Happy, happy birthday Aunt Mary Anne!!

We hope you have a wonderful 40th birthday!!

Love and kisses from all of us!

Sorry for such a long delay, we've been busy and I was thinking there wasn't much to post about but now that I am putting pictures together I can see there has been a lot going on.









We started with Hayley dog's 7th birthday on the 12th, she chose cinnamon muffins for her birthday treat this year. The boys picked chocolate cupcakes with chocolate fudge frosting but after we explained that those would not be good for Hayley they reconsidered. Hayley didn't enjoy our singing to her but she did appreciate we didn't make her wear a hat this year and that she got to eat two warm muffins. Happy birthday sweety girl.

We ventured to East Grand Rapids to see cousin Ian swim in a meet. Grandma Cindy said they were going to go and bring Nana to see Ian swim so we decided to try and surprise them. The surprise ended up being on us because Uncle Brian convinced Grandma and Papa not to bring Nana since it was snowing too much! We still had fun watching Ian's team win the meet and had a fun early dinner with Brian, Jill and their boys.

Grandma and Papa decided to come surprise the boys this weekend and they came to see us and brought Jeff an early birthday dinner because they will be away on his birthday. Grandma and Papa stayed in the Days Inn so the boys could go swimming and they loved that! Great way to spend a cold, snowy weekend.

Red Wings they are Not!

We finally got the boys on skates today. Hockey players they are not! They thought it would be easy to just walk out there and skate away. Jonathan said he was going to skate in figure eights. In reality, they spent most of the time holding onto the wall for dear life or on their butts on the ice. By the end of the time we were there they were starting to get the hang of it a bit and made it back and forth across the rink a couple times. We'll keep practicing when the weather allows and maybe we will try an indoor rink some day too.

More Christmas

Papa Pete and Grandma Janet arrived shortly after Grammy left this morning. We had fun opening MORE presents but Ella was so excited about her three new princess dressed that she had to put on a show for all of us. She's quite the little actress!

The kids are outside playing in the snow while we still have snow and Katy (cast on her foot), Janet, Jeff and I are watching "wall*e".

Christmas Eve and Christmas

The Newmans left Cincinnati on the 23rd and we were supposed to be getting a couple of inches of snow. Well, it snowed for over 24 hrs here and was freezing rain south of us and they crawled along for hours. They made it as far as South Bend, Indiana in EIGHT hours and decided to get a hotel room. The lovely people at Mariott gave them the presidential suite so they had quite the setup! They made it here the next morning and we were thrilled to see them, six months is too long to go without getting together!

Grammy arrived from Grosse Pointe and we all headed off to church. Ella fell sound asleep during the entire service, it was too cute.

A big dinner and new Christmas jammies for all and we were tucked in our beds.

We were up by 9am and chaos ensued with 5 kids and 5 adults and one spoiled dog opening presents. Santa ate the cookies we left out and the reindeer went to town on the carrots. We had fun playing rock band on wii and with all of the toys and then the kids headed off with Grammy to swim at the pool at the Days Inn where she is staying.

Christmas dinner and cookies and sleepy kids (except Matthew who was just caught under his covers with a pile of candy!)and we are winding down. We'll start again with the arrival of Papa Pete and Grandma Janet in the morning.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra

We took the boys to their first official concert on the 23rd to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Words cannot describe this show. This is the 8th year Jeff and I have gone and we have had seats in all areas including 1st row, 2nd, 3rd, 15th and the sides. This year we decided we weren't going to go but we both were sad and missing it and we got tickets a couple weeks ago. They were on the side of the stage and it was fun to see it from that angle too. The lights, lasers, snow, pyro, and fireworks cannot be described by mere words. The spirit and music are out of this world. The boys were speechless and sat watching the whole thing. We were glad we changed our minds and went and took the boys for the first time. It's tradition and we won't miss it again.

Random GH pictures

We have had almost 50 inches of snow in Grand Haven this month alone!! It's been pretty rough going but we have had some fun too. We're supposed to have heavy rain and warmer temps this weekend and flash flood warnings.

Some random pictures from home and the boys Christmas party at school.