More Fun in the Snow!

Yesterday, we came back home for naps while my grandpa and the girls went to the funeral home, flower shop, etc. All three of us took a nap (which is extremely rare in our house... I very rarely will take a nap!). They were still out making the arrangements for everything when we woke up, so we decided to head outside to play in the snow for an hour or so. We all bundled up and headed out to the backyard. We tried several times to build a snowman before we were successful... Jet kept attacking the giant snow balls thinking they were for him to play with (we always throw snow balls for him to chase)... not to mention he was just so excited we were actually playing in the backyard with him instead of our usual playing in the front yard. But we finally convinced Jet to leave them alone and built a snowman. Carson loves building snowmen and always insists that they have eyes, a nose, a mouth, and arms. He names them all Frosty. He brings snow up to add to the snow balls and says "there you go, Frosty" each time. Carson also had tons of fun making little snow balls for Jet and throwing them for him. We all enjoyed the fun, family time.

RIP Great Apple... 1.17.1927 - 2.27.2010

My grandma passed away this morning after a short battle with acute myeloid leukemia. She is home with Jesus, her parents, her sisters and brothers, and my cousin Jason, now. It is comforting to know this and to know that she is now pain free and peaceful. It doesn't make it any less emotional or painful right now, but it is a comfort.

Carson is so confused. He doesn't understand why he could not see Great Apple this morning, or why Great Apple was not sleeping in her bed anymore, or why he can't see her ever again. How do you explain to a 2-year old about death? That is the hardest thing.

Anyway, here are just a few pictures I dug up from Shutterfly. She was an awesome grandma! I have so many great memories of her and will cherish them always. I hope that Carson remembers her... she sure was a proud Great Apple! And one thing was for sure, she was always the life of the party! We will miss her dearly and love her always!!

Winter is Snow Fun!!!

I realize I haven't posted anything about Carson loving to play in the snow this winter! I also realized the other day that we haven't taken any pictures of him playing in the snow yet, either! So I figured I had to remedy that. :)

It was a slow start to getting the gear we needed this winter to play in the snow. We went through four different pairs of winter boots before I came home with a pair (in early January, I think) that Carson would accept and wear... he's a picky little guy when it comes to what he wears on his feet these days. :) We had gone out a few times before that just in his tennis shoes, but we never stayed out too long because we didn't have the right gear.

Carson has been having so much fun in the snow! As long as its on the ground, we play outside in it every night when we first get home for about 20-30 minutes until it gets dark. Its been great these last couple of weeks with snow on the ground just about every day (and good play snow, too!). Carson is learning to throw snowballs, to throw the powdery stuff up in the air so that it rains down on him, to make snow angels, and to make a snowman. We're hoping to make a big snowball caterpillar this weekend, maybe! Kevin and I forgot how much fun it is to play in the snow!! We're loving it just as much as Carson!! :)

Happy Birthday, Grandma!

On Saturday, we headed west to Grand Rapids to celebrate Grandma Holleboom's birthday. We went to another Calvin College basketball game. They played Alma College and wow, was it an exciting game! They went into overtime and came out of it with Calvin winning the game by only 4 points. After the game, we went out to dinner with Grandma and Grandpa, Uncle Danny, Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Van, Uncle Randy and Aunt Gretchen, and Nathan and Lynette. It was great to see everyone and spend some time chatting and catching up! Unfortunately, some bad bouts with the flu kept the rest of the Holleboom family home. This must be the time for sickness, or something, because there was a lot of it this time last year, as well. There must be something about the third week of February. Nonetheless, we hope Grandma had a very good birthday celebration! Happy Birthday, Grandma!!

Carson had a lot of fun... especially when it came to eating his cupcake dessert at Arnie's... :)

We're in denial...

We are still all in denial that we actually have a 2-year old running around our house. Even Carson is - he still insists he is "still only 1." :) Although I think a lot of that now has to do with his boppy (what he calls his pacifier) being taken away now that he's 2 and is a big boy. So far its been going pretty well, though. He never asks for it, but we have noticed a definite change in his ability to self-soothe, control his temper, and calm himself down... so we'll have to see how this goes...

