Thanksgiving in Michigan...Part 1

I think LD and I both agree this is one of the best trips we have ever taken to Michigan.  It was just great all around!!  We headed out the Friday before Thanksgiving ready for our big adventure.  I have to admit I have gotten pretty good at packing us and packing our van to have everything we need for the trip.  The girls handled the 12 hour drive with ease and were great!  We arrived early evening in Reading at LD's parents house and set up shop for the first half our trip.

We got to spend a lot of our time in Reading with our sweet great nephew Tyce.  He will not be one until December, but he is bigger than Elle as you can tell and all over the place.  They had so much fun together and it was incredibly sweet to watch them play.

On Saturday evening LD's sister, Lei and her husband Greg treated us all to dinner.  There was a big group of us with lots of kiddos at a nice place, but everyone did great.

That night was our neice Kara and nephew Evan's semi formal dance at school.  So we got to see them at the restaurant all dressed up and ready to head to the dance.

Then we had a big treat and got to visit Greg and Lei's house and their farm (Gunthorp Farms). Their farm has turkeys, ducks and pigs and has grown a TON in the last few years. This year they butchered 4,800 turkeys!!! LD was incredibly into wanting to see all the insides of where they butcher and things and the girls and I had no interest in that..haha.  Their fam is all free range, organic and they sell to a lot of high end restaurants in Chicago and Detroit.  LD and I are both so proud and in awe in all they have accomplished! It was so fun to be able to be there.

But, our big highlight were these incredibly cute and sweet blue heelers.  There were 8 of them and they were so fun.  They all run around the farm like pros and hop in with the pigs and the turkeys.

Here are the many many turkeys.

And this is where the chicks live.  It was in this little building and Lei told us not to go in because it was so smelly, but LD insisted and I wanted to see too.  We got Clare in there and after one gag she announced she could not stay.  We are definetely city girls who were on an adventure.

Here's LD and Clare with a few of the pups

Then on Sunday we went to the church where LD grew up and also where LD's mom and grandma both go.  It was fun to be able to be in church with them.

And after church we had our first Christmas of the season!!

Clare got a Noah's ark and this is where she sat for the next two days.  Seriously!  She loves her Noah's ark and has spent a lot of time with those animals!

Another picture of such sweet and cute cousins!!  Love them.  Elle doesn't realize how blessed she is to have a cousin so close in age.  I have no doubt it will be a highlight to see Tyce every year when we go to Michigan as she gets older.

At the Jacksons the girls share a bedroom.  I have to admit, I was incredibly nervous about how this would work since they have never shared before.  You can see at the bottom of the picture Clare's big girl bed is right up against the crib.  The first night was rough because Elle kept touching Clare's hair through the bars.  But by the last morning I woke up to sweet giggles and walked in to find Clare, her blanket, and her pillow all in bed with Elle.  It was so sweet to see them playing in bed together.  And also some encouragement that they will be able to share a room down the road.

More to come......

Young Love

I've been thinking about this post and somewhat dreading it for about two months.  The second family we had to say farewell to tonight was our great friends the Ho Family.  Kimmy and I met at our mutual friend, Jenni's baby shower in the winter of 2009.  Our children were two months apart and we instantly hit it off.  I thought the best way to describe what our families have been through together in our short friendship was through pictures. 
Clare and Ayden have grown to be sweet little friends and watching their friendship has been one of my very favorite things.  Here is how it all began ....

This was our very first "playdate".  We went to ImaginOn and thought it would be fun to take the light rail uptown.  All was great until we were on our way back and a man decided to CHASE us with our strollers and babies!!!  Yes, fully CHASE! We are protective mamas and it was incredibly scary, so we did what any sane mother would do....called the police and stopped traffic on a major road and asked a sweet lady to wait with us until the police were there.  Yes...that was our first time together and I'm amazed Min ever let Kimmy hang out with me again!!!

This was before the scary chase when we were safe inside the library. 

This was our next playdate where we went to an indoor swimming pool at the Y.  So fun!!

Sweet friends playing at our house together!

One of my favorite pictures of the two of them.  They had been playing outside and their clothes were all wet...so they just hung out in diapers :)

And Clare got her first kiss ... haha

Fourth of July Parade in Indian Trail...I mean what else do you do on the 4th of July?!?

For Clare's 2nd Birthday the Ho family went with us to Lazy 5 Ranch to celebrate!  As you can tell I was very pregnant.  Kimmy is also pregnant, but not quite so far along....or so big!

This began the hand holding...its so cute...and it continues :)

They were sleepy after a big day at the Ranch so they snuggled!

Then....Elle was born!!  And we hung out on Halloween at Trunk or Treat!

Sweet as ever...

Kimmy, Min and Ayden spent Christmas with us last year, which was a huge blessing.  With their family in California and ours in Michigan it meant so much to spend such a special day with them!

And Kimmy made Clare and Ayden these super cute shirts!!

Clare LOVES Mr. Min.  It is going to be hard for her to not have him around :)

Then sweet Azariah was born!!!!

And we were invited to spend Easter at the Ho's house....another HUGE blessing!

I remember shortly after Azariah was born a few weeks went by that we didn't see Ayden.  Clare was having major withdrawls.

I totally remember this day, meeting at the park and it was like the two of them had so much to catch up on now that they were both older siblings.  Clare was just laying it all out there.

 

And here we are back celebrating the 4th of July at the Indian Trail Parade!!

In September we went to the zoo and Clare and Ayden got to ride horses!

And we celebrated Clare's THIRD birthday! 

