For Mother's day we traveled to Muskegon to attend my parents' church, then had brunch with them and my grandma. I received some super-special handmade cards from the kids (one of them complete with our favorite "knock-knock" joke written on it :) ), an incredible poem from Kyle (he's so talented!), a nice big Starbucks gift card (my usual request :) ), and a really cool photo card (made at Shutterfly) from my parents. There were a few other things as well, but--being a "words of affirmation" girl--the cards are tops for me :) After a relaxing afternoon at my parents' while the kids napped, we ended the evening with my favorite pizza--Mr. Scribb's! There's just nothing quite as good!
I'm blessed with two fun, smart, gorgeous children; a godly husband/father to my kids; a mother who is one of my best friends; a grandmother who I love and enjoy spending time with, and two other grandmothers who I love just as much and recently got to hang out with in California. Because of this...I am a happy mother.
Papa, Mac, Kyle - 3 of the most important men in my life
Sweet Ashlyn kisses
Ashlyn telling me this secret: "Mama, you're the best and I love you so, so, so much!"
Four generations of Spoelman women
Maguire took advantage of the chocolate fountain at brunch and ended up with chocolate lipstick ;)
Happy birthday, Ashlyn! Where in the world has time gone? It seems like just yesterday that I was pregnant with Ashlyn, constantly pushing her foot out of my ribs and praying for my sweet girl. All of a sudden Ashlyn is finishing up her last year of preschool, screening and registering for kindergarten in the fall, telling me that at her ballet recital she'll be "dancing for Jesus. And if people doesn't know about Jesus, our dancing will tell them!", making a great group of dear sweet little girl friends, memorizing scripture, singing, dancing, playing soccer, praying with incredible sweetness and sincerity, journaling, "reading", helping me and Daddy with anything we'll let her, "teaching" Maguire everything she knows, and just plain...turning 5!
To celebrate Ashlyn wanted to have a Fancy Nancy party. Let me tell you, I might have had more fun planning it than she had at the party :) I could've taken this theme SO much farther...if only I hadn't had a budget to follow! We invited 9 little girls to wear their fanciest attire for a fancy dinner party. They all looked so beautiful! The girls started out playing with Ashlyn's chest of dress-up clothes and accessories to finish accessorizing their ensembles (that's a fancy word for outfit).
Then we followed with the creation of some more fancy accessories: beaded necklaces and bracelets
After the craft, Kyle led the girls in a giggle-inducing round of "freeze dance". Kyle is so animated and the girls just eat it up! After Freeze Dance we played Fancy Bingo and then listened while Auntie Jen (my cousin) read a Fancy Nancy book.
After the story, dinner was served! Kyle "fell asleep", but his cousin "James" (complete with a British accent) came down in a tuxedo and served the little ladies their fancy macaroni-and-cheese, fancy flower-shaped sandwiches, parfaits, and punch in cute little espresso cups. It was so fun to watch the girls switch between laughing at "James", being convinced that he was really "Mr. Kyle", and briefly thinking "Maybe he really is James!". I think Kyle truly was the hit of the party--I have the BEST husband!!
What fancy party is complete without fancy cupcakes?! My sister-in-law's friend, Angela, is the gal we call on to do our cakes (remember the giant cupcake made of cupcakes for Ashlyn's party last year?). She hit the nail on the head with these cupcakes! Purple (Ashlyn's favorite color), pearly sprinkles, and plenty of blingin' accessories!
Ashlyn was still opening gifts, but once Maguire came home (Grandma and Grandpa had taken him to the play area at Burger King), most of the girls followed the little ladies' man outside :) Luckily the rain held off long enough for the kids to play outside for about an hour after the party officially ended. And Maguire targeted each of the moms and, one-by-one, led them out to the barn to play the drums for them. We are not kidding when we call him a ladies' man! Girls young and not-so-young fall prey to those dimples and eyelashes ;) LOL! Just curious, but does anyone else see Carrie Bradshaw when they look at the picture of Ashlyn holding those balloons?
The party was a smash hit and SO much fun for me to plan! I couldn't have done it without the help of my neighbor Kristi, my cousin Jen, Kyle, and the photographic genius of one of my closest friends Angie (bottom left picture with her sweet, sweet baby Jud--LOVE them!!). Happy birthday to my Sweetie Girl--I love you so much and thank God, daily, for allowing me the honor of being your mom!
As I mentioned in the last post, our trip took on a semi-unexpected turn the night we flew into California--my aunt passed away. My aunt Marty (my mom's younger sister) battled colon cancer with the most courage, determination and grace of anyone I know. On Tuesday March 30 she lost that battle, but won huge since her final resting place is with her Lord and savior, Jesus. She married later in life (almost 7 years ago) and adopted two children - Lisa (5) and Nathan (4) - from a Russian orphanage. My aunt (Aunt Goo as we called her when I was younger) and her family live in a suburb of L.A., so we had already planned to visit them at the end of our trip. My parents worked feverishly and figured out flights/rental cars/hotels/etc. so we could all stay for the memorial. What was originally going to be a 10 day trip turned into a 16 day trip. That's a long time to be away from home with two young kids, but we were so grateful to be able to be there for the memorial and to spend time with my uncle Stephen and cousins Lisa and Nathan.