Carson sure keeps us laughing a lot these days. He is so full of personality and it is so fun to see him learn and develop. He amazes us with the things he picks up and remembers. The things he says are just downright hilarious sometimes. It is so fun to see how his little brain works.

He is definitely showing more and more of the 2-year old tendencies every day. He is quick to correct you if you state something incorrectly. For instance, the other day I asked him if he wanted to go see Grandma Jackie. He stopped and looked at me and says, very matter of factly, "its Great Grandma Jackie, Mom!"

Carson has been having so much fun with all of his new birthday toys. He plays with everything everyday. He is loving all of his tools and goes around the house "fixing" everything for me. He says that he "fixes it like Daddy" since Daddy can fix anything. Carson says that he is "practicing to get better and fix the moon." That is the one thing Daddy hasn't been able to fix - when the moon isn't a full one, Carson still insists that it is broken. So he thinks he's going to be able to figure out how to fix the moon if he keeps practicing fixing things with his tools. :)

Lately Carson has been practicing counting down from 10. He gets some of the numbers backwards at times, but is able to do it when he thinks about it. Although now that he has started counting down, he'll get tripped up sometimes when he's counting up to 20. He'll go ....6-7-8-9-8-7-8-9-10... But he still does it correctly most of the time.

Carson continues to love books! He is really memorizing quite a few of his favorites these days. He thinks he's so cool to be able to "read" the books to you, rather than vice versa. :)

Carson is getting more and more into music each week. He loves listening to his CDs and the radio - and he recently has discovered some favorite artists.... Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas. :-p Whenever a Lady Gaga song comes on the radio, Carson asks to "turn it up, please!" And the other day, we were driving in the car when the Black Eyed Peas "I'm a Bee" song came on. Carson started jammin' to it with his head boppin' around, singing "bumblebee, bumblebee" to the beat. I told him they were saying "I'm a bee," he stopped, listened, and said "Huh. Ok. I'm a bee, I'm a bee..." :)

Carson and I (this is Sara) started our first semester of Kindermusik classes a couple of weeks ago. We go every other Friday morning (on my Flex Fridays). The theme this semester is "Away We Go," so it is right up Carson's alley with trains, cars, airplanes, buses, etc. He starts out class a little timid for the first five minutes or so, but he is soon joining in and having a lot of fun with his new friends. There are only six other kids in our class, but its actually really nice to have it be small. I'm really glad we signed up and look forward to seeing what the semester brings. So far, Carson has been loving the songs about trains and cars!

And lastly, just so everyone can see them, these are the invites my friend, Lisa, made for Carson's 2nd birthday parties. I just love them!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Carson!!!!

Our little man is now a 2-year old! That is so hard to believe! This past year has just flown by - it feels like we just celebrated his first birthday a couple of months ago. He is growing up way too fast!

In honor of Carson turning 2, we had a weekend full of airplane-themed birthday parties for him. We decided to do two parties since he has so many people that love him and that we wanted to celebrate with. The first party was Saturday afternoon/evening with Kevin's family and some of our friends. We had a big taco/nacho and fajita bar followed by one of Aunt Mary's fantastic cake creations - a 10-inch round, triple-layer, yellow/chocolate marble cake with some super cute airplane and cloud decorations! Carson even blew out his own candle on the cake! Everyone seemed to enjoy the food and I think everyone had a great time! We did! It was nice to have a chance to visit with everyone - I think it was a good sized group for the party. Carson had so much fun playing with his cousins and Vayla! He loved showing them his train table, all of his Little People and all of his other toys. He and Rebecca got a little one-on-one playtime before and after the party, too, so that was nice to see them play so well and have so much fun together.

