Interupting my Haiti blogging to say...

 Happy 15th birthday Dylan!  We are so thankful God blessed us with you!

 Happy Valentines Day!  Ryan gave all of his girls cards and roses! 

And Happy 2nd Gotcha day Luisa!  We are so thankful God blessed us with you too!

Merry Christmas!

a brief overview of our Christmas celebrations...

our little family party at a hotel opening gifts

the kids opening their date books from Grama T. always a highlight of the Tuinstra party.

 tonight we celebrated with the VZ family

look at Anaya's feet...? how is that even possible?

 the girls were making themselves right at home, eating directly off from uncle Johny's plate! 

We hope you enjoyed celebrating this special time as much as we did!  So thankful for family, traditions, and especially the gift of JESUS who is the reason we celebrate.  We are incredibly blessed.

Is it just me...

or is this year flying by at an incredible rate of speed?  Wow, how did it get to be this time of year already?

 I am so thankful for these treasures God has given us.

We had a great thanksgiving weekend.  We were able to spend time with family and we went out and got our Christmas tree.

 We found the perfect tree pretty fast, but Ryan brought only this little dinky hand saw and let Easton saw it down...needless to say it took a while! Eventually he let each kid take a whack at it and it finally fell!

  I think he stood a little taller that day, too stinking cute!!

 We took the dog with and she did better than some of the people for our family photo!  Not too shabby for our DIY photo shoot of setting the camera on the back of the truck, turning on the timer and running up the hill!

 We had a few light issues, (why do only half the strands work? grr...) I dumped several strands and we made due but it was a tad frustrating!

 my light bulb repacers

I had lots of 'help' from these guys, I had to go around and replace a few ornaments as they were all in the bottom 1/2 of the tree!

Years ago my mom bought my Christmas village and painted most of them as a hobby{I did a few,} the problem is that we can't find them anymore, which means they are irreplaceable!  Not good with 6 kids around.  These guys were super careful as they helped me put up the trees, love their concentration, {it is hard to get them to stay put!}

It is so cozy in this house with our warm pellet stove and the glow of the Christmas tree, I am loving it!  So much to be thankful for!

Fall fun...

Check out this sky, it has been so beautiful lately.

We were given some pumpkins and we decided to paint them in hopes they would last a tad longer.

{which, by the way, didn't help, 2 of them are rotten already and we painted them on Saturday.}

The boys painted theirs with chalkboard paint and planned to write on them with chalk.  We have 2 black pumpkins and one with black and orange stripes!  Clever kids.

Dylan decided to try something different, he spray painted his pumpkin to look like a candy corn.

The girls and their hairy pumpkins!

Fun times and great memories made with these precious treasures God has given us!

An update on Luisa... she is still coughing, but only a few times a day and unfortunately, there is still sometimes puke involved!  Please pray it goes away for good!  Thanks.

Vander Zwaag family fun...

Last weekend we spent some time with Ryan's family near Cabela's.  Unbeknown to us, it was kids day and they had a bunch of activities all set up for kids!
There was a fishing 'pond' set up, all of our kids got to go at the same time so we had a contest going as to who caught the biggest fish.  Well, Jayden caught the first fish, but I think his cousin Brylynn's was bigger!  Easton won a fishing pole.

Anaya shot a bb gun!

All of the VZ grandkids!

Aunt Sarah and Aunt Lisa planned a family game of Minute to Win it complete with prizes!  Fun, and funny to watch!

Trying to get a vanilla wafer from their forehead to their mouth without using their hands!

Trying to keep a balloon up in the air without using their hands!

Trying to put pasta on spaghetti ... with...you guessed it, no hands!

There were lots of games, lots of swimming, lots of bouncy balls {there was a pinball machine that gave out bouncy balls and they collected quite a few!  My kids alone came home with over 50!} But most of all there was a lot of laughter!  The most probably came when Aunt Sarah had to jump into the hot tub, fully clothed, to save Luisa's life!  I was in the bathroom with Anaya so I asked Sarah to watch her...and I came back to find them both soaked!  I missed the event, but the kids were more than happy to reenact the whole ordeal!  Too funny!  THANK YOU AUNT SARAH!

memorial weekend...

 Some of my family came up and camped at our house this weekend!

 We decided to have a normal campfire and save the big fire for another day.

We sat around the campfire, ate lots of food, went fishing, unfortunately it rained and stormed a bit, but at least we were able to take shelter in the house...that is my kind of camping!

Grama had a scavenger hunt planned out for the kids, winners got cool glasses with sparkling grape juice and a big candy bar, losers got a juice box and a mini size candy bar!

We had a big fish fry on Sunday.

lots of goofing off....

a trip to the dunes...

lots of fun and laughter...

lots of bb gun action, even the crazy dads got in on it!

Always fun to spend time with family!

 We are so blessed to live in this beautiful country and are thankful for the men and women who have, are and will be fighting for our freedom!