Easter

Happy Easter Everyone! Jesus IS Risen and we celebrate that! We're thankful for his forgiveness and sending His Son so that we might live!

We had a busy weekend with family and friends. It was a lot of fun. Easter Egg and Basket hunts of all kinds, visiting with friends and family and LOTS of great food!

Alayna's basket found at G&G Meidam
Grant's too!

The whole crew go new swim wear for this summer! Whoo hoo! Will they look great at the lake or what!

Coloring eggs

Bringing pink roses to Briana at Easter

Our "spiffy" Easter outfits. (Note: the dress is something Alayna and I don't agree on. As of late - she no longer likes dresses, so every Sunday it's a challenge to get her to wear a dress. Doesn't she look thrilled)

Finding Easter bags at G&G Kok

Easter Egg Hunt at Kooyenga's

It was a fun filled day!

Hunting & the Zoo

It's Easter Weekend! We have a busy weekend planned, but it should be a lot of fun. First we found our Easter Baskets at home. I guess the Easter Bunny knew we were going to be gone so he came a night early. Alayna found her basket in the closet and mine was in the blanket basket all covered up! Tricky, tricky! There were some fun things in our baskets. Then we went to the zoo for some fun! It was a nice, sunny Saturday and they had all sorts of Easter festivities.

Alayna wasn't too sure about this bunny either

There was a scavenger hunt by the playground. We picked up little pieces of paper and traded them in for candy...we could each pick up 3

See Mr Lion behind me. That is not his typical spot for relaxing, but he looks quite comfortable.
Alayna is SO scared of trains these days. She talked all morning about going on the train. Whenever we heard the whistle or saw it - it was all she wanted to do. Standing in line she did a terrified cry every time it took off and blew the whistle. This is trying to get on for our turn... :(

She did decide it was pretty fun though...thankfully

I loved it too!

This was more Alayna's sort of fun though. We had a great morning!

The Bunny

We saw the Easter Bunny at the Mall this year. Alayna was not excited to talk to him AT ALL! But I was excited to sit next to him. I gave him a lot of high-fives and smiled a lot.

Craft Day

It was a crummy, rainy day back in April (19th). So we did some crafts inside on the kitchen floor. Mommy got us some special scissors that do not cut hair or clothes - so we started using those. Then she cut up some tissue paper and got our the glue sticks so we could make neat pictures on this big paper. We colored too. At least it kept us occupied for an hour or so.

Fixing Daddy

Daddy wasn't feeling too good - so we got our dr kits out and fixed him all up. Say 'ahhh' Daddy!

Prize in the Mail

Grandma Meidam told Alayna if she stayed dry for a whole day, with no pee-pee accidents, she would send Alayna a prize in the mail. Well, it took a few days, but she did it! So Alayna called Grandma and said "I stayed dry all day". Grandma sent a prize right out :)

Alayna's checking the mail
"Look at my envelope!"

Getting it open. This is soooo exciting!

Wow...gummies, skittles, hair clips, a new purse!, M&Ms and even M&Ms for Grant too! AND a WHOLE bag of twizzlers for me and Grant to share!!!

YAY!!! Thanks Grandma and Papa! I sure do like my prize!

Beautiful Day

Sunday, April 10 was a beautiful day! It was in the upper 70s or maybe even 80s! Hard to believe based on the rest of our spring, but it was true! After church and lunch we helped Daddy work on cleaning up the vehicles from the winter. Washed them with the pressure washer and cleaned out the insides. Boy did they need it!

We worked a little, but like to play a lot while Daddy worked! Here we are getting soaked. And get this - Mom and Dad didn't even care! WOW!

