The Stoufer Family

Easter Fun!! 4/24/11

2011-04-26T10:04:00.011-04:00

Every year we try to find an egg hunt/scramble for the kids to do. This year I found out that the aide in my classroom was in charge of one at her church. So we went to that one the day before Easter. She had it broken down into 4 different age groups to make it fair.
Each of the kids got 10-20 eggs filled with candy. :-)
Last year we did an "Amazing Race" clue hunt for Marc to find their Easter baskets. Marc asked for a "fun" way for them to find their baskets again this year. Marc and I procrastinated so we were up really late Saturday getting everything ready for them. ;-) We like to make the clues refer to things in the Bible. We combined The Amazing Race and Minute to Win It this year. When he came upstairs they had to read the Roadblock clue.
That clue led them to a path of filled eggs. The path led to their Minute to Win It challenges. Marc had 5 plastic eggs filled with different number jelly beans. He had to put them in order from least to most. He got it right the first try in 22 seconds!
Samantha's challenge was to match the color egg to the same color paper.
They then followed a few more clues to find their baskets under the kitchen table.
Last year we stopped buying dollar store stuff (which breaks and gets thrown away fast) and started buying "better" stuff that would last longer. They played their stuff until it was time to leave for church.
After church we went over to my Mom's house for lunch and family time. My Mom hides eggs in a path to Easter baskets that she puts together.
Marc with his basket and bucket of eggs.
Samantha with her basket and bucket of eggs.
After they looked through their stuff from Grandma, it was time to look at the stuff from Great Grandma. Yes, my kiddos are spoiled!!
After egg hunting and basket opening it was time for lunch. We had some sparkling grape juice to drink with lunch. We drank it from goblets. Last year we gave her a few sips from our glass. This year we gave her her own glass. She did a great job with it! Where did my little girl go?!
Normally after lunch it is my "job" to help my Mom clear the table and clean up. This year I sat at the table talking with Marc (hubby) and my Grandma while my kids helped my Mom clean up. AAaahhhh....that's the life! ;-) But, once again, where did my little boy and little girl go?!
When I took pictures of the kids at home before church the sun wasn't out, so after lunch we went out to my Mom's porch to take pictures of the kids out in the sun.
My Mom put carrot shaped bubbles in their Easter baskets. Since the weather was nice, we went to the porch to blow and chase bubbles.
What a beautiful day it turned out to be! Great time spending the day with my wonderful family!

Let's Party Like We Are 3! 4/9/11

2011-04-14T15:45:00.003-04:00

It's time to party!!! Samantha has been SO excited for her Strawberry Shortcake birthday party!We usually have my Mom & Grandma over to house for Samantha's birthday dinner. Since my father-in-law was here too, we decided, why not just have a big family party?! So we had 10 people in our house for her birthday. If you know our house, that's kinda crowded! So we just did a simple lunch and cake & ice cream. Think Samantha is excited about all the presents on the table?! ;-)
After lunch it was time to start opening all those presents! My sweet little boy had the idea to buy Samantha a present and card using his own money he has been saving up. Such a sweetheart! Samantha has really gotten into Littlest Pet Shop so he picked out a set for her all on his own! She loved it!! :-)
After a long time of opening LOTS of presents (yes, my daughter is spoiled! ;-) ), it was time for cake and ice cream. She was SO excited about her Strawberry Shortcake birthday cake. :-)
The big gift we gave her was my old doll house. It is a doll house that my Grandpa built and my Grandma decorated for me when I was younger. Samantha has started to enjoy playing with other people's doll house, so I decided it was a good time to fix it up and pass it down to her. After it got a fresh coat of paint and a few repairs, it was ready for me to to give to her. She has played with it almost every day since! :-) I hope it brings her as many good memories and it did me. :-)
My daughter was truly blessed with great family to celebrate with. Thank you to all of you that came to help us celebrate the little Princess' 3rd birthday! :-)

Disney World Here We Come!! 4/8/11

2011-04-14T15:35:00.006-04:00

Several months ago Marc found out that he is going to Orlando in June for a 2 1/2 day conference. So, we thought, why not turn it into a vacation and do Disney World slowly and relaxingly? So, Marc and I have had the trip booked and planned for several months now. It has been killing us keeping it a secret from the kids. But we found out once....don't tell the kids too early otherwise you will be nagged forever!!! We decided to tell them around Samantha's birthday since that would be almost 2 months before we leave. We will leave the day after Marc gets out of school. We are doing 2 days at Universal so we can see the Harry Potter World, Marc has his conference for 2 1/2 days, and then we will have 9 days in Disney World. So excited!!!

If you know us at all, we have to tell the kids in a cute way. ;-) We put things in a box and gave them the box on Friday.The first thing on the top of the box was a paper count down chain. We did this before we went to Disney World when Marc was almost 3 and it was a nice visual for him to know how much longer until we left. Each link has the date written on it as well as the number of days left. Seeing that made Marc guess that we were taking a trip of some kind.......
Next thing were custom-wrapped Hershey bars.........
They had to unwrap (carefully) the wrapper to find a boarding pass (kinda like the golden ticket)........
That's when Marc finally figured out that we were going to Disney World!! My Mom had just been there a few weeks earlier so she brought back maps for each park. We figured we would let Marc read a book about all the rides/sows/attractions and mark on the map the things e wants to do.
We are SO excited for this vacation! We have had several things happen in our families/lives in the last few months. We are SO ready to go on vacation to rest, relax, forget the bad stuff, and spend some quality time as a family! :-)

Oh Me, Oh My, She's 3!!! 4/7/11

2011-04-14T15:31:00.003-04:00

Three years ago we were blessed with our precious little Princess! She certainly has brought a lot of joy into our lives! I have had fun turning her into a girlie-girl! :-)

We took Samantha to Logan's for dinner on her birthday. Any time we are there and it is some one's birthday, she loves giving them the birthday yee-haw! So we figured, what better place to take her, so she could be the one getting all the yee-haws.
Of course she had to have her favorite food, mac & cheese!!! Anytime we are home and I give her the option to pick what it for lunch, she always chooses mac & cheese.I think she could eat it every day! ;-)
The table we were at was kind of off in the corner (smart waitress! ;-) ), so when it was time to do the birthday yee-haws, she took us into the main dining area and had Samantha stand on the fireplace in front of everyone. While she was up there, she didn't look like she was too excited about the idea, but when I was putting her to bed that night, she said "Mama,I stand on fireplace and they say yee-haw to me!"
When we got home after dinner we gave her a few presents to open. She made short work of unwrapping them. :-)
I think she had a good birthday and is looking forward to her Strawberry Shortcake arty on Saturday. :-)

Spring Break 4/4-4/6/11

2011-04-14T15:19:00.007-04:00

Well, it's spring break time! We are already to have some time to rest, relax, and have some fun. My father-in-law is going to be here most of the spring break time. The kids are very anxious for him to be here, so I decided Monday was a day to keep them busy so they don't nag me. ;-)

The first thing on the agenda was making monkey bread. I LOVE monkey bread, but don't usually make it (it has been forever since I have made it!). I will be making it for my class when we talk about the zoo, so I figured this was a good refresher, and tasty, for me. The kids rolled the pieces in the cinnamon and sugar and put it in the pan. I poured the hot, melted butter on top and baked it. The kids were pretty proud of their tasty creation! :-)Next came arts and crafts time. A few weeks before, I was at Hobby Lobby and saw that their Easter foam craft kits were 50% off so I grabbed a couple of them. First they made crosses. The crosses are hanging on most of our kitchen cabinets and taped to many of our windows as well.
The other kit I got was Easter eggs. There were various shapes and decorations for the kids to stick on the eggs. Think they had fun???? The eggs wrapped all the way around my kitchen counter! :-)
Tuesday we went to the airport and picked up my father-in-law.
Wednesday we headed over to the Chicago area. Marc wanted to go to IKEA, so we added a trip to Legoland since it was only a few minutes for IKEA. Our hotel package included 4 passes to Legoland. There were 5 people in our group. We were going to go to Legoland on Thursday (Samantha's 3rd birthday), but under 3 is free, so we went on Wednesday instead. ;-) Some of the things they built out of Legos are amazing!! To see more pictures, head over to our pictures website to see them. But here are a few of the kids.
There is a 4-D Bob the Builder show. It was Samantha's first 4-D show (at least since she has been old enough to care). We were sure how she would react to things coming out of the screen at her and being squirted with water. She loved it!! She was say "oh, no!' when Lego towers fell over and "into" the audience and grabbing for things. (Great sign for our trip to Disney World this summer!) Marc, as always, loves the 4-D shows. Even though this show was a lot basic for him, he still enjoyed it. :-)
There is also a replica of a Lego factory that we can "tour". We are in a room with replicas of all the machines for each process. For each process, a child volunteer got to come up and push the button to show how that part of the process works. Marc pushed the button for the second step.
On the last step, the tour guide told all the kids who had not already helped push a button to come up and push the last button all together.
Another section of Legoland is a room for building your own creations. Unfortunately, you have to leave them there. :-( But,on the bright side, there was even a small Princess room!!!! Samantha and I got to build a Princess castle! :-)
Marc built a car. There are 3 different ramps in the room for the kids to race their car creations down. He had fun racing some of the other kids and their cars. His car held u pretty well through several crashes. :-)
We had lunch, ran to Costco to buy me a new book, went to IKEA, and had dinner. After that long day, we headed back to the hotel and went to sleep. Thursday morning we woke up, sang Happy Birthday to Samantha and started our drive back home. My geeky husband had to stop at a store called Fry's on the way home. It is a HUGE electronics store, so big it even has a cafe in the middle! I told him we could go on one condition......he buy me lots of new sticky notes. ;-) If you know me, you know I love my sticky notes. ;-) So, we made it home in time to take Samantha out for her birthday dinner to "the peanut place", otherwise known as Logan's. (See next post for more on that)

Misc. March Cuteness

2011-04-14T13:58:00.013-04:00

Time for my monthly cuteness recap! :-)

One of my students also lives in our neighborhood. Her Mom had a new baby. When she had her we were all sick in our house. It was killing me to not be able to hold the new baby. So, when I was healthy again, we walked over to their house and let Samantha and Brie play while I held baby Emma. After I had been holding Emma for a little while, Samantha looks at me and says, "Mama, I hold baby now". So, she sat on the couch and held baby Emma while I supported her head. She wanted to sit there all day an hold her! :-)
Every Thursday I take Samantha to a play group called Little Tykes at the elementary school. Well, one of those Thursdays happened to be my Mom's birthday, so she came up and played with us and then we took her out to lunch. Samantha asked Grandma to help her paint her kite. Every time Grandma painted a part of it, Samantha came and painted over it. silly!
After several crafts, a snack, and some play time, it was time for circle time. Samantha got to pick one of the songs to sing. She chose "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star".

I was playing a game called "Suma" (a facebook game). The object of the game is to shoot colored balls at more of the same color moving balls to make them disappear. Marc asked me if he could play it. He actually did a really good job of keeping up with the game.

We went over to my Grandma's house to celebrate my Mom's birthday. The kids love helping to blow out birthday candles.
I love how cute this picture of my and my Mom turned out. :-)

After we got done celebrating my Mom's birthday, my Aunt Sari, Uncle Gary, cousin Susanne, and her daughter Kate arrived. The kids had fun playing together while us adults enjoyed catching up.
Great Grandma and her 3 great grand children. :-)

As you know, I have an obsession with hair things for Samantha. I started out making bows. I have also started making headbands too. Samantha has enough of them that I was having trouble keeping them organized. A friend of mine gave me an idea for a holder. So, Samantha and I made a headband holder together.

Marc had a "wear a new word to school" day. Daddy decided that "Gregarious" would be a good word for him to learn. It means, 'fond of being in the company of others, or sociable'. Think if fits my son? ;-)

We went over to my Mom's house to celebrate my Grandma's birthday. Once again, the kids got to help blow out some birthday candles.
Each of the kids made Great Grandma a gift.

Samantha got a bath time baby for Christmas last year. She didn't really get into for it awhile. I decided to get it back out the other day. She LOVED giving the baby a bath. I ha to give her some of the soap so she could wash the baby.
Shampoo head!!!

My Mom went to Disney World about a month ago. She brought back t-shirts for the kids. She also brought back a bundle of Mickey Mouse suckers for them. Think they couldn't wait to eat them?! ;-)
I have heard from a lot of people that a game called "Angry Birds" was a really fun game. It is only available for iPads and iPhones. We do not have either of those. My Mom has an iPad so we tried the game on it. I think I might be glad that we don't have one, we would be playing it all the time!

The week before spring break, Marc had spirit week at school. He had to wear certain clothes each day of the week.

