Summer

Well, summer is officially on us. Jaren is now finished with school and they are all geared up for having fun this summer. I am filling their pool up right now so they can hopefully play in it tomorrow. We have our first camping trip reserved for next weekend. The kids can hardly wait for the long bike rides, endless hours at the playground, geo-caching and the yummy food that mom only buys when we go camping.
Look for pictures coming soon of the start to our summer fun. Our days are filling up fast so I know that this will fly by and then I will have 2 kids in school and I will be a very sad mommy. :(

Kindergarten Graduation

Well, Jaren is down to 3-1/2 days of Kindergarten and can't wait to be done! If his teachers ever read this, please note that he thoroughly enjoy Kindergarten, but is just ready to see what Miss S has in store for him in 1st grade. He has had a terrific year which is only possible because of the wonderful teachers, Mrs. DeBruin & Mrs. Harris. He has blossomed so much this year socially, spiritually & academically which as a parent is a great blessing to see.

On Friday, they had a small ceremony for the kids. Each child drew a letter out of a hat and had to come up with a costume representing that letter. The kids were so creative in what they came up with and many parents put a lot of time into making the costumes. Jaren drew the letter "U". He first wanted to be an umpire, Kurtis encouraged him to be a pair of underwear, but he finally decided he would really like to be the United States of America. I outlined the United States on poster board and Jaren helped color the individual states in. He topped off the costume that said "Future President". Mrs. DeBruin took the time to interview each child about their costume. It was so fun to see and hear what the kids had to say. Then they recited a bunch of memory verses that they had learned throughout the year. Mrs. DeBruin then had the kids come down one by one to read what their favorite memory verse was and why. It was a special teacher/student time where Mrs. DeBruin said a special good-bye to each one. She ended the ceremony by singing a very special song that talked about living in this moment because you don't know when it will be the last and the time goes by so fast. If I can find the words sometime I will post them because it was such a neat song.

The future President proudly waiting his turn to interview

Mrs. DeBruin (green) & Mrs. Harris (blue) pulling memory verse items out of the bag. These items were used to help the children remember the verses.

Most of the 26 students in alphabet costume.

What graduation would be complete without a cake?
The 3 most important men in my life!

Mrs. DeBruin's interview with Jaren.

Mrs. DeBruin had to come up with all her questions/comments on the spot because she did not know ahead of time what the kids were going to dress like. She is a very creative woman!

Let the games begin

First of all let me apologize right away if there are any grammatical/spelling mistakes in this post. I'm exhausted from spending the day at Blank Park zoo with Jaren's class and about 500 other classes that choose today as well. I give Mrs. DeBruin & Mrs. Harris a ton of credit with keeping up with these kids all day 5 days a week. What a job!!

Now to the main point of this post...Jaren's t-ball games have officially began. His first game was Tuesday night and then he had another one tonight. The highlight for him on Tuesday was that he got to play against Carter's team (Kurtis' cousins son & good friend of Jaren's). It was such a nice surprise since we live in two different towns. Jaren has improved so much from last year and it is so fun watching the games. I'll try to get some video at one of his games so you can see him in action, but for now here are a few pictures from his first game against Carter's team.

Great game buddy!

Carter batting, Jaren in the pitcher position

Monkeying around...OUCH!

Bethany is our little monkey. She loves hanging upside down on the treadmill handles, trying to climb the fridge and many more monkeying around antics. Yesterday she paid for her moves. Not quite sure what happened, she somehow had her legs weaved through the legs on the bar stool and flipped the chair, which landed on her. At first we thought she was fine until we saw the blood on her chin. Not know if she would need stitches or not since the cut was small and not deep, just wide, we opted to take her over to Dale & Nancy's for a quick exam. After looking it over it was thought best to take her to the doctor. Unfortunately this was almost 9:00 at night so the only option was the ER. Thankfully after examining the cut, they decided that using glue would be the best option. I was very relieved since I would be the one holding her down. She was a champ and couldn't wait to tell daddy about the magic purple glue the doctor used. Bethany has also decided that she would like to try and make some of this special purple glue at home just in case she ever gets another cut.

Erica in the meantime was at home showing Kurtis all of her ouchies asking to go to the doctor. :)

Today has not slowed her down either. I feel like I'm constantly reminding her that if she's not careful she might cut her chin back open and need to go in for stitches. I guess she's just a monkey at heart.

Drivers...Start Your Engines!

