New Schedules!

The theme of this week has been new schedules!  Not only did Steve start his new position, which includes a totally different schedule, but Faith started some new winter activities changing our schedule too! 

On Monday Faith started ballet once again!  She is thrilled to be back at the ballet academy, and she had a very fun first class!

 

Tuesday afternoon was the first class of Cassie's Dance Class!  This is the same Cassie who does Dance Camp in the summer, and for the first time she offered an eight week class during the winter!  Faith is attending that from 4:30-5:30pm that day.  And because the kids have to be at Awana by 6pm Tuesday nights, I wondered what we should do about dinner??

 

This week we tried a parking lot picnic!!  The kids thought it was the greatest thing ever, so I'm sure that's what we will be doing for the next two months!  Before leaving for dance class (because it is on the other side of town), I made hot dogs and wrapped them in foil.  They stayed warm until we reached the Awana parking lot at 5:45 and had our dinner! 

 

And an update on Olivia's walking status for those of you curious...she has taken as many as eight steps totally on her own, but still lacks the confidence to really walk!  I'm sure she'll be there soon!  It seems as though every day she is standing without holding onto anything more and more, and each day she practices walking quite a bit too!  She'll probably be off and running before we know it!

Bonus Time!

We made it home from the polar vortex...or the winter wonderland, depending on your perspective!  Since we were forced to stay a few extra days in Michigan, we labeled those days "bonus time"!  And we made the most of it!!

 

Monday afternoon Steve and I took Shane to see the movie "Frozen," which seemed like a very fitting movie for us to go see!  On Monday Tuesday morning we were feeling desperate to get out of the house, and so we braved the sub-zero temperatures and went out for breakfast!  It proved to be a great time to go out as the restaurant was eager to have some customers! 

 

Here is a picture of a snow covered street in Grand Rapids.  We saw many cars that were plowed in and totally snow covered!  Because of the snow and extreme cold, all the schools in the area had Christmas break extended by two days!  The schools did open on Wednesday, and Faith and Shane went with Grandma Bruinsma to her school to help her teach her four P.E. classes in the afternoon!

 

Olivia sure enjoyed a few extra days to shop at Target!  She started putting toys into the shopping cart and pushing them around!  It was too cute!

 

While it was a great trip, there is something nice about being back in our own house!  We are getting back into the groove of normal life again with school and activities!  And maybe this week we'll even find an evening to take down the Christmas tree!



More from the Mitten

Our trip to Michigan has been extended...as dictated by the snowy conditions here and all over the midwest!  While we had planned on leaving today - the suitcases were packed and we were ready to head out - until we received word that our flight out of Grand Rapids was to be delayed causing us to miss our connection in Minneapolis.  Since this is not the first day of bad weather and cancelled flights, we would not be able to get on another flight to LA today! So, we are now booked on flights to leave Wednesday evening, giving us the chance to experience some of the coldest temperatures in decades in Grand Rapids!  Here are some other highlights from our trip...

Being from California, shoveling snow is  actually fun instead of a dreaded task!  Faith "helped" Uncle Dave shovel the back walk!

The little snow angel!

Here the kids are at the Children's Museum!  This is always a highlight, but especially in the winter!  They loved the new construction area!

Little Shane out for breakfast!  

Ready to go out and play in the snow!  It's really nice that the kids can put their own snow gear on this year!  

Both kids enjoyed helping Grandma make her special chocolate sauce to go on top of ice cream!  

Heading out to church wearing the coat that I wore to church when I was in second grade!  Faith thought it was pretty special to wear something that was mine! 

More Celebrations!

While in Michigan we had more to celebrate than just Christmas!  On New Years Eve my siblings and I actually went our for a fun evening in Grand Rapids!  We started with dinner at Leo's, headed out to a fantastic comedy show, drinks at Cygnus, and finished the night at the Reserve Wine bar downtown.  It was a fun, yet low key evening.  The glowing light above the street lights was actually the ball that they city of Grand Rapids drops!  We left before midnight and missed the ball dropping.

Happy New Year!  We couldn't celebrate without a little champagne!  It's always exciting to start another year; a fresh opportunity to set goals and hope to achieve them!

In addition to a new year, we were able to attend the wedding of a lifelong family friend!  Betsy Verwys was married on January 4th!  

The delicious wedding cake!

At the reception!  It's not too often that all of the family of adults is together!  It was a special few days that we were able to enjoy all being home together!  That was the real gift this Christmas season!

Merry Michigan Christmas

On New Years Eve we had our Bruinsma family Christmas!  Naturally the kids were super excited to open gifts one more time!  Even Olivia was more into the gift opening as she started to catch on to the joy of tearing off wrapping paper!  That is when she was not sitting on the boxes!

Yeah!!  Shoes!!!!

Faith was excited to receive a Rainbow Loom!  She's started making some bracelets and will be taking orders!  So far we've avoided the anticipated frustration that others moms have shared with me!  

Olivia ended up taking a nap and not opening all her gifts the first day, so Faith kindly helped her the next morning!

On New Years Day we celebrated Christmas with the extended Bruinsma family!  This picture has all (except Cooper) Great grand kids of my Grandma Bruinsma!  There are 10 greats!!

Olivia and Cooper had fun playing together...or more acurately stealing toys away from each other!  They even took the dog toys away from each other!  It was cute to watch!  Clear to all observing these two was that neither Olivia nor Cooper was a first born child!  They each had a bit of fight in them!  Once Steve arrived and received his gifts, Christmas for 2013 was finished!

Heading to Michigan!

Greetings from Michigan!  We are still here - more on that later!  We have enjoyed a white, wintry Christmas complete with frigid temperatures and quite a bit of snow!

But before heading to the mitten, we did enjoy the warmth of California!  It was a treat to have some nice family time before the kids and I flew out to Grand Rapids since Steve had been at work the two previous days.  In-N-Out Burger was packed on Friday, but we had fun, and a kind gentleman insisted on taking our family picture as he reminded us how fast the days go by!

Olivia tried to help me pack!  She had great fun, but of course it was more fun to just crawl into the suitcases or throw out things that I put in there!

At the airport the kids were very patient and played their gaming devices until it was ready to get on the plane!  They were so excited!!

What a huge help it was to have Grandpa with us!!  Not only in the airport (walking with the kids,  making bathroom trips manageable, and security!!), but also of course on the airplane.  The kids sat in a row with Grandpa while Olivia and I lounged in first class.  Well, as much as one can lounge and relax with a baby on a red-eye!

Thankfully Grandma and Uncle Dave were ready to watch the kids once we arrived in Grand Rapids so that Grandpa and I could get some much needed sleep!