On Monday: black or white day

On Tuesday: twin day but he didn't have a twin. :-(
On Wednesday: Wacky Wednesday

On Thursday: Nerd Day

On Friday: School Spirit Day

Samantha is turning into quite the little book worm, just like her brother! :-)
One night Samantha was building with her Potato Heads. She built this one, came over to us and said, "Look, it Bumpa!" (Bumpa is my father-in-law). Little does she know, it actually does bear a resemblance to him! ;-)

Well, I hope you have enjoyed looking at my pictures of March cuteness as much as I did living them. :-)

Church Family Game Night 3/19/11

2011-04-14T09:22:00.008-04:00

Every year our church does a family sledding day. We have never done that because we don't like to be cold. ;-) The date the sledding party was scheduled for ended up being a day not long after a warm weather spell, so there wasn't enough snow to sled on. So, instead, they had a family game night. Now that is something we could get into!! ;-) It was held at the Suite (a multi-purpose room we have). As soon as we walked in (first time we had been there), Marc saw the pool table and asked Daddy to help him play pool.And of course, Samantha had to get in on the action too.
The highlight of the night for the kids was the ice cream sundae bar. Everyone had to bring their favorite ice cream topping. The kids (and us too) made some yummy looking sundaes!
We played some games, met some new people, chatted with some people we already knew. Pastor Ron had to leave early due to a child not feeling well. Before he left, Samantha insisted on giving him a hug good-bye. :-)
We have found our new family game night favorite!! Someone brought a game called Flippin' Frogs. Talk about an addicting game. It is one of the simplest games I have seen, easy enough that even Samantha can play, yet you can play with strategy which makes it fun for the "older" crowd too. It has been put on Marc's Christmas list already. ;-)
Our church sponsors a child through Compassion International. Every week Marc puts $1 of his allowance into an offering can to go to Alessandro. As we left game night, each child/family wrote Alessandro a letter. What a great outreach!
It was another family, fun filled night! :-)

Preschool Carnival 3/18/11

2011-04-14T09:05:00.006-04:00

Well, less than a week later, my kids get to go to another carnival.....lucky ducks!! :-) This time it is the carnival at my preschool. We got there early (since I work there we had to). The kids put their tickets in the buckets for the kids' raffle. There were lots of fun things for them to choose from. Unfortunately, they didn't win anything. :-( After they put their tickets in, we headed over to have some pizza and bread sticks for dinner.After filling our bellies with some yummy pizza, we headed up to play some games. There were about 12 fun games the kids got to play. :-) We played a few games then it was time for Marc III to get to work! He was so excite when the director of the preschool, and his old teacher, asked him if he wanted to run a game during the carnival. He chose to run the skee ball game. He looked SO grown up wearing the apron and running the game!!
During a break in the action, Samantha decided to take a shot at playing the game too. Marc worked the game for about an hour. Luckily, where the game was set up, there was the play kitchen right by it. So, Samantha spent the better part of the hour playing with the play kitchen and food. Worked out VERY well for all! :-)
Our preschool does a book walk instead of a cake walk. When we got to this game, it was Samantha, Marc, and 1 other kid. So, the chances of one of our kids winning was pretty good. Samantha was very excited when she won! The kids went over to the table of books. Since, as my husband tells me, I own almost every book that is ever been printed, it was kinda tough to find a book we didn't already have, but she found a Dr. Suess book we didn't have! :-)
I bought too many game tickets so we just turned them into redemption tickets so the kids could pick out some good prizes. They each got some streamers to wave around. Marc also got an elephant shaped ball and a slide puzzle.
Samantha got the streamers, some crown sun glasses, and a princess wand.
It was a very fun evening. I love the looks on my students faces when they see me doing something other than teaching in our classroom. I love, even more, spending time with my wonderful family!

Chandler Woods School Carnival 3/12/11

2011-04-14T08:47:00.004-04:00

Last year we had so much fun at Marc's school carnival that we looked forward to going back again this year. And, we did have fun! Last year the final thing we did was the cake walk and we ha to wait in line forever!! So, this year, that is the first thing we did. There were 10 spaces. All 4 of us did it. We figured, hey, we have almost a 50/50 chance of winning. We didn't. :-( But that's ok, it was fun anyway. :-)Marc was excite to go play the game that was in his kindergarten classroom from last year. It was the game where you have to make the ball roll to a certain part of the track. He got it to land at the right spot and got lots of redemption points!! :-)
Samantha's favorite game was the fish pond. The first time she played it she got a rubber snake, which she wasn't too thrilled about. As we walked around and played more games, she saw people wearing bracelets she liked. Well, they were from the fish pond. While in line, someone before us got the fish with the number on it for the bracelet, so Daddy watched that one fish swim around in circles to make sure Samantha could pick that fish and get the bracelet she watched. Such a good Daddy!!
Since Samantha got prizes from the fish pond, we let Marc use the redemption points to pick out a prize for himself. He chose a pair of spy glasses. He likes walking around wearing them and seeing what is behind him. :-)
It was a fun couple of hours spent playing games at Marc's school. :-)

Disney On Ice: Princess Wishes 3/12/11

2011-04-14T07:55:00.006-04:00

When we heard that Disney On Ice: Princess Wishes was coming to town, I was VERY excited about taking my little Princess to it. Little did I know that my little Prince would want to go as well. So, we made it a family event, we even invite Grandma to go with us. :-) We thought this would be a good test/intro for our trip to Disney World (that they don't know about yet). So, as the day got closer, we talked with Samantha about it to get her ready. She was very excited when she got up this morning. She was even more excite about wearing her Cinderella dress to the show! We met Grandma in the walkway between the parking garage and the arena. While we waited, we used the time to take some cute pictures of our sweet Prince and Princess.Well, since we had Grandma with us, the kids got a little spoiled. ;-) Grandma bought Samantha a light-up crown an Marc a crown with Mickey ears attached to some cotton candy. I have very cute/handsome kids!
Our seats were in the 3rd row of the upper level. At first I was a little bummed that we were a little closer, but after we got there and the show started, I decided we had GREAT seats! We were high enough to be able to get a good view of the whole set, but not so high that all the skaters looked like ants. The show went through most of the "classic" Princess stories. Every time a new Princess came out, they waved at the audience. Samantha kept saying to me "Mommy, she wave at me!" and she would wave right back at them. VERY cute!!
Samantha loved watching all of the Princesses skate around. She loved the lights and colors. She loved the music so much that she bopped to it a lot of the time. She however, DIDN'T like the dragon (or "dinosaur" according to Samantha) from "Sleeping Beauty" that lit the ice on fire! Marc III an I thought otherwise, we thought it was cool!
Marc III was very cute throughout the show as well. He spent part of the time watching an trying to figure out how they did a lot of the "tricks" and special effects. My little thinker in action! ;-)

The show did "Aladdin", "Snow White", "Beauty and the Beast", "Mulan", "Sleeping Beauty", and "Cinderella". Tinkerbell, Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy took turns introducing each of the stories. At the end of the show, all of the characters came back on the ice and all skate together.
It was a very fun show. We all enjoyed watching it as a family. It was a great introduction to our trip to Disney World this summer! :-)

Misc. February Cuteness

2011-03-02T15:32:00.008-05:00

Here is my monthly cuteness post.

A few weeks ago on a Tuesday, Marc told me that one of teeth was really loose. Sure enough, one of his top, front teeth was loose. A few days went by and it go looser. I told him to take a big bite of dinner and it would probably come out. He told me that he wanted to to come out at school so he could get another tooth necklace. Friday rolled around, and it still hadn't come out. I was in his class for lunch and the rest of the afternoon that day. While he was eating lunch he came over to me and told me that it hurt to bite his sandwich. I told him to pull his tooth out. He said "NO!". So, we finished his sandwich, spent the next couple of hours doing school work, an still nothing. Snack time came around. I figure it would come out while he ate the carrots I packed him. ;-) Nope. He came over to me whining that it hadn't come out yet. I told him it was now (to get the necklace) or at home over the weekend, that the tooth was not going to stay in until Monday. He whine at me more, so I grabbed hold of the tooth an pulled it! Go Me!! It gives me shivers every time I think about it, but it was almost out any way. A week later, his other top front tooth was loose. I tried to get him to let it come out at home, but yet again, he wanted ANOTHER necklace. He got up in the morning an it was SO loose that it turned in circle as he was talking! Eeewww!!! I even sent a baggie an a paper towel with him in the car pool car, just in case. When I picked him from school that day, this is how he looked:
Samantha's hair has started getting really long, so I decided it was time to start playing with it. :-) The first thing I tried was a simple braid an the base of her head. I have always wanted to learn to french braid. When I was in high school I always begged one of my friends to french braid my hair for me since I couldn't do it. While to talking to a friend of mine, she showed me the basic how-tos of french braiding. So, one night while Samantha was sitting on my lap snuggling, I decided to give it a shot. It actually came out half-way decent for the first time! :-)
My little Princess is cute with her hair down or up. :-)
As most of you know we had the chest cold with fever go through our house. Marc had it first, and his was mostly gone within 48 hours. Then Samantha got it. Her fever went away 2 times and then came back. It finally stayed away the third time around. When she was mostly healthy, I got it. :-( One of the days when we were home sick, Samantha fell asleep while she was eating her lunch.
During Christmas break, Marc was supposed to go on a day with Grandma. Well, our house happened to have gotten a tiny flu bug, so his day got postponed. Well, Marc had mid-winter (I prefer to call it end-of-winter) break. So, we decide that it was a good day to have the day rescheduled to. Since it was cold out, that kind of limited the possibilities. They decided to go bowling and then to Chuck E Cheese for lunch and some games.
Even though we had a rough couple of weeks with sickness an Marc being gone for work, it was still a good month. I hope you enjoyed looking at my cuties as much as I do! :-)

Happy Valentine's Day - 2/14/11

2011-02-14T13:38:00.004-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day 2011!! It has turned out to be a much happier day than I originally thought. Marc has had a fever all weekend. The school policy is that the child has to be fever free for at least 24 hours in order to go to school. Well, on Sunday he woke up still having a fever, so he wasn't allowed to go to school today (Monday). He woke up this morning fever free so he is back to his "normal" self today. :-)

He was SO bummed out about missing today. He was suppose to wear his "comfy" clothes to school. Since he couldn't wear them to school, we all wore our comfy clothes at home today. :-)

He was also sad about missing being able to deliver his Valentines to his friends. To try to make up for that, I dug out a bunch of craft materials and let the kids go to town and make Daddy some Valentines.They sat at the table for about an hour crafting-away. They made some very pretty, unique, and special Valentines for Daddy. They are excited for him to come home and look at them!
I told Marc that since he was feeling better he could choose what we had for lunch. He choose grilled ham & cheese sandwiches. I use a cookie cutter and cut a heart out of the middle. I also made them some pink milk to drink. We spread a blanket on the floor and ate lunch on the floor while we watched the "Cars" movie.
I thought that this year Valentine's Day was going to be a not-so-fun one, but it it turning out to be a pretty good one. I am SO thankful that my little Peanut is feeling better!! Oh, the power of prayer!

Blizzard 2011 - 2/2/2011

2011-02-02T16:28:00.007-05:00

It's a blizzard out there!! At the beginning of the week they were predicting that we would have a blizzard Tuesday night through Wednesday night. It was originally supposed to hit our area around 7:00pm Tuesday night. It then got changed to 10:00pm. About 8:30pm most of the schools were beginning to cancel school for Wednesday. Since I didn't have to get up early, I wanted to stay up to see the start of the blizzard. Well, all I saw was a lot of wind. We went to bed about 10:30pm. I was woken up off an on all night by the wind. It was windy!!! When we got up at 8:00 Wednesday morning, this is what we found.

Out our front window.

Out our back slider.

My yard stick told me we got about 16 inches of snow! The tv station said the official snow fall for Cedar Springs was 17 inches.
After some breakfast and some play time, we all bundled up to go out an see what the blizzard had brought to us. When we opened the garage door (we had to go out the garage door because it was too hard to go out the front door) this is what we found.
After some shoveling, climbing, and playing (about 15-20 minutes), all of our cheeks were bright pink and we were all freezing so we went inside to warm up and have some hot chocolate.
After some play time and lunch time we bundled back up to go explore out back yard. The back yard was MUCH deeper then the front yard. Samantha looks like she is kneeling in the snow, but she is actually standing! The snow went up to my knees!
My little angels making snow angels.
Daddy thought it would be funny to bury Marc in the snow. Peanut Marc was worried that Daddy would cover his head. He said it was really cold being buried under all the snow so he didn't stay there long.
It was definitely something I don't think I will ever forget! I am very thankful that I have a job that allows me to be home the same time my kids are and that Marc has a job that allows him to work at home in situations like this. :-)

Weekend with Grandpa & Grandma 1/21/11

2011-02-02T14:33:00.006-05:00

We headed over to the other side of the state to spend the weekend at my Dad & Peggy's. We got there Friday afternoon. While Samantha napped we decided to play Monopoly. Marc ha never played before, so it was fun to teach him. We kinda taught me too. ;-) I ha always, apparently I always played the "nice" version. The way I always played was if someone already owned a property in a color, I didn't buy any if I landed on them. Well, I can tell you, that is NOT the way we played! We played the "mean" way. Everyone bought whatever property we landed on and as the game progressed, we made deals with each other to trade properties. After a marathon game for 3 hours!!! my Dad wiped everyone out and caused all of the rest of us to go bankrupt! It was interesting and fun!After Monopoly and dinner, it was time for the kids to open their Christmas presents from Grandma and Grandpa. Marc got a really fun game called "Shut the Box". There are tiles number 1-9 an 2 dice. You roll the dice. Whatever the total of the dice, you have to turn over tiles that total that number. Once you roll a number that you can't turn over a tile for, you are done with your turn. The object is to turn over all the tiles an "shut the box". Very simple, yet very fun and addicting!!
After opening presents and playing with them for awhile, we all headed for bed, we had a busy day ahead of us.

