Birthday Slideshow

Happy Birthday, Anna!

Anna is 3 years old today! It's hard for Matt and me to believe we have a 3 year old daughter now. We were just reflecting that if you had told us 5 years ago we'd be celebrating our 15th anniversary in Michigan with our 3 year old while Matt attends Calvin Theological Seminary we would have laughed! Yet, here we are. God is amazing!
Friday night Anna spent the evening with friends (and went bowling for the 1st time) while Matt and I went out for dinner to celebrate our 15th anniversary. Much of Saturday morning and early afternoon were spent getting ready for Anna's birthday party. Her cousins, Grandma, and aunts and uncles came over later in the afternoon. Her cousin Jenny had her 8th birthday on Friday, so we did a little of a combined party. Jenny and Anna got to open presents and we sang Happy Birthday to each of them. Anna thoroughly enjoyed having so many people around. Anna requested a castle birthday cake. Matt and I had fun putting that together. (By the time we were ready to eat it, the cake was getting a little lopsided, but it was still pretty cool.) Anna and Jenny had dressed up like princesses for awhile and Anna still had her outfit on when we were getting ready to eat cake--very appropriate.
Today Matt, Anna, and I had a nice breakfast together. Then we gave her presents from us and played with them all morning. We celebrated at Red Robin for lunch. Anna was a little embarrassed when they sang to her, but had a blast. Since we had such a busy weekend (we were gone all day yesterday--Matt preached at Second Fremont CRC and we spent the day with Case and Karen Admiraal), I think this afternoon and evening will be pretty mellow.

Our beautiful 3 year old with picture bear!

New Era

Matt preached in New Era this morning. It was a great experience! The people were very warm and welcoming and Matt did a great job. We were invited to stay for lunch which was really nice, too. It's been quite a memorable day!

Since we were so close to Lake Michigan, we stopped there before heading home in the afternoon. Anna LOVES being in the sand!

Lollipop Concert

Sorry, no pictures today. We went to a Lollipops Concert today at an area church. The Grand Rapids Symphony holds these concerts for the 3-6 year old crowd. It was a lot of fun! They showed us all the different instruments, had a little sing-a-long, and then played to the story Green Eggs and Ham. It was about 45 minutes long which was just perfect for Anna. It was a perfect little family outing for us. Matt's been really busy lately, so it was especially nice that we got to spend the morning with him. He's going to preach his first sermon at a church in New Era tomorrow morning. Anna and I are going along! I'll take a few pictures before we leave the house and post them so you can see what Pastor Matt looks like.

Signs of Spring

Spending the afternoon outside,
seeing robins in the yard,
seeing our neighbor sitting in his chair on the driveway,
and taking a bike ride are sure signs of spring around here. We are so ready for it!

A New Puppy

This is Tia.

My sister and her family just adopted this new puppy. She's a 6 month old beagle. We went to meet her tonight. Anna did pretty well with it, but after a very short time ended up asking her cousin if they could go downstairs and play with toys! We were able to watch our niece in her church musical tonight. It was a really good program. The kids did a great job!

More Butterflies

After celebrating the seminary's birthday this morning with breakfast and a program, we spent a little time in the afternoon at Meijer Gardens to see more butterflies. Matt was able to join us this time. Doesn't he make a cute butterfly?
There were more butterflies out this week.
Anna had fun with the butterfly activities. She enjoyed looking at things up-close.
The weather was really nice (sunny, but a bit chilly), so we spent time outside, too.

Popcorn

After reading The Popcorn Book by Tomie de Paolo, we decided it was time to pick up a package of popcorn from the food pantry to make popcorn the old fashioned way. Matt and Anna heated up the oil, then waited for a few kernels to pop...

...put in all the kernels...
...shook the pan while it was popping...

...and then gobbled it up. Yummy!

My Little Butterfly

Anna and I took advantage of the nice warm weather yesterday and went to Meijer Gardens. The butterfly exhibit is in full swing right now. We like to go several times while the butterflies are there. Every time we go there are more and more butterflies out. Anna wasn't actually that impressed with the butterflies, so we didn't stay long looking at them. We headed outside to the activity area after awhile. Anna's favorite part was dressing like a butterfly.



Here she is ready to fly away!

Spring Is In the Air

It wasn't very sunny, but the temps were in the upper 50's, so we spent a little time outside before we went to the Children's Museum today. We walked around by Reed's Lake for awhile. Anna didn't ever stop moving for very long, but kept saying, "Let's sit on the bench and talk about our day." She also had a great idea and said, "Open your mouth so you can take in some air." It was a beautiful afternoon to be outdoors. We are hoping spring will come soon!

Before we went to the Lake, we enjoyed a little treat at Jersey Junction. Anna had a certificate from the library that we needed to redeem. She chose Superman ice cream. She ended up getting as much on her as in her. Lovely! (Sorry the pictures are out of order.)

New Hobby

Anna has decided she'd pursue a new hobby (now that she needs to do everything "by myself"). She's taken up photography. Here are her first photos:

Children's Museum--Grand Rapids

We went to the Children's Museum this evening. We had so much fun. Anna was a bundle of energy, so we did a lot of moving. I think we were upstairs and downstairs at least 5 times. By the end, she would head to the treehouse to go lay down for a minute. It was pretty funny.


Our little cutie pie--multiplied!

Children's Museum--St. Joseph

Last Saturday we headed out to do a little shopping (outlets in Michigan City, Indiana) then went to a Children's Museum in St. Joseph. They advertised a live animal show. It was a local guy showing his reptiles. We saw some turtles, frogs, snakes, and a small alligator. It wasn't much of a show, but it was interesting and we all got to touch the snakes. We had a really nice afternoon there. In the evening, we headed over to see some friends--fellow seminarians. We were celebrating the end of the winter quarter. We had a great time (as usual) with them, but (also as usual) I have no pictures of the fun.