Jaren & Kurtis got invited to go to the opening night at the Iowa Speedway by a good friend & his son. If Jaren's expression on his face when he got home last night tells me anything about how he liked the race then I'd have to say HE LOVED IT! He was still smiling ear to ear when he arrived home at 11:00 last night. He was excited to tell me about the fiery crash that happened, how the race ended and how the nachos were very spicy. :) I think one of the first things Jaren asked Kurtis after the race was, "Can we come back again sometime?".

WOW! What a week...

I think the title sums up our week nicely. We've had a jammed pack week of fun and not so fun at the time. We started the week off slow and ended very fast. Jaren had his first week of t-ball practice and is loving his 2nd year. He's got another wonderful coach(s) and I give these guys a lot of credit going out and teaching 5 & 6 year olds the fundamentals of baseball. I'm excited for games to start. Jaren has improved so much from last year.

Wednesday night I participated in the Klompen Classic which is a fundraiser 5K raise for Crossroads in Pella. This is the first time I have participated in something like this and was nervous going in to it because I was not able to train near like I wanted to. I finished the race in 36 minutes being able to run at least 3/4 of it. I ended the race saying that I was never doing that again, but after some cold water and time to cool off I started thinking about training more and attempting it again next year with a 30 minute goal...kind of lofty, but it gives me something to shoot for. (this being the not so fun part of the week) :)

Thursday Jaren participated in his first K-4 track meet. He raced in the 50m dash and the 4x50m dash. He had so much fun and loved racing.

Part of the student cheering section

Jaren running the last leg of the 4x50m dash

Waiting with his running partners.

The end of the week was spent with 2 days of Pella's Tulip Time. I love Tulip Time and the kids do also. They were very well behaved for the most part. Bethany had the opportunity to ride a float on Friday afternoon. She saved her waves for only a very few number of people so if she waved at you feel privileged. They also loved the candy, cheese, etc. that was being handed out during the parade. By parade #3 Erica had it down that the farther she stood into the street the greater her chances of getting candy. ;)

My dad works in the Blacksmith shop at the Historical Village during Tulip Time so the kids love to go there and watch him and walk around. Their free rope samples were a hit...literally. At least they only hit each other and not the thousands of other people around.

Bethany & Erica posing in front of the tulips. They were much too busy playing with their ropes for me to get a good picture of both of them. Jaren opted to stay out of the pictures...I guess it's not a cool thing to do. :)

Bethany, Aunt Arlene & cousin Levi riding the float. She's can't wait to ride it again next year. See what you can do Aunt Arlene!!!

Jason, Kristin, Brynn & Hailey...Jennifer, Drew & Lauren all walked in the Dutch Doubles. Maybe next year I can convince Kurtis and his twin brother Jason to walk in it also. I don't think they've been in a Dutch costume since they were 4.

Today ended with a great Mother's Day. We had lunch with Kurtis' extended family in Pella and then all came home and crashed. It's a good day when all three kids take a nice nap, except now they are all still awake in bed talking. Kurtis was so thoughtful and took time out of his extremely busy schedule to get me some roses and a DQ ice cream cake...the only cake I really love! God has blessed me so much with 3 wonderful children and a terrifically loving husband.

Sorry for the slightly blurry picture. Jaren took this one of the girls and me tonight before we cut into the delicious cake.

Blessed by family

I tried to post this last week, but it wouldn't work for some reason...so here we go again.
Jaren was blessed to have Grandparent's Day at school a week ago. We are so blessed that we have family right by us to be able to have them join in on these fun days along with the multiple activities that Jaren and soon the girls have at school and extra events. We all to often take close family for granted until something like Grandparent's Day comes along and you see that some kids aren't as fortunate to have Grandparents there. Thanks Grandpas & Grandmas for taking time out of your busy schedule to bless the kids with your presence.
Jaren also had his spring concert on that Friday night. They performed in the afternoon for the Grandparents and then at night for the parents. My dad was not able to make it to Grandparents Day so he came to Jaren's concert that evening at then out for ice cream. He even chaffered Jaren to Dairy Queen in the big tree spade. At least he didn't run out of diesel fuel until after we had our ice cream. :)
The concert was great and a big round of applause goes out to Mrs. G. and all the others that helped put together another wonderful performance.
I can't get the pictures to download for some reason, so you'll have to wait for those until another day.
Well, I think it's time to go to bed and get ready for another very busy week of daycare kids, t-ball practices, Klompen Classic, track meet and of course TULIP TIME!!!