Girl Time

Annika and I went to "Paint a Pot" today for some "girl time". She had a ball, and so did Mommy! We have to wait until next week to be able to pick the items up. I'll post a pic of the finished product when we get them back.

Our Little "table dancer"

For some reason, Jonas loves to get on this table at our rental house, and dance. Luckily he's VERY light!

Madison

My niece, Madison Elizabeth, 4 months old

My little helper...

I spent Christmas morning cleaning the house. Jonas decided to help me swiffer!

More Christmas pics..

Oma and Papa got the 3 "big" grandkids these adorable chairs. Jonas really preferred the pink ones!! Mommy and Daddy got Jonas and Annika "Elmo Live" for Christmas. He is a huge hit. Annika and Jonas were fighting over him. Too bad he's already broken!!! (He's being exchanged.) Jonas loves his babycousin, Madison!

The gifts...

Oma and Papa's House on Christmas Day. Couldn't fit ALL the presents in the picture!

We are all so spoiled!

Jonas was reading his "Cars" book from Grandma Lil and Grandpa Denny.

He LOVES that movie!

Jonas playing with cars from Gma Lil and Gpa Denny. It was a car/truck Christmas for him. SO stereotypical boy!

After.....

Before.....

Christmas 2008

Well, we started a new family tradition....bowling on Christmas Eve! Since we weren't able to go to Grand Blanc, we decided to go bowling. The kids were a little stir crazy from being stuck in the house for almost a week because of the snow. It was a lot of fun. We went to my parents in Grand Rapids on Christmas Day and spent the afternoon/evening with them and my sister's family. There was a lot of noise and chaos (mostly because of my children) but it was so much fun!! Check out the pics!

and the weather forecast is SNOW!

Yup, still snowing....

I heard that so far in December, it has snowed EVERY DAY except 4! We're getting close to 36 inches since Friday morning! Now it's getting a little annoying. We were supposed to drive to Grand Blanc for Christmas Eve with my Mom's side of the family. BUT, we won't be going now because of all the snow! What a bummer. I was SO looking forward to that!

More Snow!

We're getting hammered with even more snow. I think we've probably gotten close to 24 inches in the last 48 hours. We've got a blizzard warning for our county because of the wind gusts and the fact that the snow is SO light and powdery, it's taking visibility down to near zero at times. There was a horrible 30 car pile up about 30 miles south of us, and another 7 car pile up about 10 miles East, on the interstate. We've been "hunkered" down, but we did get out and play in the snow for a little while this afternoon. We started treking down to the end of our road to go down to the beach with our snow shoes. But, we got about 250 yards down the road and the wind was so brutal, that we turned around and decided to just play in our yard! We're supposed to get a break tomorrow, but another snow storm is heading our way on Tuesday! I was excited about the snow, but enough is enough!

Snow Day!!

Earlier this week, I was telling someone that I wanted one big snow "dump", where everything shuts down. Well, be careful what you wish for. We got it!! We got 13 inches in about 9 hours, starting at 4:00 am on Friday morning. Over 270 schools in Western MI were closed, and we closed our office for the day. I have to admit that it was really fun to be "forced" to stay inside and be together. Makes you remember what's important. We had a family movie marathon. I hadn't seen this much snow since I was a kid growing up in SE Michigan. We're supposed to get up to another 12 inches starting tonight, and over the next 36 hours. Jonas had fun for about 15 minutes while Daddy was shoveling! Let it snow!

Christmas Program

Annika was in our Christmas Program at church today. She was an "angel". See her in black on the second riser, right end. She did great, but fell off the risers at one point!

Cousins!

The kids and I went to the mall yesterday with my Mom, sister and her family. We saw Santa, but also did some other fun things. Check out this cute pic of Jonas and Mackenzie in the "police car".

There was also an indoor skate park in the mall. The kids loved watching the skaters!

Christmas Cookies

We baked Christmas cookies tonight. Perry was adamant that we undertake this holiday tradition. He's good like that. We had a lot of fun. You can see by the flower on the kids' faces that it was a hit!!

The Christmas Train

Here's Perry and the kids on "The Christmas Train". They went with my parents and my niece Mackenzie last weekend when I was in Milwaukee. The train is on a closed track that lasts about 90 minutes. Santa was on the train as well as a "princess" that read the kids stories. I asked Perry how it was and he said, "Long". :)

Girls' Weekend!

I spent last weekend with two of my very best friends in the world, Julia and Stephanie. We had not been together since October, 2005. I drove up to Milwaukee for Stephanie's baby shower and Julia flew in from Montgomery, AL for the weekend. We had such a great time! I miss them so much. Perry was so wonderful to take the kids for the weekend and let me do this. Annika did spend Friday night with Oma and Papa, which was a special treat for her. Then they took Annika and Mackenzie to the "Christmas Train" in a nearby town. Perry also met them there on Saturday with Jonas. Sounds like they had lots of fun. I'll post the pictures as soon as I can. For now, you can see some pics from our weekend by clicking on the following link to shutterfly. We had so much fun and Steph's family is so welcoming and warm, and hilarious. I can't wait to go back sometime in March or April, after her baby is born! I love my ya ya's!

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AYsXLNi5ZtGTiY&emid=sharshar&linkid=link5&cid=EMsharshar