Marty used all kinds of natural/homeopathic methods to fight her cancer. One of these methods was a foot detox bath. I was so intrigued by the brief research I'd done on it and wanted to try it--my results are the bottom right. Nasty, right?! I forget what the colors mean, but I think it was detoxing yeast from my system and detoxing my gallbladder.
A little time in the hotel pool--I love that Ashlyn and Maguire are such buddies! Also, spending time with Lisa, Nathan, my Aunt Diane and Granny. Doesn't Maguire look like a typical teenage boy mowing the lawn? Well, minus the binky, of course ;)
Ashlyn and Lisa, memorial flowers (bright, cheerful and fun--just like my Aunt Marty!), extended family, our family of four. So interesting how--unplanned--navy and white was what so many of us wore!
One of our last days there, we went to Chuck E. Cheese's with Stephen, Lisa and Nathan. The kids had a blast together and it was good for us all to go do something fun and lighthearted together. Did you notice in the lower left picture how Maguire is planting a kiss right on Lisa's open mouth?! LOL! What can I say; he's a lover :)
If you think of it, please please pray for these precious kids. My heart breaks for them and for my uncle who lost the love of his life. The thing that takes away the sting in this all is that Marty is in her eternal home and we WILL see her again one day. What an amazing God we serve. For all who serve Him, death does not win in the end!
I know this will come as a complete shock to you all {read much, much sarcasm}, but I took a ton of pictures during our recent trip to Palm Springs with my family!
I'm sitting here, trying to think how to put into words my immense gratitude to my parents for yet another fabulous Palm Springs vacay. Emotions overflow but words fail me. Mom & Dad...THANK YOU! I love you and love the 2 weeks we were able to spend together.
Our trip started right at naptime, so the kids were good and tired, right? Nope :) Because we were using FF miles and it was spring break, our flights were less than desirable. We flew out at 1:30pm and (after 3 flights) landed in Orange County at 10:30pm (aka 1:30am EST). We were worried about how Ash and Mac would do staying up so late with no naps, but they did great! They both slept (with a little Benedryl help) on the last flight from Salt Lake City to OC. The frustrating part came when we landed and two of our bags hadn't arrived with us. Poor Kyle had nothing, but luckily we had my bag and most of the kids' stuff and Delta provided us with some very interesting toiletry bags. An hour and a half later we were all snug in our hotel beds. The next morning Kyle and Maguire went to pick up our rental car and we got the news that my aunt (my mom's sister) had passed away. (I'll write more about that in the next post) With heavy hearts, we drove the 2.5 hours to Palm Springs to meet up with the rest of my family.
We had a blast hanging out with Uncle Nate, Aunt Brittany and Baby Oliver for a few days before they had to leave. We always love our time with them, but it never seems long enough! :)
The kids loved spending time in the pool and I was extremely grateful for swimmies and life jackets and the fact that both my kids were great about wearing them whenever they were around the pool. (see this post and this post for the reasoning behind my paranoia)
Family time!
We had lemon, lime and orange trees at the house we rented, so Ashlyn and Maguire loved making fresh squeezed lemonade and orange juice with Papa.
Our Easter celebration was very laid back this year. We had an Easter egg hunt in the back yard, read the Easter story out of the kids' Bible and then watched the Veggie Tales "An Easter Carol". We didn't go to church anywhere so I didn't see any reason to get all dressed up :)
Aren't these boys (young and...not-so-young ;) ) so cute! Papa and his grandsons
Every Christmas my family drives to Chicago to spend Christmas evening with my mom's brothers and their families. Unfortunately I don't have any pics from that night; my mom must have them all on her camera--bummer. The time spent with my aunts/uncles/cousins is always fun - I always enjoy the smorgasbord of food (including several traditional Swedish dishes--my Grandma is full Swedish) including the Limpa (Swedish rye bread) and ham with my uncle's YUMMY ham sauce! For the past two years we've started a new tradition for the adult gift exchange of giving handmade gifts. Each family makes one type of gift to give all the other adults. Last year I made these fabric covered button bookmarks:
This year I made reusable java jackets (I don't have an actual picture of the ones I made, so this is the pic and the link from the site where I got the tutorial):
{Click on the picture to be taken to Little Birdie Secrets for this--and MANY other--cool tutorial}
After spending the evening at my aunt/uncle's house, we headed back to the hotel to rest up for a day of shopping on Michigan Ave. After a large buffet breakfast, we headed out for a little shopping before Ashlyn and I met up with my mom and Brittany at American Girl Place for lunch with Angel (Ashlyn's Bitty Baby). If you have a little girl and are able to do lunch at AGP, I would highly recommend it! It was so stinking cute in there and just every little girl's dream! It's not cheap, but you do get quite a lot for the money--a 4 course meal and a few little extras to take home, plus the experience and the opportunity for LOTS of pics and Flip video :)
For Christmas I had gotten Ashlyn and Angel matching outfits to wear to our AGP lunch. I loved their dresses, but I was pretty surprise by how many people (AGP employees included) who stopped us and asked where we had gotten them. At first I was hesitant to admit that the outfits were contraband from Kohl's, but after a while I got over it :) If they're cute, who cares where they came from, right?! Since Ashlyn just has a Bitty Baby (and I'm planning to wait a while before getting her a Just Like You doll or an historical AG doll--she enjoys Angel so much I don't see the point in adding another doll to the mix just yet.) we mostly stuck to that relatively small section of the store. I can see, though, where parents can go broke in the other parts of the store!