We got up Saturday morning and headed to Lowe's for another one of the Build and Grow sessions. The sessions are designed for kids grades 1-5, but they had enough kits there that they let Samantha make one too.
The kids with their finished ball toss games. Very fun!
After Lowe's we headed over to a Coney Island restaurant for some yummy breakfast. After breakfast we went to Cranhill Science Center. We (the Stoufers) LOVE hands-on science museums! We like the idea that the kids are learning while they play. :-) This museum was a little less hands on than the ones we usually go to, but still fun. There was a big, traveling dinosaur exhibit there. Included the exhibit was a hands-on kids area. There were bones buried, Big, magnetic puzzles to be put together, book to read, regular puzzles to do, an dinosaur figurines to play with.
The sign for the exhibit was too good of a photo op to pass up. ;-)
After the museum, it was too early for dinner, so we headed back to my Dad's house to chill out for a while. After some chill time, we headed to Buddy's Pizza for dinner. It is ranked one of the top 5 pizzas in the nation by Food Network. After a 30 minute wait in a crammed lobby, we sat down to eat. Think Samantha liked it? ;-)
We got up Sunday morning an played and had lunch then hit the road home. It was a very fun weekend spent with family.

Daddy/Son Day 1/8/11

2011-02-02T13:57:00.005-05:00

Marc and Daddy had a Daddy/son day. The first thing they did was go to Lowe's Build and Grow clinic. If you haven't ever been, it is a free session where the kids put together a pre-cut and pre-drilled pieces of a kit. The kids even get an apron and goggles to wear and keep for future sessions.He was concentrating SO hard at pounding the nails correctly.
Marc with his finished product!
After they got done at Lowe's, it was too early for lunch so they stopped and had some hot chai tea.
After lunch they went to DeVos Hall and saw "In the Heights".
Marc came home all excited and talking about his fun day with Daddy. :-)

January 2011 Cuteness

2011-02-02T12:04:00.013-05:00

As always, I took LOTS of misc. cute pictures of the kids. Here are just a few of them.

Samantha got to paint with pudding during one of our Parents as Teachers home visits. I think she ate almost as much as she painted with. ;-)

Samantha has been showing a lot of interest in cutting lately. When Marc was her age we made a cutting box. It was just a box, scraps of paper, and a pair of safety scissors. She spent a couple of days begging me to make her box, so I finally did. She love it!!!

As most of you know I have been making bows for Samantha for a few months now. I decided to branch out and make some flower clips for her to wear on a headband and hat I got her. She decided to wanted to wear all of the flowers at the same time.

One weekend I came across a box in Marc's bedroom. It was filled with old toys of Marc's and mine. One of the things in there were the old Little People I had when i was a little girl. I was amaze at just how much they have changed. I had a blast watching my kids play with my old toys!!

Samantha has become quite the little puzzle doer. I keep all the puzzles stacked up under the toy shelf. She usually pulls one out at least twice a day. Her favorites are the ones when you put the animal pieces back in, it makes the animal sound.

One afternoon while Marc was at school, Samantha pulled out her dress up box and went to town! Love the outfit! :-)

In Marc's class they have started a program called "Super Reader". Each child, once a month, has to pick a book from home, practice reading it out loud at home, then they get to read their book in front of the class. Marc was so excite to hold the book so the kids could see the pictures and read it at the same time!

Marc had a loose tooth for a long time! I kept expecting it to come out, and it never did. One night I looked at him and the tooth was sticking out. It was really ready to come out! I told him I bet it was going to come out at dinner. He told me he didn't want it to come out at home. If it came out at school he would get another tooth necklace. So, the next day I happened to be in his class for lunch and the rest of the afternoon. It didn't come out at lunch. He told me that it hurt to even bite down on anything with the tooth. It was the end of snack time and I told Marc it was "now or never" to loose the tooth an get a tooth necklace. He ran to take a bite of something chewy and the he came running to me saying, in near tears,that it still didn't come out. So, being the ever so brave Mommy (yeah, right!), I reached up and pulled the tooth! I hardly had to pull it at all to get it to come out. He was a very happy boy that he got his tooth necklace.

Marc's school did a fund raising, mother/son bowling night. It was a nice night with my little man. It was fun to see how all of the other Moms interact with their own little men.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing misc. pictures of cute little kiddos! :-)

A Couple of Cute Samantha Videos

2011-01-13T06:33:00.002-05:00

Last night Samantha was in a very cheerful mood. So I took the opportunity to catch a couple of her cute little "sayings" on video.

When we ask her if she is being goofy, she says "I'm not Goofy, I'm Donald Duck". IN the last couple of weeks she has expanded it and given all the rest of us names too. She is very excited in the video so here is what she says. She not Goofy, she Donald Duck, Daddy is Goofy, I am Minnie Mouse, and Marc is Pluto.

The other day I was giving her a bath an we were playing with her floating bath animals. I was asking her what the animals said. We got through all of the "sea" animals she ha in the tub so I moved on to some others. She used to tell me that a dog said "woof". Now she sticks her tongue out a pants. ;-) While we were at an aquarium over the summer she told us what a turtle says. We asked her where she learned that an she said "from me" (meaning she made it up). This toddler stage is SO fun!

I hope you have as much fun watching these videos as I have ha listening to her do them all the time! :-)

Oh Me, Oh My!

2011-01-12T20:28:00.008-05:00

For the last couple of months, Samantha has been asking if it is time for her to go to "peschool". She asks me almost every day. I am not sure what prompted her starting to ask, but it sure is cute! I think she is definitely ready to go. She is going to her teacher a run for her money next year! ;-) Well, it is that time of year, it is time to register for preschool for next year. I brought a form home to fill out. How can my little baby girl to old enough for preschool already?! I had to take a picture of my little girl with the all filled out form.

Whenever any one asks Samantha how old she is she says "two half". Lately when family members ask her how old she is she tell us two half and that she is waiting to be three so she can go to preschool.

I will officially turn in her form on Monday! I tried to explain to her yesterday that all the snow an to be gone and lots of time home in the hot weather with Marc, then that is when she will get to go to preschool. I am hoping that she doesn't ask to go to preschool after we celebrate her 3rd birthday in April. ;-)

New Year's Eve 12/31/10

2011-01-10T18:57:00.008-05:00

We decided many years that we would rather spend a quiet night in with the kids rather than a night out without the kids for New Year's Eve. We usually just spend the day playing, eating, playing some more, and eating some more as a family. Marc got a Snoopy sno-cone maker for Christmas that we decided to try out.Daddy Marc decided he wanted to pull out his ice cream maker and make home made ice cream. So we made a basic vanilla base and stirred in "treats" to make different flavors. One of the flavors we made had bits of candy cane mixed in. The kids had fun helping me smash the candy canes to bits.
We had an extra bottle of sparkling grape juice left over from Christmas so we thought, what better time to use it up than New Year's Eve?! We gave Samantha her own glass of it. After each drink she took, she said "whoot!"
Every Christmas we usually open what are called Christmas crackers. They are a British thing. They look like big pieces candy, kinda like a toilet paper tube wrapped in paper to look like a piece of candy. You hold each end and pull them apart. With a "pop!", they break open and there is a little trinket, a joke, and a paper crown. The toys are usually kinda "junky", but they are really fun to do!
At a dollar store several months ago, we found a confetti shooter. So, after we made a mess on the floor with the crackers, we decided, what the heck! We let the kids (all 4 of us) shoot confetti all over the living room floor.

Every time we shot the confetti, Samantha said "Happy New Year!"

This is just a snipit of what the floor looked like. {I told Marc it was a pretty sneaky way to get me to vacuum the floor. ;-) }
We had the kids take late naps, and since we did that, we ALL made it until midnight!!! At 12:05 we all got ready and went to bed! ;-) We have so much fun doing various things and snacking a lot of New Year's Eve as a family!

Meijer Gradens 12/28/10

2011-01-10T18:53:00.005-05:00

Every year the Meijer Botanical Gardens has a display of Christmas trees from around the world. The tree are decorated they would be in that country. There is also a sign with a write-up that describes some of their holiday traditions. What a fun way to learn about all the different countries! We try to make it to see them every year, but don't always make it. We decided that since we were on our way home from the hotel after "Night at Your Museum" the night before, that we would stop and look at the trees. I love this sleigh they always have outside the entrance. Great photo op!! I told Marc I wanted him to, as we were looking at them all, to think about which ones he liked the best because when we were done looking at them all, I wanted to know which one was him favorite an why. This Brazil tree was my favorite. I loved all the bright fun colors on it. The kids liked that one of the Brazil traditions was for the kids to leave their shoes under the tree and when they woke up Christmas morning, they would be filled with nuts an candy.
We decided that there were lots of fun, good photo ops, so we walked around snapping pictures of the kids. (They can all be seen at pictures.stoufer.com) A nice lay offered to take a picture of the family. Usually when someone else takes our picture, they never turn out. This one actually turned out pretty well!
Samantha looks so stinking cute in the picture! I like the trees, greenery, an waterfall are in the background behind them.
It was a fun trip to the Meijer Gardens. We usually do most of our visits there during the summer and we can go to the Children's Garden. It was fun to go during the winter and see the Christmas trees.

Night at Your Museum 12/27/10

2011-01-10T18:50:00.003-05:00

Last year we went to an event at the Grand Rapids Public Museum called "Night at Your Museum". It is a fund raising event that is a take off from the movie "Night at the Museum" where all the exhibits come alive. We had some much fun last year, we went again this year.When we first get there we have dinner. There was pizza, lasagna, bread, and salad. It was actually pretty good food for food that had to be cooked by the hundreds. As we eat dinner there are "exhibits" walking around. A Pharaoh actually are bread off the plate of a girl sitting at our table! A Queen actually came over an talked to Samantha. The Queen asked Samantha if she was a Princess. I said "Of course!". Samantha even had a pair of jeans on that night that said "Princess" on them. :-)
After dinner we just walked around the 3 floors of exhibits to see who we could run into. As we found people, it was Marc's job to ask them their name and what year it was. Everyone there did a great job of staying in character. At one point we walked up to a paleontologist, asked him what his name is, what he did, and what year it was. Just as he was answering a bunch of other characters walked by and they all started arguing about what year it was. It was pretty comical! When Marc got the camera out, the Queen in red said "I learned tonight that if you say 'cheese', that thing in his hand will flash an take a 'picture' of you." SO much fun to see them people really getting into their characters. Many of the actors were the same ones as last year.
The museum has a carousel in it. Usually you have to pay something like $2 each to ride, but it was open for free, so we decided to ride. We actually ha a group of about 5 Civil War soldiers riding the carousel with us!
We spent about 3 hours there and the tickets cost $20 each. I think we well got our money's worth! It is so much fun! We even used some of our Marriott points to book a room at the JW Marriott hotel right across the bridge! So when we left, all we had to do was walk across the bridge to our nice, warm, hotel room. Fun, family night!

December Cuteness Part 2

2011-01-10T18:41:00.008-05:00

Back in a previous post, called "December Cuteness Part 1", I told you that I would be posting some more December cuteness. Well, here it is! ;-)

The kids in their "winter" pj's

Marc's class ended their Mexico until with a Mexican fiesta. They did the Mexican hat dance, at tacos, and hit a pinata.

The kids with our childcare provider Michelle Smith. She absolutely loves my precious kiddos! She bought both of the kids a Christmas present. She is the sweetest lady ever!

My sweet kids eating some sweets, or candy canes.

While we were in the hotel after "Night at Your Museum", Samantha decided she needed to peek at me though the glass table.

Samantha peeking at me from behind the curtains in the hotel.

Check out my little man chillin' and relaxing in the hotel, playing his Nintendo DS.

Marc helped me blow out my birthday candles.

I love how Marc takes care of and looks out for Samantha. I was in the kitchen making lunch when she asked to have a book read to her. I couldn't o it, so big brother to the rescue!

I posted earlier about how the kids sang at church before Christmas. Well, one night Daddy an I were doing something (I don't remember what) in the kitchen. So both kids climbed up on the step stool an practice Marc's songs.

I truly do have great kids!!!

