Bristol is 1!!

Playing catch up here still... I actually wrote this post the week after Bristol's birthday party, but never posted it because I never had time to add the pictures.  I haven't changed it at all, just added pics, so sorry if its (quite) outdated.  :) 

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Our baby girl is now a 1-year old, as hard as that is to believe!  This past year has flown by.  Bristol is growing into a spunky lil' miss and we all just love her to pieces and consider her a great blessing to our family.  

Bristol is still a little peanut.  She weighs 17 pounds, which puts her in the 3rd percentile for weight, and is 28 inches tall, which puts her between 5-10th percentile for height.  But she is very healthy, proportionate, and is developing quite well, so there are no concerns with her size.  She seems to be taking after her cousin, Anna, in size.  :). She was also quite sick a few weeks before turning one, with roseola and another virus, so she lost weight during that time, which hasn't helped her stats much.  Not to mention, since she has been walking, she does not stop moving.  :) 

Bristol is very active.  She just walks and walks and walks.  She's quite steady, but still is a little slow and unsure when walking through the grass outside.  She's also a climber and will climb on anything she can.  We have to keep a very close eye on her.  And she thinks it is hilarious when she does something she knows she isn't supposed to do... Until you tell her no, them she sticks out her bottom lip and screams for a few seconds... Then moves on to something else.  She has quite the little personality - haha!  

Other than walking around, some of Bristol's other favorite things to do are to play ball (both kicking and pushing it back and forth), play pat-a-cake and this little piggy, to play peek-a-boo, to get into her brother's Legos to help him build, to play Duplos, to put things into and out of larger boxes, to listen to music and to dance.  She loves to dance and usually stops whatever she is doing to shake her little booty when she hears music that she likes.  

Bristol absolutely loves books.  She will bring book after book from her shelf to have read to her.  Her favorites are touch-and-feel and lift-the-flap books, but any will do.  She also loves, loves, love to eat!  She is like a bottomless pit!    Seriously!  No one can ever believe how much she eats for as little as she is.  Her favorites right now are carrots, peas, pot roast, grilled chicken, sausage, raspberries (especially when she gets to help pick them in our yard, which is another favorite past-time of hers right now), watermelon, or any kind of fruit, really. But she is a pretty good eater and will eat most everything... Though you do have to be strategic in what you put on her plate and when.  If you get any of her favorites on her plate before something she thinks is just so-so, she will refuse to eat anything but her favorites.  We cannot even put fruit on the dinner table for the rest of us until Bristol is ready for it.  She knows what she wants, that is for certain.  :)

Bristol is such a cuddler and is so loving.  She loves to give and get hugs and kisses and often just wants to be held and cuddle for awhile.  She is such a little sweetheart.  

Bristol is quite social and blabs a lot, but doesn't have that many words, really, at least when compared to Carson at 1-year.  Though she understands just about everything you say to or ask her.  She says mama, dada, nigh-nigh (goodnight), nom-noms (food), Cahr (Carson), gum-uh (grandma), dat (that), bah (ball), and nana pretty regularly now.  This last week she has really been trying to say new words, too.  i've noticed she is repeating things more and more.  But even though she doesn't have so many words yet, she has her (effective) ways to get her point across.  We can tell that she is quite smart, though.  And she has quite a good memory.. For instance, if you ask her where her paci is, she generally will be able to go find it where she left it, even if its been quite long time.  

Bristol also loves the water.  She got a water table for her birthday and it is her favorite thing to do outside these days.  She also really enjoyed the lake and loves floating around in the pool!  I think we've got another fish on our hands.  :) 

I could keep going on and on, but I think that's enough for now.  Bottom line is that Bristol brings us so much joy, laughs, and smiles. We can't imagine our lives without her and thank God for her (and her brother) each day.  We are very much looking forward to seeing her grow and blossom during the next year and throughout the rest of her life.  

May Flowers

April showers bring May flowers is how the saying goes... But we were still having a lot of showers and cold temps in May this year.  Everything seems to be running a solid two weeks behind schedule.  Normally I'd be planting annual flowers and the veggie garden by the end of May, but we were still getting frosts... So I held off a couple of weeks until early June.  

Regardless of the cold, rainy weather, we still managed to have a really fun month! 

