Easter

We were surprised on Easter when we arrived home from church to find an Easter egg hunt!  We didn't know who it was from, but turns out that our sweet neighbors across the street from us did it!  The kids loved it!  What a great idea that was.  We then went to lunch and Grandpy and Gigi's and had an egg hunt there too.  And at night, we went to Grandpa and Grandma's and had yet another hunt there! 

This isn't on Easter, just a cute one of Gibs and Greta holding hands watching tv in the morning.   They ofen watch a show while I get Layla on the bus. 

We've been loving the nice weather recently--lots of lunchtime on the deck!

Egg hunt at Grandpa and Grandma's...



At Grandpy and Gigi's...




Grandpy and Gigi with all their grandkiddos (plus a few that aren't officially grandkids)...




Love these three amigos!

Palm Sunday

I love seeing the kids wave their palm branches and sing for Palm Sunday.  The kids did enjoy it even though they don't look like it in the pictures :-).

Mother's Day

Our tulips came in really pretty this year.  Now we just need to get landscape!  This little frog hung out on this leaf all day the other day.

The house that my grandpa (and great-grandparents) grew up in is going to be torn down soon in order to put up the new power plant in Holland.  We thought it'd be fun to get a picture by it before it gets torn down.  I really wish we had a picture of it from when my grandpa lived there.  No one seems to know where those old pictures would be.  It is my dad's dad that lived their with his parents.

Mother's Day pic...

I love Greta's face here.  I'm sure she was saying something like, "No picture!  Me no smile!!"

We gave the grandma's hand print garden stones this year for a gift and made one for our house too.

A few weeks before Mother's Day we walked through the house with my uncle, dad and cousin.  We were able to get permission to go through it.  All the houses in that area are empty and boarded up, ready to be torn down. 

Springtime Fun

We still haven't found a lawn mower, so we've been borrowing Joe's dad's.   The kids think it's great fun to ride on it with Joe.

I was surprised to see that Greta fell asleep on it after a short little ride around the house!

It is so funny to see the kids' drive this car.  It's really Gibs' car and he loves it.  It is SO slow, but when he rides it, you can tell he feels like he's going as fast as McQueen :-).  And it's a good car for Greta to practice on since it can only go on concrete.  She can't hit too many things that way :-).

Harper showed up the other week in the same shirt that Greta had on.  Normally, if they dress alike it's because one copies what the other is wearing.  This was actually a coincidence :-).  The girls I think will be more like sisters growing up because they see each other so much.  It's fun having Harper come every Tuesday.  Gibs also enjoys having Harper come--another little girl to be silly with and share his bad ideas with :-).   Yesterday, I heard Gibs say, "Put the blanket over your heads, then mom won't even know."  Me:  "What won't I know Gibs?"  Gibs: "Oh, nothing you need to worry about, Mom."  Greta:  "Shower on my head mama!"  Apparently, Gibs was sprinkling the girls' heads with water out of a water bottle.  They thought it was great fun :-).

It's rare that Greta gets more than a few moments to herself--especially in the bathtub.  She was excited the other night when she got a tub and the other two took showers in our bathroom.  She, however, was not so excited when Layla and Gibs interrupted her bath by sticking their feet in her water after they were done with their showers.  I love her little grumpy face here :-).

They love their umbrellas!

I got to experience Fun Night for the first time as a parent.  Not quite as fun as when you're kid, but the kids loved it.

Layla's favorite part was probably the face paint.  The other two didn't want their faces painted.

I was going to put Greta down for her nap the other day and discovered that she was already napping. :-)  She doesn't often fall asleep on the couch. 

End of the Year Activities

The kids have been enjoying the usual end of the school year activities.  Gibs had his last day of school in the classroom last week.  At the end of class, they walked to Captain Sundae which he of course loved.

Him and Crew look like they're taking their ice cream pretty seriously :-).

It's hard to believe that he's done with Threeschool already!  He will say at times that he doesn't like school, but I know that he had fun in class each week and hopefully didn't get into too much trouble :-).  He had a fun class and I will miss bringing him each Wednesday to catch up with the other moms :-).

