Children's Museum

The Grand Rapids Children's Museum membership is the way to go! After 2-3 visits with our family the membership has more than paid for itself, and we have been over a dozen times this winter. I can't even begin to explain how wonderful this place is. But here are a few pictures of a recent visit on a members only day so you can get a glimpse of it yourself. 

Arts and crafts table

Lego table

Bubble bath - blow giant bubbles

Rainbow balls in slots thingy

Make a giant bubble tube (I love Peter's expression here - he can tell it's about to pop!)

Members only day - snacks provided by local smoothie and frozen yogurt restaurant

Dental health exhibit: brush the puppets' teeth and use a realistic sounding squirter tool

Construction zone exhibit slide

Everything is designed for the exploration, play-learning and safety of children

The gravel/dirt is recycled rubber from tires. 

Great Wolf Lodge in Traverse City

First, a hilarious picture to show you one of Addie's recent quirks. She frequently undresses herself and finds some of her siblings clothes and does her best job dressing herself in their clothes. She is pretty good at it but the shirt usually confuses her so she comes asking for help. I admit, I put the shirt on her in this picture. It makes her so happy I don't see why not satisfy her, even though it's a little weird seeing her in boy clothes. So after she put on Peter's pants and I helped her with the shirt, she went and found his shoes and put them on, and then donned the hard hat. Too cute! She really looks a lot like Peter !! 

 During a few days of Reading Break we had the privilege to spend two nights in Traverse City at the Great Wolf Lodge with my parents and sister and brother-in-law and their kids. It is a great place for a family-friendly getaway. It's a hotel with an indoor water park, plus a ton of other activities, too. It was a really fun couple of days.

Each night one of the characters comes and helps read a bedtime story to all the kids in the lobby. Our kids loved meeting the big fuzzy animals. Well, maybe Addie didn't love it?

 There really was something for everyone to enjoy at the water park. Plenty of fun to be had by all! It was super nice having a one-to-one adult to child ratio: the kids ages are 7, 5, 4, 3, 1 1/2, and 5 months!

One of the perks of the water park at GWL is that the air and water temperatures are luxuriously warm!  Even so, the hot tub was a still a treat for young and old.

 Grandma S with Cora and Leyton (in the back) enjoying the lazy river.

 Cora got to take a special "Jr. Lifeguard" training class. Behind her in the picture you can see some of the water park attractions.

 The time went so fast but it gave us great memories to enjoy for a long time afterward! 

Click HERE for a short video at YouTube of Addie and Peter going down the kiddie sized water slides. (Thanks, Deb, for taking it!) They did this over and over for probably a whole hour straight one evening! They were really loving it! Too bad we didn't get any videos of the big slides. Let's face it: cameras and water don't mix!

Fun February

January proved to be deep, deep winter. I think Cora had 5 days of school cancelled (in addition to the first week off for Christmas break, and a day off for records day). I'm the kind of mom that feels as excited as the kids when school gets cancelled!  I love the thrill of a snow storm and seeing the beautiful white blanket covering  the ground and piles of snow balancing on tree branches. Plus, I love that Cora gets to be home with us and we just have a lot of fun together!

February, as we know now in March, didn't let up and fought to compete with the extreme conditions that January provided. It has been a major source of complaint for many people,   I have to admit that it seems strange to me that the long, cold, dark (as in short) days of December and January didn't bother me in the least, and for the most part I've been secretly loving it!   I just take it as a blessing; one of the ways God has answered prayers for sustaining us through this last year of seminary. 

Other than the weather, February started with a bummer of a Super Bowl for us Denver Bronco fans! We had a great little party with extended family. Deb and I had fun coordinating as much blue and orange food as we could!

 Despite the super disappointment, we remain Bronco fans!

 February means Valentine's Day to lots of people. Admittedly, Brad and I have not traditionally made a big deal about celebrating it. But when a babysitting offer came from my parents we decided to enjoy a date, our style. Dinner and a movie? No thanks! We strapped on our snow shoes and got off the beaten trail to experience the deep snow where no one has tread before. We explored the snow covered sand dunes and over to the frozen shore of Lake Michigan.

