Chillin' at the Holiday Inn

We still had one more night to use up before they expired, so we decided to have a hotel party on Saturday night at the Holiday Inn Express in Grand Blanc. Aunt Julie, Uncle Jason, Anna, Joel, and Jonah all came up to join us! We spent some time swimming in the pool and then ordered some Rocco's pizza to eat in the hotel room. We all had a lot of fun - the kids had an absolute blast!!

Merry Christmas!!

We hope everyone had a wonderfully blessed Christmas and are getting ready for a fantastic New Year!! We know we have and are! We had such a great time, seeing all of our relatives, having some good laughs, and just fully enjoying our time spent together. We all received so many great gifts! Everyone was so extremely generous!!

We celebrated with Sara's immediate family and Grandma Jackie on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. Nana, Papa, and Grandma Jackie came over to our house to open gifts and spend some time playing. Carson was SO excited to get his train table and wooden train tracks, trains, and accessories! He also received a travel-size Doodle Pro, a wooden puzzle, an orange Shake 'n Go race car, a savings bond, a police cruiser that lights up and makes sounds, and some books.



We then headed to Aunt Sharon's house to celebrate Christmas Eve with Sara's extended family. We had a delicious ham dinner with lots of sides and desserts and enjoyed some good laughs and stories with the family. Carson got so many awesome gifts at that party, too.... a Lightning McQueen Shake 'n Go racecar, some books, some clothes and PJs, a Snake Bite monster truck that drives and makes sounds, a Grave Digger monster truck with ramp to jump through a ring of fire, Little People fire house and helicopter.




Carson had this thing with trying to hide the card up his shirt during our white elephant gift exchange... I think he thought he was putting it in his pocket or something... it was hilarious!



Carson and Mackenzey had fun playing together!



We celebrated Christmas morning together as a family of three. We had a nice breakfast and read some of Carson's books about the Christmas Story. We opened more gifts and Carson was so excited by the gifts and stocking full of fun things from Santa.... a Little People Spin 'n Crash Race Track and his stocking was filled with plastic dinosaurs, some wooden ABC blocks, and a drum. And from Mama and Daddy... a wooden puzzle, a Melissa & Doug Cutting Food set, a set of instruments (maracas, triangle, shakers, tamborine, clappers, sticks, cymbals, and another drum), a rolling suitcase, some books, a Play-Doh play set, games (Alphablocks, Chutes N Ladders, Candyland, and Memory), Mr. Potato Head, an MSU football, and a light-up moon for his room.



We headed over to Aunt Julie's house in the afternoon to celebrate Christmas with Kevin's extended family. We had another delicious ham dinner with lots of great sides and desserts. We had fun catching up with the relatives from the west side of the state that we don't get to see too often. And Carson had tons of fun playing with his cousins!



We celebrated Christmas with Kevin's immediate family on Saturday morning over at Grandpa and Grandma's house. We had a fantastic brunch with lots of tasty dishes and then opened more gifts. Carson was spoiled again... he received such awesome gifts from everyone!! A Mickey Mouse Clubhouse play tent, a wooden puzzle, a wooden learning clock set, Discovery Toys build a vehicle set with a racecar, motorcycle, and airplane, Home Depot tool set and truck, Playmobil 1-2-3 motorcycle, racecar, and airplane playsets, Little People dump truck, paint with water book, some clothes, and some books. After gifts, the kids got a little more playtime in together and we were able to get the first pictures of the 5 cousins together!

Overnight Getaway to Grand Rapids

We made a quick trip to Grand Rapids last Wednesday for an overnight getaway. We had some hotel nights to use up - they expired on the 26th. And I had plans to meet up with my Phike sisters, Katie and Michelle, for dinner on the 23rd at Carlos O'Kelly's in GR. So we decided to stay at a hotel in GR with a big indoor water slide, pool, hot tub, and kiddie pool and splash pad. We all had a blast!! Kevin and Carson had a great visit with Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Van while I was at dinner with my friends, too. It was a great little getaway!!

The pool area was AWESOME!!

Carson LOVES the water!!

Here comes Kevin!

Me: "Do you want to go back to the room and warm up?" (Notice he has purple lips?) Carson shakes his head and says "no-no, more swim!"... he would not give up!

Trying to stomp on the spraying water...

22 months old!