Merry Christmas 12/25/10

2011-01-10T18:15:00.009-05:00

We have a tradition that we spend Christmas Day at home. We tell all of our family that they are welcome to come to our house if they want. This year we told Marc that if he woke up any time after 6:00am he could come wake us up. He woke up at 6:20!Samantha was still sleeping so we came down with Marc and he opened his stocking.After he looked through his stocking and did a little playing he had some of our traditional pineapple coffee cake (thanks Mom!!). After we ate breakfast we got dressed and made ourselves "presentable". ;-) This was about the time that Samantha woke up. So, not it was her turn to look through her stocking.
We let the kids play with their stocking goodies as long as they want. They both got those paddle ball thingys. Where there is a paddle and a ball attached to a piece of elastic. It was very entertaining watching the kids play!
It has become a rule in our house that on Christmas morning people are not allowed to come to our house until 10:00. This gives us time to spend together as a family, an having the kids open the presents from us. We let the kids open a present and then play with it for as long as they want to before moving onto the next one. We know that once everyone else gets here it gets pretty chaotic and they don't really get to play with anything until after everything is opened.
The first present we had Samantha open was her "Little Mommy" doll. I LOVE the look on her face!!!!
When we were down in AR over Thanksgiving, we went to Chuck E Cheese for Marc's birthday. They had a very large version of Operation as one of their games. Marc thought that was really fun, so we got him the "old fashion" version for Christmas.
My Mom got Samantha a nursery set (with a baby) to go with her "Little Mommy" Mom doll. I fin it very interesting that Samantha knew exactly how to feed that baby doll. She has not been around other girls feeding dolls before. Must be there really is a "Mommy" gene in little girls. :-)
My Grandma gave each of the kids one of the new Hallmark recordable books. What a great idea! Now, every year they can listen to Great Grandma reading them a story. :-)
This is Samantha with all of her new toys.
And all of her new clothes.
Marc with all of his new toys.
An Marc with all of his new clothes.
I look at the pictures just above an think to myself, "Man, my kids are spoiled!!" Then I think back to when people told me I was spoiled when I was younger and I said, "Nope, just well loved!". I was just joking around back in the day, but how true is what I was saying and not even realizing it???? My kids are very loved and are very special. It was a great Christmas spent with great family!

Christmas Eve 12/24/10

2011-01-09T20:09:00.004-05:00

For as long as I can remember, we went to church on Christmas Eve. We have carried on the tradition of going to church on Christmas Eve with our kids. Before we left the house, we did a quick photo shoot in front f the Christmas tree since everyone was dressed up and looked so nice. My favorite part was always the very last thing, when we sang "Silent Night" by candle light. I just loved the calmness and quietness of the church while we sang. I was excited when we had Marc and he was old enough to help hold a candle. So, this year I was extra excited that Marc was old enough to have his own candle and Samantha was old enough to help me hold mine.
We have started a new tradition with our kids that when we get home from church they get to open one present. That "one present" is always a new ornament for the tree. We try to pick something that represents "them" for that year, something they are really into, something they truly enjoy. This year we got a Cinderella ornament for our little Princess and a Snoopy ornament for Marc. Samantha loves anything an everything Princess. She smiles whenever she sees something with a Princess on it. Marc has really starting enjoying all of the Charlie Brown cartoons and he LOVES the Charlie Brown theme song!
Going to the Christmas Eve church service was a tradition while I was growing up and I am proud to be able to carry on the tradition with my own children.

Singing at Church 12/19/10

2011-01-09T19:28:00.004-05:00

This year both of the kids got to sing some Christmas songs during church, What made it even cooler is that Marc and I are 1 of 3 Sunday school teachers for the 2/3 year-olds. Marc sang "Little Drummer Boy" and "Feliz Navidad". He took his performance very seriously. His teachers gave him the words to his songs and he practice them almost every day! He had to use the words for "Little Drummer Boy" but he had the words to "Feliz Navidad" memorized. He was part of the 1st-4th graders that sang. They did a great job, I just wish he didn't look so sad to be on stage!Samantha's group was made up of 2-5 year-olds. They sang "Happy Birthday Jesus" and "Go Tell it on the Mountain". The 4 and 5 year olds did more singing an the 2 and 3 year olds did more standing. ;-) I always say that it is a good thing we have the cuteness factor going on. ;-) Samantha was so cute. As the other kids were singing, she kept looking at them like "Hey, why are you doing that?".
It was fun to see both of my kiddos up on stage, even if neither of them looked like they wanted to be there. ;-) I think my kiddos were the 2 cutest kids on stage! :-)

School Snow Day 12/13/10

2010-12-20T13:41:00.008-05:00

When we woke up this morning and saw that school was canceled due to a snow day, I was really worried about having the kids cooped up in the house for a 2nd day in a row.........thankfully it actually went pretty well. I had somethings to d to keep the kids busy and occupied.

Last year after Christmas we found a foam gingerbread house kit. I decided that today was a good day to pull it out. The kids took turns putting different stickers on the house to decorate it the way they wanted it. The same time we bought the gingerbread house kit we bought a couple of magnet sets. One of them is a dress-up-Santa and the other is dress-up-a-snowman. That kept the kids occupied for awhile. ;-)
Over the years we have accumulated a lot of Christmas "toys". This year we put all of them in a bucket and the kids can play with them whenever they want to. They found a tic-tac-toe game. Of course Samantha didn't know how to play it correctly but it was fun watching them.
Marc pulled out one of our many play nativity sets to play with. He set up quite to scene.
I saw a picture of a friend making peanut butter cookies with Hershey kissses and they looked yummy. The only problem.....the only kisses we had are some that both kids had gotten from Grandma. Marc saw the recipe and got really excited about making the cookies. When I told him the catch he said "oh". I asked him if he was willing to "sacrifice" his kisses to make the cookies knowing that in a week he was going to be getting a ton of chocolate in his stocking. After a few minutes of pondering, he said he was willing to use them. So, off we went to make more cookies.
My little smarty pants got the recipe, the ingredients, and all of the correct measuring cups and spoons we were going to need.
Since Marc was SO excited to be making these cookies, I out Samantha to work unwrapping all the kisses we needed. (and it is more great fine motor practice)
Both kids helped roll the dough into balls, roll them in the sugar and put them on the cookie sheet to be baked. When it was time, each of them got to out kisses on the cookies.
We were short a few kisses so we tried using some of the flavored one we had from our pretzels.
After Daddy got home and we had dinner it felt like a good night to break out "The Christmas Game". I remember playing this game with my Mom and brother when I was younger. It is a very, very basic form of Monopoly, only Christmas themed. It brought back lots of fun memories from my childhood. I am so tankful that I am able to carry the tradition on with my kiddos. Hopefully they will do the same down the road.
What I thought was going to be a long, bad day turned out to be a very fun, family day. :-)

Church Snow Day!! 12/12/10

2010-12-20T13:30:00.002-05:00

We had a feeling as we were driving home Saturday night that the weather on Sunday morning was going to be yucky. So, we stopped at the store and bought the supplies to make a few more things that are on our Christmas goodies list. It's a good thing we did because church was canceled.

We were sorry to miss church, but glad to be able to stay off the roads and glad we could get some more of our Christmas baking done. The first thing on our list were Mrs. Field's chocolate chip cookies. Both kids helped us mix the ingredients.Marc helped me spoon the dough onto the cookie sheets. He really is a good little baker!
This recipe made something like 8 dozen cookies, so we spent a lot of the day baking sheets filled with dough to turn into yummy cookies.
The next thing on the list was chocolate and chocolate mint fudge. Marc helped Daddy make the fudge by pouring in the chocolate when needed.
We also made red & green rice krispie treats. However, as the marshmallows were melting, something went wrong and they didn't turn out. :-(

We enjoyed spending our church snow day together as a family. :-)

December Cuteness Part 1

2010-12-14T21:17:00.013-05:00

Here are some random cute pictures of my kiddos from the first half of December.

Santa's Little Helpers

One night we decided it was a good night for some air popped popcorn. Both kids helped me pop it and then of course they both helped me eat it. ;-)

We put our tree up on a Saturday and then the next day the kids looked so cute I had to take their pictures in front of our tree. Samantha looks very grown up and Marc looks really tall!

Marc was looking at one of his magazines that has bloopers in it. He shows me a picture of one of the bloopers. I immediately said, "Sam has that shirt!". I ran upstairs and grabbed the shirt an looked at it. Sure enough, Sam's shirt did have the blooper. She has worn it a ton of times and I never noticed it. Read the alphabet an see if you can find the missing letter.

I love it when I see and don't hear (no arguing) the kids playing nicely together. It doesn't happen as much as you might think so I have to get pictures that prove it can happen. ;-)

As I was unpacking the Christmas toys box I was surprised by how many nativity play sets. One of the was a Little People version that Samantha got for Christmas last year. Since it was a gift last year, it didn't get played with much so it is kinda like a new toy all over again.

After we went and saw Santa we had tickets to take Marc to see Peter Pan at the Civic Theater. My Mom was nice enough to watch Samantha for us. She met us for lunch and then took Samantha home with her. That was the first time she has eaten a corn dog still on the stick. It was a pretty funny sight. She pretty much destroyed it! ;-)

After we picked Samantha up from my Mom's house we drove through a lights display. This is one of favorites.
Like I said above, these are some of the pictures from the first half of December. I will post December Cuteness Part 2 at the end of December. Enjoy my little cuties! :-)

A Visit With Santa 12/11/10

2010-12-14T20:59:00.003-05:00

Christmas time means a trip to see Santa Claus. We have, from the beginning, made sure Marc, and now Samantha, understand the true meaning of Christmas. We have told them that Santa is not a "real" person but a symbol of fun an giving. That being said, we are more than willing to have fun and play along with all of the Santa fun, including a trip to see Santa.

I totally thought that Samantha was going to turn and run crying back to us. She doesn't like anything that might be even the slightest bit "different". Much to our surprise she walked right up with Marc and she willing sat on his lap.After some pictures Santa asked the kids what they wanted for Christmas. Marc told him he was a "note pad" and Samantha told him she wants "toys". Well, I guess I need to run to the store and buy Marc a note book. ;-)
Daddy and I decided that we wanted to jump in the picture with the kids for a cute, fun family picture.
On the other side of the aisle from Santa is the carousel. Samantha told us she wanted to ride the carousel. We made a deal with her that if she smiled nice for Santa, she could ride the carousel after we were done with Santa. Since she id great with Santa, she got to ride the carousel. :-)
It was a fun day and another thing that helped get me more into the Christmas spirit.

Saying Good-bye to Miss Morren 12/9/10

2010-12-14T13:55:00.005-05:00

Marc had a student teacher in his class again this year. The one last year wasn't anything to write home about, but Mandy Morren this year was awesome!! She is going to make one heck of a teacher!!

The parents organized a surprise party for Miss Morren. All the kids knew about and actually kept it a secret. When Miss Morren and Mr Steinbacher took the kids outside for recess, us parents got to work. One of the other teachers asked Miss Morren to watch her kids on the playground while she "went to the bathroom" (she actually wandered the halls) so the kids could come in, get out of the outside gear and hide.When she came into the room all the kids jumped up and yelled surprise. I think she truly was surprised! :-) Marc loved her, he actually cried in the car on the way home. I heard lots of kids asking her if she could come back for "just one more day?" You know it is a good teacher when the kids don't want you to go.
As Miss Morren was passing out a treat she made for the kids, the kids decided to give her a group hug.
Mandy Morren is going to make one heck of a teacher! She will be sorely missed in Marc's class but whoever gets her, will be very Blessed!

Christmas Baking 12/8/10

2010-12-14T13:32:00.007-05:00

Each year for the last 3 we have baked up a storm of Christmas goodies. We exchange goodie plates with neighbors and we share them with our co-workers. I was beginning to feel a little behind schedule due to our trip. Usually by the 2nd weekend after Thanksgiving we already had several things baked. So, when we finally had a free evening, we started our Christmas baking.

One of the things we make are pretzel/Hershey kisses/m&m candies. The kids line the cookie sheets with pretzels......then unwrap the kisses and out a kiss on top of each pretzel. We usually do Hugs, Mint, and Candy Cane flavored kisses......
then we bake them for a few minutes in the oven and top each kiss with an m&m. They then have to cool and harden over night.While the kisses were cooling we decided to use a new "toy" we bought after Christmas last year. I found this tool that cuts the cookies and then presses a picture imprint on the cookie.While the imprint cookies were baking we started making some cut-out cookies from the short bread dough. We had to show Samantha how to do it once, and then she did it like she was a pro. I think cutting out the cookies is Marc's 2nd favorite (only to frosting them) part of making cookies.
My kiddos made some pretty good looking cookies if I do say so myself. ;-)While I was at The Dollar Tree one day the previous week I found these cute aprons. I thought "What the heck, they are only $1 each", so I bought 4 of them. When I asked Daddy Marc if he was going to help us bake I had him put on his apron. His response was "Since when does "Honey, help me bake mean having to wear cute matching aprons?". Silly man! ;-) I think we turned out really cute! :-)
Now that we have round 1 of baking done, I am not feeling quite so behind schedule. The things we made turned out pretty darn yummy if I do say so myself. :-)

Santa Parade 12/4/10

2010-12-14T13:19:00.003-05:00

We love going to the Santa parade in downtown Rockford! We have gone most of the last 4 years. It is usually cold, but what a fun way to get into the spirit of Christmas! While we were waiting for it to start I decided the kids looked so cute all bundled up in their snow gear I had to get some pictures of them.
And of course some with us too.
The parade last about 30 minutes. We get to see lots of cute kids from various boy scouts, girl scouts, sports clubs, etc in addition to police/fire, a few companies and businesses, and of course, Santa! All of the "groups" have most of their kids walk the route passing out candy. Most of the time we get candy for 2-4 people from the same group. The amount of candy the kids got is amazing! I think it is almost, if not more than, as much as they got on Halloween!
It is a lot of fun to tell a bunch of strangers Merry Christmas. this year we hadn't gotten much "Christmas" stuff done yet, so this parade was kinda the thing that put me in the Christmas spirit. :-)

Christmas Decorating 12/3/10

2010-12-14T12:56:00.005-05:00

We usually put up our Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving but since we weren't home that weekend, we had to wait another weekend. Marc kept nagging us to put up our decorations because "everyone else has theirs up". ;-) I told him that "everyone else didn't just get back from vacation". So we finally out Marc out of his misery and put the tree up. Both kids helped us spread the branches out on each branch of the tree and put them on the tree pole. Marc id a great job, as usual, but Samantha wasn't so sure about the feel of the needles at first, but then got used to them.Daddy and I did the lights while the kids had nap/quiet time. After Marc came upstairs he helped Daddy put the garland on the tree....such a big boy and a big helper!
Love the fact the both kids are old enough to do at least a little bit of the decorating. This year we had the kids hang their own stockings on our stocking holder.
Every year for the last couple of years we have let Marc put the topper on the tree.
It was SO fun watching the kids decorate the tree. Daddy and I didn't do much, just the breakable ones, while the kids put the rest of the ornaments on. After wards I had to go back through and rearrange a few, but for the most part, they did great!
It is always so fun to watch the kids and their excitement over the Christmas decorations! :-)

November Cuteness

2010-12-14T12:40:00.004-05:00

Just a couple of random cuteness pictures of my kiddos from November.

