A LOT TO BE THANKFUL FOR

Mouw side Thanksgiving dinner. Griffin didn't want to take a picture so he is shooting something at me with his spoon.



We woke up to snow on Thanksgiving morning!!!  Daddy took the boys out for a ride in the truck and to go get the newspaper.  The boys and I played outside in the snow for a couple hours trying out their "new" snowboards I bought for them last year at Target on clearance for $6!!   Gannon did really good on his snowboard, he would make it all the way down our hill before he would purposely fall over so that he wouldn't hit the fence!  This was my attempt at a cute snow picture before heading to Papa and Nanas for our 2nd Thanksgiving meal!

Right after all the kids were done eating they headed outside!!!  They all stayed out for 3 hours!!!!  Daddy and Uncle Greg pulled them behind the 4 wheelers on tubes and sleds!!!  They had a blast!

Gunnar loved riding on the 4 wheeler with Grant!



We were spoiled this year and we got to go to The Mouw family the night before thanksgiving and the Dykstra family on thanksgiving day!  TWO TURKEY MEALS!!!

WE ARE SO THANKFUL FOR:
Lots of family on both sides living close by
Health & Happiness
Love
Our four healthy kids
A warm house
Freedom to go to church and worship our LORD!
That Jesus died on the cross for our sins so we can have eternal life in HEAVEN!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!!!

PILLOW PETS!

THANKYOU NANA!!!! WE LOVE YOU!!!

Nana took the kids to Fred Meyers and Mc Donalds and to her house to play in the icey cold weather!!  What a nice Nana my kids have!  Pillow pets are a little animal shaped pillow with a velcro closer... So they can be rolled up a bit, and used as a pillow.  Every kid is wishing for a pillow pet right now... It went from silly bands to pillow pets!  Griffin already asked if he could bring his pillow pet to FUN FREE FRIDAY (show and tell ) at school.  They all wanted to sleep with their pillow pets... So we agreed... of course as usual a couple kids got out of their beds... all we had to do was threaten to take away their pillow pet for the night and they were sound asleep!!! Thankyou Nana! 

SOME OF OUR FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT OUR NANA:

~She has slumber parties with us

~If our mom and dad are being mean to us, we call her, and she comes right over to pick us up

~She lets us bake with her

~She lets us wear REALLY cool clothes if we run out at her house 

(Carla's old clothes that she says are our daddies old basketball clothes)

~She gives us unlimited amounts of chocolate milk

~She lets us SNEAK candy at her house

~She has taught us some "dutch" words:

Butzy (bath)

back-a-packa (back pack)

crocadoodles (crocs)

"the yadahoosas are here"  (that means we are coming over... the crazy kids)

Panakukas (pancakes)

Smuts and Smuts (oatmeal)

~She lets us "play doctor" on Papa puff's back

~She plays games with us

~She turns on the Wii (game cube) downstairs for us

~She doesn't tell our mom and dad what we broke or colored on at her house... till months later, if ever

WE LOVE YOU SOOOOOOOOO MUCH NANA!!!!!!  THANKYOU FOR THE PILLOW PETS!!!

PILGRIMS AND INDIANS

Griffin's kindergarten class did a little Thanksgiving program and Feast!  It was very cute.  They sang about 4 songs... my favorite sung with the tune to jingle bells... dinner bells, farmer yells, turkey got away!!! It was adorable.  They also recited most of Psalm 100, with sign language... his teacher says they will know all of Psalm 100 by February!!! (Griffin furthest one to the right of the picture)  This is the only picture I got because I was video taping the whole thing for Grant to see.  He is learning sooooo much in kindergarten already! 

Heres a small list of funny things I want to remember...

One night I told Griffin, "no more PSP today"  he said "mom, stop treating me like I am a one year old!"

He comes home every day from school SUPER DIRTY and his sox and shoes SOAKING wet and STINKING!  He just put a hole in his second pair of shoes for the school year so far!  They play soccer every recess, rain, snow or sunshine! *To all the teachers...My son does own jeans... I just don't dare let him wear them to school!* (afraid they will come back stained and with holes)

He wants to lose a tooth soooo bad that I told him the dentist was going to pull one out after Christmas and he was happy because his cousin Lane already lost a tooth and the tooth fairy gave him $5.00!  (Griffin really is getting 4 teeth pulled on Christmas break!!! His two front teeth, plus 2 extra ones he has...one is still up in his gums above the other extra one!)  Hopefully it doesn't ruin his Christmas break.~Thanks Shannon... Now I am going to have to fork out $20 from the tooth fairy!    Griffin finally got 1 tooth when he was 1 year old... so who knows how old he will be when one of his really falls out!  Every day he is convinced that his tooth is wiggiling... everyday its a different tooth.

I haven't asked him lately who or if he still has a girlfriend... I will have to ask him soon!