I'm running a little behind with this.... but Carson is now 22 months old and he continues to learn and absorb so many new things each and every day. We are having so much fun with him! He is growing more and more independent all the time. He refuses to let you help him eat cold cereal anymore - he actually does very well with it on his own and makes very little mess. He is starting to get to the phase where he doesn't want us cutting up his food for him if it can be eaten whole, either. He wants his toast cut in fourths, his cheese left as a whole slice, and his pizza left as a whole slice so he can just pick it up. We made a trip to the mall to see Santa the other day. Afterwards, we just went up to the food court to eat lunch - Carson, of course, wanted pizza. So we got a slice of Sbarro pizza - their slices are enormous and Carson did not want the slice cut at all. He had his arms fully extended, one on each side of the slice, and ate it all on his own... it was hilarious to watch... and he ate about 3/4 of the slice!! Guess he was hungry!

Carson's imagination is getting stronger all the time. He is so fun to play with. He gets in his car or van and tells us he's in a spaceship and is going to Mars to rescue Goofy... he is basically re-enacting one of his favorite Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episodes. He is creative when he plays with his castle and pirate ship guys in making the king, queen, and pirates talk to one another, eat dinner together, take turns sleeping in the bed and riding the horse, climbing the stairs to the castle turrets, etc. And he has started liking to build houses with his blocks now instead of just towers.

Carson continues to love playing sports. His latest thing is football. He LOVES to toss the football back and forth, hike it, and be tackled. He still loves to play basketball and soccer (he has a really great kick, actually!). He is pretty good with his golf clubs, too... although we have to put them away quite often and have Carson sit in time out for trying to hit the dog or us with them at times. He really wants to learn tennis. He carries his tennis racket around with him quite often asking us to teach him... we'll save that one for summer time and being outside, though. :)

Carson continues to be fascinated with the moon and space. We've been giving Carson one of his gifts from us each day for the last week or more so that he isn't quite so overwhelmed with new toys all at once for Christmas. One of his favorite gifts so far is a moon that we've hung in his room. It lights up and goes through all the lunar phases. Carson just loves it! He also loves learning about all of the planets and space. He knows most of the planets' names in our solar system now.

Carson still loves learning his numbers and letters. He counts up to 14 on his own quite often and will sometimes go up to 20, but 14 is pretty normal. He still loves picking out letters on shirts, in magazines, and in books, as well as shapes and colors. His favorite color continues to be yellow... unless we're talking which socks to wear, for which he still prefers red. :)

Weekend Fun!

We started out our weekend fun on Friday morning. We went over to our friend Melissa's house in the morning and Carson got to play with her daughters, Adalin and Kira. He had lots of fun cooking pizza in their play oven and playing with all their fun toys! And Sara learned first-hand how awesome a grain mill can be! Melissa grinds her own wheat and makes her own bread every week. And the bread is absolutely delicious! So much better with the freshly ground whole wheat flour! Hopefully, one day, we'll be grinding our own flour and making our own bread every week! I think a grain mill will probably be my next large kitchen investment.

On Saturday, we met our friends Lina, Sean, and Vayla in Ann Arbor at the Hands On! Museum. We had another great time together! Carson gets so excited when he hears we'll get to see Vayla. We told him on Friday night that we'd be going to the museum and seeing Vayla the next morning and he got very upset when he was told we couldn't go right then. :)

The Ann Arbor museum was really nice. Its a pretty big place with lots to explore and discover. It's aimed more towards older kids, though. And we were kind of disappointed by their preschool room. But we still had lots of fun! We just probably won't be going back there until Carson is quite a few years older.

After the museum, we took a walk through downtown Ann Arbor to find a place for lunch. Zingerman's Deli was so busy, we decided to go some place else. We ended up at a thai restaurant called "No Thai!". Carson got to eat his first thai food - and he loved it! He really chowed down on the drunken noodles with chicken! We're so glad he enjoys all the different ethnic foods!

After lunch, we took a walk back to our parked cars. Carson and Vayla didn't want to hug goodbye this time, as they usually do... instead they wanted to kiss! Carson had his first kiss from a non-related gal!! :) It was so cute! We are really enjoying our tour of all the kids' museums on the Impressions 5 reciprocal list! Next month, we may head west to Grand Rapids to check out their childrens' museum.

We then headed home for naps, some shopping, and dinner with Papa, Nana, and Aunt Lindsay at the Olive Garden to celebrate Aunt Lindsay's 19th birthday.

