Labor Day

Swimming Lessons

Cottage Fun

We once again went with Joe's family to Onekama for some fun time away.

Joe's parents watched the kids for a bit so that we could do some local wine tasting.



Doing sister's hair while waiting for the others to finish shopping on a rainy day...

We made it to Zeeland JUST in time for Layla's last tap dance class.  It was a parent watch day, so we really wanted to be able to make it on time for that.  Even with some traffic delays, we made it with literally about two minutes to spare.  It was just a six week class, but she loved and really did learn quite a bit in those weeks.

He thought I was taking too many pics of Layla :-)...

And a couple of days later, we got to together with the girls of the K/1 Mandarin class for a pool play date.

Sleepy Greta

Frozen Birthday

Like most other kids in the US, our kids all LOVE Frozen.  It wasn't surprising really that Layla chose Frozen as the theme for her party.  Our patio got poured two days before her party, so it was great to be able to use that, but we obviously then didn't have time to do any landscaping around it, so it looks pretty terrible :-).  The weather was perfect for her party which was great too.

We had a garage sale the day before her party, so all week I was busy getting ready for that.  On the day of her party, I had some things I needed to get for the party so I figured I'd get her balloons too.  That was not the best idea as I ended up rushing getting things ready for the party at the last minute and missed out on doing some details I had hoped to do, but she still loved it.  And she really loved her balloons :-).

If I look at this blog in many years to come, I should remind myself that with the popularity of Frozen, there has been a shortage of Frozen merchandise including the Elsa dress.  Layla knew about the shortage, so she was quite surprised when she got that as a gift.  She has wanted the Elsa dress since she saw the movie around Christmas.  The Disney Stores do get some in, but sell out right away--probably mainly from people buying them and selling them for a large profit on Ebay.  I got lucky, and when Em and Mike went to Chicago for work right before her birthday, one of the stores I called got a truck in that morning with some Elsa dresses.  I had called the day before and no stores in the area had them.  And Em said that when they got it, the DS would hardly let them touch them or anything and had to get them out of the backroom.  Seriously crazy how crazy people are going for that dress!  So needless to say, she's lucky to have gotten one for her birthday. 

Without thinking, I  set something on top of the cake box in the fridge,

so it took off party of the "Happy"--oops! 

I love how this pic turned out!

They loved the Frozen themed scavenger hunt.

Memorial Day Fun

Gibs rode on the Threeschool float in the Memorial Day parade.  Somehow him and his buddy, Crew, switched spots with each other by the end of the parade--not sure what they were doing :-).

I walked with Layla and some of the kids from her class.

At night we went to Joe's parents with is cousins' kids.

Grets with cousin (or 2nd or 3rd or whatever) Isaac.

Gibs had fun getting plants for our yard with us.  It's always nice (and somewhat rare) to get one on one time with the kids. Em watched Greta and Layla was still in school.  It was fun just having Gibs with us.

The kids like umbrellas :-)