Do you see what I see...

Yes, it's my children performing on stage!!

Today was the children's Christmas program at church. It is so much fun to watch them. They all put in a lot of hard work. Both Jacob and Ethan were able to perform with their classes.

The toddler class that Ethan is in performed Away in a Manger and Jingle, Jingle Happy Bells. It was so much fun watching them. Ethan is one of the older kids in his class most of them are two-year olds just out of the nursery. They did a great job!!

This is Ethan shortly after they got on stage. He was excited about doing this, but once he saw all the people in the audience he froze and had his panicked look. After a few seconds he started doing the hand movements and singing. We were so proud of him. This was his first time on stage!

This is Jacob's class. They are all four and five-year old's. They did a great job too. I think these to younger classes really stole the show. They are all just so cute.

Being up on stage was a big deal for Jacob. Last year he had a bit of a melt down and wouldn't participate. This year he was right up there, leading the kids in the hand motions. Yeah, Jacob!!

Snowy Day

This past week the boys were able to go outside and play in the snow. They were so excited to be out there. I think they ended up staying in the cold for about two hours before I made them come in. I'm just glad they didn't want me out there with them, I much prefer the heated indoors.

Jacob making snow-angels.

Zip-zip down the slide.

Snowball anyone??

Too cute!!

A Very Grinchy Boy!!

Without a doubt the boys favorite Christmas movie this year is How the Grinch Stole Christmas with Jim Carrey. They have watched it countless times already. Today while I was getting ready in the bathroom I heard some banging and clanging in the boys bedroom. When I stepped out to see what was going on I saw Jacob and Ethan with toy buckets piled on top of their toy box and little metal canisters lined up in front. Jacob gave me a mean little look and said "I'm the Grinch that stole Christmas and I'm on my sleigh". Then out popped Ethan's cute little head with his reindeer headband and he said "I'm Max, the Grinch's dog". So, here's their version of the Grinch and his dog Max.

O' Christmas Tree

The day before Thanksgiving we hauled out all of our Christmas decorations and set up the tree in the living room. We did it a little early (usually we put it out the day after Thanksgiving) because we were all going to be gone over the weekend and knew it would be hard to fit it in during the week.

Jacob and Ethan were excited to help decorate the tree this year. They both have their own ornaments. Some of the ornaments are store bought and some of them have been handmade by Grandma Mary, others have been crafted by the boys.

This is the tree all decked out in ornamental glory. The boys had a blast. Once it was all done we pulled out Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer movie and watched the first Christmas movie of the season.

Pilgrim's and Native Americans

The week of Thanksgiving Jacob's class had a Thanksgiving Feast. Ethan and I were able to stick around and help with the party.

Mrs. Brail had some of the students dress up as Native American Indians. They made the costumes out of large rolls of paper and each student was able to decorate his or her own.

Some of the kids were pilgrims.

Ethan did more partying that helping, but it is fun to see him interact with Jacob and his friends in the classroom. They all feasted on shaved turkey lunchmeat, carrot sticks, corn bread, apple slices and pumpkin pie. It was a fun afternoon. I am so thankful that I get to participate in Jacob's school activities. I feel very blessed to be able to stay home with my boys.

Frankenmuth

This past saturday (hey, my blog is catching up!!) Curt, Jacob, Ethan and I went to Frankenmuth with my Mom and Dad. We stopped in Grand Ledge at a place called Sophia's for breakfast. It was great! I had a ham and cheese omelet that was huge, it was made with five eggs. I shared some of it with Ethan and still left thinking I wouldn't need any lunch. After our yummy and very filling breakfast we drove to Frankenmuth. We stopped at Bronner's first. I hadn't been there for a very long time and had forgotten just how big Bronner's is. I loved looking at all the decorations they had hanging from the ceiling and so did the boys.

Of all the decorations they had my favorite by far was the gingerbread house. I seriously felt like I had jumped into the game Candyland.

This was us over by the christmas trees. It was a great place for a family picture. Look how happy Ethan is!

