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.

The Mismatched Storyteller

With the exception of my brother, Jason, who is colorblind, I am assuming that the rest of you can tell that my dear firstborn is not quite ready to go to church in his mismatched clothes. One would think that my well-meaning 5-year-old probably picked out these clothes himself, right? Unfortunately, this was the work of my dear husband. Sorry to pick on you, Scott, but I just had to share! This is how Scott was ready to go to church tonight... I had to take a picture before I fixed this situation!

Then, the video I included is of Daniel telling the story of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf". Scott had told him this story a couple of weeks ago and it must have really made an impression. Last night we had the Boermsas over for dinner and Daniel called for everyone's attention and then eloquently told his story. I asked him to tell it again during lunch today for the camera. He actually forgot one of his favorite parts in this rendition... the part about the wolf eating the boy up. (You can imagine him telling that part with gusto!). You may want to scroll down to the bottom of the page and pause the music so you can hear Daniel's story w/o the music!

Cheap Entertainment

It's a little hard to see in this first picture, but the kids are enjoying their front-row seats watching our neighbors' trees getting cut down. Earlier this week, the kids spent the morning watching the whole process -- the branches and trunks gradually getting whittled down and then they enjoyed seeing everything getting chopped into woodchips in the chipper too. What great, cheap entertainment!

This guy was amazing... he was like a monkey climbing the tree and cutting down all the branches!