I was prepping a craft for my preschool class. For the craft the kids were gluing on red pom poms for Rudolph's nose. Samantha decided she needed to be like Rudolph.I went to a friend's house for a "party" that she was chosen to host. It was sponsored by Pedilyte. She had to buy ingredients for and we prepared 3 meals for us to bring home and put in our freezer to be used if someone gets sick. One of the recipes called for chopped ham. Samantha felt like she had to stand guard over the ham.
I just thought it was cute that both of my kiddos have footie pj's. They both look so cute, and warm, in them!

Marc used some of his unused gift money to but the Kinect attached to the Xbox 360. This is a system where your body is the controller. There is a game that is kin of like an obstacle course where you have to move side to side, bend down, jump up, etc, etc, etc. Samantha wanted so bad to do it, but she wasn't quite tall enough for the sensor to detect her, but she had fun trying. (sorry for it being sideways, I don't know how to flip it).

These are just a couple of the random pictures of cuteness that occurred in the month of November. :-)

Trip to Arkansas 11/23/10-11/29/10

2010-12-14T10:07:00.011-05:00

Several months ago we found out that Marc's grandmother Stoufer wasn't doing too well health wise so we decided it was time to plan a trip down to Arkansas to say our good-byes. :-( We headed down over Thanksgiving break. By doing it then Marc only missed 2 days of school, which were easy to make up.

We decided that Samantha was big enough to have her own carry-on bag now. When I saw a cute purple one on clearance for $8, I couldn't resist. She loved it and felt like such a big girl!!We flew from Grand Rapids, MI to Kansas City, MO (instead of Fort Smith, AR) on our 14th wedding anniversary. Marc surprised me by having a chocolate mousse cake delivered to our hotel room that night! Yum! (and it was free!!!)
We flew into Kansas City because it saved us $400 a ticket for a total of $1600 in savings!!! Since we were there, we surprised Marc with breakfast at our old neighbor's new house. The Thatcher family lived across the street from us for 7 years. They moved to Kansas City this past summer and we have missed them terribly! We enjoyed a great breakfast, the kids had some play time, us adults got some catching up time, and Miss Johna (who used to be the children's librarian) gave Samantha her own, personal story time. :-)
The night before we left we found out that Marc's grandmother was admitted to the hospital again. Our plans were to go see her on Monday on our way back to the airport. While we were having breakfast we found out that his grandmother was going to be transported via ambulance on Sunday to get her ready for open heart surgery. That meant she wasn't going to be around on Monday any more so we had to adjust our plans. We left KC and went to Branson's hospital to see her.
After driving for what seemed like forever, through rain, fog, and tornado watches/warnings we finally made it into Fort Smith late on Wednesday night. The next morning was Thanksgiving. We headed over to Marc's Nannie & Papaw's house for lunch and family time.

Marc and Samantha looking at a book with Papaw.

Samantha with Aunt Jennifer

One of my favorites!!!

After lunch we headed back to the hotel so the kids could take a nap and rest up. After nap time we headed over to Marc's Dad's house for dinner and time with other family members. Talk about being stuffed by the end of the night! ;-)

Samantha with Uncle Paul

After dinner we did a photo shoot of all of the various families that were there.
Then we got a picture of Bumpa and most of his grand kids.
On Black Friday, we stopped at a couple of stores (not early!) about 10:00 and found lots of good clothes deals for the kids. After stopping at the stores we headed over to OK to spend the day with Marc's sister and her family. The kids ha fun playing with their cousins and I enjoyed "shopping" with my niece's old clothes that don't fit anymore. Best Black Friday shopping trip ever!! We ended up with 3 trash bags full of "new" clothes for Samantha and Marc. :-)

On Saturday we headed to Chuck E Cheese for a birthday party for Marc. He was excited to be able to celebrate his birthday with that part of the family since he has never been able to before. We had a coupon for free "birthday" tokens for Marc. He was very cute counting his loot.
We put all the kids at a table together to eat lunch......
an then the kids went wild spending lots and lots of tokens on fun games. :-)
Marc got lots of fun gifts! A big thanks to all!
Do you think a day at Chuck E Cheese wore my kiddos out?
On Sunday we went to church with Marc's dad. It is a Southern Baptist church. I learned that I am not made to be Southern Baptist. ;-) I thought the message that the Pastor delivered was great, but he didn't have to yell at me! ;-) After church the boys went and did laundry while Samantha and I went back to the hotel so she could take a nap. After nap time we headed to dinner with Marc's other sister, Trinity, and his Mom. At the restaurant there was a razorback that the kids rode (in case you don't know, they are the Arkansas Razorbacks). The kids thought it was SO cool!

The kids with Aunt Trin

Marc with his kids, his sister, and his Mom.

On Monday, we headed back to KC after lunch so we would be closer to the airport for our flight out on Tuesday morning. We had a very uneventful trip home and were glad to be home. It was a great trip. It was nice to see all the family. We went down to say our good-byes to Marc's grandmother and we find out that she is going to have surgery that will make her tons better. Great trip!

Happy 7th Birthday Marc!!

2010-12-14T09:24:00.005-05:00

We did all of Marc's celebrating before his birthday so we tried to make sure his actual birthday was celebrated too. When he got up in the morning we put a candle in his breakfast Pop-tart. He had to make a wish and blow the candle out.It was finally time for Marc to take the brownies you read about in one of my previous posts to school. I had to work in the morning on his birthday, but I arranged with his teacher to surprise him and come volunteer in his class for the last couple of hours of school. I wanted to be there to take pictures of him on his special day. He got the biggest kick out of passing out his goodies.
When I came in I surprised him with a balloon bouquet. I can't decided if he was really excited or a little embarrassed that I bought them in for him. ;-) I think he liked them though.
Every Friday during the school-wide assembly, they have any kids that have had a birthday during that week come up front. When they are up there the whole school says happy birthday to them and they get to pick out a birthday pencil. On their birthday they can also donate a book to the library in their name. Marc chose to donate a copy of the first book in one of his favorite series, "The 39 Clues".
I think all in all, it was a great birthday!! :-) I thank God for the 7 years we have been blessed with him.

Marc's Birthday Celebration with Family 11/14/10

2010-12-14T08:51:00.002-05:00

Party time! We had my Mom, Grandma, and brother Jeff to our house after church to celebrate his 7th birthday. He told us he wanted a "Toy Story" theme this year so we found a cool cake holder, cake, and table decorations that were Toy Story.We told Marc that he could pick whatever he wanted for his birthday lunch. He chose tacos so we put together a taco "bar" with lots of possible toppings.
Think he is spoiled just a tad? He got more in the mail a few days later!
After lunch it was time for the best part.....cake and ice cream! ;-)
Our big boy helped cut the cake and hand them out to everyone.
Marc got lots of great gifts and we all had a great time spending the afternoon celebrating our wonderful little man! :-)

Birthday Brownies 11/14/10

2010-12-14T08:28:00.003-05:00

Marc wanted to make a special birthday treat to take to school for snack on his birthday. Good thing I have the 2 cutest little chefs ever! We made to boxes of brownie mix so each one of them got to make a box of brownies. They both helped pour the ingredients in the bowl and mix them up.The next day, after the brownies had cooled overnight, Marc frosted them all.
Then the kids wrapped enough Rolos so each brownie had a Rolo on top.
The brownies turned out very yummy!
Now he just has to wait (im)patiently for his birthday to come so he can take them to school. ;-)

Marc's Birthday Celebration with Friends 11/13/10

2010-12-14T08:11:00.006-05:00

This year we started a new birthday tradition. Marc will have a full blown party every other year. The years he doesn't have a party he will choose 2 friends to go to a place of his choice.
After we dropped Samantha off at my Mom's house, we headed to our destination. On the way we saw that Krispy Kreme was making fresh, warm glazed donuts, so we stopped for a special birthday celebration day treat.Marc invited 2 girls to join him on his day. Grace is from his 1st grade class this year an Kiley is from his young 5's preschool class.
His choice of activities was lunch and a movie. After every one was done eating their lunches, it was time to open presents (Marc's favorite part. ;-) )Kiley gave him 2 books and a Smencil that smells like real oranges!
Grace gave him a Sorry game.
After presents, it was time for the birthday ice cream sundae. Yum! The kids all shared it and then decided they had enough an there was a little left. So, gee, darn, I had to eat a few bites so it wouldn't all go to waste. ;-)
Marc decided that after lunch it was time to walk across the parking lot and go see "Megamind". We let the kids sit in the row right in front of us, since after all, he is 7 years old now. ;-) The theater got more crowded that expected so the kids had other people sitting on both sides of them (with 1 seat free on each side). Marc and I kept peeking at the off and on all through the movie.
It was a very fun afternoon. It was even more fun to see how different the 2 girls' personalities were and how Marc interacted with them both.

Fun Times at Grandma's House 11/13/10

2010-12-14T07:19:00.004-05:00

While Marc had a friend birthday celebration, Samantha got to go to Grandma's house and have some play time with Grandma and Uncle Jeff. Samantha and Uncle Jeff have a mutual admiration for each other. ;-) They were both about as excited about their time together. Here are some cute pictures from their few hours together.

Giddy up Uncle Jeff

Samantha told Grandma she was hiding. ;-)

Only my kids can get Jeff to sit on the floor and color a picture. ;-)

Interesting way to take a nap don't ya think? (They are actually just playing not napping)

Samantha riding around the house in style

I think a fun time was had by all since Samantha didn't want to leave Grandma and Uncle Jeff when we got back to pick her up.

I love the fact that my kids love their Uncle Jeff and that my brother loves them back just as much (even if he won't admit it)!

Cookies!!! 11/5/10

2010-12-03T18:19:00.004-05:00

On Saturday we fed the homeless and our job was to bring 8 dozen cookies and on Sunday it was our turn to bring 2 dozen cookies for church. So, in a 2 day period I had to make 10 dozen chocolate chip cookies! I enlisted 2 of the cutest little assistant chefs ever!

Samantha and I made a few batches during the day. She liked dumping and mixing all the ingredients.I let her attempt to put blobs of dough on the cookie sheet but the dough was a little gooey so it didn't fall off the spoon.
After dinner Marc helped me make a few more batches. He has always liked helping in the kitchen, and this time was no different.
What better dessert is there than a fresh-baked, home-made chocolate chip cookie???? Do you think Samantha enjoyed it? ;-)
The day after we made the cookies we took Marc downtown with other families from our church. Our church is in a rotation of several church that take part in a program called Jesus on the Streets. Every Saturday 11-1 people from one of the churches goes to a specific spot an feeds the homeless. We were there for 2 hours. I was amazed at the range of need. Some people obviously lived on the streets, other had enough money to have a place to sleep but not enough money to buy food. The other thing I was surprised by was the range of gratitude. Some people were falling all over themselves thanking us for feeding them while other people complained that the pizza was cold and not hot. It was a very moving experience to say the least. it makes me very Thankful for everything we have!

Trick-or-Treat - 10/31/10

2010-12-03T17:42:00.004-05:00

Happy Halloween!! It's time for trick-or-treating!! Marc wore a hand-me-down Sulley (from Monsters Inc) costume from some friends. Samantha wore her Cinderella dress she got for making a potty training goal.I love how much Marc takes care of his little sister. (I type that as they are arguing in the background right now). He made sure she was keeping up walking and getting her candy from the houses (for awhile at least ;-) )
We id the loop around our neighborhood. Samantha didn't quite get why we were going up to strangers and asking for candy. She wanted to look at each piece as she got it. If she id that, she would get run over! ;-) They were so cute when we got back, sitting in their costumes, holding their candy-filled pumpkins.
They made a pretty good haul! We still have a lot of it let!
After Marc got done looking at his loot, he came outside and helped me hand out candy. He was a very good helper!
It was a very happy Halloween!!

Neighborhood Halloween Party - 10/30/10

2010-12-03T17:11:00.003-05:00

Our neighborhood has a ton of kids in it. We also get HUNDREDS of kids through our neighborhood on Halloween night. So, one of my neighbors decided to have a Halloween party at their house the night before Halloween. That way we actually got to see the neighborhood kids in their costumes and give the good candy.

