Our Sweet Little Calvin is Four

Four years ago, we were blessed with the birth of sweet baby Calvin. It's been an adventurous 4 years. Although we almost gave him away a time or two during those first few months of crying and not sleeping, we're awfully glad we kept him! Calvin is such a sweet, tender-hearted boy and we love him dearly! For his birthday this year, he got to have lunch at the McDonald's playland with a few friends. Uncle Jason and Aunt Ashley joined us for chicken pot pie (his pick for supper!), and he had fun opening lots of fun birthday gifts. Again, thanks to all of you -- he really got some great gifts. We pray God graces us with many years to enjoy our dear son! He still loves balloons

Daddy got to join us for lunch, too.

Happy birthday to you...

Some of his friends who joined us at McDonalds to help celebrate his special day

A flag football set from Auntie Kim -- thanks (Daniel has been asking me all day if we can play, despite the fact that it rained all morning!)

Someone was pretty excited to get a new game (Elefun) from Auntie Laura, Uncle Aron, Gabriel, and Micah. The boys both had fun playing it their house last summer in Kansas and were thrilled to get their own game!

Reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar from Grandma and Grandpa Kostelyk (We've read it half a dozen times today already. He loves this book and the CD that came with it -- thanks!)

The boys got to play with Elefun before going to bed last night -- what fun!

Jason and Ashley with the kids

Christmas Outing to the Coast

Since we didn't get to enjoy spending time with our families this year, we decided we wanted to do something special for Christmas. Thanks to a wonderful family who invited us to stay at their house in Los Osos, we went to the coast and had a great time with the kids and our friends, the Walhofs, who didn't get to see their families for Christmas this year either. Unfortunately, in the rush of packing, I forgot my camera, so the only pictures I have are these that Scott took with his cell phone.

We really did have a fabulous time. The first day we went to Avila Beach and the kids braved the cold waves as they splashed around a little and had fun swinging on the swings and walking on the pier (throwing rocks off the pier was a highlight!). After lunch and an attempt at naps, we took the boys just down the road to Montana de Oro State Beach and hiked through some sand dunes down to the ocean. The boys absolutely LOVED this. The next day we walked on a pier, watched the sea elephants, and had lunch before we headed home again. What a great trip! Waiting for lunch on the San Luis Bay Pier

The sand dunes at Montana de Oro State Park

What fun!

Christmas

I think Christmas takes on more meaning for me as I watch my kids get older. I was especially thinking about this a month ago when (to my utmost joy and amazement!) my dear firstborn wanted to ask Jesus come live in his heart. (If I haven't shared this story with you yet, please ask me about it sometime... it's the BEST story a mother could ever hope to tell!) How could God really love us enough to want to really become one of us and be willing to share his Spirit with us? It's truly amazing. I am more thankful than I could ever express that God did/does love us enough to take up residence on planet Earth and in the hearts of persnickety 5-year-olds!

Here are a few highlights from our Christmas. On Christmas Eve we attended a meaningful candlelight service at church. On Christmas morning, we opened all the wonderful presents all you wonderful Grandmas and Grandpas and aunts and uncles sent -- THANK YOU for everything! Then we went to the Westras for a bit in the afternoon and enjoyed appetizers before we headed to the coast with the Walhofs (I'll post another blog about that outing).

Trying to get them all to stand still before opening presents was quite a feat.

Norah got some new boots from Grandma and Grandpa Kostelyk

The boys got a new addition to their geo-tracks -- note their excited little faces!

Daniel was our little garbage man. He did a great job cleaning and dumping all the wrapping paper.

Thanks for the pancake molds, Auntie Kim! After one trial that got a little stuck, I figured out how to get them to work -- I brushed the insides with oil first. I think you can see the little elf and reindeer pretty well! We enjoyed our special pancakes on Christmas morning!

Gingerbread Houses

Today we made gingerbread houses. Yes, that's right; we made gingerbread houses, and not just with my 3 munchkins, but with the crazy trio from across the street too! I have to say I'm quite impressed with myself to attempt such a feat. And all things considered, it went pretty well! Between preventing Norah from eating all the candy, Calvin and Levi from licking all the frosting, and all the kids from breaking their gingerbread pieces, we actually managed to put together 5 little houses. As you can see from all the silliness, it is quite impressive that we managed to get an end product resembling a gingerbread house!