After dinner, we headed into Swartz Creek for the 25th annual Christmas parade. It was soooo cold! But it could have been worse! We bundled up Carson in the stroller and braved the cold, and we're glad we did! Carson loved seeing all the fire trucks and vehicles decorated with Christmas lights! He also loved the floats - he pointed out Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus on one of the floats and then he got to see Santa and his reindeer on top of the last fire truck in the parade! It was a great parade!

Then, on Sunday, we took Carson to his first live production. We went to the Wharton Center in East Lansing to see Click, Clack, Moo! He was mesmerized by all the singing and dancing. He laughed at the funny parts and clapped when he was supposed to - he loved it! We'll be looking for some more live productions to take him to in the future.

So that was our weekend, in a nutshell. Quite busy and going non-stop, but we had a ton of fun and made some great memories, which is the important thing! We've got another busy weekend coming up again next weekend. We'll be going to Grand Rapids on Thursday night and using our two free hotel nights at a hotel with a big, indoor waterslide! We'll get to see family while we're out there and we'll be checking out the Dutch Winterfest in Holland and Fred Meijer Gardens! Can't wait!

Happy (Belated) Thanksgiving!

This is quite late, but I'm just now catching up on posts. Happy Belated Thanksgiving! We hope everyone had a wonderful day spent with family.

Kevin flew home from Spain on Thanksgiving Eve and so was quite tired and jet-lagged on Thanksgiving. We still had a very nice day, though... even though we changed our plans that afternoon. We started out by going over to Grandma and Grandpa Holleboom's house for an early turkey dinner. Aunt Julie, Uncle Jason, Anna, Joel, Jonah, and Uncle Danny were all there, too! We had a very tasty meal and the kids all had fun playing together. We had originally planned to head to Grand Rapids to see some of Kevin's extended family in the afternoon, but we decided not to make the trip for a number of reasons. After we left Kevin's parents' house, we stopped in at Sara's Aunt Jeri's house for a quick visit. Then we headed home for some much-needed rest and family time.

It was a great day and we are so thankful for our little man - he brings such joy to our lives. We are also very thankful to have Kevin home safely and have been thoroughly enjoying our time together as a family again.

Carson, the Baker

Carson loves to help Mama bake and cook. He especially loves it when he gets to lick the mixer beater! :)

Poppy's Birthday

Last Sunday, we celebrated Poppy/Great Grandpa's birthday. Carson got some good play time in with Mackenzey. She is just fascinated by him and he's starting to notice her more and more, too. They played with the Little People farm together very well. Carson told Mackenzey about all of the animals, the farmer, the farmer's wife, and the tractor and wagon and showed her how they all work. She listened very intently... and then would take the animals to chew on. :)




Carson also started learning how to play cards... of course he doesn't understand it at all yet, but he did quite enjoy playing with the cards. :) He even got to sit on Eric's lap for a bit during a hot game of euchre.

Kevin's Trip to Spain

Kevin is home from Spain! And at this point he doesn't have to return anytime soon!!! He got in Wednesday night and Carson was so excited to see him - we all were! Carson lit up with a huge smile, yelled "Daddy!", ran to him, and just giggled. He then had to lead him around the house by his hand and show him all his toys and new things that he's learned. Carson hasn't wanted Kevin out of his sight for long. Every time Kevin walks out the door now, Carson says "Daddy Pain?" (Daddy Spain?)with a worried expression on his face. Thankfully Kevin isn't leaving again soon (at least we hope!).

Kevin had a rough start to his trip, with his luggage being lost and going through three rental cars with defective GPSes before he ended up with a pretty nice ride while he was there - a BMW 118d. His trip improved and he ended up having a nice time, though. He was able to meet up with an old colleague and friend, Jose, who now lives in Barcelona, a few different times during the trip.

Kevin spent his time in Spain in a small town named Santpedor, which is about an hour northwest of Barcelona up in the mountains. He says it was a very small town, with lots of stinky farm fields, but with nice views. He was there as the logistics person for an assembly line trial at a supplier for his company.

Kevin met up with his buddy, Jose, and his son, Pepe, for a visit to Montserrat one weekend. They took a gondola/cable car up to a monastery, L'Orgue D Monserrat, and small town. From there, they took a very steeply inclined train ride up to the top of the mountain. The views were just amazing and it was a great day out and about for Kevin. He spent most of the rest of his time there working - Sundays were his only non-working days - so he didn't really get to go exploring any where else and he had no interest at all in exploring the city of Barcelona.