One of the guests brought pumpkin cookies that Samantha loved!The turn out ended up being kinda small, which was nice and cozy. We decided to venture outside to their cold deck and let the kids bob for apples.
The kids had never bobbed for apples before and they both thought it was the coolest thing ever!
We did a pot-luck so we munched on munchies for dinner an snacked on Halloween candy all night with great neighbors, what more can you ask for?!

Monster Mash 10/28/10

2010-12-03T14:03:00.005-05:00

Last year we went trick-or-treating at "The Zoo Goes Boo". This year the zoo announced they were going to have a members-only trick-or-treating called "Monster Mash". The advertising for it said it would be better entertainment, less people, and "premium" treats. So, we decided to give it a try. By doing both we would be able to know which was better for future years.

As you have seen in previous posts, every time we go to the zoo, we take a picture with the statue of John Ball.In addition to the normal statue picture, there was a inflatable Halloween sign.
We got to walk the "Not So Spooky Trail". We happened upon a grave yard....seems spooky to me. ;-)
There is a fun train at the end of the trail. Usually when we are there during the summer, there are too many kids on it for Marc & Samantha to be able to have much fun on it. Since there weren't many people there dung this event, the kids got to play, run, and climb all over it. Someone was nice enough to offer to take out family's picture on it.
I would say the kids got a good loot. :-)
The Monster Mash was a few dollars per ticket more expensive then The Zoo goes Boo. The "premium" treats were more trinkets like from Oriental Trading Company than edible treat. We think in the future we will probably do the Zoo Goes Boo instead of the Monster Mash. More expensive, but still lots of fun!

St Peter's Preschool Harvest Festival

2010-12-03T13:29:00.005-05:00

Every year my preschool and the church host a Harvest Festival for all church and preschool families. There are always fun things for the kids to so. The kids are encouraged to wear their costumes for added fun.

One of Marc's favorite thing is the estimation jars. He made an educated guess for all of them, and there were several!! He counted how many items there were on the bottom row, then counted how many rows there were, then Daddy added them on his phone calculator. Marc guessed that there were 392 mini marshmallows in the jar in the picture below, there were actually 398. Great guess!Last year I think Marc did the cupcake walk like 8 times without winning, so after the 9th time, I let him pick one out, he did his time. ;-) This year he was excited to try it again. This year it was a cookie walk and both kids won. :-)
Every time Marc goes back to the preschool he gets very excited that he gets to see his old 5's teacher, Mrs. Street. :-)
One of Marc's other favorite games is the "Fishing for Worms" game. There is a gummy worm tied to the end of a piece of yarn. You have to catch the worm in your mouth using only your mouth.
Each year there are some various crafts for the kids to do. This year the kids got to make paper bats and foam jack-o-lanterns.
The kids were excited about getting tattoos too.
We have fun every year. It is a fun, safe, warm place for the kids to celebrate Halloween. :-)

Elmers Contest

2010-11-22T16:25:00.010-05:00

In many of my previous posts I have talked about my friend Sarah who runs Sarahs Deals. She is on of several bloggers who were chosen to "host" a contest on their blogs. Five people (chosen at random) will be chosen to win a $100 Walmart gift card each. All that needed to be one was to use an Elmers Tri-Fold Display board and get crafty. So, I thought, What the heck, I like to craft, an I like free money even more!

The first 2 ideas that popped into my head were 1) a family Thankful tree where we made hand print leaves and we write things that we are Thankful for and 2) a Christmas countdown calendar. When I asked Marc which he liked better, he said, "Why don't you combine both ideas into one display board?" So, that is just what I did! I decided to call our creation "Counting Our Blessings To Christmas".

I headed to Walmart and bought my Tri-fold board an a few other Elmers items that jumped out at me and started brainstorming. Here are a few pictures of the supplies I used:I think I spent a total no more than $11 on supplies. I used a lot of things I had at home already. I bought some new markers, the boar, and some stencils. As a bonus my stencils came with a free mechanical pencil in the box. So after I gathered my supplies I decided it was time to get to work!

First thing I did was pencil in the wording and the tree.
And then I colored those parts in.From there it was time to make our family hand print tree. We picked out 4 different shades of green, 1 for each of us. We put Daddy's hand prints on first......
And then mine......

Then Marc's......And to finish off the tree, Samantha little hand prints.And this is how the tree turned out.After I got done with the tree we decided that there was too much white space around the outside edges. Marc suggested that I put a string of Christmas lights around the edge, so I dug into my old stamping box and found a Christmas light bulb stamp. I also added a Nativity picture, our names, and a few virtue gifts under the tree.Now that all the other work was done, it was time to start writing dates and Blessings on all of the ornaments and "hanging" them on the tree.The ornaments are "hung" on the tree with poster tack so after Christmas we can take them down without wrecking the tree. We will fold the poster up and store it in one of our Christmas decoration boxes for future years. I will cut out a new set of ornaments each year and each night we will decided something we are Thankful for and "hang" it on the tree. By Christmas our family will have decided on 24 things that we count as Blessings in our lives.

Pumpkins, Pumpkins Everywhere 10/23/10-10/24/10

2010-10-24T19:45:00.005-04:00

It's pumpkin time! Between my and Marc's field trips we got 3 small pumpkins. Each year we usually let the kids paint the small pumpkins any way they want to. It was fun to watch how differently they painted. Marc was very thoughtfully on how he painted his and Samantha just grabbed whatever paint brush was near by an painted randomly.Both turned out great though!
A few weeks ago when we went to Klackles Orchard we picked our big pumpkin to carve. After weeks of waiting, the time finally came to carve it! We drew shapes on a piece of paper and asked Samantha what shape she thought the nose should be. She chose a diamond shape. Marc chose square eyes and we all chose a smiling mouth with a few teeth showing. Daddy always does the carving and I do the cleaning out. This year we had both kids picking through the "goop" to pick out the pumpkin seeds. Marc thought it was gross and was trying to not get dirty....silly! So Daddy had him hold out both hands and he put a blob of it in his hands and said, "Now, you are dirty, quit being a weeny." ;-) Samantha thought it felt cool squishing through her fingers. We wondered how she would do picking the slimy seeds out of the goop. She did great! She probably picked out just as many as her brother did!
We like to make happy jack-o-lanterns and not scary ones. This is how our little guy turned out. Samantha thought it was so cool that Daddy cut the pumpkin apart.
Our front porch look very "fallish" now with all the kids' craftiness.
I love fall and this is just one of the reasons. It is great family together time to sit and paint and carve and sort seeds and make pumpkin seeds. :-)

Picture Day 10/23/10

2010-10-23T20:23:00.006-04:00

Today was the day of our family pictures shoot. We booked another shoot with the same person we did the last two shoots with. She is very reasonably priced, we get her for an hour, and we get the disc....oh, and she gets some really good pictures!

We wanted a fall themed shoot this time. We normally get pictures taken the second week in November so they are taken around Marc's birthday. We decided that at this point, taking them 4 weeks before his birthday would be fine and we could get our fall theme in. We went to a place called Schwallier's Country Basket. All morning we were watching the overcast sky and hoping the rain would miss us. I remembered from a previous shoot that Susan, the photographer, told us that a little overcast were better conditions for shoots then bright sunny skies, so I thought, cool! Well, on our drive there it started to rain. :-( By the time we got there, it had stopped raining so we went and checked out the goats while we waited for Susan to get there.

There were vending machines with goat food. You could put in it a cup attached to a pulley system that you then cranked a wheel to send the cup of food up to the top of a ramp and the goat ate the food you put in the cup.
Samantha thought it was funny that this goat stuck his head through the fence for Samantha to pet him. :-)
One of the things they have there is a huge mountain of bales of hay. There is a tunnel through the middle of it that both kids crawled through and then Marc climbed all the way to the top of it!
Another thing they have is a tube slide that was a about a story high. The first couple of times Samantha went down, she didn't pick up her feet so she went down really slow. After she watched her brother a few times, she figured out she went faster if she picked up her feet. :-)
One thing that this place had that I have never seen before is a corn box. It is like a sand box, but with corn kernels. The kids had fun scooping and pouring and piling and having fun.
By the store there were 2 wooden horses for the kids to check out.
By the time we got done with the hour long photo shoot an then some playing time, we were all (the kids especially) were filthy! It was a dirty but free and fun couple of hours. :-)

Yum! 10/20/10

2010-10-23T20:15:00.004-04:00

I love fall! One of the things I love about fall is that the chill in the air makes me ready to make our first batch of chex mix! :-) We make it by splitting into half and mixing it in disposable pans. So, since there are two pans and we have kids, each kid gets to mix the ingredients together.Once the kids got the dry ingredients mixed up, Daddy and I take over and get all the seasonings on and cook it. It has to cook for an hour, so in the process, it makes my house smell yummy! The kids were very glad to try to fruits (or chexes) of their labor. ;-)
The first batch of the season turned out yummy! I think it was all the great helpers that took part in making it. :-)

Detroit Pistons Game 10/13/10

2010-10-23T19:51:00.004-04:00

Ok......so those of you that us, know that we are at all sports people. But, the other day, we were sitting at Marc's swim lesson when someone comes up and offers us free tickets to go see the Detroit Pistons at our local arena for the following evening. We thought, what the heck, it was free, and we thought Marc might enjoy it, and oh yeah, Daddy says "They have really good nachos there". Glad he has his priorities straight. ;-)

So, the next night, we piled in the car and drove downtown. Of course, any time we are at an event at the arena we have to get snacks. ;-) Marc chose cinnamon sticks and Samantha shared my popcorn.There was a company out in the walkway that was giving away pens, crayons, mini-coloring books (which came in VERY handy with Samantha) and sets of boom whackers. Marc had fun banging them together and Samantha had fun trying to whack Grandma. ;-)
Our seats were way up in the nose bleed section, but hey, they were free! We kinda liked being up that high. We could see everything that was going on in the whole arena.
It was a fun evening. My Mom and I didn't see a whole lot of the game, we were busy trying to keep Samantha occupied. She watched for a little while in the beginning. She looked down at the court and told us to look at the monkeys down there. ;-) We left right after half-time so Marc could get to bed a decent time since it was a school night, but it turned out to be a very enjoyable evening.

1st Grade Field Trip to Klackles 10/12/10

2010-10-23T16:17:00.005-04:00

This morning we headed off to Klackles Orchard for a field trip with all the other 1st graders. :-)
When we got there, we all gathered under a tent to learn about how apples grow and the proper way to pick an apple. After we learned our information, we all piled on some wagons and headed out to the apple orchard to pick some apples.Marc with his student teacher, Miss Moran.
Marc with his teacher, Mr. Steinbacher.
After every one picked their apples and got back on the wagons, we headed out to the pumpkin patch.
After everyone picked pumpkins, we once again piled onto the wagons and headed back to the entrance. When we got to our assigned tent, we found YUMMY donuts and cider waiting for us. They even had enough for us parents to have some too! :-)
After cider and donuts the kids had about 45 minutes for some free play on all of the tons of things to do there other than apples and pumpkins. The plan was to have everyone stay and eat lunch together. But, one of the families we drove there had to unexpectedly leave early (before lunch started). I felt really bad about Marc having to leave early, so after I took the family back to the school to get their car, I took Marc to McDonald's for a special lunch.
We got to Klackles once or twice each year in the fall. It was a lot of fun to see what it was like going with 85 other 1st graders and their families. :-)

Harvest Festival 10/9/10

2010-10-09T20:19:00.007-04:00

Three years ago we started heading down to Rockford for a weekend of their Harvest Festival. We usually go down there the day they do trick-or-treating around down town. It just so happens that that weekend also coordinates with the day that some of the local preschools put on a Young Fun morning. The preschools that want too pay to have a "booth" can bring a craft or activity for the kids to do. This year there 10 stations. They were: 1) making a paper plate shaker instrument, 2) making a paper bag pumpkin, 3) a bean bag toss game, 4) apple painting (we didn't do, didn't want to get Cinderella dirty), 5) making a noodle/straw necklace, 6) making a book, 7) playing play-doh (didn't do, too many people waiting and since we have it at home, we skipped it), 8) making a noodle sculpture, 9) playing bucket bonanza game, and 10) making a mirror image leaf painting. I would say we spent a little over an hour there. It was a fun, free hour! :-)After we left Young Fun we headed to get some lunch. After we got done eating we had a little time to kill before it was time to trick-or treat. The Rockford school district mascot is the ram. Many of the local schools, students, and businesses decorated a ram and there were a couple dozen of them on display on the dam. We couldn't pass up the opportunity to take a picture of the kids with the Meijer ram. :-)
We had a little more time before trick-or-treating so we went and checked out the police car.....the kids were excited to sit in the back seat! We told them that this is the only time we had better ever see them in one! ;-) The kids also got to "drive" the fire truck (pictures on our pictures website and Facebook).
The weather today was untraditionally warm. The normal average high temperature for this weekend is about the about 65ish (give or take a few degrees). Today's high was 76 degrees! The costume Marc has this year is a thick, furry Sulley costume. We thought it would be great at keeping him warm while trick-or-treating on Halloween. Since it was so warm today, we waited until right before trick-or-treating started to get him in his costume. Marc was Sulley and Samantha was Cinderella. :-)
My cute kiddos walking around the block trick-or-treating to the local businesses. It is so nice, the block makes a square and there are probably 30 businesses in that square. Not all participate, but a lot do. So everyone just makes a big line and walks around the block collecting goodies. :-) Samantha did great. She said "trick or treat" before they gave her her "candy corn", and thank you after they gave it to her. Great practice for Halloween! :-)
After we trick-or-treated, we took a hay ride around downtown. It cost us $12, but it was a fun, fall thing to do. :-) Another family was nice enough to take our family picture on the hay ride, and it actually turned out cute! :-)
The parking lot we parked in was right next to the local ice cream shop. We figured they would be closed for the season but it was a convenient place to park. To our happy surprise, it was still open! So after a very warm afternoon in the sun, we stopped for some yummy ice cream before we got back in the car.
A friend of mine (who also happens to be a kindergarten teacher) gave me the idea to have the kids guess how many pieces of candy they thought they would get. I decided to try that this year. Samantha guessed 1 piece and Marc guessed 50 pieces between them both. After we got home, he counted how many they actually got. They got 65 pieces all together. Not bad guessing for an almost 7 year old! :-)
The kids got some really yummy candy! Here's to hoping they share with Mommy. ;-)
It was a very beautiful weekend with great weather, great activities, and great fun with a great family! :-)

Mapping Project 10/2010

2010-10-09T17:34:00.004-04:00

Marc spent a couple of weeks learning all about mapping. He learned about north, south, east, and west as well as what a legend is and what a compass rose is. He was given a homework assignment to create a map of his bedroom. He was given complete freedom to do what he wanted as long as he included a compass rose and a legend.

