (and so far do not seem to have noticed that they always receive pajamas on Christmas Eve)!

We all managed to stay in our pajamas for most of the day and continued the DeYoung tradition of decorating cutout cookies on Christmas Eve.  Yes, Dan likes to photobomb on occasion...

With four people ranging in age from 5 to 33, we wound up with a diverse collection of cookies.  Can you tell who decorated each one?  Bonus points go to the person who figures out the significance of the brown and green gingerbread man (hint: it was made by Dan).

After decorating cookies (and whipping up a delicious batch of peanut brittle) we finally got cleaned up for the Christmas Eve service.  Afterward we took the kids out for a drive to view the Christmas lights in Hudsonville.  There were some impressive houses this year!

I enjoyed the penguin choir who sang backup to Michael W. Smith!

We are looking forward to celebrating the birth of Jesus tomorrow!

Halloween 2014

Today was the first Halloween that Lillian and Caleb both celebrated at school.  Dan braved the crowds with Liam to catch them in their costume parade.  It is decidedly difficult, however, to get any good pictures of moving kids among hundreds of other moving kids in a school Halloween parade!  Once I got home from school we had a little downtime to relax and eat some pizza together.  Since the weather was very cold and windy, it was the perfect night for some indoor trick-or-treating!

Our pirate, Spiderman, and minion had a lot of fun playing games and collecting candy.

Liam even made some minion friends along the way!

All in all, the kids had a great time and we stayed warm and dry indoors!

Mother's Tea

This morning Caleb's preschool class hosted a Mothers' Tea.  The kids sang, we ate coffee cake and fruit kabobs, and Caleb gave some sweet presents that he had made.  We had a lovely time together!

 

 

Mother's Day

Today was a gorgeous Mother's Day with many special moments. 

After a great morning at church and some goodbyes to Dan's parents, we had a relaxing afternoon nap.  Afterward we went downtown to enjoy the beautiful weather and some delicious dinner.

 

 

 

I forgot to pack a bib, so Liam got to sport a cloth napkin instead.  I just love the progression of the kids' expressions in these pictures!

 

 

 

 

 

After dinner we went to Kollen Park to let the kids play.  It was a wonderful day!