 I just had to throw in this picture of Addie. She is obsessed with babies, lately. If I mention anyone in my sister's family she chimes in with "Bee-bee?" asking if we are going to see her cousin, baby Lucas. It's sweet but I really have to  keep an eye on her when a baby is around, even if it's a stranger when we're out an about. She tries to give them pacifiers and blankets and point to their eyes...things that moms of newborns would rather a toddler not help with. Her fascination has translated to playing with the baby doll that Cora got when she turned 2 and never really played with very much. In the picture below Addie had asked me to wrap up the baby in Addie's favorite blankie which she calls "Ee-hee". It's amazing how fast little one go from being a baby to recognizing anyone smaller than themselves as a baby!

A Post-Christmas Holiday

One thing about being a family in school is that we get to enjoy the school year calendar. Two weeks Christmas vacation is a wonderful thing! By early in January, the Christmas decorations were put away, the stores and malls had moved on to either the Super Bowl and Valentine's Day merchandise, and the new year had been rung in. But we still had a few more days to celebrate, before going back to school. 

So we took a "holiday" and went to Frankenmuth, MI, for a family day trip. It was a warm (read 34 degrees) but gloomy day. Drizzling cold rain and a tight budget really limits your options when site-seeing with young children. But we enjoyed the famous chicken dinner from Zehnders, delighted in the Bavarian looking main street, and meandered around the World's Largest Christmas Store, Bronners CHRISTmas Wonderland. All in all, it was a fun and simple day together as a family. Plus, it satisfied my and Brad's curiosity about the hype we've heard about Frankenmuth! 

 Below: Can you tell which "snowBierma" is which?

If you guessed Peter (top left), Addie (top right), Cora (bottom), you're right! :) 

 January proved to be a fabulously cold and snowy month. Some people would replace "fabulously" with such words as miserably, viciously, terribly, etc. I actually thought it was fabulous. We had to work a little harder to really take advantage of days that were nice enough to get outside. Here's a picture of Addie (left) with friends Jedryk and Moriah taking a sled ride. Addie refuses (still) to keep mittens on, so she doesn't last very long outside!

 Addie and Peter have a typical sibling relationship. Sometimes they play like best friends, sometimes they fight like worst enemies. Here's a picture of a nicer moment of peaceful companionship. (Peter teaching Addie all about trucks.)

Our Little Gal's Golden Day

My sincere apologies! I must think about posting on the blog often enough that I feel like I've actually done so, when in reality it only happened in my head. I wonder how many other things are only getting attention in my thoughts and not in real life?

Flash back to January: Cora turned 7. SEVEN! Is each year going to be this crazy? I overheard a father's advice to his adult son, whose daughter had just turned 6. He said to his son, "Congratulations! One third of your time raising your daughter is finished!" We're one year past that. Seven is one third of 21...I was married at 21!  

This year was Cora's Golden Birthday. She turned 7 on January 7, so we played up the "golden" idea a little bit with her birthday party. Cora and I had fun trying to find golden colored foods: finger jello, pine apples, golden raisins, potato chips...etc. She chose, for the third year in a row, a rainbow layered cake. To change it up this year I made 6 layers, each a different color. It seriously is the most fun cake I've ever eaten! 

We enjoyed celebrating Cora's birthday with a few friends of hers (one is also a cousin). They colored her a birthday poster, played some old-fashioned party games (musical chairs, hot and cold, pop the balloon, etc), ate lunch and went sledding in our back yard. It was super fun...and I'm really glad we limited the invitation list to only 5 friends! They had a lot of energy! Here are some pictures of the fun we had.

Red Light, Green Light

Coloring her birthday banner

Musical Chairs

The gang!

Lunch time

Happy birthday, sweet Cora!

The (huge) rainbow layered birthday cake.