After we left Bronner's we drove into the town. It was packed with people. Our first stop was the restrooms at the Bavarian Inn and then we were looking for food because Jacob was hungry. We were all still full from breakfast, but he was hungry. He must be growing. Anyway, the wait for the all-famous chicken dinner was close to an hour so we decided to try and find something else. When we walked outside we saw the horse and buggies and Ethan was excited. He wanted to ride that horse and buggie.

This is Spirit and he was kind enough (along with the wonderful driver) to take us on a ride around town. Thank you Nana and Papa for treating us to this.

This is Ethan during the ride in the buggie. I'm not sure I have ever seen him so happy. He loved every minute of it.

After Frankenmuth we found some lunch over at Birch Run which we had to go to because of the Nascar store that Curt wanted to visit. That pretty much rounded out our visit so we headed home. Once we reached Nana and Papa's house Jacob was all about the food again. After some cheese and crackers and a few peanut butter M&M's we headed home for a good dose of sleep!

Bubble Baths

I always thought that bubble baths were for girls, but my boys have proven me wrong. Jacob won a bottle of Transformer bubble bath at my nephew Cameron's birthday party and that was all it took. Jacob and Ethan loved taking bubble baths, so much so that the bubble bath is already all gone.


Bubble on boys, bubble on!!

Halloween Party

Jacob's class had a Halloween party and Ethan and I were invited to participate. It was such a fun time. The kids dressed up in there costumes and then rotated around the room to different stations. I worked at the food station where the kids enjoyed crackers with cheese, finger jello, cookies and juice. The station that Jacob and Ethan are at was the craft station. Ms. Biddix and Mrs. Martin (another mom) helped out the kids there. Mrs Brail ran the game station. It was a lot of fun.

The kids made bats using there hands as the template for the wings. Ethan was very excited to do all the things Jacob was doing. He felt like such a big boy.

This is Ethan gluing down his bats bow tie. Every bat has to have a purple bow tie.

After the fun inside the whole school went outside for a costume parade. This is Jacob's whole class (including Ethan).

The Great Boo Zoo

Every year in October Ralph (my dad) and Kevin (by brother-in-law) take a hunting trip out to South Dakota. During the week that Ralph is away, my Mom comes and spends a night with us. This year we decided to take her out for a fun evening so we went to the Boo Zoo at Binder Park Zoo.

We dressed the boys up in their costumes on a misty friday evening and headed out for some treating. It was one of those nights where you figure that at any moment the downpour is going to happen, but it never did.

We enjoyed a "magic" show that was definately for the kids, did a little treating with the pirates, rode the carousel, and played games at the kids carnival.

This is my Mom (Nana) and the boys.

The hayride was my favorite part. They pulled a big hay covered wagon with a tractor all the way back to the African safari part of the zoo where they had a bunch of light decorations set up. It was very pretty. We all had a good time, especially the boys.

The Country Mill

The last several years we have gone to the Country Mill in Charlotte to get our pumpkins and to sample the cider and donuts. It seems that whenever we plan to go the weather turns cold. I don't mean chilly, I mean freezing. The last three years that we've gone we chose the coldest day of the month and would have to run to the patch, grab our pumpkins and then run inside to warm up. We were really hoping that this year it wouldn't be so cold and we could enjoy the outside.

Well, we picked a great day. It was windy and that added to the chill factor, but it was manageable. We had a lot of fun, but Ethan did not enjoy the Headless Horseman that they had riding around. He talked about that for days afterward.

Once we got inside the store we had to go to the antique music maker. The boys love this thing. You put in a quarter and then it starts playing music. Not like a record, but actual music makers. Inside this wooden case is a xylophone, tambourine, drum, cymbals, triangle, and other instruments and you can see them all working. The boys love it and would stand there forever (if the donuts weren't calling to them from across the store).

Of course we sampled the cider and donuts before we left. The donuts here are wonderful. They make them fresh every day and go through so many that you often get them warm. I love it.

