Blake turns One!

It's hard to believe that Blake is one already. If you would like to reminisce with us click HERE to see the post about his arrival on January 19, 2012. 

We celebrated Blake's first birthday with the De Vries family this past weekend. I went with a Cookie Monster theme for the party. Not because Blake loves Cookie Monster, but because he loves cookies and I thought he would enjoy them over a cake. I searched Pintrest for ideas and this is what I came up with.

 Buckets of mini cookies and pretzel M&M's, mini cookie sandwiches with blue frosting, a large Cookie Monster decorated cookie, a medium sized cookie with a frosting B for Blake, and a thank you favor of Chips Ahoy cookies with a label that says, "Happy 1st Birthday Blake." I also cut out Blake's name and the number 1 on the Cricut and put them on sticks.  

We also had balloons on the dining room light and Blake's chair. Blake loved playing with the balloons before we hung them up.

I really didn't have a great plan when I started decorating the cake. I had a large picture of Cookie Monster so I could get the head shape correct. From there I added a body, half eaten cookie and his hand. The number one and words were added last. To finish it off, I added the stars around the outside. Getting the eyes round and even was probably the hardest, but overall, easier than any cake that I've made for Rebecca.

For his birthday meal, we had homemade mac and cheese, peas, fruit salad, and sloppy joes - his favorite foods right now. 

 I love his silly little grin in this picture!

Yummy cookie and frosting! He would have finished the whole thing, but after a few bites we took most of it away. He didn't even notice.

Our growing family!

After cookies, Blake opened presents. He got a few new outfits, books, and a musical helicopter that he loves. He also got an "I Spy" quilt from Grandma Pontier. 

Another memorable birthday celebrated!

Christmas in Canada

Here is the long awaited recap of Christmas in Canada!

Last time we visited my parents in Canada (they have lived there for 5 years now) was July of 2009. We enjoyed the warmest part of the year and did lots of sight seeing around their town and Jasper National Park. This time we were visiting during the coldest time of the year and enjoyed staying inside by the fire. 

This was Blake's first plane ride and Rebecca's second, although she wasn't old enough to remember it last time. Blake was easy going as usual. He was charming to the flight attendants and those sitting around us. Rebecca was well behaved, but needed to be constantly entertained and if she wasn't, would announce very loudly that she was bored. The drinks and snacks on our flights kept her occupied most of the time and it's a credit to all that no drinks were spilled! 

Chilling on the plane sipping apple juice.

 We arrived safe and sound in Edmonton right on time. Unfortunately, my sister Rachel's flight was delayed and she did not arrive until midnight. Dan and mom went back to Edmonton the next day to pick her up. Once we were all settled in at mom and dad's, we enjoyed wonderful meals together, craft projects for all (the women were sewing and the men were building), watching movies, playing with tech devices, and just sitting around visiting. 

Enjoying a wonderful Christmas dinner of ham and all the fixings!

On Christmas Eve the kids got a bath and new pajamas to wear to bed. We read them a few Christmas books and put their wooden shoes by the tree. It's the Dutch tradition to use wooden shoes rather than stockings. So when in Neerlandia...

On Christmas morning we went to church and took traditional Christmas family photos.

After Christmas day we had a few outings to keep us busy. We went swimming at a local pool where mom and dad swam laps and us "kids" played in the kiddy pool. We also went bowling, Canadian style. None of us knew that Canadians like 5 pin bowling with bowling balls the size of large grapefruit. But that is how Canadians roll, so we did too. And had a lot of fun doing it! 

The "kids" in the kiddy pool.

Aunt Rachel "coaching" Rebecca.

Cute as a puppy!

We really had a great Christmas in Neerlandia. We would love to do it again, but for our next trip to Canada I would like to enjoy some warmer weather again before going back for winter. We are all smiling in this next picture because our faces are frozen that way! It was only about -10 F for the high the whole week we were there!

Christmas in Canada

Here is a little preview of our very cold Christmas in Canada. I will get to posting pictures soon, but you can look at my sister's blog for now. She has great pictures too.

Click over to my sister Rachel's blog.

Giving Thanks

We have nothing but thanks for time spent with family this past weekend. Now that my sister Grace and family live in Pella, we don't have far to drive to see either side of the family. Thanksgiving day was spent with Dan's family and Friday and Saturday were spent with mine. 

I took pictures while with my family to share with those who were not there with us. My parents spent Thanksgiving at home in Neerlandia and my younger sister Rachel was home in Houston. Here is a recap for you all.

David expertly fried the turkeys again and they were very tasty! Just ask Rebecca and Joanna who tried to clean up the bones.

We all sat down to enjoy a delicious meal of all our Thanksgiving favorites.

We always attempt a group photo and it turned out great!

On Saturday we went for a bowling outing and had a really good time. Kudos to Tonya for the high score and to Grace who just managed to out score the little kids :)

Another great Thanksgiving of time spent with the ones we love the most.

Young House Love-ing it!

First, I must tell you how awesome my younger sister Rachel is - I LOVE YOU! 

She was so great to "bring" me to a book signing of my favorite online friends, John and Sherry over at Young House Love. I've been reading their blog for many years now and feel like I know them personally (not in a "creepy stalker" kind of way, but in a "I love how you over share about your life" kind of way). John and Sherry work together to write a blog about their everyday life of making their home beautiful. I read their blog just about every day and it always makes me smile and want to make my home more beautiful too. They have inspired me to do many little projects around the house as well as the big project of redoing our kitchen. They just released their first book, and a book signing would be an awesome way to turn our virtual friendship into something physical. But sadly, the closest signing was over 4 hours away. So I tempted Rachel with the idea of going to the signing in Houston (since she conveniently lives there now) so I could live vicariously through her. And she did it for me!!

Hold on, this is AWESOME...

..here I am with John and Sherry!! I can hardly contain my giddiness!

Here's the line in West Elm that Rachel selflessly stood in for over an hour to get a signature and photo opp.

Don't worry, I don't think she was too bored. She might actually have gotten some good ideas to try herself!

She also got to enjoy some tasty Young House Love cookies and cocoa, which she shamelessly sent me a photo of and made me feel even more jealous about her being there.

Oh yeah, and it was John's birthday the day of the signing. The fans in line sang "Happy Birthday" to him  when he and Sherry first came out. And here is his cake from West Elm. (wish West Elm would make me a cake...)

They had a blank book for all the fans to sign. Rachel left her mark for us both!

Thanks for bringing me along Rachel!! I had a great time!! 

Can't wait to get my hands on that book :)

Pumpkin Patch

Last Saturday was a perfect day to visit a local pumpkin patch. It's not a super fancy pumpkin patch and has no admission fee (which we like), but it had enough fun things for Rebecca to do. 

Here are a bunch of pictures.

I think this 4 wheeler is a little small of two.

Rebecca on the caterpillar.

Just a little foreshadowing of years to come, I'm sure. 

This is such a great picture of the kids! I need to print and frame it.

We took a tractor ride out to the pumpkin patch and Rebecca picked out the perfect one!

Rebecca in the corn tepee.

Life as we know it...

I am way too overwhelmed with life right now to do a detailed blog post. But for those of you who would like some pictures (aka Grandpa and Grandma), I hope you enjoy these.

Grandparents always know how to load kids with sugar!

Rebecca and cousin Josh on the iPad.

Teeth!

I love how studious Rebecca looks in the background. 

That's all for now. I hope to get some nice fall pictures of the kids at a pumpkin patch tomorrow. We'll see if I have energy for that after school :)