Christmas 2008

Sorry for the long wait since our last post. Life has been crazy and frankly I have been to tired and wiped out to post. Here is a brief run down of our Christmas celebrations (all 6 of them) and some pics. I hope that you all had a very merry Christmas filled with His love and presence.

The Sunday before Christmas found us with my mom's side of the family, opening gifts and watching the kids enjoy their presents. We spent Christmas Eve with Nick's family and opened gifts with them before heading to the 10:00pm service at our church. I had to sing on the praise team and Nick had to do the Advent reading and read the Christmas story. We actually took Micah along and he was thrilled that we let him hold his own candle. Christmas morning was spent at home with just us. Christmas noon was with Nick's mom's side of the family. Christmas Night was spent with my family. The Friday night following Christmas we celebrated with my dad's side of the family by going to a hotel that one of my aunts works at. It was great because the kids were able to enjoy the pool for a little while. Finally Sunday night we gathered with Nick's dad's side of the family for a brief meal and bingo.

Helping Grandpa work his new tool.

Christmas parties are hard work! (Note: This is the first time that she has just randomly fallen asleep somewhere.)

The kid's playing in Becca's new ball house.

Micah and Nick slept on the living room floor on Christmas Eve.

The kids in their new matching snowman PJs. They love them!

Micah and my counsin Lydia at the hotel swimming pool.

All of the counsins (and spouses & fiances) on my dad's side. The are 10 counsins, 3 spouses, 2 fiances and 3 children of the counsin + one on the way! We are growing!

What Grows In Our Window

This crazy cold weather has a way of bringing things to your attention like never before. We know that the windows in our house are not that great. Last winter we had this little icicle thing that grew in our kitchen window. Well, this is what our kitchen window looks like right now.

It is about 6-8 inches tall and at least an inch in diameter. Kind of disturbing if you ask me.... No need for a thermometer at our house - just go measure the icicle in the kitchen window! LOL!

Tiring & Trying

I have found the last couple of weeks to be tiring and trying. I am trying to determine why, but have really no answers. The only thing that I can think of is a combination of many things. What has been going on around here?

1. Christmas preparations - Like many years we have several family things to go to and Christmas gifts to purchase. For me that means time spent gathering gifts and wrapping them. There is also the food to purchase and prepare in advance of the gatherings. Then there is the getting everyone ready to see the relatives that we only see once or twice a year (ie making sure that the appropriate clothes are clean and not in the laundry).


2. Health - For the most part we have been healthy. Becca's surgery and subsequent sinus infection have been a big part of this. (She is finally feeling better, but is now starting to get a little ornery on us.) Nick has also had a cold and I thought that I was coming down with a stomach virus.


3. Weather - It has been so cold and so snowy and icy that I am not sure how we are going to make it through winter again. Schools have had late starts, early outs and been cancelled all together. Micah doesn't understand that more school means less school and gets upset when he can't get to preschool. (Not sure how we are going to survive Christmas break...)


4. Energy - The kids have so much energy and no where to release it! There are times that Micah is literally bouncing off of the walls and I can hardly blame him! There are times when I am ready to bounce off the walls. Becca seems to think that her brother is either a punching bag or jungle gym. That doesn't go over so well and then the screaming begins.

I know that these don't seem like major issues, but they have all messed with our schedule (or rather my schedule) and that upsets the whole balance. I am hoping that I can adjust and sleep enough that I don't let it dampen the true meaning of Christmas.

Straight No Chaser

Some friends of our sent us a Christmas CD today in the mail. There was a note with the CD to check out one of their songs on U Tube. We did and we loved it! It put huge smiles on our faces.

I can't figure out how to put the clip on my blog, but here is the link. Please go and enjoy the song! We can't wait to listen to the rest of their music!

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=2kYEK-pxs_A

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Program

It was an exciting day for us today.

To start with, Loren & Shellie, friends of ours, came for a brief visit this weekend. They came with the intention of seeing the kid's Christmas program, but due to the weather they were not able to stay for the program itself. The visit was brief but it was great to see them again and the kids love to see them! Here is a photo of them spending some quality time together during their visit.

This evening the kids had their Christmas program at church. It was a riot! You never know what they are going to do. They had been practicing their songs at home and were really enjoying them. They both did really well during the program. The boys in Micah's class dressed as shepherds and Becca's class was the animals (she has on sheep ears) Micah and his friend Anthony got a little animated during one of the songs and were doing the actions with a a lot of gusto. Becca did most of the actions along with a little wandering around when she didn't like where she was standing any more. We are so proud of them! Here are some pictures.

