I don’t know what on earth has been happening in our lives that I haven’t been able to post.  I guess that I have just had to re-prioritize my life and computer time.  I would love to be able to post more often.  Maybe they would be shorter posts, instead of really, really long ones.  I don’t know for sure, but it seems to make sense.  For some reason, I just felt the need to post here today.  I have so much swirling in my head and I’m not sure I’ll share all of it or not, but I just felt the need to write.

One of the big things that has been going on in our little family is that we have been doing a lot of appointments with Emma.  She has had an ear infection since the end of February.  Or, at least, every 4-6 weeks when we go back for the re-check, she has an ear infection.  I’m not sure if she has been getting rid of it and then just unfortunately comes down with another cold or something that causes another ear infection, or what the deal is.  Either way, it doesn’t really matter.  We now have an appointment with an ENT on Monday morning.  I’m pretty sure they will check her out, review her history and tell us we need to schedule an appt for tubes.  I’m not so worried about that procedure, I really just want her to feel better.  She hasn’t really been all that bad, but she’s just not as happy as I remember her being about 6 months ago.  She doesn’t mess with her ears all that much and hasn’t had any real terrible fevers.  She doesn’t really say too many words and she often times loses her balance when she’s walking.  I don’t know if that is related to the ear infection or not, but it will definitely be interesting to see if tubes will make any difference in those instances.  It’s weird to me that the first two girls haven’t even had 1 ear infection (ever) and now the 3rd got one and can’t get rid of it.  I would have never known she had an ear infection had it not been for her 1 yr well child visit at the end of February.  I’m just praying that everything will go well with the tubes procedure and that it will help her feel better and she’ll get back to her happy little self.  I’ll try to keep you posted on what happens.

One of the things that has been keeping us running around crazy is that I enrolled Kylie & Kennedy in swimming lessons for this past week and then 1/2 of this week.  The girls have been enjoying swimming lessons and they are learning a lot.  I can’t wait until their little program at the end of this week.  The funny/interesting/ironic (whatever) thing is that the head teacher is the lady who taught me and my siblings to swim.  She even taught swimming lessons for a while in our family pool when we had one.  Now she is teaching at her own home pool and her daughter and son are also helping.  I like that they teach the kids to be comfortable in the pool without any flotation devices (no swimmies, jugs, life jackets, nothing).  Learning to swim is more about being comfortable in the pool at this age, than it is about learning specific skills.  Summer time is great!

Another thing that has been heavy on my heart and mind is a tragic event that has happened in my world.  My daycare lady has been going thru some rough times and unfortunately now it has come to a very tragic end.  Her husband tragically died on Friday.  He left behind a daughter who is 18 and a son who is 12.  I don’t know what to say about this situation, other than it breaks my heart.  It’s a reminder that life is too short.  It also reminds me that we really never truly know what’s going on in someone’s life.  I will admit that I have not taken time to just chat with her and ask her how things are going, and now I feel bad that I didn’t.  I can make excuses in my mind about how I am always running late for work and don’t have the extra time.  Or, that there are always kids around and it’s not really appropriate to discuss that kind of stuff in front of kids.  I don’t know - it just seems like there are too many excuses.  Now, I’m on the "outside", feeling like I have no place to offer help or support.  I realize that we aren’t really best friends, but she takes care of my kids when I go to work and I trust her with their lives.  I know that I am a pretty laid back mom and I don’t demand a whole lot from those that watch my kiddos, but I must feel like they are trustworthy and that they would NEVER put my kids in a dangerous situation and they would ALWAYS protect them.  She has done that for 3 years.  We’ve known each other for 3 years and she loves my kids and they love her.  I guess we have more of a business relationship than friendship, but I care for her and her well being more than she would probably ever know.  I hate not knowing how to help or what to do.  Do I give her space?  Do I just stop by and give her a hug?  Just send flowers and a card?  I don’t know.  I’m always concerned about doing the WRONG thing and too often that leaves me doing NOTHING.  I would hate for someone to say to me…why didn’t you just stop by?  I thought that you didn’t care much, because you didn’t call, you didn’t stop by.  I don’t know how I would respond if someone was hurt by my lack of action when I thought that it would be best.  Death can be such a tricky and sticky and uneasy situation.  What do you say, or do?  These are obviously rhetorical questions, but they are the thoughts floating around in my head. 

Sorry for the depressing ending.  I really didn’t think that I was going to be writing about this, but it just came out.  I guess I just needed to write it to get it out of my head.  Needless to say, this coming week will be busy and short.  It’s short because of the holiday weekend - I’m excited and hope the weather is nice.  But, before that, I have the ENT appointment on Monday morning.  The girls swimming lessons in the afternoon (mon-weds).  Funeral visitation is Monday night and then the funeral on Tuesday.  That leaves Wednesday and Thursday, which are sure to be crazy busy at work.  I think that all of this stuff is contributing to the headache that I have.  Like I said earlier, I am ready for a long weekend and hopefully one that will just be relaxed and focused on my family.  I hope you all have a great week and a great 4th of July.

WOW!  I just noticed that the last time I posted was Tulip Time, which was about a month ago.  Things have been a little busy around our place, I guess.  I will have to sum it up in pictures, since I just downloaded a bunch of them and I don’t really have much to say today.  I just thought that maybe I should get back on here and post again.The first group of pictures is from the first night we went downtown with friends of ours to take pictures by the tulips (notice how "put together" the other family is).  The Lawrence’s were adorable and I got some good pics of just their family.  

Then we went another night to watch the dancers.  We watched our babysitter, Rachael dance and then went to watch the alumni dancers and Aunty Betsy dance.  While we were waiting for the dancers on 8th St. to start, Emma spotted a puppy and she made a beeline for the dog.  She was just learning to walk, but it was much faster to crawl.  So, that’s what she did.  Once she got to the puppy, she just sat there and smiled and pet the puppy.  She just LOVES little dogs. 

