Crafting and Creating

Since the beginning of the year there has been lots of creating and crafting going on here.  More on my part than the girls but they have been doing some too.

 It was a proud moment Saturday morning when we got up and the girls were so nicely playing checkers under the fort they made instead of sitting mindlessly in front of the TV.  After the first of the year we created "screen time tickets" to encourage them to find other things to do instead of watch TV, and it seems to be working!

 I bought fabric to make curtains for the front windows of the house
in October and finally got the motivation to get them done.  I love them!  They are super simple so I added denim flowers on them to spice them up a bit.

After doing so much traveling and trying to become more organized while doing it I made these bags to hang on the back of the seats.  They have a few issues yet but this could work better than anything we have had yet.  There is a big pocket in the back for larger coloring books, notebooks, and games.  The next pocket holds the DVD player.  I used Eric's old jeans so it has pockets built in for RedBox movies.  (The best invention ever, RedBox that is.)  The next pocket holds books and the bottom panel has a larger pocket and individual marker pockets.  Unfortuntaely it is no where near ready for Etsy yet, but it is a good starting prototype and we can go from there. 

 I saw that my cousin Jen had made something like this and I thought it was sooo cute.  Hopefully the sisters quote will soak in their little heads.  The last couple days they have been more like enemies.

I wanted to hang some of our rules of the house.  Lynette Bell had the words thing on her blog.  The one next to it is our screen time rules.  And the ones below I made for the girls for Valentines Day.  It has their names and we love you because...under the glass and then we can write different things with white board marker on the glass.  They think it is the greatest!

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Snowmobiling and Other Stuff

We have been doing quite a bit of traveling back and forth and we have been driving during the day.  Karinda especially is getting sick of being in the car but they really do well.  If we leave on a school day we try to do some school things when we first start out and if all goes well they can get a movie from a RedBox.  I also started to make bags to hang on the back of the seats to organize all of their things in. I am rather excited about them.  If they turn out well and work I may have to go into business selling them on Etsy.  I do have to work on my sewing skills a little, they are not quite like my moms but it works.

 The girls are becoming very good with the snowmobiling and very tall.  They are getting a little hard to see over but they enjoy it.  We went to a new place this year a little further away.  Karinda wrote a story about it and her interpretation is a little different than ours. She said at the end she smiled proudly when we told her that was her longest trip ever.  Eric and I remember it a little different from that, but we will leave it there. 

It has been such a mild winter we stop a little more to let the snowmobiles cool off and we don't worry about getting to cold.  The girls have figured out how to lay down backwards on the seats and chill for a few minutes.  They look too cute in all their snow get up!

In February we had to head back for count day for the girls and there was a semi-truck in Michigan that had to get back to Nebraska so we took the driver with us.  Five of us in the truck for 14 hours was interesting but we all made it.  I am sure Mando (the driver) had a few good laughs.  I enjoyed talking to him and hearing about his life.  He crossed the border from Mexico to the U.S. on foot when he was 8!  Needless to say he has a lot of stories. Once we got to Michigan we dropped Mando off at the hotel and went to Cliff and Karen's.  The next day we headed up north to get some snowmobiling and vacationing in.  More time for the girls in the car.  They are either going to hate us someday or just look back and laugh about how much time we spent in the car.

 The girls really got into the legos when we weren't snowmobiling, it is fun to have something their Daddy love's too.  On Sunday Cliff and Karen took the girls back with them so they could go to school and we stayed at the cabin with our friends TobiAnn and Jeff.  We got a little snowmobiling in where we could find snow and found a lot of new little trails but couldn't really get to anywhere because the actual trails were ice and dirt.  So Monday we decided to head to Traverse City to do some wine tasting.  We had a lot of fun and found some really good wine.  We spent the rest of the week playing games, sitting in the hot tub, working on a few projects at the cabin and drinking our wine.  We had a very relaxing and good time.  Thanks Mom's and Dad's for helping out with the girls again.

 The winery's we went to were on Mission point so while we were there we went to the 45th parallel and the Mission Point Light House.

We stopped at the Jolly Pumpkin for some incredible pork nachos.  It doesn't sound that good but I could make the trip just for those.  On Thursday Jeff and Eric went fishing for stealhead.  They found a guide that talked non-stop and took them on a "river boat" near a dam.  Eric caught 1 and Jeff caught a lot more than that.

NCP Christmas Party and Cheer Camp

 This year we did the NCP Christmas party again in January.  It was pretty cookie cutter from last year but why mess with something that works right?  These were the "trees" I made from scrapbook paper to decorate the tables with.

 This is one of the tables at Town Talk.  The food was delicious we had a choice of  Prime Rib, Chicken, or Salmon.  After we ate we gave out "door prizes" and then headed to the bowling alley.

I did not do good with the pictures at all this year but had fun chatting with some of the people.  Overall I think everyone had a good time again this year.

 That Saturday afternoon the girls went to the school for cheer camp.  While we had our Christmas Party the girls did their cheers at half time so I quick went there during salad time to watch them.  They really had a good time learning the cheers and showing off their new moves.

Christmas 2012

Wow, time flies when you are having fun.  Sorry for the huge post but it has been awhile so I am going back to December.  Our parents were kind enough to take the girls for a week and a half again so they could go to school and make it to two Christmas parties.  They also got to make it to two birthday parties too!  I don't have any pics for that so I will start off when we arrived in Michigan.  We started out with the Top Christmas party, it was very good to see everyone again.

Kylie, Maddie, Karinda, and Lizzie at the Top Christmas party.

The following night we had Christmas with the Brouwer's.  We missed the photo op that night but got one a few days later at the Pluister Christmas.

Christmas Eve we got to go to Vriesland Church for their Christmas Eve service and Christmas morning we went to Community Reformed for church.  After that we did Christmas with the Meeuwsen's.

Cliff and Karen with the Grandkids.

Great Grandpa Meeuwsen was in the hospital so Great Grandma got to come and celebrate with us.

We caught the tail end of the Pluister Christmas Sunday afternoon.  This is just the grandkids and great grandkids.

  After we were done with all our parties we headed up north to try to get some family fun in.  We have a picture like this every year by this same tree.  It is fun to see how the girls change.  The girls are sporting their new hats from my Aunt Nancy.  She made these little newsboy hats for all the girls, they look so cute.  (Thanks Aunt Nancy, they get lots of compliments on them.)

The weather was really mild so after a snowmobile ride the girls decided to give ice skating a try.  It lasted way longer than I thought and the girls really enjoyed it.  The fastest they went was when Eric pulled them but they had fun and could stay up pretty well.

This fall we moved the hot tub up north and got it working so after a day outside the girls really enjoyed playing in the warm water.

  Eric got a Jason Aldean cd for Christmas and was rockin it and ready to party for New Years.