What works of art!

Goodies for the Neighbors

The boys and I have been making Christmas goodies as part of our advent calendar activities. Yesterday, we enjoyed delivering plates of fudge, chocolate covered pretzels, and boeterkoek, along with jars of Russian tea to our neighbors. They had a lot of fun. Daniel even wore his little reindeer antelers from his preschool Christmas program and Calvin wore a Santa hat. Such fun!

Eager Advent Reader

Today, our family read a little reading and lit the advent candle in front of church. The boys were quite excited about it. They knew what to expect because last week some friends of ours lit the candle and one of their boys read a little sentence. It made a big impression on them. So, when I told the boys that we got to do the advent reading this week, they were excited. Calvin said he wanted to read something in front of church, like Jake. I told him I was sorry, but he was too little to read yet, but he could still go in front of church and stand with us. The next thing I know, Calvin is pulling out his books and "reading" them to me, showing me that he was big enough to read ... that he was going to read Little Miss Muffet for the whole church. It was so precious. So here is Calvin "reading" what he was sure he was going to share with the church.

Daniel's Preschool Christmas Program

Today, Daniel had his CVC Preschool Christmas program. Although the kids only sang 5 or 6 songs, his little classroom was packed with parents, grandparents and younger siblings. It was really very cute... Daniel takes his job VERY seriously and absolutely loves the singing and doing his little performance. It's so fun to see our little man growing up! (This past Sunday night, Daniel had his Sunday School Christmas program. Although I forgot my camera for that, if you're interersted, click on the link to the Bothof's blog in the side margin to see a couple of pictures. You can see Daniel on stage wearing a white shirt in the front row on the far left side.) Here we are, but no Norah; she stayed with our dear friend across the street!

Advent Calendar

This year we're beginning a new family tradition... the advent calendar. I got the idea of doing this from Family Fun magazine (thanks, Laura!) and I ordered the advent calendar with birthday money (thanks, Mom and Dad!). Here's how it works: each day we open one of the little doors and take out a figure to add to our nativity scene. In addition, I'm putting a piece of paper in each little box describing a special activity that we will do for each day. So far we've done a couple different Christmas ornaments, made Russian Tea and pretzel stick snowmen for our friends, and watched a Christmas movie, but the fun is just beginning. Hope you enjoy the pictures of our recent activity -- a popsicle stick Christmas tree.

Birthday Getaway

This weekend, my sweet husband took me to the Sequoia mountains for a great little birthday getaway. Our escape began Saturday morning. After giving our friend, Darcy (the most wonderful "babysitter" on earth!) the lowdown on how to survive the next 24 or so hours, we left. We had lunch in Three Rivers, a town en route to Sequoia National Park, and then went on a short hike in the mountains. For dinner we went to Wuksachi Lodge and had a great meal and then headed back down the mountains to Three Rivers where we stayed at our very generous friends' beautiful cabin. It was such an appreciated getaway.... thanks to everyone for making it all happen! (The pictures and video include some bears and a coyote we saw in SNP. In addition we also saw a deer, a fox, and a bobcat... quite the wildlife showing!) The South Fork -- the river the cabin was located on -- beautiful! The view we had during our hike in the mountains

We even got to see a little snow on our hike!

Our coyote friend

Mama bear

And her two cubs ... check out the video, too!

"I Wish..."

After explaining to the boys the tradition of a turkey wishbone, here are the boys' wishes: (These are completely unprompted, by the way!)

Calvin: "I wish Faith could come and visit."
Daniel: (not to be outdone), "I wish Blake could come and visit." (We love you guys!)

Birthday Fun

Today for Carla Hiemstra's and my birthdays we were treated to a wonderful coffee/lunch time at Jennifer Boermsa's house with a bunch of our girl friends. We had a nice time, and in between wrestling wars, the kids had a great time, too. Here are a couple of pictures of the kids having fun. Daniel jumping on the trampoline with Maryn and Levi

I don't know why all the kids are always taking off their clothes, but I thought this picture of Calvin was hilarious!