Micah and his friend Anthony before the program.

Getting ready!

The next two photos are of Becca during the program. The quality isn't the best and is standing behind another little guy. She is the little girl in the plain pink dress. She loved doing the actions!

Can't wait for their next program! They are just the best! (A special thanks goes to Melissa and to all the Sunday school teachers for all their hard work in pulling the program together. Thank you!)

Our Amazing Little Girl

When I found out that Becca had to have tubes put in her ears again and her adenoids out I was a little worried. Becca can be a little, well, intense and will let you know in no uncertain terms that she is or is not happy.

Today was better than I could have ever imagined. I imagined myself fighting with a with a miserable 2-year-old all day. The day was totally not what I had expected.

Nick and I were up at 4:20 this morning and we got out the door just before 5. Becca was awake for the whole ride and didn't fuss or complain about it at all. She went through all the check-in processes and exams without a single peep. When the nurse came to take her to surgery Becca gave us kisses and went to her without a problem.

The surgery went as planned. However they discovered a sinus infection while they were removing the adenoids and so we came home with antibiotics to hopefully take care of that.

An hour and half later the nurse came to take us to Becca in recovery. While walking us back the nurse told us that Becca was one of the best patients she had seen in awhile. She awoke from the surgery with hardly a fuss and was just snuggling with the nurse. (A side note: For those of you who have never had a child "put under" this isn't typical. Most of the time they awake trying to fight off the affects of the medicine and it usually quite a battle until the medication is all out of the system.)

We were sitting and snuggling with Becca when the nurse that had taken her back to surgery came to see us in recovery. She said that Becca was the best 2-year-old that she had ever seen, even better than some adults. Apparently Becca had just sat on the gurney and looked around and when it was time for her to be put to sleep actually held the mask to her face by herself. This brought tears to my eyes.

The ride home was a little rough, but she came home and slept for nearly 3 hours. After a 3 course snack she was pretty much back to her normal self.

Amazing.... The only think that I can think caused this unexpected good day was all the prayers that were being lifted on Becca's behalf. Thank you so much for lifting us up today and thus being a part of our amazing day.

Becca's Surgery

I just got home and there was a message that Becca's has to check in for her surgery tomorrow morning at 6:15. That means a really early morning for all of us but Micah - he is spending the night at grandpa & grandma's. We are thinking that we need to leave home by 5:00 which mean that we need to get up.... well you get the idea. Pray that all goes well tomorrow and that Becca will feel well enough by Saturday for Christmas program practice and for the Christmas program on Sunday.
Thank you!

School Bus

Our children have a facination with school buses. They are always quick to point them out, count them and then talk about them. The other day we were headed into town abour 8:10 when all the area school buses were out. This was a conversation that Micah and I had.

Micah: Mommy did you know that not all school buses are yellow?

Mom: School buses are always yellow.

Micah: No, some school buses are red.

Mom: I don't think so. School buses are yellow so that people can see them. Maybe you are talking about charter buses. They can be different colors and some are probably red.

Micah: MOM, (said with that whine that means you are so wrong) school buses don't have charts on them!

Mom: (speechless with laughter)

Snow, Candy Canes & Cookies

Sounds like a great Christmas post!

On Wednesday we got some more snow. Enough snow that the kids and I were stuck at home all day, no where to go, nothing planned and really nothing exciting for the kids to do. It was a long day...for mom at least. However I was able to get the kids outside for awhile and they loved the snow. In fact they cried when it was time to come inside.

Micah brought Grandma Across the Street (my parents who live across the street from us) her mail today. As a thank you grandma gave him a little for him and for his sister. I am thankful that they were just little ones as it took them forever to eat them and well, let just say it was a little messy for the younger one. You really can't tell in this photo, but it was dripping of her chin and all through her hair as well. Thanks Mom....

The church fellowship group that we belong to decorates Christmas cookies every December. The past two years we have had conflicts so it didn't work. It also didn't bother me because baking the sugar cookies and actually decorating them is not my thing. My mom never did it and so isn't something that I particular like to do or even really know how to do. I cheated by buying the Pillsbury dough and I don't even own any cookie cutters. I couldn't get the dough to roll out with my rolling pin, no matter how much flour I used, and cutting shapes out didn't go very well. So I decided to just form some circles with my hands. No knowing how big to make the circles I ended up with some very large cookies. (The kids watch a Veggie Tales movie that talks about "Food as big as your head". I think that my cookies might qualify.) Hopefully the few smaller ones that I made will work for the decorating party on Sunday.....

