Happy Birthday Kiera!

At the end of February, Kiera was able to celebrate her 7th birthday. Back in the Fall, we had purchased a Groupon for 2 nights at the local Ramkota hotel that has a water park with it. We decided to save this and use it for Kiera's birthday. Since we were swimming for her birthday, she wanted a swimming pool cake. It was actually a very easy cake and I was happy with how it turned out. Kiera invited some friends to swim one of the evenings and then the second day she had her cousin Eli come and spend the day swimming with her. All the kids had a blast swimming and there were always tears when it was time to quit. We had an enjoyable weekend as a family and all had a great time swimming! Enjoy the pictures!

All 3 kids LOVED the slide!

Taking a break to refuel (with cousin Eli)

Cool dude Joel

Crazy Caleb

Kiera's school party

Opening gifts at the family party with Grandpa and Grandma.

Where have we been???

Wow! I can't believe that I haven't  posted since the boys birthday! I guess time flies when you are having fun. Christmas came and went in its usual busyness and then we got back to school which always comes with its own version of crazy.  Now it's March and I can't believe it's almost over too! Here are some of the highlights of the past few months:

1. In January Kiera participated in her class spelling bee and made it to the finals. She didn't end up placing but performed very well. We were so proud of her!
2. January also brought us to our annual school Carnival which the kids love attending. They came home with lots of loot, candy, and smiles...not to mention the HUGE sheet cake we won at the cake walk. They aren't huge cake eaters but managed to snag the largest cake there. Nice.
3. January 21 was Ryan's birthday which we had fun celebrating. It was fun to help him add to his model train project that he has been working on all winter.
4. February was our usual routine of church praise team (Ryan on bass and I on piano), nursery duties, story hour leading, and Ryan's youth group duties.
5. Ryan took the high school group on their annual winter retreat and it was a very uplifting spiritual experience for everyone. He was very pleased with how it went this year.
6. While Ryan was at his retreat, I took the kids up to my sister Tami's in Cloquet, MN. We had a TON of fun! We ice skated, went sledding, played lots of games, and basically held down the couches from floating away. It was super relaxing and so nice to actually all be healthy together!
7. By the time we returned from Cloquet, it was time to get ready for Kiera's birthday. I will write more about this later.
8. Kiera also had reading week at her school the last week of February. We were very proud of her reading and she won the most minutes of her class! This mom is very happy to have another reader in the family!

The same weekend that we celebrated Kiera's birthday, I received some very sad news that my Grandfather DeGroot had passed away. His health had been failing the past few years and the Lord decided it was time to take him home. My sister Tami and I were able to get last minute Amtrak tickets and head to WA for the funeral. It was a bittersweet time. It was very difficult to say good-bye to Grandpa, but very comforting to know that he was not in pain any longer. It was a ton of fun to see all my relatives that came. We had a wonderful time remembering Grandpa and celebrating his life together.

I also got the added bonus of meeting my newest niece, Kaiya! What an amazing baby she is! She is so good and it was so fun to cuddle her. It was also fun to see all my other nieces and nephews out there and be able to spend time with my family.

Life has definitely been busy these past few months but we rest in the fact that He is always in control and is always with us through the joys and the sorrows. Great is His Faithfulness!

The gorgeous view from my parent's house...the Olympic Mt. range, ocean, and green, green, green! I miss it all so much!

My newest sweet niece Kaiya...what a doll!

Happy 4th Birthday Boys!!!

Whew! What a birthday this was!!! The boys have been counting down the days for SOOOO long and it finally arrived. I must admit that it was a little bittersweet for them. This may come as a surprise to some of you, but the boys were not potty trained as of yesterday. They are 2 stubborn little boys who refused to try/attempt/show interest at all. I finally decided this summer that it really wasn't worth the stress and headache...especially trying to convince 2 strong willed boys that they should. Anyway, we decided to really push turning 4, and that they no longer made diapers for 4 year olds. I am ecstatic to report that it worked!!!!! This morning Joel went on his own and never had an accident the whole day! Caleb took a little bit longer, but by this afternoon was successfully trained. We did spend most of our day in the bathroom and potty training twins is exhausting! A few times I was running back and forth from bathrooms cheering, encouraging, reading to, washing hands, putting clothes on......I am BEAT! But, we survived and have entered the world of no diapers! YEAH!!!!!