Soccer Saturday's

Many of you know that Jacob is not fond of change, ANY change. He likes the idea of doing something new, but once the day is here (or in the case of kindergarten, 3 weeks away) he decides he doesn't want to do it and starts worrying and fretting about it. Anyway, we decided that the only way to get him to get over this problem would be to "encourage" him to do more new things. What better time than right when he starts kindergarten?? With this in mind, we signed him up for soccer. Now, Curt and I know nothing about soccer, but it sounded good for Jacob. Well, we found out that Rod, Curt's cousin is partly in charge of the AYSO soccer league that we signed Jacob up with. He ever-so-gently asked Curt if he would coach. How do you say no?? Curt said yes and I am his back-up. Did I mention we know NOTHING about soccer. Anyway, we are now spending saturday's on the soccer field and Jacob is loving it.

This is Jacob getting ready to practice kicking the ball into the net. I love the look on his face. It is hysterical watching him. Sometimes he just stands there with his fingers in his mouth and sometimes he is just running around in circles.


This is during Jacob's first game. I was pleasantly surprised that he was actually participating in the game and trying to kick the ball. Go Jacob!!

First Day of Kindergarten!!

Sept. 5, 2007

Today was the day that Jacob has been waiting for all summer, the first day of kindergarten!!

Labor Day Weekend

Curt, the boys and I went up to Deaner Lake in Vestaburg with the rest of the Ford Family. This is something that we try to do every holiday weekend during the summer months, but this year we were only able to make it over Labor Day. It was good to see everybody. We went up on friday night and stayed until sunday afternoon. We had to leave early because there was a race on sunday night and we had to be home to watch it!! It's a good thing we did because Jimmie got his 5th win of the season. Yeah!!


This is Deaner Lake as it looks from our dock. It's not a very big lake so most of the time it's pretty quiet. We had fun playing with the boys in the water. They have both turned into little fish over the summer.

Curt and Gary took the boys fishing and turtle hunting on saturday. They had such a good time even though they only caught one fish that was too small to keep.

On Monday Curt and I took the boys to Binder Park Zoo for the afternoon. It was our last hoo-rah with the boys befores school starts. We started this tradition last year and will keep doing it until the boys outgrow the zoo and then we'll find something else to do.

A Day With James

During last school year the boys and I had the privilege of babysitting James (Jeff and Kim's little boy) on Wednesdays. Jacob and Ethan became really attached to him and consider him part of our family. In fact, they often complained that James had to go home to his mom and dad at the end of the day. During the summer we try to get together with them about once a month so they can spend some time together. We were excited when they asked us if we could watch him on Wednesday while they were at the school preparing for the upcoming year. Here are a few pictures of what went on while James was with us.

We saved a bunch of our "baby toys" just for the days when James comes to visit. Jacob and Ethan get a kick out of playing with them all. In fact, I am surprised that there were any available for James to play with.

This is the three of them being artistic. Ethan was a little upset that James was ON the mat instead of BESIDE the mat, but he remembered that "James is little and didn't know any better," at least that's what he told me.

This is lunchtime. By this time of the day, James starts looking a little tired.

See what I mean?

Girls Weekend

This past weekend The Rachels, two of my best friends, came over for a little overnight scrapbook extravaganza. We were afraid we would have to cancel because we were having some major storms. In fact, tornadoes ripped through the Charlotte and Potterville area and farther northeast causing major damage. We had planned to go up to Okemos to visit Hobby Lobby and my favorite scrapbook shop and the storms were going right across our path. Fortunately, the storms passed by quickly and our weekend went on as planned. When we got back from our field trip it was about 10:30 in the evening. I was sure that we would put our stuff away and head off to bed, saving the actual scrapbooking for the next day. I was wrong.

This is Rachel G. scrappin' away.

This is me. Obviously I am at the "I'm so tired I'm giddy" point. We stayed up until 3:30 a.m. Yeah, I said 3:30 a.m.


This was the YUMMY sandwich that we had on Saturday for our lunch. Rachel G. made it just after breakfast so it could meld all the flavors together. I was ready to dive in right then, but I restrained myself until lunchtime.

This is us on Saturday just before they went home. We are each holding up our two favorite pages. I think we all finished at least 8 pages. I had such a good time. It isn't often that we get together without the husbands and kids and get to just be silly girlfriends. I will treasure this weekend and hopefully, we will plan another.

