spoiled

Nathan was in Chicago Monday through Friday of this past week and I had asked mom if she wanted to come out and keep us all company. We're very thankful that it worked out! The boys were spoiled having grandma's full attention to play with them for hours on end. And I was spoiled having an extra pair of hands for the week, spending time with mom. We went shopping and out to eat a few different times. We spent the evenings after the boys were in bed watching the Olympics, eating popcorn, and working on making a quilt for Dorian's room.

Mom bought the boys each an instrument at The Bridge on one of our shopping trips.


Levi was cuddling with grandma after waking up from his nap and Dorian thought his game of hitting the balloon back and forth with them was hysterical.



Dorian enjoyed showing grandma how he can put the Sesame Street puzzles together. And grandma showed Dorian how to play the game of Go Fish that she had bought for him.

Valentine's Day

We all enjoyed opening the package that Grandma Tintle had sent out to us for Valentine's Day. It was very ironic that she had put Nathan's Yankee baseball cap from when he was a kid in the box because I had just been looking online for toddler baseball caps for the boys since the ones we had were getting to be too small.




Dorian is really into reading letters and saying the sound that each letter makes right now. He knows them all! He was pointing out all the letters in his name on his package.


Nathan surprised me and made homemade cinnamon rolls!


The other huge surprise was a package from Kay's Jewelers...diamond earrings! It was the culmination of 14 days of love. Nathan can be quite creative and thoughtful.

Nathan didn't make out quite as well. The boys helped me pick out a couple of shirts from Kohls to keep daddy looking good.


Great Grandma Bolkema also sent out Valentine's for the boys. When Dorian saw the dollar bill in his card, he must have associated it with coins and immediately wanted to play with pennies. :) He's been really into playing with coins for a few months now.

mornings

It's a tradition that when Nathan leaves for work, the boys run over to the window to wave goodbye. There is usually a frantic run to get a stepstool over to the window so they have a good view before the truck is down the driveway. Then they wave and say bye-bye until daddy is out of sight.




Levi was thrilled on this particular morning because it took mommy and daddy a few minutes before they went in the kitchen to check on what he was doing. He thought he was pretty cool stuff.

Brian, Katherine, & Mikayla

I was thrilled to find out that Brian was signed up to attend the Worship Symposium at Calvin the last weekend in January and they were hoping to stay at our house.





The cousins enjoyed playing with each other and the rest of us enjoyed the opportunity to catch up with each other again. We didn't head out a lot with 3 little ones but we did go to the library, to Lake MI, out for supper in GR, and to church. Katherine and I went to a few stores together while the kids napped at home with Nathan on Saturday afternoon. And Sat. evening we watched the Hope vs. Calvin rivaly basketball game on tv.

Potty training is underway

So it took a while to get to the point of getting Dorian to even try on underwear. One day (mid-January) after having picked out car underwear from the store, and trying it on all of his stuffed animals, he decided it was fun to wear. For some reason, he doesn't like to wear pants when he has his underwear on so his new look is a shirt, underwear, socks and bare legs. :) We're working now on getting him to try and go on the potty instead of requesting that a diaper be put back on him. :(



Nathan and I got a new blender from Suzanne for Christmas so we had to try it out by making malts for a bedtime snack!

East Coast for the New Year

After a 12 hour van ride stopping about every 4 hours to give Levi a nebulizer treatment for his wheezing, we arrived at grandpa and grandma Tintle's house safely. We were able to see everyone in the family...just not all at the same time. So we opened Christmas presents nearly every day which kept the boys entertained with new toys. Although, they didn't need more entertaining, because their dog, Star, was a huge hit and grandma had her cabinets stocked with fun things for the boys to play with. Grandpa and grandma were so excited to give their gifts that Dorian opened his remote controlled garbage truck and Levi opened his riding rocket the very first night we arrived.
















We were thankful to be able to attend the VanSoest Christmas party this year. Grandpa's health isn't so good anymore and it was good to see many of the aunts, uncles, and cousins.






Part 2 of our East Coast trip was leaving Dorian by grandpa and grandma, Levi by Uncle Brian and Aunt Katherine, and flying out to Hawaii for Nathan's conference. It was super hard to leave the little ones, but once we were off, we really enjoyed our time together.



















Home again...with lots of things to put away! It felt like we had to pack so much stuff for this trip. Summer stuff for our Hawaii trip. Separate stuff for the boys since they weren't going to be in the same place while we were gone. Our usual winter attire. Christmas presents. We didn't use the car top carrier on the way out, but opted for a little extra room on the way back and put some things on top of the van. It was a fun trip. I can't believe that on all 4 of our big travel days the weather was perfect and the flights were all on time! Unbelievable for January! An answer to prayer!