I think that it was the following week that we had our deck torn up, expanded, and replaced.  Of course, the girls wanted to watch the guys working, so they stood by the slider door and just watched them work.  Emma is the one who would have sat there all day watching them work and talking to/yelling at them thru the slider door.

The deck and sandbox were built and completed just in time for the party that we had with a bunch of friends.  I don’t even recall how many adults and kids were there, but we had a great time.  Oh yeah, you may also notice the gazebo we have on our deck - that was my mother’s day gift.  I LOVE it!

The last picture is terrible blurry, I couldn’t figure out the right setting on my camera.  But, you can definitely tell that it’s a picture of "Uncle" starting a massive fire.  Thank goodness we had a bunch of firefighters there.  Hahaha. 

Memorial Day weekend brought lots of bbq events.  We had a great weekend.  Here are some obvious "beginning of summer" pictures…

The Zeeland parade was full of excitement.  LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of tractors.  In fact, I think the tractor to all other group ratio was astronomical.  I’m sure that it is quite rare in comparison to other Memorial Day parades across the country.  The first pic is a a picture of my boss’s dad who is 92 yrs old and still takes his old cars all over the country.  He is a very cool man.  The second pic is a pic of a horse towing a Jeep Wrangler.  Not exactly sure what happened to the Jeep, but it died in the middle of the road (right in front of us) and it just so happened that the horses were following him and there was a tow strap in the Jeep.  It’s amazing how God was looking out for the group driving the Jeeps.  :)

Last, but not least, we had Kylie’s Preschool Graduation last week Thursday night.  It was a very cute program and I’m amazed at how quickly time flies.  I can’t believe that this coming fall, my firstborn is going to be starting Kindergarten and she’s going to be going to school full days, 5 days a week.

Well, that pretty much sums up our month of May.  I didn’t get around to doing a May desktop, but I did complete my June desktop. 

I think that I will have to go back and do my May desktop, just so that I have one.  Those are the only scrap pages that I have made and have made it a priority to make them.  I have downloaded lots of quickpages and free scrappin’ stuff, but I never seem to find the time to do anything with them.  But, I will be well set, once I decide to make that a priority.  Sometimes I wish that there were more hours in a day, but I’m not sure I would use them wisely anyway.  ;)  Thanks for hanging in there with me and all my pictures.  I hope you have a great week and I’m gonna start saying that I don’t know when I’ll get back here.  So, just don’t hold your breath in anxious anticipation.  LOL

I don’t even know where to begin with this post since it has been so long since I posted.  There has been a lot going on around us lately.  Some good and some bad.  I never know if it’s better to start with the bad and end with the good or to start with the good and end with the bad.  I think that I will start with the bad so that this ends on a good note. 

The bad…It seems like it has been a terribly long fall, winter and start to the spring season.  Our family has had the stomach flu go thru our family 4 times this season.  Emma was sick Friday night into Saturday and then again on Monday.  With infants it’s so hard to know when they can start eating "normal" food again.  I think that every time she has gotten the stomach bug, we started back to normal food to soon and then find out that her stomach wasn’t ready for it yet.  Having a little one sick with the stomach bug is disgusting and a LOT of work.  Inevitably, she pukes in her highchair or her bed - both of which need to be stripped down and washed.  Yuck.  Now, Kennedy has the bug again.  She has learned over these "sessions" that she can make it to the bathroom to throw up in the toilet, which has been a HUGE blessing.  She has even made it to the bathroom in the middle of the night when she is sleeping - AMAZING.  Today she had a little accident and it snuck up on her, so she threw up on the living room floor.  I have been putting off the whole carpet cleaning thing for a while, but I think that now is the time to get it done.  I just hope that the stomach bug is done going thru our family.  Luckily, I have not gotten sick even once.  I have to knock on wood every time I say that, but so far I have dodged the bug.  Maybe I have an iron stomach and an incredible immune system, either way, I am extremely grateful that I haven’t gotten it.  Yippee for me!

More bad… A family friend is a police officer and he shot a victim while they were doing a drug bust.  I don’t know all the circumstances and all the facts, but this was a horribly tragedy for both the officer and the victim.  Thanks to media and a bunch of others that have made this situation worse, the officer is being charged with careless discharge of a firearm.  It makes me sad that we live in a world where we assume the worst of those who sacrifice their lives to make our life better.  I know that there are bad cops out there and there are those who abuse their power, but overall we are far better off with law enforcement than we would be if we didn’t have them.  And this man is a good man and he deserves to be given the benefit of the doubt.  He is a 12 year veteran and he has worked in some extremely dangerous situations while undercover.  And as far as I know, he has a spotless record.  Yet, his superiors refuse to give that information to the public or even minimally support him.  I pray for this man and his family as they go thru the judicial process.  I trust that the judicial system will do it’s job and clear him of the charges they brought against him.  I have faith that when the facts and truth are known, that this man will be cleared and restored to his position on the police force.  The good side to this story is that a support rally was held for him and there were about 300 people in attendance.  Not all of them knew him personally, but wanted to show their support for all police officers.  They do SO much for us and one of the biggest problems with our society is that the law abiding citizens don’t speak out against the outrageous rights that we give to those that break the law.  I don’t think that our forefathers ever thought that the freedoms they gave to us would actually be used to empower those that break the law.  Anyway, my heart has been heavy for this family and the pain that they are experiencing. 