Pizza Beach -- a place for kids of all ages

Our good friends, Jeff and Kim, asked us to go to Pizza Beach for one more day of fun before summer ended and school resumed.

They said it was a place for kids to play.

They said the boys would have fun.

They were right.

Race Weekend

Finally, race weekend has arrived. Curt has waited for this for 363 days and it was a difficult wait. Chad, Brad and Curt decided that this year they were going to go out for qualifying and practice on Friday. It was a great day for them to go; it was cool and sunny, just what they had hoped for.

Right when they walked in they saw a huge Lowe's Chevy display that had Jimmie Johnson's car as the centerpiece. Curt was able to have his picture taken with it. Pretty cool.



While they were walking around they happened to see Rusty Wallace signing autographs for fans. Chad was able to snap this picture with our camera.



This is turn four at MIS, close to where Curt, Chad, and Brad sat.



Saturday night we went over to Doc and Georgia's house for a Sunday School Reunion party and Georgia decided since it was race weekend, the party would be race themed. This picture is of our closest friends. On the left are Stan and Sue, Curt and I, Chad and Rachel Green, and Brad and Rachel Hunt. It was a good time. Afterwards, the boys went out for their annual shopping trip for race food.

The race was rain delayed on Sunday and then postponed until Monday at noon. Unfortunately, the rain didn't stop so they postponed it again until Tuesday at 10am. That means that the guys were at the track Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. It was a good race once it finally ran. Kurt Busch, Brad's driver, ended up in Victory Lane and Jimmie Johnson, Curt's driver, had a solid top 5 finish at 3rd place. YEAH!!

Bourne Ultimatum

We went with our friends Chad and Rachel Green to see Bourne Ultimatum yesterday. Whoa!! I LOVED IT!!! Curt and I watched the first two Bourne movies this week so we would be caught up with what was going on. That was helpful because it had been a long time since we'd seen them. In fact, they are more connected that we had thought and we had both forgotten quite a bit of what happened. I have to say that these three movies are on my top ten list. If you have the chance, go see the movie.

The Big Beach

We went to Hoffmaster State Park in Muskegon on Thursday. We had been trying all summer to get over to the Big Beach (as we like to call it), but it was either too cold, too rainy, or we were just too busy. Finally, we made it. It started out overcast and a little chilly, but the water wasn't bad unless you have something against hypothermia. After a while the sun came out and warmed things up a bit.


Jacob had a blast playing in the water. He loves the waves crashing all around him. He runs and jumps and lays down and floats in on a wave. It is so fun to watch him play. Last year Jacob stayed right at the edge of the water on the beach, but this year he was brave about wandering in a little. He didn't even seem to mind being knocked over by the waves or getting splashed in the face. I wasn't sure we were ever going to get him to leave, but eventually he came up to us and said he was ready to go. Of course, his teeth were chattering and his lips were purple.

































Ethan preferred staying on shore. When he did go into the water the waves would knock him right over and he didn't like it. Daddy took him for a walk down the beach and he seemed to enjoy that. Although, he was worried about being eaten by the seagulls. He also spent quite a bit of time playing in the sand. He was very fond of filling his bucket up with sand and taking it to the water's edge and then dumping it. Curt and I figured he was just doing his part to stop beach erosion.

Of course we couldn't leave Hoffmaster without going to the Nature Center. This was the highlight of the trip for Curt. From the time we start talking about going to the Big Beach, he talks about going to the Nature Center. I haven't figured out what he loves about it so much other than he spent time there as a child. They have turtles, snakes, fish, some stuffed birds, a gift shop and a room that you can push buttons. It is right up his alley and I think his enthusiasm about the whole place has influenced the boys because they get all excited about it too.

After we left the beach we went to our favorite "family" restaurant, Applebee's, had a yummy dinner and then drove down to Grand Haven. We took a walk on the boardwalk and looked at all the boats. Usually we get some ice cream, but we were so full from dinner we didn't have room for it. On the ride home both of the boys fell asleep. I love it when we wear them out!! A perfect end to a perfect day.