Mini Vacation

I think that this is our first real family vacation!  We thought that the kids would really like to just go hang in a hotel and swim because they had such a blast when they dropped me off in Chicago and that hotel didn't even have a swimming pool!  We didn't go far, but far enough to make it feel like we were going someplace.







The weather on the way there was awful.  Somehow we picked the weekend that it was going to blizzard and look like another snowpocylpse. I honestly had to stop watching the road because it was raising my blood pressure... but good thing that Gaetan is such a good driver and so calm :)  We made it to the hotel safely, despite all the snow and FREEZING temps and got all checked in.  The kids wanted to get swimming right away so that's what we did!












I was honestly so cold from the outside that the pool was too cold for me, so I immediately went to the hot tub.  Duder put on his wet suit and had a ball and the girlies followed him in.  They played and played and played going back and forth between the hot tub and the pool until we all were famished and decided it was time for dinner.  Since the weather was so nasty out we decided to order pizza and eat it picnic style in our room.  We realized that we hadn't ordered delivery since we've been married so it was funny for us to pretend like we knew what we were doing.  We ate everything we ordered!  All that swimming made us hungry!









We thought that we were going to try and get the kids to sleep a little later than their normal bedtime but we were wrong.  They were still wired and wanted to play... and they stayed up until 1:30 AM.  OMG.  I was exhausted and I was surprised that those boogers still had anything left!  Eventually everybody passed out... whew.





My first night's sleep was pretty terrible.  I had Norah in bed with me because she woke up in the middle of the night quite unhappy so I tried to snug her but she definitely didn't want that.  In fact, all she wanted to do was kick me, scream in my face and then after she eventually fell asleep ON me continued to stick her feet in my ribs.  And, to top it all off she peed on my arm.  seriously.  Everybody was still asleep when Norah got up so I took her out and we had breakfast together in the lobby.  Then, I started gathering food for the others to eat in our room for breakfast.  I was honestly pretty spent from the previous night but our crazies kiddos were ready to go!  I was honestly thinking that we would check out a night early and drive home that night because I couldn't go through another long night like the one before... but, the weather pretty much dictated what we were going to do!  After breakfast and the kiddos first swim of the day we had to decide if we were leaving or not because the weather was going to get considerably worse.  We decided to stay after we went for a little drive for food and knew that it wasn't worth trying to drive home tonight.








I have to say that I am impressed with how much those kids love being in the water.  It was so peaceful since we were really the only ones using the pool to have them swimming and watch the blizzard outside.  I also couldn't believe how good of a swimmer Dude is!  I mean, we see him in swim class so I know that he can but this was the first time I had watched him just go back and forth back and forth.  It was almost like we didn't have to watch him because he was so good at it!






The kiddos were so tired the second night that they went to bed at a reasonable hour, which meant that we could go to bed at a reasonable hour.  :)  It made the morning so much more tolerable because packing everything up and making sure that we didn't leave anything behind is quite a task!  The drive back was much better than the drive there but it wasn't awesome still.  We did have a great time and I was happy that we could do this little mini vacation with the kids.





JVG

KABAJ girls lunch

I was fortunate enough to be able to to meet up with my girls from KABAJ.  It was almost the whole group but the B part of it was out of the country... but seeing how we had TX and CO represented we felt pretty good.  :)





I always forget how much fun we have together and how well we still mesh after all the time spent in between visits.  Our little outing which I thought was just gonna be a casual eat thing and then head out ended up being 4.5 hours long!  And I felt like it could've gone on longer but when the girls are in town they are on a pretty tight schedule of all the family and friends that want to see them!

Until next time my sweet ladies!

JVG

Our 4th child

After Christmas we were able to have Justus with us for a few days!  We had been planning on it for awhile now and I know that he looks up to Gaetan so much.  I also know that he was excited to be able to have some space to himself for a few days as any teenager would like!

Everything was chill and laid back.  He is really easy going and was helpful with the kiddos too!  Of course Dude loved having a big 'brother' around to play and be silly with and I liked having him too.  He is a bit of a picky eater, but we got past it and he did quite well trying new things.