He knew right away that he wanted it to be put in a box. The idea I suggest to him was to take pictures of his actual room things and glue them to look like his room. He liked that idea, so off we went to make his room.

I cut yellow construction paper to fit along the inside of the box (the walls) since his walls in his room are painted yellow. We also cut tan paper for his carpet. The only box we had that was about the correct size was a diaper box. He said he didn't want to be picked on by the kids for using a diaper box, so we covered the outside with blue paper.
So, after we got all the papering done, it was time for gluing the pictures in to make the box look like his room. The final product was very cute and Marc was very proud of it!
The day he turned it in was a day that I took him to school, so I walked in with him. When he gave it to his teacher, his teacher looked very impressed. :-) Here's to hoping for a good grade to reward his hard work! :-)

Red Flannel Festival 10/2/10

2010-10-02T20:54:00.003-04:00

Every 1st weekend in October, Cedar Springs has their Red Flannel Festival. Every year we head down and go to the craft show, for some lunch......
usually a midway ride or 2 (we didn't this year we didn't because it was cold and raining off and on), and then we watch the parade. Samantha loved the marching bands this year. Every time a music group cam by she started marching.
The parade was right smack in the middle of nap time, so she decided to have a nap with Daddy instead. ;-)
This year seemed extra cool and windy, so, even though we had fun, not quite as much as some years past.
After the parade we came home for some thawing out. ;-) Samantha had to check over the candy loot from the parade. ;-)
It was a fun, cool, windy afternoon. We look forward to doing it again next year, just maybe with some warmer weather. i wonder if anyone has ever thought of moving it a few weeks earlier for a better chance at nice weather? ;-)

Fall Fun at Klackles 9/26/10

2010-10-02T20:35:00.007-04:00

Every year we head to Klackles Orchard at least one time. All the way there Samantha talked about apples, apples, apples. So the first thing we did was get on the apple-picking wagon and go get some apples.
We got LOTS of apples!! We each get one of these bags to fill with apples we pick included in our entry fee.
After we got done picking apples, we headed to the store and got some cider and donuts to eat. YUM!! I usually take a picture of the kids eating their donuts, but we were being swarmed by so many wasps that i wasn't able to get pictures of that part. :-( Luckily no one got stung!
After our yummy snack we headed back to the Family Fun Farm part. This apple ruler is a yearly picture ritual.
Marc has always loved riding the barrel car train. We were excited that Samantha was big enough to ride it with his this year! :-)
As soon as we got done with the apples Samantha kept asking abut the "punkin ride". So after some fun in the family area we boarded the Enchanted Pumpkin Ride.
Do you think Samantha was excited to be on the pumpkin ride? ;-)
We thought an almost empty pumpkin patch would be a good spot for some cute pictures.
We usually get 1 big pumpkin to carve and a few smaller pumpkins to paint. Well, I am going on a field trip next week to a pumpkin patch where I will get a small pumpkin and in a a few weeks Marc is going ( and I am accompanying) to a different pumpkin patch where we will both get small pumpkins. So, since it looked like our status on getting small pumpkins was good, we just picked the big pumpkin for carving.
It was a cool, breezy day, but a very fun, fall-filled afternoon! :-)

ArtPrize 9/25/10

2010-10-02T20:14:00.004-04:00

This weekend we went to the 2nd Annual ArtPrize. Last year was a big enough success that it happened again this year. Art Prize is an art contest. The artists are required to find a venue to host their art and then when it is time, we the public walk around and see lots of good, and some bad, art. For the first week we get to vote "thumbs up" if we like it, and "thumbs down" if we don't. After a week, the top ten pieces of art that got the most "thumbs up" are published. We the public then vote for our favorite. The piece of art with the most votes wins $250,000!!!

This year there were some pieces displayed at the Meijer Gardens, so we drove out there before we headed downtown.There are pieces of art scattered ALL over downtown. In addition to the pieces scattered around downtown, there and exhibition halls where there are many pieces displayed in the same building. These are just a few of the ones we saw.
I liked this one because the kids got to get involved in the art. The wall was covered in felt and each of the little colored squares had strips of Velcro on it. The kids were encouraged to go up to it and rearrange the squares and change how the art looked. :-)
The artist of this piece was nice enough to offer to take our family picture in front of his piece.
We took LOTS more pictures of art. You can see them on our pictures site pictures.stoufer.com.
I thought I wasn't going to enjoy myself, but to my surprise, I did. We are planning on going back down next weekend to see more. :-)

BeyBlade Frenzy! 9/17/10

2010-09-25T21:12:00.002-04:00

My friend Sarah Jehnzen, owner of Sarah's Deals, had yet ANOTHER product testing party. :-) This time it was for Beyblades. Apparently there is a Japanese anime cartoon show all about them. They are metal, spinning, battling tops. The company sent her 5 tops and an arena for the kids to play with.There were times when the kids took turns having 2 of them battle and other times when all 5 tops were in there together. Marc took a turn battling Daddy. :-)
This is how the younger sibling sisters spent some of their time. ;-) What are they to do when their brothers are having fun with new toys?? ;-)
Marc really enjoyed playing with these. Sssshhhhh.....we got him some for his birthday in November. ;-)
Thanks for another great party Sarah! :-)

Happy 60th Birthday John Ball Zoo!! 9/23/10

2010-09-24T08:33:00.014-04:00

Tonight we headed to the zoo for a members only 60th birthday party. We were going to eat dinner at the zoo, but the gates were closed for another 30 minutes before the party started so we headed down the street and got some hot dogs at Dairy Queen. We took them back to the zoo and ate them by the water.Samantha thought it was SO cool that we ate dinner with the "gucks". :-)
After dinner we made sure to keep some hot dog bun to feed to the ducks/geese.
We were excited to see Nessie again. We loved looking at her at ArtPrize last year, so it was nice to see her again.
What would a birthday party be without cake and ice cream???? Well, they gave us some when we went in! :-)
After we ate our cake and ice cream we headed to look at the animals. The bears were very fun to watch. They were getting in and out of the water.
Who is the tallest animal? ;-)
Samantha liked watching the "kitty" walk around. She asked if she could pet the kitty.
My little smarties were guessing what kind of animal each paw print belongs to.
All 3 of my kids had fun playing the drums at the entrance of the "African" section.
We were all a little skittish about petting a snake, but we were all brave and pet it. It actually wasn't too bad. It was softer than I would have thought. I always thought snakes were slimy, this one wasn't.
Samantha was terrified of the water fall the last 2 times we went to the zoo. Not sure why. Daddy tried using Disney's trick about waterfalls. He showed her the front of the water. Then showed her the back of water. ;-)
Normally there is a charge to pet the sting rays. Since this was a special evening, it was free. Samantha didn't so much pet them as splash in their pool. ;-) I think a few of them got her because Daddy said she jumped a couple of times.
Marc really liked trying to reach them . He thought it was cool how slimy.smooth they felt (me too!).
Since this was the zoo's 60 birthday, they had a coloring station where the kids could color a birthday cake picture.
It was a nice few hours o wander around the zoo that we have been to so many times before. Happy 60th Birthday John Ball Zoo!

Apples, Apples, Everywhere! 9/23/10

2010-09-23T12:37:00.006-04:00

I started Samantha in another play group this morning. It is called Little Tykes. It is made for kids up to preschool age. This was out first one so I wasn't sure what to expect. We almost didn't go since I was actually getting some work done around the house. ;-) I am glad we went. it was tons of fun!

When we got to the classroom there were 5 stations set up that the kids could do at their own pace. Samantha went directly for the painting with apples!After she got done making a total mess with the paint and apples ;-) we headed over to the station where she got to glue apples onto a tree.
The last craft station, which was also the least messy, was Samantha's last choice. ;-) At this station she got to color a picture of an apple.
She wanted to go to the snack station first, but I told her that she had to do the crafts first. So, after she did all 3 of them, she made a beeline for the snack table. She was very excited to see apples and animal crackers to eat! :-)
While we waited for group time to start, Samantha played in the rice table.
After playing, eating, and crafting, we had a short group time where we sang 3 songs and read a book. After group time we headed down to the gross motor room for some free play. Super fun!
When we got home it was time for lunch. Samantha asked for an apple for lunch since we had spent all morning talking about apples.
It was a very fun morning. while there I found out that this (free) playgroup goes on every Thursday morning. Looking forward to next week! :-)

Hexbug Mania!! 9/17/10

2010-09-22T20:32:00.005-04:00

My friend Sarah Jehnzen, the one that runs Sarah's Deals, had another product testing party. This time it was aimed at boys ages 7-9. Since Marc is just 2 months shy of 7 she invited Marc. It was for a new nano technology toy called Hexbugs. Very interesting, cute, weird little toys. ;-)
When we got there Marc got to pick out the 3 Hexbugs he wanted to take home (they were different colors).Sarah had a whole track course set up in her living room. All the boys got to get down on the floor and play!
A couple of the younger sibling girls got in on the action.....more like they were an obstacle. Both of the little girls kept picking up the Hexbugs and holding them or putting them off the track so they wandered the floor instead.
The girls got bored off and on, so we pulled out Ainsley's My Little Pony collection to keep the girls entertained, for awhile anyway.
One of the boys made a comment that they were getting kinda tired of watching the bugs walk around the track. One of the parents suggested that they rearrange the track to make a new path for the bugs. The boys had a blast dismantling and reassembling the track.
The Hexbugs have little soft plastic bristles and a small motor that makes them vibrate. Daddy decided to put one on the palm of Samantha's hand for her to feel.....
and bot did it tickle her. She squealed with pleasure!
After some playing at Sarah's house, it was time to go home. When we left Marc got some of the track pieces t brig home. So, we came home with 4 Hexbugs, 2 arenas, and 3 track pieces!! After the kids got ready for bed we let them play one more time. Even Samantha got her very own pink Hexbug!
These are what the Hexbugs look like. With Samantha's foot in the picture you can kinda get an idea of the size of them. they are cute little things. i told Marc that I was glad we got an enclosed arena for them because if I saw one of them crawling around on the floor in the house I would think it was a bug and swat it and probably break it! ;-)
It was another fun night of testing new products. Thanks Sarah for inviting us and giving us ideas for Marc's Birthday/Christmas list! ;-)

Terrific Tuesdsays!! 9/14/10

2010-09-22T13:57:00.007-04:00

I signed Samantha up for a Tumble Bugs gymnastics class at the YMCA. She was very excited to start. All she could talk about all morning was "Tumble Bugs". We got there a little early. Samantha kept asking to play on the equipment while we waited. I told her that she couldn't, that we didn't want to mess it up before class started. This is the face she gave me. ;-)
The first things we do are a hello song and some stretches. The teacher set up a circle of 5 things to do. The kids go in the circle and do each activity and then move onto the next. They do this until the 20 minutes are up.

She got to jump on the trampoline.

and spin on the sit-n-spin.

She had to crawl up the wedge, grab the ball, and roll it down the other wedge.....

and then she had to slide down the wedge and get the ball.

Samantha got to do the commando crawl under the bar and down the mat.

The last thing in the rotation was the balance beam. She liked to do her airplane arms.

After the stations, we came back together and did some cool down activities.

After Tumble Bugs, we headed to library time. This is the first time she has been. 2 years ago she was too young and last year I couldn't take her due to the time Marc got home from school. When we got there, each child got a new book.
When she first sat down, Samantha was very subdued, quite, and kept to herself.
She finally got into it when they sang "Open Shut Them". :-)
She LOVED listening to the stories!
Think she had fun?! ;-)
Each week, the librarian read 3 books, does some songs and such, and then we do a craft that all have to do with the same theme. This weeks theme was about the alphabet. The kids made alphabet bead bracelets.
It was very fun taking Samantha to these things. It made me feel like she was SO grown up! Tuesdays are going to be our fun day!