20 Weeks...Half Way There!!

Not the greatest of all pictures - but here is Baby Meidam #4! Isn't he/she beautiful? I think so! Look at those perfect fingers, tiny little legs and those little defined arms. Isn't technology great?!?!
20 Weeks - half way! Wow! Crazy. This pregnancy does seem to be going fast. Our 20 week ultra sound was just 2 days before our official 20 week mark - Monday, April 11. We saw Dr Pircon again (as we did with Grant and Alayna). He was pleased with everything. Said the baby looked great and everything with Mommy (placenta, cervix, etc) looked good too. He even said the baby's growth put him/her about 3 days further along than my due date (but really, I know, that means nothing!) The baby's brain, heart, other organs all looked good.
So...some days (like right when the dr tells us this news) it makes me feel good. Like - whew - all is going well with this baby. And then there are other days where the other part of my brain starts working and it just tells me that Briana's 20 week ultra sound looked good too. So what happened? And that answer is something we will never know.
With Grant and Alayna's pregnancies I had 20 and 26/27 wk ultra sounds and then did one about every 3-4 weeks until week 35 or so to make sure all was on track (and stayed that way). Dr Pircon indicated this time that since everything was looking good at 20 weeks and we've had 2 successful pregnancies since our loss that he may not recommend as many ultra sounds this time. He did ask us to come back about 26 weeks and we will find out more after that appt. I think I would be ok with less - however I would still like one more before the end. Just a little extra reassurance.
I was sort of out of it I guess - I didn't ask how fast the heart rate was or anything - so I can't say any of those fun things so we can guess boy or girl. We did NOT find out. We just LOVE that delivery room announcement "It's A _________" So far my 'gut' feeling says boy. We'll see if I can go 4 for 4 :) We would feel very blessed to have either one. At this point if it was a girl - at least she would have a name. We have always struggled to pick a boy name though and this time is no different.
We're looking forward to meeting this little one! Keep on kickin'! I love each and every one!

Birthday Parties

Lots of Birthday Parties to celebrate in April!

Alayna with Great Grandma Schmidt Nolan's 4th Birthday! Happy Birthday Nolan!!!

Does Grant look like he's having fun???? Whenever he finds out we're going to Nolan's he asks if he will be able to ride the gator :)

Then we went to Great Grandma VZ's 80th Birthday Party and Great Uncle Jake and Aunt Olga's 10th Anniversary party. We liked the balloons

Then we went out looking for Easter Eggs (a couple weeks early, but hey - it was fun!)

All our "goods"

WORMS!!!

While playing outside, I was using my pliers to pick up dead leaves from last fall that were sitting by our fence and I found a WORM! I got really excited and started yelling for Mom to come see.

She didn't really think it was as neat as I did, but still helped me with it.
I showed him to Alayna. She really wanted to like it, but liked him better at a distance. She tried to pick him up once, but didn't last more than a second.

We even took him on rides in my truck. What a lucky day for that worm huh?

Our Little "BIG" Girl

Alayna has really been becoming a big girl over these last few months. In January she stopped using her nuk. It "broke" (Daddy cut the tip off) and after a week or so of sleeping with the broken nuk - we just got rid of it all together. After giving up the nuk. She thought it was REALLY cool when we asked her if she wanted a pillow in her bed! This is her first night with her pillow!
THEN - about a month ago (at 2 yrs and a month or so) her crib became a toddler bed. Daddy had lots of help with the transition.

LOTS of excitement

...by all!

Yup - now we can both get in here and jump (something Mommy doesn't seem to think is a good idea)

Mommy's Birthday

Way back on March 29 - Mommy turned 32! We had a great day! First we woke up and gave Mommy presents! Then we had a big playgroup with our friends - who all brought GREAT food! Then for dinner we went out to the Chancery. Alayna and I only cost as many pennies as we were tall. Alayna was 33 cents and I was 36! Daddy talked to the wait staff and got Mommy her favorite dessert - cheesecake - and they sang too! Alayna and I got popsicles! Almost like it was our birthday too!

Mommy got a lot of nice things and spent time with lots of family too! It was a great birthday!

Cousins

Our cousins came to visit for the afternoon. So glad it was nice outside and we could play with them out there! Somehow we didn't get Owen or Alayna in the pics but it was a lot of fun! Hope they come again soon.

Fruit bars...our new snack discovery that they brought to us. We love them!!!

Macey's a monkey! She's a great climber!