The girlies loved having him around too

haha caught him mid cough... oops!

They played a lot of computer games and stayed up late watching movies and just hanging out.  I know that it did him so much good to be around Gaetan, so I'm glad that we could!  We actually had him for a few more days after that before break was done too!  I'm hoping we can have him down more often.  :)

JVG

Hanging out

This past week we've done a lot of just hanging out.  Things have been low key since we were just coming off being sick, Gaetan being done with school and the weather being a bit undesirable to go out.  Lately, in the morning Dude has been waking up REALLY FREAKING early and sometimes he'll come into our room and snug in bed and other times I'll wake up to find him out on the couch reading, or doing his school work.  Usually Norah is the second one to get up so we've been hanging out in the mornings just the three of us.  Lucy has been a champion sleeper as of late, which is good for her because she clearly is in need of it.  Yesterday she slept in til 10:30!  I don't think that you will hear any parent complain about that.  The kids have their last swim class this week!  We will hopefully be doing some crafts too... life is good.  And chill.  :)









JVG

Jon and Megan

On New Year's Eve I invited my brother and his wife, Megan, over for dinner.  Even though we had spent a lot of time at Mom and Dad's, and they were there too, we didn't really get a chance to hang out much.  They got married last year, but for 10 months of the 12 he was deployed, so they haven't even really been around each other!  I'm sure that there are things they are still finding out about each other, but they seem to be doing well.  :)

I had a couple of reasons for inviting them over.  1.) Get them out of Mom and Dad's house.  Because Megan is so painfully shy it seems like she just doesn't want to hang out with anybody there... which is sort of hurting my Mom's feelings.  I can see both sides, so I was just trying to get them out of an awkward situation.  2.)  Everybody seems to be sick, so I thought that this would give Mom a nice break/rest from having company over.  3.)  I wanted to spend more time with Jon and Megan to try and get to know them a little better.  I can't even really say that I know Jon that well, so it would really be beneficial for both of us really!

At first the visit was a bit awkward.  We had dinner right away and through the entire meal it was pretty hard to pull conversation out of them.  For those of you who don't really know my brother he's not really the talkative type.  He really is much more of a grunter, and a huh, yeah, type of guy... so when I say that Megan is so shy that she makes Jon seem like Mr. Socialite of the year, I hope you understand how severe it is.

After awhile though they loosened up and started to talk a bit more.  They really liked those pineapple upside down cakes, which was a nice ice breaker.  It was Jon's favorite birthday dessert, since we weren't really cake people... and she really seemed to like them as well!  We had a nice time just talking and knowing more about what they do in CO.  The kids eventually went to sleep... Lucy still doesn't want anything to do with Jon.  In fact, she usually runs away from him... but Dude is OK with them.  Megan watches her sister's kids all week so she's pretty used to being around smaller kids, which was evident.

I was really happy that we got to spend time with them.  Even though it was a short visit, I feel like we accomplished a lot.  I felt really good after they left!  I think that they are leaving tomorrow to go visit Megan's Aunt in MN for a couple of days before heading home.  It sounds like they are going to be staying in CO, because that's where Megan is from and she seems to really want to stay around her family.  I think that will be good because Jon doesn't really have any strong feelings about being around Mom and Dad and Holly and her family aren't in MI anymore... and who knows where we'll end up!

Hope that they get to enjoy the rest of their break and that they enjoyed their visit with us as well.  :)

JVG

Friend visit #7

This is starting to get a little crazy!  I guess I didn't realize how much visiting I do during breaks when people are home!  This visit was with a few girls that I went to high school with.  Tricia was there, whom I've been seeing more of (which is a good thing) but then Josephine was there and so was Carly.  I guess I've known Carly since prolly the beginning of high school, and we went to the same youth group and a few mission trips together... and Josephine I've known since elementary school.  We ran cross country together (along with Tricia).  We just went out to eat and caught up on life.