Amidst all that drama, we still managed to have waffles for breakfast, per the boys request, open presents, skype with grandparents, play with our new presents, celebrate Dairy Queen for supper, make a cake and eat it, and even ran to the toy store to exchange a defunct gift. The boys had a ton of fun and loved all the gifts everybody sent and blessed them with! We are so proud of our boys and it's hard to believe we are at year 4 already! What a blessing Caleb & Joel have been and we love their cheerful outlook, sweet nature, and crazy antics! We love you both so much!!! This mama is now headed to crack open a diet coke and put her weary feet up. Enjoy the pics from our day!

This picture makes me laugh...the night before we laid out all our underwear as we were excited to start!

Eating our waffle breakfast!

So excited to open gifts!

The boys chose a Candy Land cake as it is one of their favorite games.

I am proud of how it turned out! The boys loved it!

Joel on left, Caleb on right

Waiting for our food at Dairy Queen

Caleb and mommy

We are 4!

Mommy and Joel

Playing our new Headbanz game. It was lots of fun!

1st Piano Performance!

Kiera started taking piano lessons this year. As I am her teacher, she doesn't have recitals or anything. I didn't want her to be afraid to play in front of people like I was, so we had her play a Christmas song at our church Christmas program yesterday. A number of kids signed up to do part of the prelude. Kiera and I did a duet together.  I am SOOOO proud of her! She worked so hard and voluntarily practiced to make sure she was ready. She did AWESOME! No mistakes and she wasn't even nervous!

This is exactly what the boys looked like through the duration of the program. They didn't move, didn't sing, didn't do actions...nothing. I guess at least they participated!

Still nothing...

Kiera, on the other hand, did fabulous! She sang her little heart out!

Our kids with their Link cousins who were also a part of the program.

Costume Fun

 This year Kiera's school had their annual skating party on Tuesday night and the kids LOVED it. The boys were very determined to learn to skate and were doing a pretty good job by the end of the night. It took Kiera a little bit to remember how, but after a few times around, she got the hang of it again. Eventually she informed me that she didn't need me to skate with her anymore. It's bittersweet to see her gain more independence but was very proud of how well she did. It was a fun night skating together as a family!

The kids had a lot of fun trick-or treating this year. The boys didn't remember going since the last time we went was 2 year ago. Needless to say, they were pretty excited! We decided to dig around the dress up box for costumes for the boys and I was happy they were fine with that. Kiera was very blessed to have Grandma Link make her costume for her. It turned out so cute and she LOVED it! Enjoy these pictures from our fun night!

Rapunzel

 

It's crazy how well this hair matched her real hair!

Tow Mater!

SpiderMan

Notice Spidey trying to figure out his web...

Still trying...

Is this right dad?

This is what the boys looked like the entire time...they ran from one house to the next

Still running...

Grandma joined us for our trick-or-treating. Thanks for the great costume!

I had to add this picture. One morning I came in the room to find the boys had set all of Kiera's Strawberry Shortcakes up and were happily playing. I guess that's what happens when you have a big sister to influence you. Should I be worried???

Fall Update

It's been quite awhile since I've updated this blog. A lot has happened since school started and yet it's all pretty routine information.

Kiera continues to LOVE school. She comes home full of information and we are pretty sure she doesn't get her 10,000 words in as she talks non stop from 3:30 to bedtime. At times it may be tiring, but I love knowing what's going on at school and it opens up a lot of room for great teachable moments. At the end of September, Kiera was honored by receiving the Student of the Month for her 1st grade class. This is given to students for their good behavior, kindness to others, respect for others, doing their best in their school work, and being a good help and participant in class. We were very proud to be able to attend this little ceremony and see her be honored for her positive character makes this parents heart proud!



The boys are enjoying their never ending play dates at home. I dare say they spend a majority of their day circling the kitchen table pushing cars, tractors, trains, and pretty much anything with wheels. I am always amazed how much time they can spend doing this day in and day out. It's fun to see their friendship and how well they get a long. On Wed. they enjoy going to Story Hour, which I am in charge of, and love getting together with the other kids and socializing. It's a nice out for us and definitely helps break up our week.

Ryan is busy again now that all the church programs are up and running again. It's always an adjustment once summer is over to see him gone a lot of evenings again and being the sole parent in charge of the oh-so-fun bedtime routine. But, we are thankful for his job and that he continues to enjoy what he does and does an incredible job!

This month we took our annual trip to the local pumpkin patch. It turned out to be a much hotter day than anticipated, but we still enjoyed ourselves. It's fun to see the kids enjoying all the rides and picking out their pumpkins. Later in the week we did our pumpkin decorating and we all had a lot of fun!

Caleb and his cowboy pumpkin (is the grin a match?)

              

Joel and his cowboy pumpkin