Come and See Us Warts and All!!

The weekends of the show are fast approaching. Costumes are being fitted, lines are memorized, dance steps are being practiced. We had our parent meeting today at which we signed up to help in several area over the course of the two weekends. The kids would love if any of could come and watch then in their first ever performance in a real theater. The following are the dates and times of the show. Doors open one half hour before the time of the performance. I can get discounted tickets for adults if I have 10 or more, not the same night, just 10 over the course of the two weekends. I need to turn those in by April 24 so your deadline is April 23 or sooner. Please call or email me if you are planning on attending any of the shows. Grandma and Grandpa Adams and Wyckhuys are already on my list, so you don't need to call!! I will be taking lots of pictures and hopefully some video so that you will be able to see it even if you aren't here live and in person!!! Hope to hear from you all soon.

Friday, May 2 @ 8pm
Saturday, May 3 @ 8pm
Sunday, May 4 @ 3pm

Friday, May 9 @ 8pm
Saturday, May 10 @ 8pm
Sunday, May 11 @ 3pm

A bit more information: The tickets will be $6.50 for any night. There are no pictures or videos allowed, but have no fear, I will take tons at dress rehearsals. The show is about 2 hours with an intermission. The kids are in the opening song,"Poultry Tale", Scene 6 "Warts and All", and the closing song and reprise. Hope this helps!!

The Hills are Alive...

Today we are beginning our big Spring Cleaning. We have gone through buckets of clothes and put away too small, too big and rummage sale items. Later we will be going to see the Hillsdale and Will Carleton presentation of "The Sound of Music." I will edit this later and let you know how it went. I added more pictures to yesterday's post so scroll down and take a look.

The Adventure Continues

Saturday, March 29

Our second day of Spring Break. Today was spent packing and getting ready to visit Grandma Adams after church on Sunday. Grace had her friend Ann over and the three of us went to the college to see the Tulloch Ard Scottish night. It was a hit. The girls loved the dancers and I liked the bands and pipes. They had two great fiddlers that Grace loved. She wondered how they could get their fingers to move so fast and remember where to put them. Ann spent the night and she went to church with us on Sunday then home with her family.


Sunday, March 30

Today we went to Sunday School at 9:00 and then church at 10:30. I ended up in the nursery. The kids sat with the Muellers. George, their son, was home on leave from the Marine Corps. He is a much loved friend. He is who the boys chose to write their "friendly" letters to at school. Anyway, I digress. After church we loaded the car with kids and a dog, stopped for lunch at Micky D's and headed to Grandma's!! Once at Grandmas we settled in and then had Arbys for dinner. The kids went to bed and Doug and I visited. It was a great beginning to the week.



Monday, March 31

We woke up today to Grandpa making breakfast. Scrambled eggs, pancakes, sausage and bacon. The kids devoured it!! They love breakfast. After they ate their fill we had to walk it off. So we went to Kohl's and then the mall. The boys needed tennis shoes, since they had outgrown the ones they had. In the end they got more than we bargained for. Grace got a new pair of white church shoes and new tennis shoes. Sarah got a new pair of tennis shoes (which I got for a steal at Kohl's; NIKE for $4.99) and sandals. Daniel got a pair of shoes on the bargain rack at Kohl's too for the same price then he also got a pair of tennis shoes with the twin and a pair of sandals just like the twins. Doug also found new sandals for me. Count the boxes!! Payless loves us now!!! The kids also got a new spring/summer outfit. Doug also found games, and Wii stuff. It was quite a shopping spree.
Once we got home we put the little ones to bed and the big kids got to work helping Grandma organize and straighten her basement. They had fun.


Pizza for dinner and before bed we got out the old slide projector and screen and looked at pics of Daddy and Uncle Scott when they were babies. It was a great way to end the day.

Tuesday, April 1

Bob Evans for Breakfast!! Grace -- Plate of Pancakes, Twins, Belgian Waffles, Daniel -- fruit and yogurt, Sarah -- Plate of Pancakes!! They love breakfast! This time we worked it off by once again working in Grandmas basement. Doug doesn't like to leave a job unfinished and he claimed he needed the physical labor to help him feel better and take his mind off of church work for a while. When the work was done they hung up Aunt Amanda's kick boxing bag and Doug and I got away for a while and did some shopping and picked up Applebees for dinner for the grownups. The kids had nuggets and anything else they could find at Grandmas. Our original plan was to be home in Hillsdale by now but as you can see we opted to stay another night.
Wednesday, April 2

We had an early morning today, but we had lots to do so it was OK. We headed to Toys R Us because Grandpa wanted to get the kids something for all their hard work in the basement and we needed to get Peyton a birthday present since our plans had evolved again and we were going to Grandma Wyckhuys' after lunch to see them. Soooo, we did the Toys R Us thing, bought way too much stuff, picked up White Castle for lunch and headed to Great Grandma Adam's house for lunch and a visit. They had the movie Alvin and the Chipmunks for the kids. That kept them entertained while we were able to visit. After the movie we all piled in the car, went back to Grandma Adams', loaded up our stuff, said goodbye to the dog and headed to Grandma Wyckhuys'. Once there we unloaded, visited for a while, the girls went to Walmart for a cake and supplies, a new shirt and tie for Doug's meeting on Thursday, and KFC for dinner. (Since we didn't make it back to Hillsdale and Doug had a meeting in Ann Arbor we had to get the shirt and tie for that) . Aunt Renee, Peyton and Uncle Kevin joined us for dinner and cupcakes. We even sang Happy Birthday to Peyton. Hopefully now Sarah can move on!!! It was great to see all of our families again. It has been since Christmas, which when you only live two hours away, is not often enough.