It was a nice little outting. Even though we are all in very different stages in our lives it wasn't awkward.  Carly has been traveling a lot doing missions trips since college, but is back getting her Masters.  Tricia is a working PA and Josephine is in her last year of med school... and of course, I am the baby maker... :)  It was nice to be able to talk with them and even though we are doing different things it didn't seem like somebody felt like what they were doing was far superior to the rest of us.

We went to Uccello's and apparently there were a lot of games on and so it was pretty busy... it actually put me on edge a bit because there were so many loud people and the entire room was lined with TV's. Something that I'm not used to at all!  So I felt a little ADD as I was trying to listen to the conversation but all the different changes on the TV's kept my attention as well.  And also, not used to being around people who yell or cheer at the TV either... guess it's just another type of life style.

Glad I could catch up with these girls.  :)  And it's nice to share about my amazing family as well!

JVG

Friend visit #6

The day that Gaetan and Joshua went out I got a visit from my KABAJ girls!  :)  Angela had moved to Alabama almost immediately after she got married so this was her first time back in MI since then.  I had seen Katie a handful of times recently due to weddings but its always nice to get together with them to chat.

The interesting thing about this group from high school is that after visits it feels good.  We talk about a lot of things and we can feed off each other.  It's not like we have a bunch of little side conversations and nobody actually knows what's going on in each other's lives.  It was a little hairy around my parents place since my sister's family was there and it was just us watching all the kiddos... but we managed to have some really good conversations and laugh a lot!  :)

I got paid an immense compliment.  Both Katie and Angela told me that they thought I was an extraordinary Mom.  They said watching me interact with my kids gave them hope for the future... I thought that was really nice!  It was nice to hear also because there are days where I don't feel like the greatest person, let alone parent.  So, I appreciated their comment more than they know.  :)  They told me that it gave them hope for when they started having kids and that it was reassuring that the world wasn't a complete loss.  Thanks ladies!  I do appreciate it.

Unfortunately the roads were getting increasingly worse and by the time Gaetan and Joshua got home they said that the roads were pretty much ice.  So we decided to call it quits so that everybody could get home safely.  I look forward to the next time I can hang with them!  :)

JVG

Snowed in and guys night out

As I mentioned before we were in Caledonia because I was having breakfast with the softball girls.  So, because of it we made plans to see other people while we were there.  My sweet sweet husband is always letting me hang out with friends while he watches the kids so I've been trying to return the favor.  He's really been wanting to go see The Hobbit, and I do too, but I honestly don't think that I could sit through a movie that long.  :(  The perks of being pregnant.  So, he asked our brother-in-law Joshua to go and it seemed like they had a really good time!  :)  They went to watch the movie and then they grabbed some dinner and just had time to chat about whatever.  And honestly, even if they didn't get to see the movie I think the dinner was helpful to them both.  To talk about shows, books, life with somebody other people you see all the time can be so refreshing... and not having to worry about making sure the kids aren't getting into something is such a relief!  I'm glad that they got a chance to hang out, get to know each other better and get some time off.

However, the weather got a little crazy and it was snowing ever since we got there and then it turned to ice!  So, we actually ended up staying at my parents house again... good thing they have space!  We did get to hang out with my sister and her husband though because of it, so that was really nice.  I know its one thing to love your family, well, because they're your family, but it's a completely different thing to actually like them.  I would say I like my sister and her husband.  I like hanging out with them (sans kids... its just to chaotic to get anything real accomplished otherwise) and we got to do that.  We played Euchre together, laughed, snacked and joked.  It was really nice.  :)

Unfortunately, staying there or whatever caused me to get sicker so I went to bed that night with no voice... oops.  I'm glad that we got to hang out with them because they were leaving the next day or so and we weren't going to see them again before they left.  Glad we got to hang out and just chill dear sister of mine.  Missing you already, can't wait to see you again!

JVG

Friend visit #5

Last Friday morning I went and had breakfast with the "Softball girls"  This group of girls were friends from high school and we started the beginning of the softball era that is going on now.  For the past few years at Christmas time we try to get together with Coach and his wife to catch up on how things are going.

