Christmas this year did not happen quite as we had anticipated. Since we are always out of town visiting family, we planned our family Christmas time for Friday the 20th. Ben had that day off of school so we thought it would be a fun day of celebrating and enjoying our family time together. Well...on Thursday Lucy came down with something. She had a fever and cold symptoms and just seemed miserable. By Friday, she was worse. It was a pretty rough day. She wasn't really interested in opening presents and spent most of the day crying/being held. We weren't even sure if we would be able to leave for Grand Rapids on Saturday morning as planned.   Ben enjoyed playing with his new presents, but I know it wasn't really the same kind of Christmas day we usually have together. It's hard when germs come and ruin your plans. But, you just have to roll with it. :) By Saturday morning the fever was gone and we decided to stick to our travel plans.   I started feeling si...

Just like the rest of the fall, the month of November seemed to pass by quickly. I had a fun day with my sweet family celebrating my birthday. Curt took the day off and let me sleep in. Sleeping in for me is like 7:30, but it was so much nicer than waking up at 6:00. We had sundaes at DeBrand's after Ben was done with school. Everyone was happy that I chose that over birthday cake! :)   We traveled up to Grand Rapids and Cadillac over the Thanksgiving holiday. It was nice to fit so many people into the few days we were in Michigan. Traveling weekends (esp. the longer ones) always wear us out. So, we were pretty tired Monday morning. I'm sure we will feel the same after the Christmas trip too, but at least Ben will still have some days left of his vacation.   December is already underway and I'm looking forward to enjoying lots of Christmas traditions with the family this month!    On November 21st, we watched Ben's Thanksgiving play at his school. All ...

This year, Halloween day felt very busy. Lucy and I were gone all morning at the Bible study I attend at my church. Then, Ben's fall party was that afternoon at school and I went in to help. It was fun to get to know his classmates more, but it certainly made the day a little crazier to pack that in too. Besides all of that, the weather was horrible...really windy and rainy. I was so tired of going out in the wind & rain way before it was even trick-or-treating time. We decided to try out the trick-or-treating at the mall with our friends the Yoders.  It started a little earlier and was indoors. Both a plus to me! I will say that it wasn't quite the same as going around the neighborhood, but with Lucy being so little this option was nice.       DECORATING PUMPKINS The weekend before Halloween, we worked on our pumpkins. We decided to paint them this year. It is much faster than carving and we didn't have a lot of time for it with Ben's party st...

 On Saturday, October 26th, we had a "friend" birthday party for Ben. He has been wanting a party with friends the last couple years and we finally gave in. Now I'm sure he will want one every year...yikes! :) We thought about a few different options and decided to have one at our house and kept it really small. I knew we would have Lucy to watch too and I didn't want it to turn into madness! He invited 5 friends and they were all able to come, so we ended up with 6 boys at the party. I consulted Pinterest for a multitude of party ideas. I found lots of simple Super Mario games/decorations and got planning. :) The party was really fun and I think all of the boys had a good time!   I made a few decorations for over the fireplace. We bought a helium tank to use at home and that made filling the balloons really easy.  As the boys arrived and got settled, we had a few coloring pages and a star magnet craft for them to work on.  We added some streamers ...