Christmas Gatherings

I thought I would just quickly share a few pictures from our family gatherings. We are so fortunate to have both sides of the family so close by and all of our siblings fairly close as well. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Erica got a new "puter" from us. She loves it and feels like such a big girl playing it.

Bethany really wanted pink legos and is loving building with them.

Jaren loves racing cars and up until now always used the treadmill for his track. :)

VAN MERSBERGEN CHRISTMAS

All 9 of the VanMersbergen grandchildren

Front row: Hailey, Brynn, Lauren & Drew

Back row: Erica, Reagan, Bethany, Luke & Jaren

Grandpa reading the grand kids the Christmas story with their own special book

Not the best picture, but it sure shows how excited Bethany was to receive the Polly Pockets Roller Coaster!

Chaos...but we wouldn't have it any other way!

Erica with her new princess carriage

Bethany loving her Polly Pockets

Jaren is excited to race his new monster trucks on the track

Grandpa & Hailey having a great time together.

Sweet little Brynn

Jaren enjoying playing Wii...our new family gift from my parents

DE BRUIN CHRISTMAS

Erica and Madelyn thanking each other for the gifts.

Playing games before supper

Grandma with her three granddaughters

Bethany giving Uncle Mark a big hug of thanks for the "credit card"

Bethany, Erica & Jaren opening the devotional gift from Grandpa & Grandma

Merry Christmas...what a sweet gift to open.

Kurtis showing the beautiful print from his parents

We hope and pray you have a great Christmas with your families and enjoy celebrating the upcoming new year the Lord has blessed us with. See you in 2010!

Merry Christmas from our house to yours

Merry Christmas from our family. I did not get around to sending out cards this year so I hope this will do until next year. It's a little lengthy so feel free to just look at the wonderful pictures that I just had taken of the kids. :)

Jaren just turned 7 and is growing up in height and maturity every day. He loves to be in charge and usually runs the show with his sisters. He is in first grade this year and has been blessed with another wonderful teacher. He is excelling in reading and loves getting new books. Right now he loves reading the Magic Treehouse books, Flat Stanley and other adventure books. He loves to be active and runs around the house playing football by himself until either Kurtis or I sneak a quick tackle on him. :)

Bethany is our little princess and I don't think that will ever change. She is definitely daddy's girl and both of them love that. Bethany is very much enjoying her time in preschool this year and has made many new friends including the talk of a couple boyfriends that she's not sure she's ready for. :) Bethany loves making projects and abstract works of art...houses, people, flowers, etc. are to in the box for her. She likes to think outside the box. :)

Erica is our spunky monkey...though she will tell you that she is just Erica. She will be 3 in February and can't wait. She's really getting into playing with her dollhouse, doing puzzles, and of course whatever else Jaren & Bethany are doing. She loves "writing" her name...ok so it's just the letter E, but you have to start somewhere. Erica is excited to start going to Sunday School and KidShine in January especially since most of her friends are already 3 and going.

Kurtis is staying VERY busy on the farm. Between the hogs, late fall, and trucking he works plenty of hours. We are looking forward to winter when things will hopefully slow down a little. He loves trucking the livestock and grain and doesn't even mind little visitors riding along as long as it's one at a time. He is just finishing up his 3 year term of being a deacon at church and is still serving as a board member for Love Inc.

I am staying plenty busy this year and feel like I'm gone more than home. It's good that the kids are so flexible. I am currently serving my 2nd year on the board of the local Christian preschool which Bethany is attending. It has been an eye opener and very educational. I am also serving as the leader for our MomShine group at church. I love being involved and getting together twice a month with women in the community and am enjoying making many new friends. We just had our church Christmas program in which I was involved planning. The kids all did such a fantastic job and it went so smoothly. I had a wonderful team to work with!

As a family we love doing activities together. This summer we went camping quite a bit and love being able to enjoy God's wonderful creation. We have also taken up geo-caching. The girls are still a little young, but Jaren is catching on and loving it. We enjoy going walking and biking on the local trails during the warmer months and playing games during the colder months.

Well, I think this about wraps it up for this year. We pray that you and your family have a blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Jaren's 7!!! Where did the time go???

There is so much I could post about that has happened since my last post. The most important thing that has happened is Jaren's birthday. I can't believe he is 7 already. I remember so well the first Christmas he was born and I loved going to family Christmases to show him off. We are so proud of the little man he is becoming and can't wait to see what God has in store for him.