I actually have a ton more photos that I wish I could post, but I don't want to overwhelm everyone. I feel like I post way to many pictures. Of course it is hard to pick when you have the most wonderful, beautiful children in the world! LOL!

Christmas At Our House!

Saturday the kids and I got the Christmas tree set up. Here are a few pictures of the ordeal..

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The tree before Mom got to help decorate.

The tree after Mom "helped".

Later that afternoon it started to snow. Just before supper I was so tired of the kids fighting and hanging on my legs that I bundled them up and sent them out on our patio to play in the quarter inch of snow that had fallen. They were so thrilled and had a magnificent time! Micah made a "snowball" and Becca rolled around in it like a dog. (It was hilarious!) I am sure that they are anxious for a lot more snow! (They are they only ones in this house wishing for more snow!)

Ears & Adenoids

About a month ago I had Becca in the clinic because she wasn't sleeping well, was fussing a lot and in general was just not herself. Our family doctor couldn't see that anything was wrong other than that she was cutting her 2-year molars. However he did recommend that we take her to see the ENT again.

Last week Nick took her to Des Moines to see our ENT again. Despite the fact that she has not had any ear infections she has had fluid on her ears for several months again. The doctor explained to us that as parents we are concerned with infections as an ENT he is concerned with lingering fluid. He also noted that her adenoids were enlarged. This explains why she breathes through her mouth and is a very noisy sleeper. Your adenoids are only supposed to be enlarged when you have a cold (Becca has had two already this fall) and then return to normal size after the cold has past. It was his recommendation that she have the tubes put back in her ears and have her adenoids removed.

We have it scheduled for very early in the morning on December 11. (We wanted to get it in yet this year because we have nearly met our health insurance deductible.) While it is disappointing that she has to have this done again it is our hope that we will avoid any speech or hearing difficulies by taking these steps. We pray that she is able to quickly recover as the month of December is busy for us all and we want her to be able to hear and express herself like any other 2-year-old.

Thanksgiving

Here is a recap of our Thanksgiving celebrations!

Thanksgiving Day was spent at my parent's house as they host both sides of their families. This year there were 28 people - down a little from previous years... Here are a few pictures of the afternoon.

Some of my cousins & Nick & Micah playing Apples to Apples.

The ladies sitting around the table, chatting, of course!

The men with their feet up in the living room!

Great-grandma Fynaardt giving Becca more Bugles! (She actually had way to many and that night when she went to bed she got so worked up that she threw them up and then fell asleep in it - not a pleasant thing!)

Friday morning was not spent shopping. Instead we assembled my sister's wedding invitations! Here is a picture of her and her fiance working on them.

Friday night we gathered with the De Haan side of the family at one of Nick's cousin's home. For many, many years there were no children at these gathering (Nick and his sister Tricia are the youngest cousins and all the other are much older than them.) However in the last several years the cousins have started to have children and now there are several toddlers and babies again. This year there were 10 children ages 4 and under. It was a great time! We let the kids eat before the adults and we couldn't stop taking pictures! Here are several of the kiddos eating their supper of chicken nuggets, little smokies & pretzels!

I hope that you had a blessed Thanksgiving! We are already working on our Christmas decorations and hopefully I will be able to post some pictures of that in the coming days.

Giving Thanks

Our church holds it's Thanksgiving service on Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. It is a really relaxed service in which there is an open mic time for members to go up and share what we are/have been thankful for over the last year.

This afternoon I told Micah that we could go up to the front of church tonight and share what he was thankful for. He was all excited and kept asking about it all afternoon and evening. When the time came and we went up front this is how it went...

Michelle: I hope that there isn't an age limit on those who can share. I told Micah about the open mic this afternoon and he wanted to come up and share.

Micah: I am thankful for my friends, my skidloader and my toys. (Yes he actually said it like that)

I proceeded to talk a little bit about how with the media and all the bad news that it is easy to forget that we have lots to be thankful for and I was thankful for my two small children who constantly remind me of the little things to be thankful for. I was telling the congregation that the thank God for completely random things (like story book characters, etc.) The whole time I was talking Micah was pulling on my pant leg.

Michelle: Do you have something else that you want to say?

Micah: Yes. I am thankful for um... uh.... um... ah.... I am thankful that we get to go home.

