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!