TYRA 7 MONTHS

Our sweet little Tyra is growing up soooo fast!  I truly can't believe that she is my BABY!  She is still so so so good.  She cracks up when we tickle her with our feet, when she sees the kitty, or when her brothers run up to her and say boo, and when auntie Shawna pretends she is a duck!  I would really love to freeze her right now, but its not possible.  Good thing every stage gets more and more fun!

THE HEART BREAKER

Griffin is in Kindergarten this year all day everyday in Mrs. Thomas's class and we have heard from the teachers that this class is not one of those classes that the boys think the girls are gross or the girls think the boys are gross... supposedly they all like each other. I finally started to ask Griffin questions about the girls because my sister in law Shannon Dykstra filled me in that the girls chase the boys at recess and try to kiss them.  (her son Lane is also in the class)  So I asked Griffin and he said that yes they chase him and kiss him and I asked him if he kisses them and he said no.  So periodically I will ask him if he has a girlfriend and usually he says yes, its Abby and Abby is Lane's girlfriend too.  So I had to help in Griffin's class a couple weeks ago and Abby happened to be in our group.  Griffin would copy EVERYTHING Abby would do to her paper and they would just look at each other and smile. ( I was dying inside, it was so funny to watch that)   Other girls would come up to Griffin and whisper things in his ear.  So last night we asked Griffin if his girlfriend was still Abby and he said "no, we broke up"  So I asked "did you break up with her or did she break up with you?"  and he said "I broke her heart,  Oh and she threw up during rest time."  I was trying not to laugh because I didn't know he knew what breaking up was or any of that.  (and I am also wondering what the throwing up thing had to do with it, if she threw up and he thought it was gross so they broke up, or if he really thought he broke her heart and that is why she threw up?  I may never know!  So then I asked him if he had another girlfriend and he said yes and I asked who and he said Kali.  And I asked if she had kissed him before and he said yes!  I cannot believe this is happening in kindergarten... its all fun and games right now but someday its going to be scary!!!  I guess I will have to pray a lot!  We asked Gannon if he has a girlfriend and he gets pretty embarrassed about it and says he can't remember her name.  And one more thing... Gunnar has a girlfriend he sees every morning of the week.  She rides on Griffin and Gannon's school bus.  I would guess she is in junior high, she rides towards the back of the bus... she started waving to him the week of school while we are waiting for the bus to pick up the boys.  So we told him it was his girlfriend and now every morning he talks about his girlfriend and he says " I go wave to my girlfriend"

THE DYKSTRA ZOO



Happy Halloween!  This year all the kids were some sort of animal!  We have Gunnar-2 the chicken, Gannon-4 the shark, Tyra-almost 7 months the kitty, and Griffin-6 the dinosour/lizard/comodo dragon?  We weren't 100% sure what his costume was, but it was cool and scary!  We started out the afternoon/night at 3:00 going to Nana and Papa Dykstra's, then to Grandpa Rick's and Grandma Deba's house for dinner.  We drove to Auntie Marge's and to Grandpa Kakie's house.  Then we went Trick or Treating walking around homestead!  The kids did great this year!  They got good at YELLING Trick Or Treat when someone came to the door and saying THANKYOU after they got candy!  They went trick or treating with their cousins Easton, Kiya and Reese Nyhoff!  Some of the funny things were...  This REALLY old man came walking up to his (glass) door they were trying to trick or treat at... But he was old and waddled and had really wild sticking out everywhere hair... so by the time the old man got up to the door to open it, all the kids ran away b/c they were scared!  He did kind of walk like a mummy.  We felt bad so finally Uncle Mike walked the kids up there and the old man did have candy ... it just took him a REALLY long time to get it!  Of course Griffin would hang behind the pack the whole time b/c some people were dressed in scary costumes when they opened the door to give out candy.  We had told the kids that we could go to a haunted house (Tommy Zylstra's Garage)  and while we were trick or treating thats all they talked about ... Gannon wanted to go to the "smokey house"  (spooky house) and Griffin wanted to go to the "hunted house"  (haunted house) ... so finally the Grand Finally was going to the HAUNTED HOUSE.  Gannon made it through with Grandpa Rick and of course Griffin didn't go in, he just peaked through the doors and that was enough.  Gannon kept saying " I scared Tommy I said BLAH to him"  Next year I want to go again and scare Tommy, when can we go to the "smokey house" again.  (Tommy had a scary mask on and was hiding in the garage)  We also stopped by Auntie Jennie's house on the way home at about 8:15!  All their baskets are SOOOO full!  They had a great time and are already talking about next year's costumes!



Some of the Mouw cousins... Gunnar, Crew, Griffin, Reese, Brooklyn, Tyra, Trey, Gannon, Easton & Kiya

The kids with Great Grandpa Kakie