Blast from the Past

I had a couple of posts that I started a while ago, I never got around to writing them but I thought it would still be fun to put up some of the pictures. They are all from the first 2 months that we lived in Kansas when we lived at the Gimotty's! It's so crazy to see how little the kids were when we first moved here. Pictures are taken either at the Gimotty's or Deanna Rose Farmstead (one of our favorite places to go, I can't wait to attempt to take 3 kids there this spring!). The pictures are in random order, but they are just so cute I had to put them up!

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

We have absolutely LOVED Case's preschool. He really enjoys it and is learning a lot! One of the cute things his teacher did was have a "Brown Bear Backpack". Each child in the class got a turn to take Brown Bear home for an entire week. He came along with the book 'Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?'. So we read the book each day and then at the end of the week we got to write in a special book what we did with Brown Bear. Each child had a page to write about what they did with Brown Bear and add pictures. They went in order from youngest to oldest child, so Case was one of the last kids to get Brown Bear. He loved reading about the things the other kids did with Brown Bear.
Matt had picked Case up from preschool the day he got to bring Brown Bear home, and the look on his face when he came in with the Brown Bear Backpack was priceless, he was so excited!
The first thing we did was play the Sneaky Snacky Squirrel game with Brown Bear (it's a super cute board game the kids got for Christmas from Auntie Brookie)

It was also good timing because Brown Bear happened to come home with Case on a week that Matt and I headed out of town for the weekend. So Brown Bear got to go on a sleepover with Case to Jackson's house.
The last couple days were really nice out (in January) so we got to take Brown Bear for a ride in Case's Lightening McQueen car to the park where we pushed Brown Bear on the swing and took him down the slide. It was fun to see Case so excited about something like this, he really got into it. It was also special to get to sleep with Brown Bear!

Brookie's Cinderella Birthday!

This November, we got a special visitor - Brookie came for her birthday! About a month before she came, I told Case that Brookie was coming to our house for her birthday and I asked him what kind of birthday party we should have for her. I don't really know what I was expecting him to say, but I am so glad I asked him because it turned into quite the fun planning session. First he said we should have a "brookie party", when I asked him what that meant he said, "no, no, I think she would want a cars party... wait, no, no..." And on and on the conversation went. We brain stormed for about 30 minutes (I'm not kidding) and his decision was made... Brookie would have a Cinderella Birthday Party!

I sort of thought the next day he would forget about it, but that didn't happen. For the next month, he talked quite a bit about Brookie's cinderella party! So I figured, why not go with it and have some fun! We made a trip to Walmart where he wanted to buy every cinderella themed thing in site! Somehow we lucked out and all of the cinderella things were on clearance!

 

Finally the big day was here! While I worked on the cake, the kids made cinderella cards for Brookie. On the inside Case colored a "spaceship" and had me write something like "This is Brookie's spaceship so she can fly into space and live there, shhhhh it's a surprise!" Then Sadie colored a "spaceship" in her card too :) 

Case also cut up this orange piece of paper and then glued the pieces onto a different piece of paper that was Brookie's Castle. I was actually quite impressed that it really looked like a castle!

 

We picked Brookie up from the airport and when we came home, she went and unpacked while we decorated and got ready for the party.

 The kids were quite excited...!

Sadie is holding a scroll that said, "Hear ye! Hear ye! Princess Brookie is hereby invited to the Wassink Castle for a Royal Ball!" And Case is holding a crown for her!

Sadie presenting the scroll!  

And Case presenting the crown! 

Princess Brookie and the kids! 

 

The cake I made... I figured it was good practice for someday making a castle cake when Sadie wants a princess party! 

 

We had supper, gave Brooke her presents and cards the kids made and then it was time for cake - and Sadie had no problem digging in!

 

 

Then we snuggled up and watched Cinderella for the first time! The kids loved it!

The next morning was Brookie's actual birthday so the kids and I made her breakfast in bed and the kids got to eat their cereal in Brookie's room. They of coarse had her wear her crown again!

 

Hannah's Cabin (from August 2012!)

One of the great things we got to do when we were in MN over the summer was going to Hannah's cabin! And to make it even better it was WITH Hannah and The Davis'! When Hannah first bought her place 7 years ago Matt, myself, Ryan, Andrea and Hannah would go up there for a weekend every winter and a weekend every summer to spend together. Our winter weekends would just be sitting around the house talking, watching movies, playing games and eating. Our summer weekends would be spent on the water. As lives got a bit busier, we haven't had the chance to spend as much time with all of us together. So last summer, we made the decision that we would make it work for us all to get up to Hannah's cabin together this summer and I am so glad we did!

Case and Coleman are only a few weeks apart and Jensen is only 6 months younger than Sadie, so we were pretty busy running around with them. But considering we had four kids under the age of four, they did great and had so much fun together!

 

The kids loved going on boat rides, and the older boys especially loved driving the boat!

Andrea and Jensen



 

Case loved the boat, but was very clear that he was not going to go on the tube. So Matt and I grabbed Sadie, who is always up for anything, and threw her on the tube with Matt. She HATED it, she screamed and cried the whole time!

This is her snuggling with me after going tubing, she would barely give a half smile... maybe they'll be more into it next year!

Hannah made these super cute capes for all of the kids - my kids weren't up for a picture at the time, but they have loved running around in them!

Jumping off the dock to the Daddys!

Case and Coleman clinging to Hannah so they wouldn't touch any weeds!

The one downside of the trip is it came when I was at my worst with being sick from the pregnancy. It was still so much fun, but I didn't get to be quite as active with the kids as I would have liked. Case loved Hannah's kayak, so I did get to take him out on that a couple of times!

We forgot Case's fishing pole, but thankfully the Davis' had two of them because the boys loved fishing off the dock!

We managed to get one quick pic of all four kids together!

Thanks again, Hannah! We had such a great time!

 

Halloween!

So all of a sudden it's hitting me that this baby is coming really soon - 7 weeks! So I figured I need to get caught up on this blog soon or it won't happen after the baby comes!

Matt and I got to go to the SGM Pastors Conference in Orlando this year, it was so great! The only downside was it was over Halloween so we didn't get to go trick or treating with the kids or see them dressed up in their costumes. My mom was here on Halloween so she took them trick or treating along with our neighbor, Darrell. The kids had a great time!

Sadie was a little ladybug and Case was Spiderman!

 

I was especially excited with Case's costume because it was only $2 on craigslist and then I ran across a matching spiderman bucket for 75 cents at a garage sale! The only problem was, he then thought he had two buckets for trick or treating - it took a little convincing to get him to let Sadie use his pumpkin bucket from last year. 

 

The kids and Darrell!

I was very surprised that Case wore his mask, I'm glad my mom was able to catch this picture without it on.

The kids had a great time handing out candy! My mom said if Case saw someone outside, he would yell, "We have treats here!!"

We were bummed to miss it, but so glad the kids had a great time!