Jaren at 7 likes:
1. Playing computer...especially his new game Rollercoaster Tycoon

2. Playing games with anyone he can convince to play
3. Reading and reading and reading!!!
4. PineCone Restaurant - a truck stop that Kurtis takes the kids sometimes when they ride with him in the semi
5. Legos and other building things
6. Monster Trucks - the theme of his birthday party. He is also counting down the days until he gets to go to Monster Jam with some of his favorite men. :)

7. Loves his family and spending time with us. I know this might (but hopefully not) change in the coming years, but I'm loving every minute now!

Breaking the pinata...the candy went flying!

Homebound until rescued

Well, we're sitting at home for day #2 and day #3 looming very closely behind. We are at the mercy of certain relatives with the tractors to come blade us out after the plows have come through. If no one has seen us by Monday and you call and bribe them to let us out?!?! :)

The kids have handled being stuck home very well considering they are use to be out and about a lot. I'd love to show wonderful pictures of the drifts and blowing snow along with the cute pictures I took of the kids Monday playing in the snow, but I'm still without my main computer so those will have to wait.
We're going to attempt to decorate the cookies we made yesterday. We're pretty limited with our sprinkles on hand by I don't think that will stop the kids' creativity. Maybe we'll make a cute Christmas craft and who knows what kind of fun will be had tomorrow.

Well off to make some yummy frosting and make a mess in our now clean house.

For Aunt Arlene

Okay, so my aunt Arlene (or better known as Old Aunt Arlene by Bethany :)) was giving me a very bad time this past Sunday for not updating my blog so I'm dedicating my update to her.Here's a blog update just for you!!! :)

We have so much to be thankful for during this Thanksgiving season (and really all year long :). God has blessed us tremendously. We have been blessed with three healthy, beautiful children who are full of spunk, love, sincerity and are each just so unique from one another. They are the greatest kids in the world and I would definitely take the bad days just to get to the good ones. I have a wonderful husband who works so many hours each day for our family so I can stay home with our children. I love that he is so willing to sacrifice for us. He is by far the best husband and I love him.

Life is keeping us hopping and I'm definitely looking forward to the long weekend of relaxing with not much of a schedule. Below are a few more pictures to show what we've been up to.

The girls & I have been taking advantage of the beautiful weather and going to the park in the afternoon before we pick up Jaren from school. For some reason I didn't get any real pictures of Erica on this particular afternoon.

Jaren & Farm Grandma both had their Fall Program last week. Everyone did such a great job!

We celebrated one of our Thanksgiving meals this past Sunday.

Grandma with Brynn & Hailey - 2 of the 9 grandchildren

Sweet little girl!

Jaren loves playing carpet ball and played almost the whole time.

Another sweet little girl

I liked this picture of Drew so I had to include it also. :)

Today Jaren's school had a Thanksgiving chapel and then broke into their chapel groups for some fun. Each classroom had an activity for the groups to do and they rotated every 10 minutes. I was privileged to help out in one of the rooms. Jaren's taking his turn at Pictionary...eating was his word. So FUN! I love being able to help out in the classrooms and can't wait to go back again. I was also able to then eat lunch with Jaren. He's been waiting all year for me to come so I'm glad I could do that.

Catching up

I'm not sure where to begin. I finally got all the pictures off my camera and realized how far behind I am. To start on a sad note, Kurtis' Grandma VerMeer passed away on Oct. 22 after living a very full 99 years. She was a wonderful lady whose only wish is that her children and grandchildren grow up knowing and loving the Lord. Kurtis was blessed to go see her just hours before she passed. It is sad to not have her with us anymore, but her prayer of going to Heaven has been answered.

Great-Grandma with her Great-Grandchildren (some)

On a lighter, fun note...we've been busy having fun once again. My house usually shows the fact that we like to have fun more so than clean (at least the kids and I). I've been to Autumn Acres three times, helped in Bethany's classroom for a day, carved pumpkins with the kids (a first for all of us...or at least I don't remember doing them as a kid), went trick-or-treating along with all the daily things that happen around here. I don't have the time/patience to post a lot of pictures tonight so I'll just show you the costumes.

We had Cheer Bear (who looks a little crabby, but she really wasn't), Optimus Prime who was ready to tackle the candy, and Super Girl who was more than ready to conquer the world! Every time I took a picture of her this is how she thought she should pose. :)

The whole gang going for more candy. Despite the cold rainy weather it was lots of fun.