The ugly… A co-worker of mine was killed in a terrible car accident while on his way home from work last week Thursday.  It was a very rainy day and his car hydroplaned and he lost control.  My understanding is that he almost regained control but slid into the other lane and was hit by a semi truck.  Needless to say, car vs semi rarely turn out with good outcomes.  This is one such case.  My co-worker, Dave Schreur, was 39 and left behind a wife of 13 yrs and a 6 yr old son.  My heart breaks for his wife and son.  I can’t imagine picking up the pieces and moving forward.  I know that it is only by God’s grace that this woman will be able to move forward.  I also know that she personally felt God’s presence during her darkest and deepest moments.  I have NO doubt that Jesus Christ lived and died and will come back in all his glory.  A side story to the tragedy is that when I received the phone call that he was in an accident, Kylie was still awake and she broke down.  She has such a tender heart and I know that she sensed my fear.  It took Dan and I about 45 min to get her to calm down and go to sleep.  We prayed that the doctors and nurses would be God’s hands to make him better.  And if they weren’t able to save him, that Dave would get to go to Heaven and that there would be a party for him.  We told her that Heaven is a wonderful place and that there are parties and good times.  And that when Dave gets to Heaven, his body would be healed and made whole.  She did finally calm down and went to sleep.  I told her that I would tell her what his status was when I heard about it.  Of course, I received a phone call around 10 pm that he had died.  I didn’t sleep much that night.  On Friday morning, I knew that I had to go to work and I wouldn’t have the time to spend with her and deal with the situation that was sure to go poorly.  I told Papa to not mention the situation and I would talk to her when I got home in the afternoon.  And wouldn’t you know it, when I got home and she woke up from her nap, she asked if I had any new information.  I decided that it was best to tell her then that Dave had died and that he is in Heaven.  Much to my surprise, she said…"that means he is in Heaven and there having a party."  I think that I was in tears over the fact that she had heard what we said the night before and she "got it."  I had a very hard day at work, as did all of my co-workers, and to hear her cheerfullness about the party that was going on in Heaven was a reality check to me.  I’m extremely sad and will miss Dave a LOT, but I can rejoice because he is spending time with our maker and soon enough we will see eachother again.  It is a reminder to me that my real home is with my Heavenly Father.  Whether I have a day left on this earth or another 40 years, my home is in Heaven.  I want to make the best of this life on earth, but I am not sad or afraid of what comes after this life.  The funeral for Dave was a reminder and an example of someone who lived his life to the fullest and tried his best to live a Godly life.  I hope that the lessons I have learned thru this will not fade, but spur me on to living my life more and more like the greatest example we have ever had, Jesus Christ.  Please join me in praying for the Schreur family as they grieve and miss someone they loved dearly. 

The good… It is tulip time in Holland, MI and I love tulips.  I am of dutch decent and I love the heritage that has been passed down to me.  Tulip time is a very clear reminder of where I come from and who I am.  The dutch have some very good and sometimes "trying" personality traits, but who doesn’t?  I love going downtown and taking the girls to eat junk food, watch dutch dancers, and get pics by the tulips.  I personally don’t go all out with the costumes, but we have fun taking in the dutch heritage.  I’m thinking that we might try to go to the biggest parade of the week on Saturday - kids love parades (and so do moms and grandmas).  :)

More good… We are getting a lot of things accomplished around our house this spring.  We are doing things that we haven’t done before and I hope that it pays off throughout the summer.  We are also hoping to tear our our old deck and replace it with new deck and make it bigger.  I’m still trying to decide if I want to do composite decking or traditional wood decking.  I’m leaning towards the composite decking because it is far less work and neither of us likes to do that kind of "hard" work.  I know that it is more expensive to do the composite, but I think that it will pay off in a few years because we won’t have to pay someone to keep our wood deck looking nice.  I dunno, I’m still trying to weigh both options.  Dan is trying to watch the bottom line, while I am trying to figure out what option is best for us, regardless of cost.  I’m the type of person who would rather get it done right the first time and not wish that I had made a different decision.  Either way, I am excited to have a bigger deck and to have our yard spruced up a bit.  If anyone wants to weigh in on choices they’ve made and how it has turned out, I am open to ideas.  Leave me a comment.

Well, I think that this post has been long enough.  If you are still reading, thanks for hanging in there with me.  I have lots of pictures that I am downloading as I write this, so maybe I’ll be back later this weekend with some tulip time pictures. 

Well, almost all of that is true.  It’s not really pouring, it’s just sprinkling.  Perfect kind of rain for bringing up the flowers.  It would have been better if I had taken a few moments this past weekend to spread some grass seed in some spots where I had removed the moss from.  Oh well, it’s early in the spring season.  Hopefully I will have at least one more good chance to plant the seeds.

Dan is snoring and it’s only 4 in the afternoon on a Monday.  Not normal, but just a sign of the sickness that is again running rampant in my home.  I don’t know if it’s just our family that is so susceptible to this stomach bug, or what, but I hope that this is the last time it goes thru our house.  It started with my mom getting sick late in the morning on the day that she was watching the girls.  I figured that by time she had called telling me that she was sick, it was already too late.  The girls would either get it or not get it.  Obviously, they got it.  Emma threw up Thursday night after she went to bed.  I had a church meeting at night and I could smell it when I came in the house.  It was NOT pretty and I felt sick as soon as I had finished cleaning her and her bed and started the many loads of laundry that were to follow.  Poor thing has been on antibiotics for an ear infection that doesn’t really seem to bother her, but it didn’t go away with the mild antibiotic the 1st time, so we were kicking it up a notch.  The best part is that augmentin causes some NASTY diapers and butt rash (which really didn’t even start until yesterday, which was her last day of antibiotics).  She did start eating again yesterday, so hopefully that helps to firm up the diaper contents, if ya know what I mean.  ;)  Kylie started throwing up on Friday morning, but she takes the whole thing in stride.  Not that she LIKES having an icky stomach, but at least she can make it to the bathroom and not make a terrible mess.  I thought that we were in the clear on Saturday, but Kylie threw up again Saturday night while we were out on a date.  The babysitter handled it SOOOOO well.  She cleaned everything up and even put sheets in the wash machine and folded the clothes that were in the dryer.  And if that wasn’t enough, she also made sure all the dishes were cleaned and the house was picked up.  She spent the night with us, but I was certainly shocked that she was still awake until midnight when we got home.  She has babysitter business cards, but I’m not sure that I want to pass that information out.  She is probably one of the most amazing 13 year olds that I know - she LOVES kids and can handle ANY situation.  Thanks, Bethany!!!  Oops, I can’t believe that I just let that slip.  ;)  Anyway, Sunday was a day for everyone to stay home (except for me, I had church duties) and get better, except for Dan.  He decided to take a nap in the afternoon and woke up feeling sick.  I sure am glad that I didn’t take a nap.  :)

