Bowling Jan 2011

Mark and I needed to make up bowling along with a couple other families, so we all went one day so the kids could bowl and the adults to attempt to bowl. Here is Megan with her friend Gracie Barber looking at all of the pretty colors of the bowling balls.

Thanks to the bumpers, Megan's ball was in a good position. However, she never really had enough speed so her game still needs work. At one point the bowled and the gate (not sure if that is the right term) went down before her ball made it to the pins :)

Just watching the slow ball roll down the lane.

Towards the end the kids were having fun just sliding on the wood floor in their socks. For the record: 2 of the little boys beat Mark!!!

She's cute!

She's focused!

And she is ready for a strike! But that didn't happen and it didn't bother her one bit. She had fun and everyone had fun watching the kids bowl and be silly.

Dec 2010

The second annual trip to "The Lights Before Christmas" at the Toledo Zoo with the Barber, Harrington and Olsaver families. We started out with a yummy dinner then is was time to bundle up to look at the lights.

The only picture I have that shows the lights.

Oops, forgot to turn the picture. Here is Megan "sleeping" on the car ride home. She said if she slept in the car she wouldn't have to go to bed when we got home. So she was faking her sleep and her snoring! It was very funny.

Another picture that I didn't turn...sorry. Christmas morning and Megan was excited that Santa brought her the "lion toy" she asked for. She also got a lion puzzle and socks from Santa (that's what she asked for)

Megan had to show Cici what our neighborhood looked liked on the drive to Grandma and Grandpa Berthold's house.

Enjoying the "car truck" she got from Grandma and Grandpa. She LOVES seeing cars on trucks when we are driving around in real life, so this was the perfect gift for her, she loved it!

And finally we have Megan dressed up as a lion with her new lion stuffed animal. She spent most of the day dressed as a lion, again it was very cute!

Adrian College Frozen Faceoff

Back in December, Adrian College played in the first ever DIII outdoor hockey game. So of course the hockey fans in this family were not going to miss it. The game was the Saturday before the big Mich vs. Mich State game so it wasn't the sold out crowd they had for that game, but it didn't matter, it was great!

The season ticket holders had "special" tickets that allows us to go on the field to watch the game,not the best seats, but who are we kidding, fans were there for the experience not to watch the game. Megan couldn't wait to get on the field, the tiny white dot is Megan running on the huge Michigan letters in the end zone (how many 3 year olds can say they have done that!?!)

Megan enjoying her hot chocolate. Don't worry, we were all plenty warm! Megan's outfit went something like this: long sleeve shirt...hockey jersey...winter coat...another hockey jersey. Leggings...sweatpants...snowpants...boots, hat and 2 pair of gloves! She was about twice her wait and double her size and it took her forever to walk up all of the steps to go potty.

Megan and Daddy taking it all in.

Had to get a picture to show that there we fans in the stands.

Then after the game, we got to go out on the ice to talk with the players and take some pictures. Everything about this game was great, a once in a lifetime experience, so much fun. Plus I got to talk with my favorite player, Mike Towns :)

It was great to see all of the players acting like kids living out a childhood dream.

All of the players we so happy to be a part of this game and they along with their coach said that they forgot they were playing a game for a few moments while they were looking around taking in all of the excitement.

Last picture before we left of the players, fans and family out on the ice. It was a good day! Then we were off to a yummy brunch and Lisa and Jesper's house (thanks again) So for our family, it was a perfect Saturday in December, one that I'm sure we will always remember (it was history after all)

Our Gingerbread House Project

Jesper had a design and templates printed but we still needed some fine tuning. So as our engineer, he had to do a few test batches to get things right. It was fun brainstorming ideas and watching all of the kids giving their input.

I think it is funny a year ago, Megan would just look at Conary and scream, "NO!" when he tried to talk to her, but since then she adores him. It was great seeing them playing together and just being buddies.

Grandma-great was just in awe of the Gingerbread House plans. She couldn't believe how big this project was going to be. It was great having her here to see how Megan plays with her cousins.

Tough job, we had to force the kids (and my mom) to make candy canes smaller to support the roof. If you cut them they break so there was no choice but to lick them to get them to the right size.