We all four have such different life paths right now it's interesting.  We met in Caledonia for breakfast and we actually had to wake the kids up to get ready to leave in the morning.  It just figures that the morning that the kids would've slept in late we have to wake them up... haha.  Anyhoo, we got on the road just fine and I ended up taking Lucy to breakfast with me.  Honestly, I'm glad I did!  Like I said before we are all on such different life paths that it was pretty awkward and dysfunctional, in my opinion.  Coach brought his grandson with him, which is just fine because he's just a few months older than Lucy, but other than that everybody was having their own little conversations.  It was nice that I had Lucy to focus on to help with food and stuff or else I would've been bored out of my mind!

I guess for me I wanted to know more about each person and how they're doing and getting little surface tidbits wasn't really doing it for me... its hard because I used to be really good friends with one of the girls but its proving over time that we really don't have that much in common any more and that's a hard one to fully grasp.  Last year I was kind of feeling the same way but I didn't know if it was just that particular day or not, but I'm starting to see a pattern.  I'm thinking that next year if I'm not already in town I'm not going to make a special trip just to come up for an awkward breakfast...

I hope that all the girls enjoyed their breaks with their families and it was good to see them for that little moment.  :)

JVG

Christmas at home

This year was really the first year we did a lot of the 'Christmas' type things.  Even though we've had a family for 4 years now, this was the first time that the kids were going to be excited about it.  Dude loved putting up the tree and decorating other parts of the house and he LOVES seeing people's Christmas lights outside.  This was the first year that we went Christmas shopping for the kids because there actually had interests in things.  :)  It was nice because we could have Christmas how we wanted it, and how we wanted it is low-key.

Since we had been doing Christmas things at my parents all weekend, it was nice to be in our own place with our own choice of loudness.  I know that with that amount of people even if they're all whispering its still going to get noisy.  After the kids woke up we had a lazy breakfast (actually, Dude requested M and M pancakes) and then got ready to open presents!  The hardest person to shop for was Lucy.  She's at that stage right now where she likes everything that Big Brother likes... so we felt like we were just buying all the presents for him!  We got them a lot of books and one or two toys and they loved it.  He was more into opening presents than she was, but they both had fun.  :)

Big brother helping her see what it is... we got her a sit and spin

Opening it up!

She was having a lot of fun on the bottom of it even without the middle part to help her spin!

Dude was helping to spin her as well

After we got it all assembled she wanted to sit on it like this and go around very slowly... silly girl!

Ultimately I would like to start a tradition where we do different culture's/countries Christmas every year or so.  This way it gives the kids a perspective that there is 1.) A bigger world around us 2.) that there is a culture side to holidays 3.) educational and fun!  :)  I'm thinking that it's going to be a few years yet until Tristan is at least a 5 or so, but who knows... Really, it's because I probably won't get organized enough to do it until then, but weirder things have happened.  haha.

The beginning of the excitement...

Yeah, we didn't really wrap them in fancy paper, but they didn't seem to mind

Dinosaur Train... Nature Trackers!  This is a book he knew we had bought him for months now and he was excited to finally have it

We got him a duo book that he always gets from the library.  We highly recommend it... it's called Zero and One by Kathryn Otoshi.  For being a kids book it has a great message in it.

Here's my quick add for Better World Books.  You get books for way cheaper and every time you buy a book they donate one :)

Children's classic... Richard Scarry's 'Cars and Trucks and Things that Go!'  He calls it the Goldbug book... 

His toy.  The underwater version of the dinosaur train

After it got put together.  Train track and all!

Some dinosaur train toys came with 3D glasses...

Looking good baby girl!

Its always fun giving your kiddos gifts and seeing the appreciation in their eyes as they open it.  We are fully under the impression that you don't have to wait until a holiday or special occasion to give them things, which is why they probably didn't get a ton at one time.  Also, then they get overwhelmed with new things and it gets lost in the shuffle.  :)  But, the few things we did get them I knew they would really like and they did.  :)  Merry Christmas all!

Hahaha our presents to my parents... ReinBeer!  ;)  Thanks Pinterest.

Momma's shiny present... the husband knows what i like.  Thank you!

JVG