When Clare had her first ballet recital Ayden showed up all dressed up....bearing sweet flowers for the ballet dancer :)  It was seriously one of THE sweetest things EVER!!

 

Kimmy grabbed this pictures of Ayden and Clare on a rainy day before we headed into a craft or story time...its one of my favorites and is on Clare's wall.

Then we celebrated Aydens THIRD birthday!!!

And our two little peanuts, Elle and Azariah had such a fun time playing together!!  Aren't they so cute???  I think one of the saddest things for me is that they won't have the sweet friendship that Clare and Ayden share.

So now you can see the difficulty our family is having with the Ho family moving to California.  In our short friendship we have experienced a LOT of life together.  We are so blessed by their friendship and have no doubt we will remain great friends (thanks to Skype!).  Tonight we had a final dinner them and shed a few tears (I shed a lot on the way home), knowing and trusting God has ordained this new journey.

We love you Min, Kimmy, Ayden and Azariah and you will forever hold a dear place in our hearts!  Ayden will always be Clare's first sweet friend (and first love...shhh!)

Change is inevitable....

But that does not mean it is always easy. I always say that change is so much easier for the person doing the changing than the people who are affected by the change. For me change is really exciting...when I am the one whose life is being taken on the adventure. I don't always love change when its forced upon me because of someone else's adventure! 
Today two sweet families that we love very much are moving!! How are they moving on the same day?!? The first family, the Harrisons are made up of mom, Mamie, dad, Pete, their 4 beautiful girls and 1 little boy. The children range in age from college to kindergarten and they live in our cul-de-sac with us. Over the time they have lived in our little community Mamie's older daughters have both baby sat for our girls and were some of their very first babysitters! Mamie and I served on the women's conference, RefresHer team and grew to be very close. And her younger 3 children and Clare have a very sweet bond. I've posted before about Clare's cul-de-sac friends...and they are sweet. They are older than her, but treat her so kindly and always invite her into their imaginative games.

The Harrisons are not moving far, only about 10 minutes from our house. I'm sure we will stay in touch, but it will change our relationship so much as Mamie and I have gotten used to kid swapping, picking up needed ingredients at each others house for dinner or just helping each other out.

Clare is REALLY going to miss "her friends!" Whenever we get home from an errand she asks if she can see if "her friends" are home and knocks on their back door hoping and hoping someone will answer. If they do, Clare usually waves to me and runs inside to join the family with 5 children! I usually will pick her up an hour or so later and she will be fully dressed up in dress up clothes sitting at the kitchen table coloring while the kids do homework. Since the weather has been nice, almost every afternoon Mamie and I sit outside while all the kiddos play in the cul-de-sac making imaginary houses with chalk and riding bikes. 

This is Audrey, the second to oldest...Clare's first babysitter!  Clare was only about 14 months

This is one of my favorite pictures of the summer.  The middle little girl in blue is Rebecca, the middle of the younger children.

One of their favorite summer acitivies...restaurant.  Emily, the older of the younger siblings is in blue and was giving me a detailed account of all they had made.

We had the Harrison family over for a pizza and movie night. David, their son is in orange.

No one could agree on a movie, so the boys watched The Incredibles while the girls watched Cinderella.  But as you can tell the girls really couldn't pick....

The newest cul-de-sac fad is chalk houses.  This is Emily and Clare's bedroom...they were sleeping..comfy huh?

Emily and Clare are best buds right now!

I'm telling you they are super creative.  This is the restaurant.  All of their cul de sac towns are complete with a Bi-Lo, church, school and mall.  Where else do kids go???

This is the cul-de-sac crew!!

No, no, we are not losing them forever...and yes, I know this probably seems so trivial. But I promise this is going to change especially mine and Clare's daily life! Thank you sweet Harrisons for being friends and neighbors we can count on! We love you all :)

The second family deserve their own post....more about them later~

Halloween Festivities!

We love Halloween being close to the weekend.  It gives us an entire 3 days to celebrate!  On Saturday our friend Henri came over to play for the evening so it was a great time to carve pumpkins. 

For whatever reason it has become a "tradition" that mommy cleans out the pumpkins and then daddy does the carving.  Clare is still very unsure of the pumpkin goo...so Henri and I worked on it by ourselves....with Elle constantly attempting to eat seeds of course!

Then we gave poor LD and difficult task....carving Cinderella!

I was incredibly impressed by his carving skills.  Clare said "Hm...I think something is missing."  I think she had a hard time seeing her face.  We should have taken a picture right away, but we forgot and put it outside. So this picture was night two and it was already a little warped.

Then Sunday we headed to church and Elle wore this incredibly cute and sweet dress.  I have a confession to make...I am a good will shopper.  And I will make a bold statement that I think we have THE best Good Will at the end of our street,  a mile from our house.  This sweet little dress came from Good Will for a total of $3.79!!

Then Monday we got to dress up and go trick-or-treating!!  And my girls looked so cute in their sweet Michigan cheerleading outfits!

We headed to our great friends, the Aquaros house, which was so fun to have older kids to trick-or-treat with!

I must admit, while we were out one family said "Look they dressed up like Yankees" :)  It was fun and LD was thrilled with our "costumes".

Clare was hilarious and really got into it.  The first 3 houses she was hesitant and then she was all for it.  She would knock and yell "trick or treatin" every time.  Then she would say "ok, lets go to the next asile"  Any spooky houses she opted out for and asked the big kids to get her some candy. 

Elle loved riding along and stayed cozy in her stroller! 

It was a very fun evening with her two little cheerleaders!!