Church Family Game Night 3/19/11

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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. :-)