On Saturday morning, we went to see Disney Princesses and Heroes on Ice. It was so much fun! Lucy knows all of the Disney princesses, so I was hoping that she would be excited to see them ice skating. For the first half of the show, she sat on the edge of her seat clapping the whole time. The second half, she was a little bit tired (naptime), but she still enjoyed watching. Ben had fun too! He got to pick out a sword from the gift shop and had a few sword fights with Gramps later that day. He also enjoyed eating popcorn during the show...Ben loves his snacks. :)   My parents came for a visit and showed up a little later Saturday afternoon and stayed til Sunday after lunch. It's always nice to visit with them, even if the time goes by too quickly. We went out to dinner at Carlos (glad they got in one last visit before it suddenly closed its doors on Monday). We also had sundaes at DeBrand's. I LOOOVE the crispy peanut butter with dark chocolate. Lucy and I shared and that g...

  This winter, Ben signed up to play basketball with Little Shots through his school. He has played soccer and baseball, but this was his first experience with basketball. Since we've been having a horrible winter here with a million school cancellations, he had two of his practices/games cancelled and he was pretty bummed about that. Last night, I thought for sure it would be cancelled since we had a snow storm coming. I was pleasantly surprised that they were able to squeeze it in before the weather got bad. He did a great job and is learning a lot! I'm thankful Curt took lots of pictures for me since it was past Lucy's bedtime.     His coach gave him some shooting tips.  Dribbling  They play a game against another team the second half of the practice.  Ben taking a shot. Taking another shot.   I'm glad he's having fun! Lucy and I are going to try to go to one of his earlier practices...if this weather will ever coo...

Lucy LOVES to sing. Usually the louder the better. It is so hard to catch her on video though. I have a couple videos of her, but they don't really capture how much she gets into it. Lately, she loves to sing "Let It Go" from Frozen. She will sing loud and wave her arms like Elsa does in the video. It is hilarious.  I will keep working on getting a better video, but these ones are pretty funny.           

The crazy snowstorm that started on Sunday has caused school to be closed all week. We've enjoyed having unrushed mornings and lots of extra play time. But, I don't like being trapped in the house and knowing that the roads are a mess. I really would like to take a trip to the store and stock up on some things. :) It also makes me sad that all of these days will probably mean that Ben is in school longer at the end of the year. Hopefully the rest of the winter will have mild weather.   The following photos are a few things that have kept us busy on our snow days.     On Monday, no travel was allowed, so Curt worked from home. Curt loves to do the boiling water trick when the weather is cold enough. I tried to take a picture through the window, but it's hard to see with the screen in the way. Curt had a cup of boiling water and threw it up in the air...it immediately froze (that's the big white cloud in the photo).  One night we made homemade pretzels t...

 On January 4th, Lucy turned 2! She had fun opening her presents, playing with her new stuff, and eating cake. It has been so fun to see her personality really emerge over the last year. She talks non-stop and keeps us laughing. She can be really stubborn, but her sweet side helps us deal with that better. I cannot imagine life without our sweet smiley Lucy.  :) Ben is such a good big brother to her. They love to play together. The few extra "snow days" off of school this week have really given them a good amount of time to play. She really does miss him when he is at school all day. There are also times that she drives him a little crazy, but what little sister doesn't? :) He wanted to make decorations for her birthday and worked hard drawing her a Princess Peach and Princess Daisy (from Super Mario). I wrote out letters for him that said, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUCY" and he colored those in. He was so proud to see them hanging up on the wall and Lucy LOVED it!...

  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...