Michelle: As I said completely random things...

The congregation burst into laughter and we quickly took our seats. I am thankful that my four-year-old is not afraid of microphones and is already trying his hand at public speaking!

Start of the Holidays

Well, this weekend officially kicked off our celebrations for the holidays. On Saturday we spent the whole day in Des Moines with Nick's family doing some Christmas shopping for ourselves and for others. It was a successful day topped of with a wonderful supper at the Iowa Machine Shed!

Today we went to church with Nick's family and attempted at taking a family photo for Maury & Linda's Christmas card. We also tried to take a photo for our Christmas card. This is one of the "outtakes".

We will have to see if Auntie Tricia got a better pose or try again at a later time.

We also had a Thanksgiving celebration with Grandpa & Grandma Ver Heul at lunchtime. Every year we are amazed that Grandpa is still with us, he has been battle enphyzma for over 15 years. He was not supposed to make it to Nick's high school graduation and that was nearly 10 years ago already, but he is still here with us. We are thankful for the time that we have been able to spend with him and the rest of the Ver Heul family.

The rest of the week looks just as busy as the past two days. I don't always handle busyness very well as I like to have time to "prepare" between events, but we will do the best that we can and enjoy all the time we can with family! Have blessed week and if I don't post before Thanksgiving have a blessed Thanksgiving!

Do Myself!

Becca is constantly trying to do things on her own these days. We are working on potty training and she likes to try to put her pants on by herself. Sometimes she is successful and sometimes she is not...
She did this all on her own and thought that it was pretty funny! All I can think about is that we will have some great pictures to choose from when she gets married someday! :)

Decisions

I have been plagued over the last few days with indecision. I just can not determine what we (I) need to do. Just when I think that I have determined the best course of action, I start second guessing myself. My problem is that I can not predict the future when I really wish that I could. I know that there is a good reason for not being able to see what God has in store for us, but there are times when I would really like a glimpse into the future so that I know what to do now. I guess that you could also say that I am having a hard time leaving this decision in God's hands and let him take care of it. Seems like I have that problem a lot.....

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today is my mom's (Michelle) 50th birthday. We had a little celebration at our house this afternoon. My parent's had been on a cruise for the last two weeks so it was great to have them back and everyone was excited to see them and hear about their trip. I kind of forgot to take pictures so you will have to take my word that everyone had a good time and that my parent's are really tan! :)

Mom, we love you and we thank God for you. Thank you for that you have done for us and for all that you have taught us. We thank God for the many, many years that he has blessed you with and we thank Him for every moment with you! Happy Birthday!

Curls

Becca is going to be the flower girl in Melinda's wedding in March. I have been wanting to try some curlers in her hair, but wasn't sure how they would turn out. Since we were home all day today I thought that I would give them a try. I was pleasantly surprised with she sat very still and let me roll her hair. There are many Sunday mornings where we struggle with the curling iron and Becca. She wa quite proud of them and didn't even want to take them out for her nap. Here are a few pictures from throughout today and the results!




Check out them curls! Super cute! Hopefully it works for auntie's wedding!

Pictures

Here are some recent pictures of the kids. They have been doing some cute and crazy things lately. In fact to many to post, but here are a few that we have caught pictures of.

Here is Micah enjoying his shredded hash browns with cheese and ketchup. He came up with this on his own, Nick and I tried to discourage him, but he was insistent and he ate the whole mess of them! He is doing his "cheese and crackers" smile.

Becca is feeding the animals in Noah's ark some of her fruity Cheerios. Here the parrot is really enjoying his meal!

Here is Becca horsing around on the couch in the basement. She seems to be enjoying herself!

Micah is proudly wearing his new stocking hat that we purchased at the Peoria Christian School Bazaar & Auction. He is so excited because that is where he is going to go to kindergarten. (He wishes that he was going to kindergarten tomorrow.)

Becca sometimes tries to sit/lay in the doll cradle that her Great-Grandpa Van Maaren made her for her birthday. Needless to say she is a little to big for it!

Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Heaven

Tonight we purchased items for Operation Christmas Child through Samaritans Purse. You fill a shoe box with toys and necessities for a needy child in another country. Last year we had Micah help us do one for a little boy and so this year we did one for a little boy and one for a little girl. Last year Micah cried when he realized that he won't be able to play with the little boy who received his box. This morning we had a little conversation about the box, the gifts and the children receiving them. It went something like this....