Not much else going on around here.  We’ve been enjoying the beautiful weather that we have been having and have been outside a LOT.  Working on the yard and just plain playing.  We gotta get our yard in shape so that we can start getting the boat ready this year.  Spring brings a lot of work just so that we can enjoy the summer.  It’s a good thing that summer comes and we are able to enjoy the beautiful weather and the lake.  I’m hoping to be able to take the boat out more often this year.  Gas prices are supposed to be lower this year, so we won’t have that excuse for not getting out on the big lake.  I’m also glad that the girls are getting bigger and hopefully will be more fun to have on the boat and go for rides. 

I said that I would post some pics, so I am going to try to upload them now.  But, I’m not sure how many I will get on here, because my laptop seems to be sluggish and I am downloading some music.  Not sure how well my computer can do two things at once.  Enjoy the ones that I am able to post and have a great week!

Alright, I am sick of waiting, so that’s all you are gonna get.  I still have to take a pic of our front entry system and post those, so I’ll try to get that soon.  TTYL

It has been almost a month since I last posted.  So much has happened since that last post and it is almost impossible to even recap what has gone on.  I know that we had Kennedy’s birthday in there and we had two separate parties.  One at Chuck-E-Cheese on her actual b-day and the other was on the following Friday with my family.  Of course, Kennedy had gotten a 2nd round of the stomach flu starting on her b-day (I thought it was car sickness) and then Emma came down with it AGAIN, too.  I hope and pray that we are done with the winter illnesses until next winter (which, in MI is only a few months away - ugh).  Another thing that has been happening in our household is a minor re-vamping in our basement.  I painted the 70’s dark paneling and we put new play flooring down in the play area.  Hopefully that flooring will be much easier to take care of IF our basement floods again due to sump pump failure.  Then, because of our bad luck with sump pumps, Dan decided to build a couple of wood shelving units so that we can get all our crap off the floor.  Now, I just have to go thru all those boxes and totes and eliminate things that haven’t been seen since long before we moved in to this house 3 years ago and organize the stuff we want to keep.  I am feelin’ the spring clean out feeling, but it’s overwhelming to think about so here I am blogging instead of going thru the totes and organizing.  I am such a procrastinator.  Other than that, things have been pretty normal and good around our house.  Oh yeah, we did finally get the front entry locker unit and we just have a few finishing touches to add to it.  I love it so far and once we get the hooks up and the baskets in the cubbies, I think it will add a feeling of organization and sanity to our home.  I will try to get pictures up once we have the hooks up and can hang some jackets up.  Right now, the girls like sitting in their little locker units and reading books - it is super cute.

BEWARE:  Deep thoughts and possibly more than you care to know.  But, it’s been on my mind and I want to journal about it.  You may stop reading if you aren’t in the mood for deep and depressing stuff. 

As for me, I have been struggling with some things in my head.  I don’t want to go into ALL the boring details or explanations, but I have been feeling extremely unworthy or insecure.  I don’t know exactly how to explain it, but it’s a poor self-esteem issue.  I think that I have always been self-conscious and felt like I didn’t quite belong, but it really hasn’t been an issue until recently again.  In middle school and high school, I always hung out with the "popular" crowd.  I had great friends and we had a lot of fun.  But, I always felt like I wasn’t as good or as cool as my friends.  I don’t think that it was ever anything that they said or did, it was just my own perception.  After high school, I went to college and stayed in touch with some of my high school friends, but not many of them.  And then I decided to get married, quit college, and work full time.  Dan is older than me and he had some great friends that we spent a lot of time with.  So, we didn’t really hang out with any of my friends, we hung out with his group of friends.  Then, we started having kids and our group of friends kinda dwindled to just a few good "couple" friends.  I look back at all that has happened over the last 10 years and there are so many explanations for why we don’t see this person or that person or couple anymore.  All that explanation to say that I don’t think that any of the events over the past 10 years has brought back the feelings of "not good enough," yet somehow they are coming back to the forefront of my mind.  One of the reasons this stuff has come back to the forefront is the tough decision that we had to make about which elementary school we were going to send Kylie to.  As I considered sending Kylie to my alma matter, Holland Christian, I started to feel insecure and have an overwhelming feeling of I don’t want to feel like I have to "fit in."  I don’t feel like I am good enough for "those" people.  I know that what I just said may sound judgmental, but it’s not really a judgmental statement against any of the parents at HC, it’s my own insecurity.  Now, our decision to send Kylie to West Ottawa schools was made mainly due to scheduling issues and the ability for her to go to an all day program in kindergarten.  But, even there, I feel insecure and like I am not good enough to relate to the other parents that I know there.  WHY IS THAT?????  I can say in my head over and over and over again that it doesn’t matter what other people think about me, about my hubby, my kids, my house, my decision to work, my boat, or WHATEVER!  And why is it NOW that these feelings creep back into my head and heart?  My life is so good right now.  I really am content and happy with my marriage, my kids, my house, etc.  Of course, none of those things are perfect and I guess I could always "want" more and better, but it really is good.  So, why do I feel like I have to impress other people, or make them happy, or be something different to be worthy?  Obviously the above questions are rhetorical questions, but they are in my head.  I am frustrated that I have these thoughts and I wish that they would just go away.  I have seen those shows where they make you look in a mirror (or something like that) and tell yourself that "you are good enough," "you are beautiful," you are…"  That kinda stuff just seems silly to me.  I can tell myself that I am all those things over and over again, but that doesn’t mean that I believe them.  How do you make yourself believe those things OR how do you make yourself not care whether or not other people think those things.  I don’t know.  I haven’t had those feelings in probably close to 10 years, so maybe it’s just a phase that will go away.  I hope so.  I hate feeling inadequate and un-likeable.  Anywho…that was a deep subject and just something I wanted to get off my chest.  Maybe there is some valuable therapy in just writing things down.