Carson went to a friend's 5th birthday party at Galaxy Lanes and had a blast with his buddies.  We had our monthly Small Group family day/night at Geoff and Tracie's house where we had a delicious dinner, drinks, backyard playtime, and a backyard fire.  It was a lot of fun - we just love our Small Group and seriously couldn't ask for better friends to have in our group! 

We made a quick trip west to go to Tulip Time in Holland where we met up with most of the Holleboom family.  We got to watch klompen dancers, shop, visit/play, and have a great lunch at AlpenRose restaurant. 

Sara had to see an endodontist quite a few times for the never-ending root canal.  :)  It took one visit to the dentist and three visits to the endodontist to finish the root canal due to some complications, calcification, and infection.

We took a road trip to Schaumburg, Illinois and Sheboygan, Wisconsin - as you can see in my previous post.  

Carson graduated from preschool (how is he really getting this old?) with a very nice preschool graduation ceremony one evening and a picnic in the gym (because the weather was crummy) on the last day of school.  We are really going to miss Faith Lutheran Preschool and have been so blessed to have had Carson enrolled there these last two years.  

We made a trip up to Swartz Creek's Hometown Days, which is an annual little festival that has been going on for as long as I can remember.  Its a lot of fun, especially for the kids.  And its mostly nice to run into lots of old friends, too.  Carson had a blast on the rides this year.

We also kept busy with lots of other random things that aren't really worth a mention.  Sara Holleboom Photography was fairly busy, as well, with a few sessions and an event at Faith Lutheran Church with some visiting authors.  Its tough balancing family, my "day job" and SHP, but so far so good (I think).  :) 

A Trip to Sheboygan, WI (With a Detour to LegoLand)

For the last two years, we have been having annual family reunions with our Elsesser relation (Sara's maternal grandma's family). This year, one of Sara's mom's first cousins, Roger, was celebrating his 50th wedding anniversary with his wife, Sandy.  Sara's Grandma was one of 12 kids in the Elsesser family, and was one of the youngest (I think maybe 3rd or 4th youngest? I'm not totally sure).  So Sara's mom has LOTS of first cousins throughout a large range of ages.  So Roger and Sandy were married 50 years ago on May 18, 1963. Their kids decided to throw them a surprise 50th wedding anniversary party in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. So the rest of the Elsessers decided to forego the stand-alone reunion this year and just get together for the anniversary party.  Unfortunately, Roger suffered a pretty severe stroke just a few weeks before the party, so it ended up not being a surprise, but the party was still held. Roger was even able to get a day-pass from the hospital to come to the party for a couple of hours!  He looked good and was in great spirits!

But let me back up here a minute... We decided to leave on Wednesday morning and make a stop in Schaumburg, Illinois to take Carson to the LegoLand Discovery Center. Nana and Papa decided to join us. We all had fun watching Carson, totally in his glory, at LegoLand. It's pretty over-priced, in my opinion, but luckily I found some coupons for $5 off each ticket, which cut the price down to $17/person for admission. We did get some free Duplos in one of the exhibits and Carson scored a (free) quart sized bag stuffed full of Legos and Duplos (whatever he wanted to fill it with) for showing one of the guys his creation, which was pretty cool.  But seeing Carson's excitement, smiles, and pure joy made it all worth the price of admission.

Bristol actually had a lot of fun herself. She loved walking around, feeling things, looking at things, and building with the Duplos. She knows they go together and tries to stack them, but mostly just bangs them together to make noise. :)

Carson got to pick out a Lego set as a souvenir. He's really into Batman right now, so he picked a cool Batmobile set. He was very excited about that and could not wait to build it once we got home. He also got to build some Lego figures as a souvenir, too, which he thought was pretty fun. Because of the Batman Legos, he declared LegoLand better than Disney... But later on said Disney was more fun, he just wishes they had Batman Legos there. :)

On Thursday, we headed up to Sheboygan.  We first made a stop at the Kohler Design Studio to get some ideas for an upcoming bathroom remodel.  They had some really cool stuff to see.  Everyone enjoyed it, even the kids, surprisingly!