At least Norah puts something on again (besides roller skates) when she strips down!

Bouncing Baby Boys (and Girl!)

Ok, so they're not babies, but they sure were bouncing! On Saturday night (after Thanksgiving) we went to a place called the McDermot Field House in Lindsay, which is about 30 minutes away. The place was amazing! In addition to a huge area containing 12-15 or so bounce houses, it had laser tag, 2 indoor soccer fields, a 4 story granite rock wall, and lots of other fun things to do. We went with our friends the Walhofs and the Lemstras and we stuck mostly to the bounce house area, although Scott and Bill Lemstra did attempt to harness up and try their skills on the rock wall. The kids had a BLAST! Needless to say, everyone slept very well that night! (Again, you may want to pause the music on the bottom of the page when you play the video).

Thanksgiving

"Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations." Psalm 100

It was fitting as we began our thanksgiving meal with reading (and reciting from memory by Anna Walhof!) that familiar Psalm. God has so richly blessed our family, our friends, our church, and our community.

Although I completely forgot to take a single picture, we had a wonderful day. You'll have to use your imaginations to picture the 12 adults and 8 kids that gathered at the Walhof house for Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixings. It certainly is nice to have a group of friends that we can call "family" when we don't have our family nearby.

True to character, the boys ate all of 2 or 3 bites of their Thanksgiving meal. They were, of course, too excited to be with all their friends to think of eating! However, when we got home that night they each ate a man-sized portion of turkey! Typical!

Hope you all had a wonderful day, too! We love you all and miss our far-away families!

Mom-cation

This weekend, Daniel, Calvin, and I were invited to join our good friends, the Boersmas, on a camping trip. Scott has been fighting a cold for a few days, and the thought of sleeping in a tent wasn't too appealing to him so the boys and I left Saturday morning to head to Pismo Beach. We had such a great time... we enjoyed beautiful weather, good times with our friends, and just a nice chance to get away. On this trip, I've also come to realize a couple "laws of nature" that are true of my sweet boys:

1. No matter how much I try to keep them dry or clean, they will get wet and dirty. For example, when we first arrived, the Boersmas were waiting for us to head to the beach. So after a nice little hike through the sand dunes, we arrived at the beach. I (naively) thought I'd just roll the boys pants' legs up and hope they wouldn't get too wet. Sadly, the boys were off splashing in the waves when a huge, rogue wave came in and not only knocked Daniel flat on his face (picture him floundering in the surf fully clothed, trying to regain his footing as wave after wave rolled in in quick succession), but that same giant wave also soaked the boys' socks and only pair of shoes I had brought along. And of course, for any of you who have been camping with kids, you realize how futile it is to attempt to keep them out of the dirt, ash, tree sap, faucets, marshmallows, etc.... they literally roll around in anything that will get them wet and dirty!
2. It's useless to try to get them to eat when they're too excited to even fathom the thought of food. On our trip there, despite having skipped lunch, I couldn't get them to eat a bite, not even with the promise of candy if they would only eat a little square of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or an apple... something! However, witness the list of things they each ate on our way home (this was immediately following a meal of fish and chips): a chocolate chip cookie, an apple, an orange, a fruit roll-up, a bag of chips, a granola bar, and several pieces of candy. Finally the anticipation and excitement had worn off and they realized they might be hungry. Calvin is sitting in the sand waiting to watch a big treaded sand tractor drive past our tent site.

Jed, Calvin, Levi, and Daniel playing in the sand. Notice the mountain of sand behind them; it was absolute heaven for them! And this was right in the "backyard" of our campsite.

Calvin is having fun digging in the sand.

Daniel, Ella, and Calvin splashing in the waves.

Jed and Daniel are building little sand castles.

Daniel caught a monarch butterfly. This is the time of year when they migrate to California's central coast and the eucalyptus trees behind our campsite were home to around 100 butterflies. The kids loved watching them flutter around... they even built a little pile of sticks to try to make a "home" that the butterflies could land on.