As I close up this post, I want to reflect on something my pastor said last week Sunday.  The series is about good words for bad times.  Last week, we dealt with the issue that as Christians we tend to think that because we are Christians, we should have an "easier" life than a person who is not saved.  Of course, it’s one of those things that we know is not true, but yet somehow deep down, we are shocked when bad things happen to us or we feel like we don’t deserve it.  Maybe some of you don’t believe that, but I know that I have that feeling way back in my mind (even though I KNOW it’s not true and I don’t believe that).  Anyway, the thing that I took away from that sermon was a reminder that since "the fall," EVERYTHING went bad.  Adam & Eve weren’t spared from evil or bad, nor was any other human or country or planet.  The good news is that ANY good there is in my life IS a gift and blessing from God.  So, while I now that there are sooooo many people out there that are hurting from so many different evils, there are so many blessings in my life and God is GOOD!  And it’s not just a realization that so many people have it much worse than me, but it truly was a reminder that any good thing that I can think of in my life, it is a gift from God.  This week I had a mental list running thru my mind and I was much more aware of the good things in my life.  I am only going to give you a small taste of some of the good things going on in my life right now.  Dan and I have been truly connecting and sharing life together.  My kids are growing as they are supposed to and we are enjoying life with them.  Our house is just perfect for us - we have all the necessities and then some.  Spring has sprung and I am looking forward to spending lots of time on our boat this summer.  We have a boat big enough to enjoy with our friends and family.  Dan’s shop has been doing quite well even with the economic downturn.  My work is slow, but we still have work and I am thankful for that.  Those are just a few of the good things in my life right now.  So often it is easier to focus on the negative that is going on around me, that I forget to praise God for all the amazing gifts that He has given to me and my family. 

So, I’m going to wrap up this incredibly deep post.  I guess that’s what happens when I don’t post for a month and then when I finally do post, I unload.  Well, I am starting to get tired now, so I better get to bed.  If you were able to hang in there for the entire post, Thank you for listening.  Have a good night and hopefully I will be able to get back here with a lighter post and maybe some pics of the kiddos and other new things around here.  Nighty-night!

It is beautifully sunny outside today in Michigan.  However, the temps do not portray the beauty.  I believe that it is only 25 deg. outside and it is 4pm.  The girls and I did go outside for about 20 mins right after lunch to get some fresh air and sunshine into our bodies.  Other than the weather, I don’t have a whole lot to talk about.  Well, I should rephrase that…I don’t think I have much time to get into the political stuff that has been on my mind.  The girls will be waking any moment now.  I’ll try to save that for a later date.  I do love to talk politics even though I don’t consider myself to be an expert on the subject.  I just like to talk about things that I see and hear and care deeply about.  But, like I said, I will save the political talks for later.

Today has been a pretty good day.  The girls woke up at 7 am (which is better than usual).  They have been sleeping in more often, which is kinda nice.  After breakfast, we played a little while and then I had to vacuum my home - it had been way too long since I vacuumed really well and it needed it.  After vacuuming, I put Emma down for a nap and me and the older girls played some more and started some laundry.  While we were watching Alvin & The Chipmunks, I heard a thud from Emma’s room.  Of course, after the thud a pretty serious cry followed.  So, I ran into her room to find her on the floor on all fours and NOT happy.  Yep, she had fallen out of her crib.  The back story is that a few weeks ago I mentioned to Dan that she had been standing up in her crib more often and we should probably lower the crib.  Obviously we did not get right on that and it turns out that we pushed our luck too far.  So, I had to lower the crib mattress after lunch before her afternoon nap.  She seems to be fine - I don’t think that she hurt herself too badly, but we will be watching her closely.  After that episode, we did lunch and then the girls wanted to go outside to play with Pixel.  I figured that it couldn’t be too bad of an idea, Pixel could really use some rammin’ around time.  Kylie & Kennedy didn’t want to be outside alone, so Emma and I decided to join them.  I bundled Emma up in her snowsuit and put her in our Jeep umbrella stroller.  Kylie wanted to push her in the stroller, so I said that she could but she had to go slow because the yard is very hard and bumpy.  She listened for a little while, but it didn’t take long for her to realize that it was more fun to run and push Emma.  Especially since Emma would laugh really loud when they went fast.  I did see this next event coming and even told Kylie that she needed to watch where she was going and go slow with Emma.  But, as you can guess, soon after I said that, Kylie ran into a small pile of snow and the stroller went forward and Kylie fell over it.  So, there’s Emma hanging in the stroller with her face on the ground and Kylie lying on the ground right next to her.  I ran quickly to pick Emma and the stroller up and realized that it was time to go inside.  Poor Emma.  She had two traumatic events in one day.  This certainly is not going to go down in her book as one of her "best days."  LOL

Well, the girls are waking up and I gotta get dinner goin’.  I have a crazy busy work week this week, so I’m sure that it will go fast.  I hope you all have a great week!

