PJ Day

We are having a very lazy day at our house, so much so we are all still in our PJ's. We have spent our morning playing games and watching movies. While Kyle is napping I have to think about getting freshened up for the day otherwise supper will be here and I will still be in my PJ's. Yesterday, Gary & I took Justin and Megan to Great Lakes Crossing (a large mall not too far from our house) and ate at the Rainforest Cafe and then we went to Jeeper's (an indoor amusement park for kids). The kids had a great time and I also hit some great sales at The Children's Place outlet store. I was feeling pretty bad last week when we went outside to play in the snow and when we came back in Kyle's forarms had a couple inches of redness all the way around them, between where the coat and the mittens. I found a cute, larger coat on clearance and we got new scarves, hats, mittens and matching sweaters for all the kids......cheap :) Hopefully, I can get them all dressed in their new matching apparel for a picture session. I guess if it doesn't happen soon, I can try again in the fall I bought everything so it should fit next winter as well. At Jeeper's the kids had a great time on all the rides. Kyle stayed home with my niece, Rachel, for some much needed catch up time on his naps, the weekend trip to Chicago was a little rough on his sleep schedule. I found Kyle on the counter in the powder room today. He had emptied the tissue box into the sink and was trying to get soap our of the dispenser so he could wash his hands...I think he was trying to eat some as well. My youngest child is very quick and agile, you never know where you might find him :) He also doesn't not seem to be afraid of heights.

Water Park

The kids really enjoyed our stay at the indoor water park. Kyle showed no fear of the water and decided he really enjoyed the water slide. I can't begin to count home many times he made the trip around the structure, up the stairs and back down the slide. I had to be prepared to catch Kyle at the bottom of the slide, so I wasn't able to get a picture of Kyle's huge smile each time he came down the slide. Kyle would even stand under the big bucket and didn't seem to mind when it dumped the big load of water over his head.

Shedd Aquarium

Gary finally has a break in his work schedule and it is Winter Break for our school, so we decided to take a mini vacation. At the last minute we decided to go to Chicago for a few days. Unfortunately, we timed our trip during a time when Ryan and Lisa had already made plans to go out of town as well. Fortunately, we were able to get together with them for a quick visit and dinner our first night in town. On the way home from our trip, Justin and Megan said visiting with their cousin, Baby Matthew, was the best part of their trip. I can't wait until Matthew gets a little older and is able to start playing with the kids, I think they will all have a great time together. Above are some photos from our trip to Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. The kids loved the dolphin show.

Pal comes to visit

All of the kids in Justin's kindergarten class get a turn to take Pal home for a visit. Pal is a stuffed dog. Your family is to take picturs of your adventures with Pal and journal in the notebook about your visit, so that when Pal returns to school all the children can learn about his travels. Justin was lucky to receive Pal at the start of Winter Break, so instead of having Pal overnight, we have Pal for 10 days. We took Pal with us on our recent trip to Chicago. Pal enjoyed staying in a hotel, going to Shedd Aquarium and to the indoor waterpark at our hotel. Now that we are home, we have to be creative and think up some more adventures for Pal during the rest of the school break. Pal really enjoyed watching the fish at the aquarium. Pal's favorite book, Biscuit, was packed in his suitcase, Justin did a very good job of reading almost the entire book to Pal by himself!

Valentine's Day

Grandma Betty and Papa Randall sent the kids a Valentine's package filled with treats and craft items. Here are a couple of pictures of the kids enjoying the chocolate and making some fun craft projects.

Snow Day

Last Wednesday we received about 6 inches of snow overnight and school was closed for the day. Here are some pictures of the kids enjoying the day off and the snow. Kyle insisted that I let go of him, but every time I let go he either fell over frontwards or backwards and got "stuck". Despite the great effort it took him to navigate he had a great time outside and was quite upset when I took him inside to warm up.

February Pictures

Here are some general pictures from the month of February. Our old sofas finally died so we got 2 new sofas, here is a picture of one of them. Also, note the kids on their new bean bags.......our solutions to keeping sippy cups and snacks off of the new sofas. Kyle loves to do "everything" that his siblings do, it doesn't matter if it is coloring or being a princess. Any time Kyle sees an ink pen, pencil, crayon or marker....he says, "I want to color" over and over again until he gets to color.