Thursday, April 3

Today we got up and headed to Ann Arbor. The kids and I met up with Aunt Amanda while Doug had his meeting. It was a beautiful day. We got to see Amanda's room and where she lived and we got to chase geese. We even ran into Amelia!!


Doug was done a little early so we climbed back into the car and headed back to Grandma Adams to pick up Tiger and have lunch. They kids played out side and we visited a little more. Then we headed home. We got to Hillsdale around 4pm, we unloaded and the kids were back out side. It is going to rain tomorrow so they played while they could. Dinner was Micky D's so I didn't have to cook. They had a picnic while they watched Alvin again. Then it was off to bed.



It was quite a week and it isn't over yet!! Check back for the rest of the story!!!

Spring Break 2008

Today was the first official day of Spring Break. We woke up to this:

Not a good sign. However, we were not to be deterred. We have plants for our garden in the house ready to plant outside. Not gonna happen anytime soon I am afraid. We did stay inside today, though. Daniel is just getting over pneumonia and I didn't want to chance it coming back or getting worse, so we played inside. Every one did very well today. Our activity of the day is a Bag Pipe and drum concert at the college. They also have Scottish dancers, the works if you know what I mean. The twins and Doug went tonight. It started at 8pm, hence the naps today, and as I write this at 9:20pm they are still not back yet. The other three stayed with me and we will go tomorrow night. Us homebodies played Wii and just had fun. As you can see.

Sarah is also doing well with the potty thing. She still has it quite backwards and has yet to go on the potty, but she does come down very early in the morning to "go potty" and change out of her wet pull up or diaper. I know she will eventually get this, right? ;-) Even though she is my fifth and you would think I would be a pro at this, each child seems to do it differently and I have little to no recollection as to how I did it with the last one. So I kinda start from scratch each time. Not the smartest idea in the world, but I'm going with it for now.

I forgot to mention our parsonage excitement over Easter. Remember at Thanksgiving our heater broke and we had to have a member, who is also a heating and cooling guy, come out and fix the heater on Thanksgiving Day? Well over Easter weekend our well tested positive for coliform, a contaminant in the water. So we had to pour 4 gallons of bleach in the well. Let it run till we smelled bleach in the water in the house, let it sit for 12 hours, then run it again until we couldn't smell bleach in the water. The pictures are of Doug hooking the hose up to the house to rig up something in order to do the above mentioned project. Thankfully our water tested negative on Monday and is once again safe to drink. No, we have no real idea how it got contaminated in the first place, we have some, but nothing for sure. We will hopefully be testing in again in a few weeks to be sure we did indeed kill the contamination and not just mask it for a while.

I am planning on posting everyday this week, or close to it anyway. We are feeling so much better and are anxious to get out and do things as a family. Doug is taking off next week so he can join in the fun. We have plans to go to Grandmas, visit the Air Zoo in Kalamazoo, go to Ann Arbor to visit Amanda and Amelia, go see the play The Sound of Music and lots of other fun things. So check back often to see what we have been up to. Maybe we will see you in our travels!!!

Update

Here is an update for all of you keeping track.

Grace -- still healthy. She lives with hand sanitizer and Lysol in her room.

Nathan -- back at school. Still coughing but much better.

Jacob-- back at school. Still coughing but much better.

Daniel -- influenza mutated into pneumonia just like the others. He is on Omnicef for 1o days. Contagious for at least three. That means no school for him this week.

Sarah -- much better too. Still going potty in the pull up THEN sitting on the big girl potty. Putting her in underpants didn't work, she promptly pooped in them. Back to pull ups for a while.

Doug -- tired but hanging in there. More under the weather today than usual, but we are hoping that is just stress induced. Tuesdays aren't good days here. They are meeting day at church. ;-)

Robyn -- tired but OK. Glad most of the kids are back at school. Looking forward to planning some fun activities that limit interaction with others but still allow us to get out of the house for a few hours at a time. Will be carrying hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes with me EVERYWHERE!!

As you are planning your summer calendars Save this Date : August 2, 2008. This is the day we are planning the Big Birthday Bash at our house. The theme this year is STAR WARS. It is going to be a nice sunny summer day with lots of fun, family, friends and fellowship. Come early and stay late!!!

Third Quarter Report Cards came home today. The kids did excellent. Grace got all A's and B's. She improved in just about all her subjects. She is doing better each quarter. Jacob got the equivalent of all A's and Nathan was close with only one B in penmanship, who'd have guessed! The boys will get actual letter grades next year. In second grade they have an O for outstanding S for satisfactory and N for needs improvement. You can also get S+ and S- too. She also lists % so we know what the letter grade would be. They did great!! They really do enjoy school and are keeping up quite well, despite all the days they have missed.

Grace will be reciting a poem during opening on April 21. This is something each child in the school does once a year. The teacher assigns a poem, the student memorizes it and then recites it for memory in front of the entire school, K-12, during the opening. This is when they assemble at the beginning of the day to raise the flag, say the pledge, acknowledge birthdays or good grades, and make announcements. They also have one or two children recite a memorized poem. It is great for memory skills and public speaking skills. Grace almost has hers memorized already. I will post it on the 21st along with some pictures and if I'm lucky, a video too. The boys will have their turn shortly after Grace. They begin with the Seniors in the fall and end with the Kindergarten at the end of the year.