For most of the school year,  Layla (and the other Mandarin kindergarteners) went to the Mandarin preschool class three mornings a week.  This was to give the kindergartners some enrichment time away from the typical classroom and worked well since there are only five kindergarteners and six preschoolers.  Throughout second semester, they have gradually stopped attending the preschool class and are now totally done.  Their last day in that classroom, was the Mother's Tea that each preschool class does.  It was fun that I got to go last year with her and again this year.  The kindergarten moms didn't have to help out in the classroom at all this year, so it was also fun to be in the classroom for a morning. 

Her and her friend, Kayleigh, are excited that they will be in the same class together next year!

This wasn't from that day.  It was part of her Mother's Day gift she made for me (the gift was a little clay bird).  Made me laugh how she drew my body :-).  She really incorporated my curves :-).  The picture is of Greta in a shopping cart and Layla is on the right.  It says that what she loves about her mom is that I make her food.  Girl after my own heart :-).

Chaio Laoshi (next to Layla) is the main teacher and the k/1/2 aid, Lin Laoshi always went to the preschool room with them.

Wearing the necklace she made for me and holding the poem she wrote :-)...

I brought some "new" clothes home for Gibs from Gavin's old clothes and Gibs liked this new hat.  He thought he was a sheep in it :-).

That kid seriously cracks us up.  He just is goofy and is also normally very predictable.  I know what things set him off and how he is going to react to different situations.  One thing we laugh about (because if we don't laugh, it drives us nuts) is how he just HAS to get his thoughts out.  It happens before bed a lot.  If he thinks in his head of some random thought, he thinks that he HAS to let me know what that is and if I tell him it's time to be quiet, he looks like he is about to bust apart if he can't get it out and it can even lead to tears.  He is our quirky little kid :-).  The other night he yelled from upstairs that he spilled a little water, but it was okay because he wiped it up with a towel.  I thought, ok, whatever, I'm sure it's fine and said 'goodnight' again to him and off he went to bed.  When Joe and I went upstairs later that night we saw this.  Apparently he must have had lots of little spills of water and thought that each spill needed a new washcloth or towel.  So typical of how his little mind works :-). 

Doctors' Appointments

I think we've been to more doctors appointments in the past few months than we have in the past few years :-).  They are mainly all for Gibs' arm--at the arm place and physical therapy.  This week he had a check up with the ENT and one of his tubes was in his canal (which does no good) so the doctor took it out  We go back in a few months to have his ears checked again and hopefully that ear is still okay and won't require tubes again.  Although, with his arm surgery, we met our detectable, so another surgery this year would be better than next :-).  All three kids were sick about a month ago and Greta seemed to be the worst.  What started as croup symptoms ended in an eye infection and although my kids often get eye infections after being sick and normally just get drops and they're instantly better, the doctor wanted me to take Greta in to have her ears checked too.  They were fine of course.  She looked pretty rough though :-(.

So much fun waiting in a small doctor's office!  Not really :-).

Working on his PT in the car.  I'm really hoping he can get his arm back to normal soon.  The reason we had the surgery was so that he could reach his shoulder with his hand and now that is what he still can't do.  Slowly though, he is making progress.

Anything we can do to get him to work his muscles around his elbow is supposed to help.  I normally like play-doh as an outdoor summer activity, but for the sake of his arm, they can now play it in the house :-).

 

 Layla was excited that during her spring break she was able to go to Gibs' PT appointment.  She loved when she could go to his arm appointents too.  She finds medical stuff interesting and loves to take what she saw at an appointment and play a similar situation at home.  She thought it was really nice that the PT even let her play with the dough with Gibs.

 

Library Field Trip

Gibs had a Threeschool field trip to the library a few weeks ago and so I just stayed with him.

Such a cute age seeing them interact.

They all got to bring a buddy from  home so he of course chose one of his pandas.  He has acquired quite the collection of pandas and panda things.  He says he just needs one more panda--from Disney World.  We saw it there when we visited (briefly) in January.  It's part of a Small World stuffed animals collection, so hopefully they still have it the next time we go!  I've warned him that it may not be there anymore, but he's quite certain it will be :-).  He says that then he'll have enough pandas :-).