Aquarium Field Trip

I am so thankful to be a stay at home mom. Not sure I've mentioned that lately. I love the flexibility and the things that I get to share with my kids one a day to day basis but I definitely love getting to experience field trips with them.

I'm the room mom for Emma's classroom so I get to be pretty involved and most of the kids know me. I've actually gotten used to being called Mrs. Hamstra on a regular basis. I go into her classroom every Monday morning and take some of the kids that are excelling in spelling aside and challenge them with new words and get to encourage them in their studies. I was also privileged to be able to participate with them in the Junior Achievement program and taught them about community for five weeks every Monday afternoon. I love getting to know the other kids that Emma is around day to day and also (if you remember for my beginning of school month long crying session) I hate that her teachers get to see her more than I do so this makes me feel a little more like Im a part of that life she leads too.

We got to take a trip to the Shed Aquarium in March and had a great time.  I don't think that I had ever been there and I know Emma hadn't so it was a great treat for us to be able to experience it together.

A Visit from Colorado!!

We got to have a very fun visit from our friends from Colorado in February. Dave & Erin drove out and stay for two weeks, Jenni flew in over one of the weekends and Jenni's parents came down from Michigan for a few days too.

Erin's birthday is in January and since we didn't get to see her for it we decided to have a fun little birthday party for her while she was here. She LOVES Elmo so I decided to tackle making an Elmo cake for her and I'm SO glad I did because she was very excited about it :)

We also took them to the Fair Oaks Farms while they were here visiting and Erin got to have lots of fun playing in the adventure center, watching a calf be born and getting to watching the cows go round and round the milking carousel.
Two of my favorite girls :)


CEREAL!!
Sharing a bus ride.
We even got to stop by Uncle Jack's work on the way home and Erin had fun driving and airplane.Jenni had to go back to the airport so Jackson, Erin & I drove her there. Got a few cute pictures of Erin :)

We had lots of fun getting to just hang around the house enjoying each other's company as well. With being so far apart we try to make the best of every opportunity that we get to spend time with one another. God has been very good to all of us in the fact that we haven't spent much more than six months at a time without being able to see each other. One time we even got to see each other for just a few hours while they had a lay over at the Chicago airport. We'll take any bit we can get :)
Two peas in a pod :)

Finger painting fun!
Kind of an easy fort but they were still pretty excited about it.

On one of the last days before Dave & Erin left we decided it would be fun to go to Bellaboo's. We had a great time playing in all the fun rooms they have.

Story Time

Face Painting
Art Room
Water Play Room
Ball Pit

We're very thankful to have such great friends that they were willing to drive half way across the country to visit us. God has truly blessed us to stay in touch and so close over these several years. Thank you Father for your many blessing and thank you Dave & Jenni for your faithful friendship.

First foster experience

We got a chance to help out another foster family by doing some respite care for them while they went on a cruise. You can have people babysit for you but if is going to be an overnight stay it has to be someone licensed. We were happy to FINALLY be able to do something with this license we've had for months!

I can't give too many specifics or show pictures of how stinkin' cute these three were but I can share some of the things that we learned in the process.

1. Every child is very different and receives and gives love in many different ways.
2. Three boys together in one room makes for a very giggly bed time.
3. Be careful how you talk around your children and keep mean remarks to yourself. Even if you're frustrated or being sarcastic, they hear them and hold onto them for years.
4. Be careful of sibling rivalry.
5. Build a fort out of blankets and you'll be the coolest mom ever.
6. Even when a child tries to hit and kick you and say they'll never ever be good, just a simple "I love you and I will never believe that" can make you see something in their eyes that truly makes them believe it.
7. When you have a snow day and have six kids (I still babysit Alaina too) a schedule is a MUST!
8. Being a crazy busy mom is more rewarding than any other job or ministry could be.
9. Make time for your husband. Period.
   
10. When it time for them to go, be thankful for the time you had with them and trust they will remember the thing you said and leave the rest up to God.

Fort #1

Fort #2
We even got brave enough and brought all the kids to our volleyball game.
Some snow day activities

We got called for another respite placement for over memorial weekend. A two year old cutie. Looking forward to helping out with her as well :)

Indoor Waterpark!

Last spring we went to a charity fashion show/auction with my sister-in-law Brooke. There were lots of door prizes and such and Kevin won a free night's stay at an indoor water park in Lafayette for five people. Since Kevin & Brooke don't have kids he decided to be EXTREMELY GENEROUS and give it to us! We spend a lot of time in the water in the summer time between both parents having a lake house so we decided to save this fun time for for the middle of winter when it would be even more special to be able to go swimming.

I check with the hotel and was surprised to hear that they would let us use this voucher on New Year's day so it worked out perfectly because Jack gets that as a paid day off and since it was a Friday he would have the next day off too. So amazing the way things line up in place like that!

