bowling

New Years Day bowling...

Our New Years plans were a bust as everyone we had plans with were either sick or had sick kids! It was such a bummer, but so is life with kids. What can you do?


Since we were in bed on time, we spent New Years Eve day at the bowling alley. I wasn't sure how it was going go with Cameron, as this was his first trip to the alley, but with the help of bumpers & this contraption that allowed him just to place the ball & push it down the ramp, he bowled a 150! Pretty impressive for a 2 1/2 year old.

Christmas

A bit belated, but none the less, here's our Christmas post.









We first celebrated here with my sister and her family who came down from Michigan.


Then we headed down to Indianapolis to celebrate with Mark's family at his older brother, Chuck's house.


We enjoyed all the time we were able to spend with both families, despite dealing with some stomach bug issues that Zach was dealing with. We made the most of our time together although I slacked on taking some good quality pictures. I blame it on the belly, its getting in the way of a lot of things lately!

winter break

We got some snow last night, so my little reindeers headed out for some shoveling!

We are making the most of Christmas break & enjoying the winter elements.

Gotta love West Michigan weather

We headed up to Michigan this past weekend for a quick one night visit. We went to see my sister & family, as well as meet our good friends Brad & Bradi's new baby, Molly Kreider. Although I forgot to take some pictures of their latest blessing, she is just a little peanut! This will be our last visit to MI until next spring or summer, as once Christmas comes & goes I will be six weeks out from my due date and I will not be making any trips around the snowbelt this winter!





We were greeted with a lot of snow, as they had had their first snow day on Friday with no school due to the amount they received.
The boys thought it was great and Zach had a blast going sledding with this 3 cousins!

November is just about done

I slacked on my November blogging so I thought I should do a brief catch up before December comes & goes too.

The most important event of November was the passing of Mark's Grandma Leys. This is one of the last pictures I have of her with the boys from this past summer. This was taken before she moved into a nursing home.

She was blessed with 93 years of life and left behind a legacy of family, including 23, with two more on the way (I think that the correct number anyway) Great-Grandkids. We headed up to Wisconsin for the funeral few weeks ago and despite the sad event, we had a nice time visiting with all of Mark's out of town cousins.

With the chilly weather we have been spending a lot of time in the basement that we finished last year, seen here with the boys making their train parade. We also finally pulled the trigger and purchased a new flat screen TV on 'Black Friday'(yes, I was crazy enough to be at Best Buy at 4.30am to get the 'doorbuster' deal). Mark has been talking about this for the past year and obsessively non-stop researching which one to get. The TV we had down there was from my college days and had a nonstop buzzing noise. Needless to say, Mark spent most of the long weekend enjoying his new toy and once in a while came up for some daylight & air :-)



We hosted Mark's parents for Thanksgiving, although I neglected to take any pictures. We had a nice time visiting with them and I think I managed to cook a decent 'American Thanksgiving' turkey & fixings.

Friday night we went downtown Naperville with the Wiegers family for the Festival of Lights parade, which included an appearance by Santa & Mrs. Claus.
They also passed out candy which of course was the main highlight for the kids.

just because

We got some new glasses in the house, kind of freaky looking!

Halloween

We started with tears but Cameron ended up loving it once he was bribed with a sucker. I didn't have high hopes for him wearing a costume given his personality and not always wanting to cooperate.

So this is how it started with attempting to put on the chicken costume (a repeat of what Zach wore at that age). He looked so stinkin' cute and I was hoping for just a few pictures and then he could take it off.

Anyway, once the candy started flowing and got the 'trick or treat' concept going door to door he was sucked in. It was fun to see the boys do it together.