Jaren's 1st Cake

Last night was Jaren's supper night. For dessert he found a cool racetrack cake that he wanted to make. We simplified it way down and he got to work. He did a great job and had a great imagination. Of course, daddy came in last place. :)

A pyramid of cute kids.

Warm Wishes

Sending you some warm wishes on another cold, snowy winter day.

Weekend of Birthday Fun

This past weekend, I was able to celebrate my birthday. The kids will be more than happy to tell you my age, but you can try to figure it out for yourselves. :) We had a ton of fun this weekend and most importantly we got to spend it together as a family.

We started the weekend off by going to an indoor waterpark at a hotel. This was wonderful since the kids had so much built up energy due to not being able to go outside without freezing in a matter of seconds. Erica was terrified at first, but quickly warmed up to the water and loved jumping in. Bethany was much more reserved in the water, but loved sitting on the geysers. Jaren is our fish. He loved the circle pool which pushes you around in a circle. Saturday morning they opened the big water slides and Jaren loved it. He could have gone down them several more times, but eventually it was time to go. We (okay it was only me) did a little bargain shopping before heading home that evening.

Sunday was spent going to church and then heading to my parent's for a delicious lunch, sledding, and Dairy Queen Ice Cream Cake...YUM! This was Erica's first time sledding and she loved it. Her little giggles the whole way down the hill made me laugh. Jaren did go sledding, but for some reason we don't have any pictures of him.

Thanks for the extremely enjoyable weekend!

Bethany showing off her bonus tickets

Jaren playing his favorite game.

A picture of the waterslides

Jaren coming out of the green slide

Bethany styling her hair

Sitting on the geyser

One, Two, Three...JUMP! Erica looked like a little frog when she was getting ready to jump.

Jaren right after the bucket dumped on him...I was a little slow on taking the pictures. :)

After all that playing, it was time to bum with popcorn & rootbeer.

Erica & Grandpa going down the little hill.

Daddy & Bethany
Erica...you have to love the giant smile and just imagine her little giggle going along with it.

Mommy & Erica

Erica & Bethany

Future Nurses of America

Whenever anyone asks Bethany what she wants to be when she grows up the answer has always been a nurse. She loves playing with her doctor's kit and making us all feel better. Erica has now jumped in and likes to follow in Bethany's footsteps. Though she's not the gentlest nurse, her good motives are there. :)

Farm Grandma bought the game, Operation. So while Jaren was at the Science Center the girls were practicing there nursing skills with Farm Grandma.

This nursing stuff is serious business.

I think I'll remove his tonsils today.

Fun with Glow Sticks

The kids each got a glow stick in their stocking and we hadn't had a chance to use them yet. So we broke them out the other night and they proved to be extremely fun...especially for .88 cents.

Me & Luke Went to the Science Center

This is guest blogger, Jaren, filling in for my mom today. My cousin & I got to go to the Science Center with Town Grandpa & Grandma. We had so much fun together. Let me tell you about the pictures...there's lots!
Thank you Grandpa & Grandma for the very fun day!
I was the first to the top of the escalator

My car was faster than Luke's cause it had less weight cause it had less legos.
My car lost to Luke's because he got up to the top first. Another time when it was 4 cars, mine wooshed ahead and got 1st.

Luke and Grandma built and rocket and it went as fast as mine & Grandpa's but theirs didn't go as far.

Mine and Grandpa's went farther than Grandma & Luke's because Grandpa knows how to build rockets better because he's older than Grandma. :)

Me & Luke went in a metal ball just like Rodney and the other red robot in the movie and we watched a movie to make it look like we were in the movie.

Here are some model robots.
Here are some more model robots and I think they're trying to defeat the dinosaur.

Me & Luke both had Sprite and corndogs. I had salty chips and Luke had Doritos.
It was a really good lunch.

Me & Luke built a cool robot machine together. I built the front (the part with the green sticking up) and Luke built the back (the part with the orange eye). Grandpa helped us a little.

Here is a picture of Rodney and me & Luke standed by it and Grandpa & Grandma took a picture of me and Luke and Rodney.

Me & Luke helped each other try to pull the tire up. It was kind of heavy. We couldn't lift the other one up because it weighed like 200 but this one weighed like 40. Grandpa & Grandma tried to help us lift the 200 one.

Me & Grandpa built a machine that there was a handle some of mine kept on breaking because it had too many gears. So then Grandma helped me a little.
Here's a picture of mine & Luke's gear creations. Luke's worked perfectly, but mine still fell apart.

Me & Luke touched the water and it felt very cold. We were trying to build things to make the water go different ways. We made a zig-zag.

Me & Luke tried to build a dam but the water kept pushing through the dam and then the water went so hard it boomed the blocks off the end and they went on to the other platform.

Luke tried to lift the gear and he could because there is a really strong chain to lift it and you just had to turn the wheel backwards or forwards.

Here I'm trying to do the same thing that Luke did.

Me, Luke & Grandpa all were sitting in the chairs of the theater getting ready to watch the movie of Rodney & his friends...it was an IMAX theater.
Me & Luke put marbles down little hills. Mine & Luke's crashed into each others like five times and then we ducked under the table and there was a little opening for us to get marbles out of.

Final Christmas Pictures

It's hard to believe, but I forgot my camera for one of the Christmas gatherings. Thanks to Lisa V. I was able to have some good pictures of the activities that went on. At the VerMeer Christmas it is tradition to have the youngest family members dress up at act out the Christmas story. We even had guests of honor...Mary & Joseph. The kids did a great job, but as evident in the pictures of Bethany it was starting to get a little late and the moods were changing for the worse. :)

Here's Great Grandma VerMeer with some of the great-grand kids

Our group of angels & shepherds

Here's all the angels...Bethany is the least angelic of all by far. Erica was happy because she had food. :)

The wise men bringing their gifts to baby Jesus

The wise men with their gifts

I had to add this picture of a few of the angels to show that Bethany was happy earlier in the night.

The shepherds/wise men...they had to do double duty.