Me: Shall we go get toys for the shoe box for the little boy and girl who do not have any toys tonight?

Micah: Yeah!!! Can we bring them to him?

Me: No we will probably not be able to meet this little boy and girl until we get to heaven.

Micah: Where's heaven?

Me: (Oh dear, what have I gotten myself into?) Heaven is where God and Jesus live.

Micah: How do you get to heaven?

Me: (Wheels spinning...) If Jesus lives in our hearts then we will go to heaven when we die.

Micah: When do we die?

Me: (Hopefully not for a very long time....) Hopefully after we are very old and Jesus calls us to heaven.

Micah: Like as old as daddy?

Me: Hopefully much older.....

The conversation kind of ended at this point much to my relief. How do you explain heaven, salvation, life & death to a 4 year old? I only hope that I haven't confused him any further.....

Forgetting

Today was my first 29th birthday. Yes I really truly am 29 today. We will have to see if I admit to being 30 next year. I have a hard time imagining that I have lived enough life to be 30 years old already.

My mom is turning 50 next week. )As a side note... She was twenty when she had me and her mom, my grandma was 41 when I was born. We are close in age considering we are three generations, but it is wonderful.) We are having a little coffee time at our home on Sunday afternoon with the very immediate family to celebrate. Both sets of my grandparents and my mom's brother and wife along with my sister and her fiance have been invited. I called my dad's parents, my grandparents, earlier this week to let them know that they were invited and that we would love to have them come. I talked to my grandma. She is getting very forgetful. We do not know if it Alzheimer's or dementia, but we are quite certain that is is more than just old age forgetfulness. During our phone conversation she wrote down the date and time for the celebration and we discussed it at three different time during our conversation.

This afternoon we were all napping, except for Nick, when my grandparents show up expecting a celebration for my mom's birthday. We had a nice visit with them, but I was not prepared for visitors. It also just breaks my heart to see my grandma forgetting things like this. Their home/farm of 50 years was destroyed last fall by a late season tornado and this only made the situation worse. She repeats herself and tells the same stories with in a matter of minutes of each other. We just respond in love and try not to remind her that we have already talked about this. I hate to see the end of her life be like this.

All of my grandparents a still living and I know that it will be sooner rather than later that they are called to their heavenly home. It still breaks my heart to see this once active, vibrant, energetic woman begin to lose some of her memory.

They were overjoyed to see the kids for a little bit and hopefully they will return next week Sunday....hopefully.

Pledge & Bruises

Micah has once again shocked us with his ability to memorize. This evening he was sitting on the floor when he started to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. At first I didn't think that he would be able to say the whole thing, but I sat back and listened and he said the whole thing, even indivisible. I asked him to say it several more times and he was more than happy to do it again. Here he is saying it just before bedtime.

I also took a picture of the bruises on his legs. Apparently him and the playground at preschool have some disagreements. His teacher has told us that he has run into the fireman's pole at least once. He also tends to let his feet get ahead of his body, hence the many bruises. Ouch!

Of course Becca never wants to be left out so here is a quick picture of her as well.

Flying Kites

This afternoon we thought that we would get out and enjoy the weather. After our Sunday afternoon naps we grabbed Micah's kite and head out to the cemetery near our home. The wind was perfect, the kite took off and floated in the sky exactly like it is supposed to. The cemetery is a great place to fly the kite as there is a lot of open area for the kids to run when the get tired of flying the kite. Here are a few pics that we took. It was a great time of enjoying each other's company!

Trick or Treat

Our kids got good mileage out of their Halloween costumes this year. Micah was a Fireman and Becca was a Mouse. Now I am not a huge fan of Halloween, but it sure is fun to get our kids all dressed up in cute (and age appropriate) costumes. On Wednesday night we took them to see Grandpa & Grandma Van Maaren, Grandpa & Grandma Ver Heul, Grandpa & Grandma De Haan, Auntie Tricia and Auntie Melinda. Two stops took care of the visits and everyone enjoyed seeing the kids dressed up. Friday morning I took the kids to my work in costume to help me distribute treats and pay stubs. Tonight the kids went Trick or Treating around our neighborhood and went to see Grandpa & Grandma Fynaardt. Here are several pictures from the last couple of days.

Our adorable fireman & mouse.

A little costume break with Grandpa & Grandma Ver Heul.

I am just to tired & hot for any more candy...

(the sugar kicked in later and she was ready to go then!)

A mouse on the loose!