swimming on the road

the boys were invited to swim in their first AWAY swim meet (South Bend, IN)

cheerleader and chauffer

cheerleader #2 (she looks so grown up in this photo!)

jayden jumping in for a relay event

graham's events are written on his hand

jayden refueling and showing his event numbers

graham ready to swim!

backstroke

december fun

over the last few weeks jillian has been asking me for crackers (typically when we are out shopping).... i bought Ritz, Club, and even Saltine crackers trying to figure out what she wants..... i was talking to a mom on the playground at the boy's school (she is from Holland - what are the odds, right?) - after talking to her i realized that jillian was asking me for the crackers (with fruit in them) from Holland! i have given her these crackers since she was little and i would keep them in the front of my bag to give her when we were either out shopping or biking home. this mom happened to have a package of the crackers at home and brought them to school the next day! jillian saw the package and yelled "CRACKERS!" she said i could buy them at Aldi here in the states :) truely a 3rd culture kid!

decorating the tree!

it's the curse of the easter egg! the egg keeps showing up in random places - i swear i put it away in the easter box - but it keeps making an escape!

these are highly skilled tree decorators - they promise to place the ornaments directly in the front region of the tree and only as high as Graham can reach.... from the back this tree looks like a pine tree in the forest :) but i LOVE it!

helen puts the angel on our tree!

the angel is made from fabric in my wedding dress train... the pattern came from my mom

eating lunch at jayden's school!

like sister like sister

helen had a special request of friday morning - she wanted 2 pony-tails with hairbows. well, you can imagine who else in our house wanted to be just like helen.... even down to the hairbows!

by the looks of the crooked pony-tail pictures - i think i need some more practice making pony-tails :) and can you guess how long jillian's pony-tails lasted? ummm... about 2 minutes!

book boycott

i was shocked the other night when jayden brought this book home to read! really!?! i was speechless as jayden read through this book - why would somebody publish a book like this and why would this be in a stack of books for a 1st grader to read?..... i included some of the pages below - basically this mom asks her children if she is fat... then goes on to serve them salad for dinner for a couple of nights and they keep asking for pasta. they even go to their father to ask him for pasta.... in the end the mother decides that she is ok with the way she looks and serves them pasta.

if you want to teach children about good eating habits - this is NOT the book! how about telling children about portion size, eating from the appropriate food groups (not all diets are about starving yourself with lettuce and tomatoes.... we are humans not rabbits), exercise...NEVER to ask your children what they think of your size (don't even ask your husband that question!!) ok - i'm stepping off my soapbox now :)

start and finish

this snowman has traveled around the world with us.... somehow during our last move (almost 2 years ago) one of the buttons came off (i am not surprised after the way i have seen some of our items packed!)...... even more shocking is that i put the button in a drawer in Holland with the thought that i would eventually glue it back on the snowman. well, it never happened! while unpacking here in Michgian i found this little button - got out the hot glue gun yesterday and glued the little button back on!

jillian thought it was so funny to put her water cup in the snowman's hands! you can tell by the grin on her face that she is very proud of herself. this girl, all 26 pounds and 30 inches, (just had her in for a check-up) - has a lot of spunk!

drumroll please.......... for the record - i started a project and ACTUALLY finished it IN.THE.SAME.DAY.... lately that seems to be a small miracle :) i could not find a shower curtain that i liked for the girl's bathroom, so i bought a white one and sewed a pink ribbon on it. so girly!

ahhhhh - the simple things in life.... like plugging my sewing machine into the wall..... no transformer needed here!

the finished project!

even added a bow for extra girly-ness (probably not even a word!)

i couldn't leave out the boy's bathroom...

holiday cheer

the Grinch visits the Sturgis Public Library

see jillian's hair to the right... that's AS CLOSE as she would get to the Grinch!! :)

Helen is not too sure about the Grinch either

snacks at the library

free book from the library

the boys are trying to name the international flags in the display case

picking out our christmas tree

getting the tree cut and wrapped up to take home

jayden and helen try to figure out how old the tree is by counting the rings

Graham, Jayden, Helen, and Ross enjoy a Christmas Concert performed by the Sturgis Symphony!