Kids are made a rubber! This was the easiest way for Crystal to help cut out the pieces. It looked very painful to me.

Caila and Lisa turning sugar into glue. It was super hot, super sticky and worked great!

Conary has a lot of patience. He glued each ju-ju to the licorice to make lights. It looked great...until we picked it up. All of his work crumbled but we regrouped and still got the lights on the house.

Kelsey was decorating trees for the back of the truck and Tracie was putting the many, many pieces of the truck together.

Tah-dah! It's perfect and it won 1st place for the family category at the Gingerbread House contest. Plus it was so much fun for all of us, I can see it being a tradition!

Caila, Megan, Crystal, Kelsey and Conary posing with their masterpiece. I love these kids and I loved that they all had fun with this project. Good times!

Weekend projects

Before winter came Mark needed to stop a leak in on of our hose bibs (to prevent a major leak if it froze) Mark had to go in the crawl space and asked if Megan wanted to go. She was SO excited. She changed into work clothes, grabbed a flashlight and off they went. She was helped follow the pipes to find the shut-off and really didn't want to leave the crawl space.

When they we done and after I helped get her out, she quickly informed me that she needs to have a flash light that goes on her head like Daddy's and it has to be blue! I guess I need to get her one if I want her to keep helping with projects.

Finally, we are going to tile our back splash! We have had the tiles for months but didn't want to take up a summer weekend for an indoor project so now that we were hosting Thanksgiving, we had to get it done. Here is a boring before picture.

Megan was warned that she was going to have to entertain herself for most of the day so she started off watching Olivia upside down. But once we changed it to a non-kid show, she moved on to other odd activities to keep her busy.

I took a lot of time to lay out the pattern just to make sure we had enough of the small tiles.

At this point, we were already sore from leaning over the counter and under the cupboards. Not even halfway done and I thought it was never going to end.

Comedic relief! Megan came scooting into the kitchen on her lady bug, wearing her "bike helmet" and her tu-tu made from a foam floor puzzle piece. She is a little weird sometimes.

Worst position ever!!! Behind the stove, under the microwave, straddling a gas line...horrible! I'm sore even thinking about it.

But I guess it was worth all of the pain, so pretty! I even leave the under cabinet lights on when we leave just because it is so pretty. The glass tile just looks so good when the light shines on it.

It was hard to get a good picture of the tile that doesn't make it look "flat" but at least you can see the pattern. So glad it is over and our kitchen remodel is officially done!

Playing Catch-Up

In the beginning of October Megan and her friend Chase spent a morning playing at Carpenter Farms before picking out their Halloween pumpkins.

We spent some time in the straw pit playing on the climbing rope,going to the slide and just climbing bales of straw. Megan loves it!

I think we found a few pumpkins! Not all of these were ours, but we did buy a few to carve and use as decorations around the house. But I will always buy my pumpkins at Carpenter Farms, because the kids can play, pet farm animals, go on hay rides, walk through corn mazes etc. for free! Love this farm!!!

Halloween dinner at Lenawee Country Club before Grandma and Papa Schutte leave for Florida. Megan was excited to finally wear the Big Bird costume and I was happy the Grandma and Papa got to see her in her costume.

Megan showing Grandma and Papa how to play a matching game on an iphone. So priceless watching Papa taking lessons from Megan.

It's "Little Big Bird" That is what Megan kept calling her costume, it was adorable.

Megan and some of her friends. Some came to our house for dinner and some just came for trick-or-treating and it was so much fun seeing all of the kids getting so excited running from house to house getting candy.

Megan couldn't keep up with all of the walking and had to be carried and had to skip a lot of house to keep up with the group. But don't worry, she got plenty of candy and we still have some left!

The girls from Merry Marketplace. Another fun weekend where the adults and some kids made some money, but more importantly, Megan got to play with her cousins.

How many kids can you fit in a phone booth? After Merry Marketplace we all went to dinner at The Beach Bar and while waiting for food the girls were entertaining themselves. Interesting note: I took this photo in the dark and I was very impressed that I was able to see all of their little faces on the first try.