A Good Day To Stay Inside

Hi All,

After we got all ready this morning, we discovered school had been cancelled for the extremely cold weather we are having. The thermometer was reading -4 this morning with a wind chill of -25. Justin was excited to get to stay home and immediately asked if he could go outside today to play....... Instead, I think we have play every form of video and computer games we own today.

We had a great time when we went to Splash Village in Frankenmuth. The kids were really suprised when we drove up. I didn't get very good pictures while we were there, so I won't bother posting them.

Gary is still working a ton, but hopefully that will taper off in the next couple of days.

Last week Megan, Kyle and I went on a field trip with my MOPS group to a chocolate factory. It was an interesting visit and a yummy taste treat!!

The kids are looking forward to Valentine's Day and all the treats that it entails. I am looking forward to participating in both of their class parties. It is always fun to watch them celebrate.

Take care, Danielle

Winter is really here

After the pleasant end of 2006 and beginning of 2007 I was beginning to get spoiled. But winter is officially back, it has been cold here all week. Only about 3 inches of snow on the ground though. I am not sure how well it is going to work for the snowman building and sledding that Justin has planned for tomorrow.

I haven't posted in awhile, not much newsworthy going on here I guess. We have all been ill once since the new year started, but everyone is well at the current time. Unless you count the fact that Kyle ended up with (another) sinus infection after his cold from 2 weeks ago and ended up on antibiotics (again) this week. They have kicked in quickly and his nose is finally clearing up. He does not like having a dirty nose and is constantly telling me "nose" so I will give him a tissue for his dirty nose.

Justin started Floor Hockey a couple of weeks ago and really likes it. Several of his friends from school are on his team. It is basically some padded sticks hitting a crochetted ball. No worries about injuries for this form of hockey. Justin was a little confused when we started, I think he was invisioning ice hockey. Now he tells me he wants to take more ice skating lessons so he can do ice hockey next year..... I convinced Gary he should help coach Justin's team and since Gary is one of three coaches I think he is enjoying it. Justin is number 7.

Gary has been working a ton the past few weeks, but we are looking forward to him staying home for the next four days. We are going to Frankenmuth (a little German town about an hour north of us) for an overnight stay at a waterpark hotel with some friends. We went once last winter and the kids loved it, so I am sure they will love it again. We haven't told them yet, we figure we will just show up there and suprise them. And to not break any traditions we will make sure we visit Bronners (the world's largest Christmas store) and go to the Bavarian Inn for our Chicken Dinner (yummy-yummy)!!!!

Take care, Danielle

more photos

Happy New Year!!!!!!

I am a little sad that the holidays are over and it is time to get back to our normal schedules. I have enjoyed having the kids and Gary home with me for the past 10 days. We celebrated Christmas with my parents here visiting. We definitely had a great time watching the kids open packages and enjoying their new toys. Gary was working quite a bit before Christmas, so it was really nice to have him be able to spend some much time with us. We are hoping his schedule doesn't get as crazy again in January. Gary may be glad to get back to work, as he has had quite the "Honey Do" list to get completed...not that I wasn't right by his side sharing the work. We managed to get our storage/furnace room cleaned out (you literally could not get in the room any more for all the stuff we had stashed in there), we cleaned out our master closet (not as bad as the storage room was, but definitely needed cleaning out), purchased some new home electronics for the living room and a new entertainment center to put them in (which had to be put together and the old mammoth entertainment center disassembled (thanks for your help mom!!)) and lastly after almost 6 years in our home, we finally painted our dining room. The original flat paint the builder had used had definitely seen better days. And yes, can you believe it.....in February we will have been in our house for 6 years, it just doesn't seem possible to me!!! Oh.....I and I also got my husband to go furniture shopping for a new couch. We had to order it, so I am anxiously awaiting its arrival. Our old furniture is from the pre-children era and has definitely been abused by them, I am not sure they are really old enough yet to be kind to our new furniture, but we are just going to have to work on it since the arm is falling off of our current sofa :) We also took Justin and Megan to a place called The Fridge last week. It is an outdoor toboggan run. They clock your speed on the ride down, one run we were cruisin at 31 miles per hour....weeeee!!!!!