Fall Evening in the Park: 9/10/10

2010-09-11T13:13:00.007-04:00

Today was a beautiful, fall-like day so we decided to head to the park for some fun. We don't know how many more chances we will have to go, so we went today. It was gorgeous!!!! The kids had fun climbing and playing on the play structures.We brought one of our Frisbees with us. The boys enjoyed tossing it around. Except when the Frisbee hit Marc in the face and pushed his glasses into his nose and gave him a small cut. :-(
We all had fun swinging too. :-)
We brought our bubble machine. The bubbles we brought to put in it were too thick s they didn't work too well, but there were a few for the kids to chase around.
We also brought a Nerf ball to toss around. This picture is funny because Marc is ducking from the 2-year-old throw. ;-)During winter Marc bought a baseball mitt for Peanut. We never got it our over the summer so Daddy grabbed it on our way out to the park.
It was such a gorgeous day, weather, park, and kids that I decided that it was time for a mini photo shoot.

It was such a fun way to end the week! We were all a little tired from the new school schedule that it was fun to go out and have some fun as a family. :-)

IL Trip Day 3: 9/5/10

2010-09-11T08:36:00.011-04:00

Today is our last day in IL. We decided to head up to the Milwaukee County Zoo in Milwaukee, WI. There just happened to be a nice photo opportunity in front. ;-)We were told that this zoo was a little smaller but nicer and cheaper than the other one near by. We enjoyed it a lot! It was a perfect size for us with small children and a time-frame.
There were lots of fun animals for us to look at. Some of them were closer than I have ever seen them in other zoos! In most zoos you have to play a game of I Spy to find the lions, but in this zoo they were right up close where we cold see them sleeping. We got to see the Tigers playing and splashing water at each other! Very Cool!
There was also a special exhibit about dinosaurs. It cost an extra $2.50 per person to get in. If we had not had Grandma with us, we probably wouldn't have paid the extra money to go in. But, Grandma to the rescue, she paid for us all to get in. I was a little worried about it not being worth the money, but it was actually pretty cool! There were different robotic dinosaurs set up with different "scenes". They had a herbivore pretending to eat from some trees and a carnivore eating a fish to name just a couple of them.
Samantha liked the dinosaurs. She loves watching "Dinosaur Train" on the Disney Channel, so she was excited to see the "nice dinosaurs".
At least until this T-Rex growled at her, then she didn't think they were very nice any more. Marc enjoyed pretending with the dinosaurs. Does he look scared? ;-)
Are his "wings" as big as the dinosaur's? ;-)
Near the exit there was a a dinosaur statue that we could climb on and pose with, so, course, we took advantage of it! ;-)
Then Grand asked Marc to get down on the ground and pretend the dinosaur is eating his head. Cute idea Grandma!
My Mom bought each of the kids a new stuffed dinosaur. Samantha is sleeping with Cheese on the way home. Cheese got his name when we were talking to her about it later in the night. I suggested Spike because he he had spikes on his back. Daddy suggested Cheese. I thought, "oh cute, since we got him in WI, the cheese capital". Daddy said "no, this way she can go to bed with Cheese and Crackers (her giraffe)". Kinda silly, cute very cute and a clever idea on Daddy's part.
Marc choose to name his new dinosaur Tank, after a dinosaur from "Dinosaur Train". While Samantha slept Marc talked to and pretended with Tank.
After our hour drive back to Gurnee from Milwaukee, we got back to Aunt Sari's and Uncle Gary's house. The kids helped Uncle Gary put together a dinosaur floor puzzle.
We then ate dinner, had some play time, ate dessert, and some more play time. It was then getting very close to time to go back to the hotel for some sleepy time. We wanted to get some pictures of Great Grandma with all her great grandkids; who knows when they will all be together again.
After some struggles of getting 3 young kids to sit still, look at the camera, and all smile at the same time, we decided to throw the grand kids into the mix too. We were having trouble getting the 2 2-year-olds to look at the camera. Daddy Marc was very clever (yet again) and out an Elmo video on his phone and held it right next to the camera. What do ya know...it worked!!
It was a very nice weekend with family and fun. A big thanks again to my Aunt Sari & Uncle Gary for letting us invite ourselves over to see you guys and Susanne & Kate. We all had a great time! And thanks for dinner both night! :-)

Trip to IL Day 2: 9/4/10

2010-09-07T19:44:00.016-04:00

This morning the kid woke up on Michigan time. They are used to waking up about 7:00 MI time, so that means they were awake at 6:00am this morning. ugh! :-( Our plans for the day had us leaving the hotel about 9:30, so we had some time to kill in the hotel room.
Marc spent some of his time playing on his DS some more (he has really gotten attached to it this weekend).When I was curling my hair this morning Samantha came over and said, "Mama, Sam too?" and mimicked curling her hair. I thought since we had time, and she was interested, I curled her hair for the first time. It turns out that her hair is so fine that the curl doesn't hold. It probably held, a little, for about 2 hours and then it went back to normal. Very fun and "girly" though! ;-)
Well, 9:30 finally came and it was time for us to head north to WI. Of course, since we were in WI, the land of cheese, we had to stop at the Mars Cheese Castle. Yum.....cheese! :-)
We then headed off to the free Jelly Belly factory tour. How can someone who loves sweets as much as I do pass up the chance to drive 15 minutes from the hotel go through on a cute little train and learn how they make the yummy little pieces of heaven?! ;-) To top it all off, they gave us each a small sample variety pack...for free!! ;-) Outside of the building there were 2 Jelly Belly VW Bugs painted all over with Jelly Bellys. Too cute of an opportunity to pass up and not get pictures of the kids.
One half of the building was the tour entrance and the other half was the store. While we waited for my cousin Susanne and her 2-year-old daughter Kate to get there we went into the shop to look around. To our happy surprise, they have what they called the "Sample Bar". This is where they have containers of everything the sell that you can request a taste of. I can only assume that it is there for 2 reasons. 1) To let you try something you are thinking about buying (we did that), and 2) To give you a taste of something yummy to try and convince you to buy something else that wasn't in your plan (we were going to do this and then forgot to buy them. ;-) )
After Susanne and Kate arrived we walked over to the tour side of the building to get in line for the next tour. We dressed the girls (whose birthdays are 11 days apart) as twins. All 3 kids loved the giant stuffed Jelly Belly.
Since the tour takes place in a building where food is manufactured, everyone had to wear a cute little paper hat. The kids looked the cutest in them so I took a picture.
or 2.
or 3. ;-)
After the tour, and LOTS of shopping, we headed to lunch and then to the hotel for a nap, the kids, not us. ;) Well, maybe me too. ;-)
After nap we headed over to my Aunt Sari & Uncle Gary's (Susanne's parents) house for some family time. Of course, when we hardly ever see each other, gift are usually exchanged when we do see each other. ;-)
Marc got a new shirt and 2 new DS games from Grandma Terri and a cool volcano set from Great Aunt Sari, Great Uncle Gary and Susanne.
Samantha got a cute outfit and a neat snap-on dress up doll from Grandma Terri and 2 new dressed from Great Aunt Sari, Great Uncle Gary, and Susanne.
After some chit chat, some gifts, and a little inside play time, all the kids, big & small headed outside to play.
and pose for pictures of course! ;-) My Aunt has a beautiful garden and my Uncle built a nice gazebo (more commonly called the gazebo for h*ll) which made for nice pictures.
and there was a cool 3 trunked tree that made for cool pictures too.
My Aunt has this grape arbor that had tons of grapes growing on it. She said they were too sour to eat this summer anyway, so the girls enjoyed picking them, squishing them, and then throwing them on the ground for critters to eat later.
Then they found the bird bath. And boy, did they have a blast splashing around in the water!
Then it was time to get cleaned up for dinner. They made yummy hot dogs/hamburgers, fruit salad, and corn on the cob. All the kids wanted to eat outside in the gazebo. After us parents got the kids'; food ready, we went back in t get our own. When we looked out, my Uncle was the only "adult" sitting at the table with the kids.
Apparently the dinner food (and desserts) gave all 3 kids more energy. They spent time running over energy in the back yard. We managed to snag a few cute pictures of them by the tree.
The girls definitely had fun playing together. They look at each others pictures/videos on the computer all the time so it was fun to see them actually playing together. They gave each other a very sweet good-bye hug.....
and then of course they had to give each other knuckles too.
And to top off the evening, there was a fun, big group hug!
I think the day of food, family, and fun wore my little kiddos out!
It was great to see Susanne and Kate! We haven't seen them since the girls were 9 months old...and they will be 2 1/2 years old in October!
Thanks for letting us crash your weekend Oostas! :-)

Trip to IL Day 1: 9/3/10

2010-09-07T13:16:00.007-04:00

My cousin, Susanne and her daughter Kate live in NM. they flew up to visit her parents in IL for a couple of weeks. We decided we wanted to see them so we invited ourselves over. ;-)

The kids did a good job of keeping themselves occupied (for the most part) on the 4 1/2 hour trip over there.We headed to the outlet mall after we checked into the hotel. We were hoping to find a few good deals on just a few more school "essentials" at a good price. We did!! and maybe then some! ;-)

On our way to one of the store we were heading to we ran across a slot car race place. It cost $4 for a 5 minute race. All 3 boys raced while Samantha watched on, wanting to do it herself (but you had to be 3 years old or older to do it).
After some racing and some shopping we went and had dinner. We decided to splurge and have dinner at Rain Forrest Cafe. Samantha loved the fact that her chicken nuggets were shaped like dinosaurs.
Marc was really hungry, so he ate his grilled cheese very quickly!
Both kids loved all of the noise and movements of the animals. We were sitting somewhat close to an elephant. Every time the "storm" came through we could hear it trumpeting. Every time Samantha heard it, she copied the noise. I decided to video her doing it. As soon as I decided to video her she decided to eat. This video is not the best one she did, but it is still cute.

We bought Samantha a portable toddler cot a few weeks ago and were excited to test it out this weekend. As you can see in the picture below, she slept great!

We had fun on Day 1 in IL. We are looking forward to days 2, 3, and 4!

Playtime with Uncle Jeff 9/2/10

2010-09-07T12:18:00.005-04:00

My brother, Jeff, absolutely adores my children. Whenever he comes over to this side of the state he comes up and spends an afternoon/evening with us, more the kids then Marc and I. ;-)

Marc has never really understood how to build with Legos using his imagination. Jeff grew up building with Legos. So, while Sam was asleep the boys built with Legos.The Legos had to get put away when hurricane Samantha got up. They pulled out the Mr Potato Heads when she got up.
While I was in the kitchen making dinner, Jeff kept the kids busy and out of my hair by playing Candyland with them both.
They also had a little silliness going on too. ;-)
Samantha wanted to show Uncle Jeff her new Princess dress she got for using the big girl potty so we out it on her. She then proceeded to dubb Uncle Jeff a Princess. ;-)
I thought Uncle Jeff needed a new profile picture for his Facebook page, so I took a new one. Gotta love the fact that both kids are wearing costumes. :-)
The kids always love it when Uncle Jeff comes up to play. They both adore him!! :-)

Yea!! She Did It!! 9/1/10

2010-09-07T11:22:00.006-04:00

Back in February Samantha started showing interest in using the "big girl" potty. I thought, "Well, she's a little young, but if she is interested, I'm gonna go for it!". She did pretty good for being so young. She made lots of progress with going on the potty at first, but then her progress kinda stalled out. She would always go when I put her on the potty, she would sometimes ask to go to the potty and would go, but there were many times when she would just continue to go in her diaper. I wasn't quite sure what to do to make her ALWAYS go on the potty and not just sometimes.

After asking for some advice from other Mommies, we decided to try a treat bucket. I went to the Dollar Tree and bought about $5 worth of little trinkets. Every time she would go on the potty she got to pick out a treat. That seemed to make a difference!
Since Samantha started making a lot of good progress we decided we need a "big" reward for staying dry for a week. We were at Costco one day and we saw a Cinderella dress with wand and crown for $24, which is an awesome deal!! So we decided that it was meant to be to have that be Samantha's "big" reward.Well, we anxiously spent a week making sure Samantha stayed dry. In the beginning of the week I took her to the potty about every hour. I gradually spread the trips to the potty further apart. By the end of the week I was not asking/reminding her to go. I waited until she told me she needed to go. Still no accidents!! She made it! She went a whole week with only going potty i the big girl potty! So, she got her dress! This is the look on her face when she realized that she earned her Princess dress.....priceless!
Note to anyone else doing this.....take all the tags and stuff off before you try to reward your child with it. ;-) Samantha very patiently waited for me to get all the tags etc. off.
She got tired of waiting for me to get the wand and crown off so she started taking the dress off the hanger herself.
Then she tried to put it on by herself. This dress has like 3 layers of dress so she got herself all tangled up.....
So I helped her get her new dress on.
Samantha makes the most cute, beautiful, precious Princess ever!!
Still, Samantha is doing a GREAT job! Even through trips to the zoo, grocery store, and rides in the car to Chicago, she still has not had an accident. Now to figure out when i start having her wear underwear all the time. ;-) How brave am I? ;-)

We are SUPER proud of her and that she showed the interest and is potty trained before she is even 2 1/2 years old! :-)