Jack coming out of the slide. Kind of a big splash there big guy ;)


Jackson thought the pirate ship was very cool!
We bribed Jackson with ice cream and he finally got brave enough to stay under the treasure chest.Can't see him but he's in there :) Emma got in there too. No fear for her with water!
Can't remember exactly what Jack's count was but I'm pretty sure between the two days she went down this water slide around 100 times.Jackson was still a little too short for the big water slide but he was happy with the little ones.What a blessing the way God has worked out so many fun, free or extremely cheap thing for us to do as a family since committing to Christian school. I know it's only by Him that we have had these blessings.

Thanks Uncle Kevin!!!

WOW

Goodness, I better get working on this again..........

Christmas Celebrations

The month of December is always lots of fun for us and always very busy. Every Saturday, and some Sundays, we have Christmas parties with different sides of our families. I always love it and don't mind the busyness because there is such a fun aspect that we are celebrating Christ so much throughout that month. I'm always the person that loves to have the Christmas cards done right away and mailed the weekend of Thanksgiving and it just seems that starts off a magical month of rejoicing.

For the past few years we have been celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas with the Hamstra side of the family at Thanksgiving. With so many people, and half from out of town, it works out to have one fun party. This year with Grandma having had the stroke over the summer, we held the party in the room upstairs at Oak Grove so it was more safe for her. We had a lot of fun playing games and sitting around chatting. Afterward we went over to Mary's house for desserts and grab bag gifts. I was wondering how I was going to handle have to leave Gram there by herself while we all went to celebrate without her but, as mom told me would happen, she was very tired by the end of the party and very much ready to go back to her room. I'm trying to take advantage of the time we have with her now as we had such a scare this summer. I also just so much enjoy the friendship that she and I developed since we moved here. So many things that I see God had in mind for this move.

Opening presents with Grandma
Me & Gram Hamstra

Another thing that was bittersweet this year was having my Grandma Ferguson home. My Ferguson grandparents had been traveling to Florida from Oct-April every year for many, many years now so we haven't been able to see them at the holidays. While we miss Grandpa, it was very neat getting to have Grandma around this year to enjoy the fun. I was thankful for the strength that I have seen in her the past few months that I know can only be coming from God; going through her first holidays without Grandpa and being someplace different. She has been attending church with my sister and my Aunt and Uncle and she's really enjoying it.

One tradition we always used to do with Grandma Ferguson when we were little was make Christmas cookies. A few of us decided that would be a fun thing to do this year with our kids with Grandma. We had a great time!One of the days at Jackson's preschool in December they got a special visit from Santa! The teachers let us know ahead of time so we could take pictures. I love Santa and while I know some families think including him takes away from the meaning of Christmas, our family does a great job of celebrating the "magic" of Santa while keeping Christ the focus. Our kids seem to really be able to grasp that; we are thankful!

Jackson was a very brave boy this year with Santa :) We actually went to see him again with Emma when he was at the American Legion and Santa looked at Jackson and said "I saw you at preschool!" Jackson was very excited he remembered him :)Alaina was a little skeptical of this big man in a red suit!
Jackson's preschool class
Emma got to do some special programs this year too! Our Love Notes Children's program this year was called "The Greatest Christmas Card in the Whole Wide World." It was all about the different ideas an traditions of Christmas and how we shouldn't forget Christ. It was a very neat program!
Emma was part of the greenery card and got to be a Christmas tree. She also had two lines this time and did them with pure Emma style ;)
She also had a wonderful Christmas program at her school this year. The theme was "Christmas Around the World." She sangs Christmas songs in 5 five different languages!
We took some fun pictures before we left because school gym pictures never turn out!

Since I'm Emma's room mom at school, I got to plan her Christmas party. It was lots of fun! Her teacher is so great!We had a couple of other Christmas event that we went to that we had a wonderful time at but didn't take any pics :( And since this post is getting so long and I've been working on it for a while, I'll go ahead and be done except for this one last thing......
We always let the kids eat cake for breakfast on Christmas morning to celebrate Jesus' birthday. This year Emma came up with ho, ho cake because since Santa works for Jesus to help share all His birthday presents, she thought He might think it was funny to have a "ho ho ho" cake ;)

Jack's First Deer

This has been Jack's second year of hunting and he finally got his deer! He has spent countless hours in his tree stand waiting for a deer to come along. I sit in the house at the window praying for God to just bless him with the excitement of this accomplishment.

Our good friend Rod fell from a tree stand last year and was hospitalized for several months with two severely broken ankles. Well, in the process of visiting with him during his recovery period, Jack and Rod got to talk quite a bit about hunting and Rod invited Jack to come with him for a weekend to a hunting lodge that he takes some of his family members to. The guys had a great time over the weekend hunting, playing games and cooking. It was almost like summer camp for grown ups!!

Anyway, Jack got his first deer while he was out there and was very excited to share this experience with Rod and his son Daryl. We are very grateful that during this time of a very poor economy we are able to be blessed with this opportunity for free meat to take care of our family. God can be so cool!!