Wow, so much has happened since I last posted.  I’m not sure where to begin.  Since my last post, we celebrated Emma’s 1st birthday.  We celebrated on Valentines night with my family.  We actually combined Emma’s 1st birthday with my niece Selah’s 3rd birthday.  We never ended celebrating her birthday more than a month ago, so we figured it would be easier to combine them.  Besides, a 1 year old really doesn’t know what’s going on and won’t remember anything anyway.  It was a nice night.  We made homemade pizzas and the kids got to decorate their own heart shaped pizzas.  Aren’t those cute pizzas?  And how ’bout that table of kids - can you believe that there are a couple that didn’t fit at the table and in the picture? 

After pizza, we went downstairs to have the kiddos open gifts and do the pinata.  I didn’t get any pics of the pinata, but I got one to show that it didn’t take Emma very long to figure out how to open her present.  She started before we were even really ready.  And you can see that it doesn’t take long for ALL the kids to get close enough to see (it’s a losing battle to allow the birthday kid to open the gifts by themselves).

After we were done with the gifts and pinata, we went back up stairs to sing happy birthday to Emma and have some cake.  We put Emma in her chair and gave her her very own slice of cake to have at it.  She didn’t know what to do with it at first.  She just kept touching it with her hand.  Grammy decided to pick it up for her and let her try a bite, but that didn’t work all that well, either.  So, I had to cut it up into little pieces and THEN she dug in and enjoyed every last bite. 

The next big event was getting ready to go to Great Wolf Lodge in Traverse City.  We had made plans to go there with some friends of ours who have kids the same age.  So, we spent this past weekend up north at the waterpark.  It was very nice.  Although, my kids were big chickens.  They did not want to go down hardly any slides.  They liked the hot tub, so that was kinda nice (any excuse to sit in the warm water).  We planned to head home on Saturday, but the weather was not pretty up north and we heard that it wasn’t nice at home, either.  So, we decided to just stay put and spent another night in a different hotel.  We woke up Sunday morning and went to breakfast and headed home.  It was a good feeling to be heading home and I was ready to sleep in my own bed.  Most of the pics we took didn’t turn out very well, but here are a few to show that we did have fun.  How cute is that crew?  We brought along a friend of ours from church to help with the kids and she was such a HUGE help.  It was nice to have an extra set of eyes on all the kiddos.  :) 

That pretty much covers our past couple of weeks.  Of course, I did fail to mention that the Wednesday night before we left for Great Wolf Lodge, we came home to a basement that was covered with water.  Apparently our sump pump had taken a dump and our basement began to fill.  So, we were up until midnight trying to semi clean that up before we had to leave the next day.  I think that I did 4 or 5 loads of laundry.  Shame on me for leaving boxes of old clothes on the floor.  Now I am going to make work of getting rid of all my maternity clothes and baby clothes that we don’t need anymore.  We also had some dry food goods that were on the floor instead of shelves, and those had to be thrown away as well.  I guess we could have paid more for insurance to cover the damage, but we didn’t, so we will have to take care of everything ourselves.  Oh, the joys of home ownership.  LOL.

Today I had to go pick up my sister Shawn’s dog.  We are dog sitting this week while she is down south on a serve project.  My girls are scared of Pixel so we’ll see how that goes.  Hopefully, Pixel is calm and the girls get more use to having her around.  Otherwise, it is only a week and Pixel will only get to play outside with them or after the girls go to bed.  I will try to post a pic of the kiddos and Pixel if I get a chance to do so this week.  Shawny - I know that you will like to see pics of your puppy.  I’m sure that you miss her.  We’ll take good care of her.  :)

Well, the girls are awake and demanding my attention.  So, I better get going.  I hope you all have a great week!  I’ll try to get back later this week with more photos.

The title has so many meanings.  First of all, it has been a while since I posted.  Things have been a little busy in our home the last few weeks.  Which brings me to the 2nd reason for the title.  On Jan. 31st, we celebrated the 5th birthday of our first born child, Kylie.  WOW  I can’t believe that she is 5 already.  That is such a milestone birthday.  I remember her birth so well, just like it was yesterday.  Of course, everything between birth and 5 has been somewhat of a whirlwind or blur.  She is such a special little girl and Dan and I feel so blessed to have her as part of our little family.  Part of a child turning 5 is the decision about where they will go to school.  I have struggled with this decision and I don’t think that I am completely settled on where, yet.  We did visit the local public school and I was more impressed than I thought I would be.  We have one more open house to attend at a local charter school and we’ll see how that goes.  It is such a tough decision.  I did rule out the Christian/Private school thing, which was not an easy decision, but I just didn’t feel like that was the right choice for our family at this time.  The funny thing is that it really isn’t the money that ruled them out, it was just a feeling that we both had about the whole thing.  I think that is what made it even more difficult to rule out, because I was fortunate enough to go to a Christian school and the rest of my siblings are sending their kids to a Christian school.  I personally had to let go of my fear of what everyone else might think about our decision and do what I feel is best for our family and our kids.  We are truly blessed to live in a very strong Christian community, so I think that there are very strong values and faith even in the public school system.  Anyway, I did do a January desktop and it was all about my Kylie and her turning 5.  Here it is:

