Saturday fun

Liam and I are typically the first two awake on Saturday mornings and enjoy some special time together.  This morning Liam was practicing his rolling and army crawling.

 He found time to practice later in the day too.

Thnow kuks and fwesents

Caleb loves to watch the snow trucks, aka "thnow kuks" come to the cul-de-sac and clear away the thnow.  Err.... snow.

Caleb and Lillian BOTH love to open presents (aka "fwesents")!  Thank you for the Valentine's Day presents, Bada and Poppy!  The kids loved their Read-Along books and candy!

Happy Valentine's Day!

We try to make Valentine's Day special for the kids and somehow that often ends up revolving around festive food!  True to form we started the day with pink, heart-shaped cinnamon rolls for breakfast.

 

 Liam had a heart-shaped tortilla instead!

I packed heart-shaped sandwiches for the kids' lunches and headed off to school.  I had a pretty nice morning at school as I joined our fifth grade students on a field trip to hear the Grand Rapids Symphony.  They performed an excellent concert and the students really seemed to enjoy it!  I took half of a personal day in the afternoon so that I could join Lillian at school for her Valentine's Day party.  We had a great time together!

 

After school the kids were very excited to open their valentines.

 

 

 

We enjoyed time together as a family and made pink, heart-shaped waffles for "brinner" (breakfast + dinner = brinner).

 

Afterward I had the idea that we should capitalize on Liam's chubby, cherubic cuteness and transform him into cupid for a special Valentine's Day photo shoot.

 

 

 

 

Of course I had to take Valentine's Day pictures of the other kids too!

 

 

 

We ended the evening  with cheesecake fondue for dessert.  It was a fun, memorable, not-so-healthy day!

Snow day #5!

This morning I hit snooze on my phone and was awakened just minutes later by a special ringtone reserved especially for robo-calls from my school.  A robo-call at 5:30 can only mean one thing - snow day!  I was completely caught off guard by this one and actually laughed outloud when the phone rang!  Apparently the precipitation and change in temperature caused the country roads to get very icy.  I was worried that once again Lillian would not have a snow day and I would not have felt right keeping her home a second time.  But, a short while later her school announced that it was closed as well!  We happily celebrated my fifth snow day with doughnuts, jammies, and lots and lots of playtime!

 

 

 

 

Breakfast date

Although Dan and I have lived in Holland for over five years (nine if you count our days at Hope), we just recently had breakfast at DeBoer Bakkerij for the first time.  My brother Peter and his wife Megan took us there after Christmas and the food was so incredible that we vowed to return more often as a family.  We had the morning free so we ventured out and enjoyed a delicious breakfast together.

 

 

 

Snow day #4!

I went to bed last night fairly confident that I would have a snow day today.  What I didn't anticipate was that Lillian would not.  There were nearly 300 school closings but the list included very few lakeshore districts.  After talking it over with Dan we decided to call in Lillian's absence and explain that given the fact that the roads are still terrible by us and that I have a snow day, we would be keeping her home.  The kids were very excited to celebrate snow day #4!  We spent some time outside and finally built a snowman!

 

 

 

 

Fender bender

Oy vey.  We are currently under a winter storm warning and for good reason.  Thick, slushy snow started falling mid-morning and quickly made the roads conditions dangerous.  I cancelled my after school choir and shortly after nearly all afternoon/evening school events were cancelled as well.  I left as soon as I could at the end of the school day and prepared myself for a long trip home.  However, less than a mile from school I was involved in a minor fender bender.  I was stopped and waiting for my turn to turn right alongside a truck waiting to turn left.  Seconds later I noticed a truck coming from the left (from the street I was waiting to turn right onto) attempting to turn right.  The truck couldn't get enough traction and slid into the truck next to me, which in turn slid into me.  The damage was rather minimal but definitely in need of repair.  So, my trip home was delayed about 45 minutes as I talked with the other two drivers and waited the police to arrive (which thankfully happened rather quickly) and process the accident report.  Thankfully the rest of my drive home was very slow but uneventful in comparison.  Here's hoping for snow day #4 tomorrow!

Tooth #5

We've been watching Liam closely as it has been looking like another tooth was about to appear and his behavior the last few nights indicated the same thing.  Today his fifth tooth appeared!  He now has three on top and two on the bottom.  Here's hoping his nights improve soon!

Shake, shake, shake

This is Liam's newest hobby. 

Oh, and the by the way... Happy Groundhog's Day!  It certainly looks like winter outside but according to the groundhog it's going to be an early spring!  I sure hope Punxsutawney Phil is right!

Snow day #3!

It seemed to snow all day long yesterday and last night, which not only made for a slick drive home yesterday, but also led to most of the area schools being closed today.  I can't recall when I last had two snow days in one week!

 

 

While spending the day with the kiddos I was thrilled to see Liam make his first attempts at army crawling!  It isn't much but I caught a tiny bit on camera!