Carson got so many awesome things - everyone was more than generous! Grandpa and Grandma Holleboom got Carson a sweet Trek bicycle!! Carson absolutely loves it and we think he will have it mastered by summertime. Although, when Grandpa asked Carson if he liked his new bike - as he was riding it through the living room with a huge smile on his face - his answer was "nope!". :) That is his answer to just about everything these days, even though it was obvious he was totally loving it! Carson's first concern with the bike was that he needed his helmet - that was pretty cool to hear! Unfortunately, his bike helmet from last summer is too small now. So we'll be making a trip to the store to get him a new helmet sometime very soon.

In addition to the Trek bicycle, Carson received a yellow teddy bear, a handmade-by-Grandma knit scarf to match his coat, Lincoln Logs, bathtub crayons, a hand-painted-by-Aunt Julie catch-a-mess art mat (she painted it all with Eric Carle characters and it is sooooo cute!!), some stylin' new clothes for spring and summer, crayons and drawing pad, Eric Carle animal sounds game, some awesome Sprig toys - a sand truck and scuba guy - they're made from all recycled materials, play money, stickers, a CD player, a gift card to Toys R Us, a wooden pizza set, some spelling puzzles, a book about the moon, a book about the human body, and a chalkboard/dry erase board combo with wooden alphabet magnets.






We continued our celebration on Sunday afternoon/evening with Sara's family. We decided to take it easy and just have some simple appetizers and sides and just order some pizza and breadsticks from our favorite local pizza joint - Rocky's. We still ended up with way too much food, but I guess having too much is better than not having enough, right? It was another strange party without my grandparents, but we all still had a good time. Carson loved having more cousins to play with again. He is at such a fun-loving age! Carson, Mackenzey, and Gabe all had fun at the train table. Carson was very watchful over Mackenzey, making sure she didn't put any small pieces in her mouth, it was so cute! We had another fantastic cake from Aunt Mary for dessert. Carson wouldn't blow out his candle this time - he was too interested in pointing out the airplane and saying it was "so cute!" Carson then had fun feeding Mackenzey small bites of cake and ice cream - it was so adorable! Mackenzey is just so fascinated by Carson and he thinks she is pretty fun, too!

Carson received lots more awesome gifts! Everyone was more than generous again! Nana and Papa got Carson a super fun tool bench! He also was given a tool set, a savings bond, more stylin' clothes for spring and summer, some Tonka trucks, an Eric Carle counting game, an alphabet learning game, t-ball sets, a Zhu Zhu pet hamster and speed boat, Hooked on Phonics, some dress-up clothes (policeman and fireman), some Play-Doh toys, a book about ships, a book about the dentist, and a book about bumblebees.






Carson is so blessed to have so many people that love him so much! Thank you to everyone that helped to make this weekend so fun and special for him and us!! We love you all!!

Charlie's Birthday Party!

Last Sunday, we went down to Brighton to Sara's cousin Becky's house on Hope Lake for cousin Charlie's birthday party. Charlie's birthday was actually on January 27th, but it was the first time we could all get together to celebrate. She was 17 this year. Hard to believe she'll be graduating high school next year!

This was the first family party without my grandparents in attendance. That was strange. But we did get to Skype with them on the computer, at least. So they got to see Becky's house via the internet and got to say hi to everyone. It was still a great family party, though - we always tend to have a lot of fun when everyone is together. Carson had a lot of fun playing with Mackenzey, Gabe, and Cayden. And the kids all loved playing with Becky's dogs, Fella and Lucky, and all of her cats.

Happy Birthday, Charlie!!

Grandpa's Birthday Party!

Last Saturday, we took a trip to Grand Rapids to celebrate Grandpa Holleboom's birthday. The entire Holleboom family met up at the Calvin College vs. Trine basketball game on Calvin's campus. All five of the grandchildren were fully decked out in Calvin gear/colors. We all had a lot of fun at the game. Carson was fascinated by all the lights and sounds and actually enjoyed watching the game for a bit. After the game, we all went back to Aunt Mary's and Uncle Justin's house for a taco/nacho bar, gifts, cake and ice cream, and visiting. The kids all had so much fun playing together! They were sure cooking up one heck of a pretend feast! They all really enjoyed checking out all of Rebecca's super fun toys!

It was a great time had by all! Happy Birthday, Grandpa!