The 3rd reason for the title is about Emma.  As we have come in to the month of February, we are fast approaching Emma’s 1st birthday.  WOW AGAIN.  I can’t believe that my last born and baby is going to be 1.  She won’t be a baby anymore.  :(  I was just thinking this morning that as we approached the 1st birthday of the first two kiddos, we started thinking about trying for another.  That is not the case with Emma’s first b-day.  We are done having our own babies - I took care of that after Emma was born.  Part of me feels sad about not having another baby, but a much larger part of me is glad that I took care of that before I could change my mind.  The last two pregnancies were challenging at best and I am really glad that I don’t have to go thru that again.  And, if we can’t live with the fact that we are done having kids, there are so many babies born that need a good home.  Of course, I would have to choose a baby boy since that is what I deep down wanted from the beginning.  Don’t get me wrong, I love all 3 of my girls and I can’t imagine life without any one of them.  Dan and I were just talking about that the other day.  If any one of them had been a boy, our family would be so much different and we wouldn’t have the family that we love so much right now.  Anyway, I have dedicated my February desktop to Emma, so here it is (I know that you are all shocked that I actually finished a desktop within the 1st week of the month - me too!):

Well, we have a really laid back weekend this weekend, but things will pick up next weekend.  We are trying to plan a combination b-day party/valentines party with my family for Emma and my niece, Selah.  Then, the following week we have made plans to go to Great Wolf Lodge with friends of ours.  Our friends have never been there or to any indoor waterpark, so I’m sure they will LOVE it.  And, our kids can’t wait to go again - they love to play in the pools and go down the kiddie slides.

Today we are enjoying some winter sunshine and a much needed meltdown.  I have a feeling that after this weekend we will have little to no snow on the ground.  And, while I don’t really care for snow, I really don’t care for the dirty roads and lawns.  Oh well, we can’t have the best of everything all the time, right?  Well, I better get to finishing my weekend housework.  NASCAR starts up tonight and I’m excited to have racing to watch on the weekends (at least until summer is here and the boat is in the water).  I hope you all have a great weekend, wherever you are and whatever your plans!

I don’t have much time since the girls are all awake and begging for my attention.  But, I wanted to do a quick post to show off the piece of history that I have been fortunate to be a part of.  As most of you know, I work at an incredible place called Zeeland Architectural Components.  It has been an incredible place to work and I have been fortunate to be part of some really cool projects.  And, as cool as some of those projects have been, none have been as cool as the one I am going to show you.  Even a project such as Notre Dame, the golden dome building, doesn’t match the historical level this project will (now and hopefully every 4 years).  Our company had the distinct pleasure of creating the inaugural balustrade for the inaugural stage.  In the past, the stage that was created in front of the US Capitol building had a very temporary type railing around the stage.  I’m not sure who’s idea this was, but somebody had an incredible idea to create a balustrade around the stage that will match the existing stone balustrade around the rest of the Capitol building.  I found a picture on Wikipedia of the US Capitol building from the 2005 inauguration and you will see the straight railing (i.e. plain and boring) around the stage.  You can kind of see that the railing around the stage does not match the balustrade system that goes off to the sides and then down the steps.   

The company that asked us to be a part of this project took a picture of the nearly completed project about a week or so ago.  So, here is a picture of what the US Capitol building looks like right now…

Now, doesn’t that railing look soooooo much better?!?  Another cool thing that we did was create a crating system for these sections of balustrade so that they can be packed up after the event and stored for the next inauguration and hopefully all future inaugurations.  Of course, we are talking about the highest level of government and I have some concerns about their ability to remember that they have them, find wherever they stored them, and not just waste more money on something new and different for the next inauguration.  But, I guess I can say that I was a small part of the 2009 inauguration.  LOL 

Alright, everything else is going well in our household.  I am the final one to get the stomach flu and it didn’t hit me too terribly hard.  I also weighed myself in after 2 weeks of working on my elliptical 5 days for 20 minutes and I am proud to say that I lost 7 pounds.  Yippee!!!  I also purchased some resistance bands and the Jillian Michael’s 30 day shred video that I am excited to use.  I haven’t started either of those things, but I’m sure that I will this week or next.  I have to get a mat and some dumbbells for the Jillian videos.  Anyway, I’m excited enough to keep on sweatin’ to lose the extra pounds that I have gained.  I realize that it’s not Biggest Loser style weight loss, but I don’t have that much weight to lose and I also don’t have their trainers.  I’m just excited to see some sort of weight loss after 2 weeks.  Another great perk is that I feel a lot better and I have a lot more energy.  I’m excited to see what happens when I start the Jillian Michael’s DVD.

I hope you all have a great week and try to catch the inauguration just to say that you know someone who was a part of the inaugural stage project.  That most certainly is the ONLY reason that I would bother watching that speech full of empty promises and a crowd of people looking for a savior.  But, that’s another post.  TTYL

Well, not a whole lot going on around here.  We had round 2 of the flu for 2 out of the 5 of us this past week.  I have had headaches quite consistently for the last month or so.  Other than that, we are all doing alright.  I wish I could figure out what is causing the headaches.  At first, I thought that maybe it was hormones, but I’m not sure that is the case anymore.  I hate bringing them up to the doctor because every time I do, they give me the whole speech about diet and caffeine, blah, blah, blah.  I’m sure that diet plays some role in my headaches, but I don’t eat the same stuff all the time and I really don’t drink any more or less coffee than normal.  So, WHY must I get headaches randomly????  Anyway, I wish that there was a magic cure for headaches, but I’m afraid that it is a family gene that I inherited and it sucks.  I guess the one good thing about having headaches regularly is that I am not a baby when it comes to a headache.  Sure, they are annoying, but I can function as normal.  It seems to me that with all the amazing drugs out there, something would be able to cure a headache.  I just keep poppin’ ibuprofen like they are candy - that seems to do the trick at least.  Enough about me and my stupid headaches.  I’ll just keep doing the same ole same ole thing unless someone else has a better idea.