Kevin said he really enjoyed almost all of the food he had while in Spain. The one exception would be the night he ordered pork. All of the menus were in spanish and Kevin doesn't know many spanish words, so he was never quite sure what he was ordering. The night he chose pork, he was served a pig leg... with the foot and toes still attached! Needless to say, it wasn't too appealing to Kevin. :)

I'll work on getting all of his pictures uploaded into our Shutterfly albums, so check back soon!

Missing Auntie Jaime and Uncle Jeff

Even though we haven't seen Auntie Jaime and Uncle Jeff in a couple of months now, Carson still remembers them quite well. He is always pointing at their picture in the hallway and says "miss oo Bay-mee an Deff" (miss you Jaime and Jeff). He also calls Jaime his "God-mom" (she's his Godmother). And he'll quite often just randomly start talking about "Bay-mee and Deff" while he's playing and he likes to look at their Facebook pages and type messages to them (though I've actually only sent a couple through to them). Lately, Carson has wanted to read "Way Out West Lives a Coyote Named Frank" almost every night. This book was given to him by Auntie Jaime and Uncle Jeff when they came back from their scouting trip to Phoenix last year. The book is about this coyote named Frank who does all kinds of silly things with his friends. At the end of the book, they all howl at the moon, which Carson thinks is absolutely hilarious... like he can barely stand up from laughing so hard hilarious. :) Anyway, so Carson knows who the book is from and he knows that Auntie Jaime and Uncle Jeff are living out in Arizona now. He frequently will say something along these lines... "Bay-mee an Deff gone Zona how-ding doe-tees." (Jaime and Jeff are gone to Arizona with the howling coyotes). He then will say "air-pane Zona to how-ding doe-tees" (airplane to Arizona to the howling coyotes). Carson LOVES airplanes right now and he just wants to take a ride on one so badly. Hopefully we can work something out so we can sneak in a quick weekend visit to Phoenix in the next year so that Carson can see his Auntie and Uncle whom he (and his Mama!) misses! :)

Cousins, Crafts, Constellations... Oh My!

We had another fun weekend! We're trying to make the most of our time with Kevin gone to Spain and trying to do lots of fun things. Carson and I both go a little stir-crazy when we're home for an extended period of time (like even for half a day) and so we love to get out, hence we're keeping very busy. This past Saturday morning, we headed over to Aunt Julie and Uncle Jason's house. We had so much fun over there! We first did some fall-themed crafts with the kids - pinecone turkeys (using some pinecones that Carson and I had picked up on the property earlier in the week and felt feathers) and some marble painting on leaves cut from construction paper. The turkeys all turned out so cute and the leaves looked beautiful! All the kids had a lot of fun doing some creative stuff!

Anna's turkey...

Joel's turkey...

Carson's turkey...

And Carson's painted leaf...

After our creative time, we all headed outside for some playtime to enjoy the beautiful weather we've been having. Who'd have thought it'd be nearly 70 degrees in November!?! We then enjoyed lunch together and some more playtime before we headed home for a nap and to catch up on some things around the house.

On Sunday, Nana, Carson, and I headed to East Lansing to the MSU Abrams Planetarium to see a show aimed at young children called "The Little Star That Could." With Carson's love of the moon and stars right now, I thought he might like it... not only did he like it... he LOVED it!! His eyes lit up as soon as we even walked into the lobby of the planetarium when he saw the huge revolving Earth and the moon hanging from the ceiling. He thought he was in the coolest place ever. He wasn't too crazy about the reclined seating in the planetarium, but once the show started, he laid out on my lap to watch. He was just in awe during the show, pointing out the different colored stars, the emotions (happy/sad) on the stars' faces, the planets, the galaxy, etc. I'm so glad we went and I'm sure we'll go again after awhile, too. And we'll definitely be making a trip to the Longway Planetarium in Flint when they start running their children's show again in January!

We have another fun weekend planned for this coming weekend, too. We'll be doing a playdate with our friends Jenny, Melissa, Adelin, Kira, Brayden, and Ashley again on Friday, then heading to Lansing for Silver Bells in the City on Friday night. We'll get to see a really cool light parade, see the big tree at the Capitol light up, watch some fireworks, and meet Santa and his reindeer! Saturday we'll be having a Thanksgiving dinner with some friends in Lansing, and then Sunday we have a birthday party for Poppy. So we have another busy weekend ahead of us to look forward to. And then Kevin will be home before we know it next Wednesday! We're looking forward to that the most! :)