Christmas 2011

For Christmas this year we spent the Friday before with the extended Schouten family, Saturday night (Christmas Eve) with Micah’s family & Sunday (Christmas Day) with mine. Although it was a long & busy weekend it was a lot of fun filled with many new memories! It was also BEAUTIFUL weather the whole weekend which made for lots of fun playing outside and such. It was also a little different this year because my oldest sister Anne and her family weren’t able to come out & neither were Micah’s sister Coby & her husband, Kris, as they were expecting their first child right around the end of December.

We had a lot of fun spending time with family and I was even able to ride along back & forth to Omaha to pick up my brother Jon who flew in from North Carolina for the long weekend!

Micah’s sister Kiley also came home for Christmas - she flew in from Honduras and we were able to spend about 2 weeks with her before she had to go back, and during that time she even got Logan to take his first steps completely independent of anyone’s help! :)

Schouten Family Christmas - Christmas Eve 2011


Logan walking on his own! :)

 

Fennema Family Christmas - Christmas Day 2011

What my sister, Sarah, got for Christmas:

 
The October 21st Birthday boys hanging out together ;)


I had to take a picture of Sarah taking pictures :)

December 2011 - Another year comes to an end!

Wow! I can’t believe December has come & gone and another year has begun! It seems like 2011 flew by. Lets see, what all happened this month?

We started it off with a snow storm…one that caused a nasty accident where a man took out a utility pole right on Hematech’s property…causing Micah & a few of his co-workers to miss their annual Christmas party. I, however, was able to be there…mainly because I’d been in Sioux Falls with a couple friends to visit my best friend (whose baby boy was in the NICU at Sanford) and after taking her out for lunch they had dropped me off at the mall where I was going to shop for a couple hours before Micah & his co-workers picked me up on the way to the Christmas party. Only while I’m at the mall I get a phone call that they won’t make it, that instead his boss was going to pick me up & take me to the party & then another co-worker would bring me home! So much for the best laid plans, you’d think I’d have learned by now not to make plans! :)

After about a week of the snow being on the ground we had the rest of the month with amazing weather & great temps -- most days where in the high 30s & low 40’s with a few even hitting the 60’s! (For Iowa that feels amazing - and most of us can be found outside without coats when it hits those temps!)

Logan has decided to be a full-blown Daddy’s boy! He and Alexa play on their own VERY well during the day. Some days I play with them, some days I get things done around the house. I am very blessed that I can do both with next to no difficulties…until Daddy comes home that is! The moment Patches starts barking & Logan realizes Micah’s home - everything changes! The boy most be glued to his Daddy or in his Daddy’s arms in order to be happy - probably because Micah appeases him every time! :) Unless we’re all playing in the same room he will whine constantly until his Daddy pays attention to him, something I happen to find adorable as it gets Daddy involved on a more in-depth level! :)

Here’s a few pictures of what we were up to in December:

One of the ways Micah tried to get things done while Logan insists on spending every moment Daddy’s home in his arms! :) & Logan pretending he can ride his tractor instead of pushing it around!

Here’s a typical view of our Sunday mornings while I’m trying to get ready for church:


Family “Date” Night - out to Hardees :)


We finally got around to snapping a family photo!



Haylee (born 3 weeks after Logan) came to play & Alexa wanted nothing more than to dress her up with her new dress up clothes! (And no Alexa does not have tights on in the first picture, despite how it looks!)


Enjoying the BEAUTIFUL weather on the 29th of December - with absolutely no snow on the ground! :)

What we’ve been up to lately…November

The weather during all of November was pretty amazing, at least for Northwest Iowa so we spent as much time as we could outdoors enjoying it! Alexa has been especially enjoying the weather, even the few cold/snowy days we had, playing with our new neighbors as they have 4 children who love spending time with her!

We were able to spend a long weekend at the beginning of November with Micah’s family and his sister Coby and her husband Kris, who flew out from California for a cousin’s wedding. We also kept busy with our normal day-to-day activities and of course celebrating Thanksgiving with both sides of our family.

Logan still loves climbing, and will climb on anything if we aren’t watching him 100% of the time!

 

We took a few photos while at Greg & Mallory’s wedding (Micah’s cousin.) We decided to take Alexa along but leave Logan home (he doesn’t do well with being restrained for long periods of time) :)
 
Alexa LOVED dancing with “Princess” Mallory & Greg, and especially with Grandpa!

Alexa and Logan have a lot of fun together & she is constantly telling me to take pictures of them dancing or hugging! :)
 

We watched cousin Sophie a few times and the kids had A LOT of fun playing together!

Alexa always has to tilt her head in pictures! :)

Hugging/holding Sophie at Schouten Family Thanksgiving in the Dordt game room

The place I find Patches most these days!

My Baby Boy turned 1!!!

On October 21st, 2011 Logan Eric turned 1 year old!!! I still can’t believe its been over a year already since the day he was born…it seems like just yesterday!

Despite his dramatic beginning, he is an amazing addition to our family and we are truly blessed to have him in our lives! Here’s some fun facts about Logan at this stage of his life:

• Is the most smiley child I have ever seen! He smiles and laughs at EVERYTHING and almost anything! He finds almost anything funny and it is very easy to distract and please him!
• He would NOT walk on his first birthday, in fact he had absolutely no interest in it at all! He took his first step with help on October 11th but would certainly not choose walking over crawling, probably because he only started full-out crawling when he was 10 months old!
• He had more teeth before his first birthday than his sister…his first two teeth came through in May when he was only 7 months old (on the bottom) with his top four teeth coming all at the same time, just before he was 10 months.
• Despite his unwillingness to walk, he started climbing like crazy around September, at about 10 1/2 months old.

He loved being able to celebrate his birthday which he shares not only with his Grandma Schouten but also with his Uncle Jon!  Here’s a few pictures from his birthday weekend:

This is pretty typical for him - climbing on anything he can & always flashing a grin to you if you catch him!

 

What we’ve been up to lately…October

Well lets see here…my last real update was the beginning of October! Oops! Guess I should back up a bit & catch up on some things! Despite not much happening we seem to have kept pretty busy, between enjoying the beautiful weather, going to toddler time at the library, or just spending time having fun!

Getting the 3 of them to all smile for a picture is a bit of a struggle :)

Someone thinks her hair should always be in braids now that its finally getting longer!

Ever since we installed our new “walk-thru” baby gate, they love to play with it!