Then we headed over to the Blue Harbor Resort where we met up with Great Poppy, Marion, Aunt Sharon, Uncle Reno, Aunt Jeri, Uncle Mike, Mackenzey, Kristin, and Kyle. What a beautiful place! They have an indoor waterpark which was a lot of fun, too! We spent lots of time in there and ate at some really good restaurants, too. On Friday, lots of other Elsesser family cousins joined us at the Blue Harbor for the weekend, which was very cool.

Saturday was the 50th anniversary party for Roger and Sandy, which was so fun.  It was great to see everyone, meet even more cousins I've never met before, and just have a good time.  Carson and Mackenzey were the first ones on the dance floor and did not stop the entire time we were there!  It was so cute and hilarious!

It was a quick, busy trip, but was a lot of fun! Carson and Mackenzey had an absolute blast together, between the waterpark and dancing at the anniversary party! Bristol was a great little traveler and was so happy and easy-going the entire time. And it was nice to spend time with family and see (and meet) lots of extended family! We can't wait until the reunion next year!

April Showers

Playing a little catch up here.  Back to April.. Lets see if I can remember what we had going on..

April started with a bang... Literally... To the back of Carson's head.  We were over at a friend's house for a play date one afternoon and Carson ended up falling off of one of the kitchen table chairs and hitting the back of his head on the chair next to him as he fell.  This split his head open and required a trip to the Emergency Room for two staples.  Carson was such a brave little guy through it all!  He had to wear a head wrap bandage for a week until he had his staples removed by Dr. Akrawi. His wound healed up very well and he'll just have a minor scar, thankfully.

I've mentioned before that we started up a Small Group with some families at church.  We started by just meeting once a month for a bible study focused on parenting.  Well, we all get along and enjoy each others company so well that we decided to add a family day each month. We started this in April when we went bowling at Holly Lanes and then all went over to Matt and Heather's house for dinner, drinks, and hanging out.  It was so much fun!

Kevin and I had a couple of days/nights out together (with no kids) in April.  We went to East Lansing to see our friends Denny and Kristi tie the knot in a beautiful ceremony at the MSU Alumni Chapel followed by a reception at the Lexington Hotel.  It was fun to see some friends from college that we hadn't seen in awhile. 

We also had our monthly Small Group study at Panera one Tuesday evening and we met up with some college friends in East Lansing for dinner at Beggar's Banquet at the end of the month, which was a lot of fun!  Three nights out with no kids in one month is a record for us, I think!  :) 

We made a trip out to Grandville (near Grand Rapids) for our niece's 5th birthday party.  She had an arts and crafts party that was a lot of fun!  It was so nice to get together with the Holleboom family and see Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Van, too.  Unfortunately, I didn't take one single picture while we were there! 

The kids and I had lots of fun play dates with friends in April.  We went to Sloan Museum with our neighbors, Kerri and Jace one afternoon during Spring Break and we spent lots of time playing outside with Jace on other days, too.  We all went over to the neighbor's house for dinner and hanging out one night, as well. 

We also went to the park after preschool with some of Carson's friends a couple of different times during the month.  Bristol got to try out a swing for the first time and LOVED it!

We also went to story time at the library, went biking and walking quite a few times in the evenings, and played outside as much as possible.  We finalized all of Carson's Kindergarten enrollment information, as well.  He will be attending West Shore Elementary in the Lake Fenton school district next year.  He was a little disappointed that he would not be attending St. Paul, claiming that he is "only 5 years old and has so much more to learn about Jesus!"  But once we explained that he'll still have Sunday School and we can start going to church on Wednesday evenings if he'd like to (in the fall), he adjusted to the idea much more happily.  It's still hard to believe he'll be heading off to Kindergarten in the fall already! 

These kids need to stop growing.  Seriously.  Back in April, Bristol became quite steady at walking along things (the furniture, walls, etc.).  She started taking a couple of steps on her own here and there at the very beginning of the month, but she's taking the walking thing slowly.  It's been kind of foreign to Kevin and me, since Carson did the couple steps thing for literally a few days before he was running around on his own... and yes, he was actually running.  But Bristol is content taking it slow.  We're ok with that, though!  :)  By the end of the month, she was taking about 6-8 steps on her own, but she still much preferred holding a hand or walking along the walls and furniture.