In other news, I don’t recall the last time I posted updates on the kiddos, but I have some things on my mind that I want to remember, so I’m posting them today.

Kylie - She is turning "5" this month on the 31st.  I can’t believe that my first born is turning 5.  She wants to have a party at Crazy Bounce, so I have to start planning that party soon.  She is liking school.  Her new thing is to have Daddy pick her up after school.  I think she loves to have one-on-one time with her daddy.  She is such a daddy’s girl - I think that it is soooo cute.  She could spend 24/7 with her dad, doing whatever it is that he has to do or wants to do.  I talked to her teacher at school last week and she was filling me in on how Kylie was doing.  Apparently there are little cliques in preschool and even three-school.  She was telling me that Kylie just kinda goes from group to group and really isn’t cliquey.  That part didn’t really surprise me at all - she can get along with and fit in with anyone.  The part that did shock me was that Kylie doesn’t talk excessively at school.  Now, Kylie could talk a lot before she was even 1 and whenever she said a new word, she said it perfectly.  Speech has always been a strong suit for her.  And she seems to talk non-stop at home and pretty much wherever we go.  She’ll talk to absolutely ANYONE, whether she’s known them for a long time or she just wants to meet someone new at the grocery store.  In fact, the other night she was looking at a Birthday Express magazine and she was narrating the entire thing to Dan and I, while we were having a totally separate conversation.  I had to stop and tell Dan that she reminded me of my Grandma Ann, who would carry on a conversation all by herself whether or not you were listening or responding.  LOL  Other than that, she is doing well and I look forward to meeting with her teachers after they do their little assessment that they have to do.  One of our recent struggles is trying to decide where to send her to school.  There are quite a few options and all of them have their pros and cons, which makes it so difficult to choose.  And to make matters worse, we don’t have a whole lot of time to decide - enrollment usually starts in February some time.  YIKES!!!  I’m hoping that God just sends us a little letter telling us what to do.  :)

Kennedy - What to say, what to say.  She is cute, sweet, and EXTREMELY naughty (or maybe more mischievous).  It’s hard not to laugh at her naughty ways sometimes, but it’s also difficult not to get extremely angry with her.  She has to get into everything that she is not supposed to get in to.  I think she is more like me and probably more a momma’s girl than Kylie is.  She doesn’t like the cold weather, just like I don’t.  She would much rather stay inside and curl up on the couch and read books or watch a video.  She’s a petite little thing and doesn’t like to eat much, but that too goes in spurts.  We fight over her eating her dinner more often than not.  On the positive side, she is pretty much completely potty trained.  She doesn’t have accidents hardly at all and she even takes naps in her undies.  We still leave her in a diaper at night, but I’m sure that will come to an end soon.  I don’t even recall how we managed that with Kylie, but I’m guessing that it will be pretty clear when her diaper stays dry more often at night.  We will be having a combination big girl party with Selah’s B-day party this week.  We’ve been to Chuck-E-Cheese a lot lately, so she thinks that she’s had several big girl parties.  This time we plan to get a special gift at the end with the tickets that we have saved up, so that will make it special.  She is also a very girly girl who loves shoes and loves to change her outfit several times a day.  I’m not sure where she gets that from, since I am not much of a girly girl and I am certainly not concerned with fashion.  Of course, she doesn’t have the matching thing down completely, but she knows what she wants to wear and she has no problem picking out her own clothes and getting dressed by herself.  We could be headed down a very expensive path with her love for shoes and clothes.  LOL

Emma - She is 11 months and has been a really good baby.  She is happy pretty much all the time.  She is crawling pretty much exclusively now (no more army crawl).  She likes to stand up by things and I have even found her standing up in her crib.  I suppose that it is time to lower the crib mattress.  She has 4 teeth, two on top and two on bottom.  She doesn’t bite me, but she hasn’t figured out how to nurse without scraping those top teeth.  I’m thinking that we are pretty close to being done with the nursing thing.  I nursed the other two until they were 1, but I’m thinking that I may end it sooner with her.  The doctor said she needed to "fatten up" a little bit, so I’m sure that by switching to formula and whole milk, we would increase her size a little bit.  Her latest trick is clapping her hands.  She gets so excited when she claps and we say "yeahhhhh."  I just love this stage of babyhood - they are so fun and interactive.  She likes to babble, but doesn’t say many words.  In fact, the only word that she has said clearly is "dada."  Of course, Dan just loves it and encourages it.  I think that it’s just not fair to have her say dada first, since I am the one that takes care of her the most.

Well, that sums up the updates on the girls.  As you can see, we are so very blessed.  I often think about how things would be so different and just not right, had God given me my way and given us a boy.  I recall being saddened by the news that I was having a girl the 2nd & 3rd time, and those were real emotions and I don’t regret them.  However, I can see now, that God’s perfect plan has blessed us immensely.  I am glad that I am done having our own children, but my mind & heart have not completely ruled out the adoption thing.  Dan and I haven’t really talked much about it, but sometimes I think about how cool it would be to adopt a boy baby.  I don’t think that we would adopt any time soon, but I wouldn’t rule it out.  I guess we’ll just have to leave it up to God to let us know if we should and when.  It would ruin my plan to be done with all the baby stuff and to be able to just get rid of everything, but I could at least get rid of all my girly baby stuff.  And, for someone who likes to plan everything and know the plan for everything, it says quite a bit to say that I am open to any possibility when it comes to adopting a child. 

Alright, the girls are up and I got a few more things to do before Dan gets home, so I better get going.  The girls are busy watching Frosty the Snowman for now, so I have about 1/2 hour to finish my to do list. Have a good week and thanks for reading!