I think I had as much fun as Ashlyn did at this place! After lunch we went into the bathroom and what do you think we found? Doll holders! They look sort of like coat/purse hooks, but they're meant to hold dolls while you take care of business--they thought of everything!
While we were lunching with dolls, Kyle and Maguire were out scouting the city for the best street act. I may have mentioned before ;) but Maguire is obsessed with music! Oddly enough, there were virtually no street performers to be found, but they did find "The Tin Man". You know, one of those guys painted in metallic paint who look like statues and do some robotic movements. Maguire was transfixed and even now (February--yeah, I'm late in updating) "Tin Man" is something that he talks about almost daily. Kyle took one of The Tin Man's cards, which is a 4x6 glossy card with a picture of him on it. Maguire makes sure to know where it is at all times in case he thinks I might not know who he's talking about.
An added treat for me was, after lunch and getting the kids down for a nap (thanks mom & dad!!), that I was able to meet up with my dear friend, Dara! It used to be a tradition for us to meet up for dinner whenever my family was in town for Christmas, but adding kids to the mix--among other things--made it more difficult to keep that up. So I was excited that it worked out for us to hang out and shop together for a few hours. I miss seeing and spending time with that girl!
Between lunch at AGP, the Disney Store, The Tin Man, the huge breakfasts, throwing coins into the fountain at the hotel and all the quality time with Uncle Nate, Aunt Brittany, Oliver, Papa and Mimia, it's no wonder the kids ask on a regular basis, "When can we go back to Chicago?"
The whirlwind of Christmastime events started on the 20th with a service at our church - my dad came and played guitar & sang with Kyle for the service, so that was really cool. Maguire played "drums" on the steps during the worship. It was too funny!
That afternoon, my mom, Ashlyn and I went to my sister-in-law Brittany's parents' house for the annual women cookie decorating and exchange party. I love spending time with this group of women and I'm so glad my brother married into her family :) I'll have to see if my mom took any pics of our time there. After the cookie madness, we went back to our house and met up with the menfolk for our traditional dinner and gift extravaganza at our house. After a yummy salmon dinner (also somewhat of a tradition) which Maguire truly wolfed down, we dove right into the gifts. It's so fun to watch the kids get so excited about their gifts. And I do have to say that Ashlyn is the best gift receiver I've ever met. After each gift she would exclaim, "Thank you SO much! It's JUST what I wanted! I love it!" I know, it sounds like it would start to sound disingenuous after a while, but it's really genuine and very endearing :) And she's "teaching" Maguire to respond similarly to gifts, only he says that it's just what he "needed". Cute kids! Maguire's gifts had several themes: Music (drums/guitars), John Deere and HotWheels. Ashlyn enjoyed things from her detailed Christmas list: binoculars (??), a password protected journal (this came from "Santa"), Barbie in the Three Musketeers DVD and doll, and things for Angel (her Bitty Baby) such as clothes, accessories, matching "Mommy/Baby" outfits, and a reservation for lunch at American Girl Place in Chicago a few days later. Kyle and I enjoyed the generosity of my family as well with a couple small gifts, a Flip video camera (so fun--I highly recommend!) and spending money for our Chicago trip. But so much more than the gifts, we were grateful for the time spent with my parents, my brother and sister-in-law and their new little guy Oliver. We love them!
We also played up the Santa angle this year. I have to admit, I *may* have used Santa/naughty/nice a few times with the kids to get them to behave...don't judge! The really fun part, though, was that the kids decorated cookies for Santa and left them out with milk on Christmas Eve. The next morning they were delighted to find the cookies and milk gone, and a note from Santa in its place. Then they enjoyed a few gifts each from Santa--things that had been on their lists. It was so fun to see their excitement!
I organized Ashlyn's class Christmas party this year. I think the kids really enjoyed it! We had them make and decorate popsicle stick Christmas tree ornaments, decorate Christmas cookies, read a story, have a snack, and do a gift/book exchange. It may not sound like much, but it took up the whole time and we actually ran out of time to "present" the teachers with their gifts--oops! Then the kids went to chapel where Pastor Love (that's his real name--Mark Love. Isn't that the coolest name for a pastor?!) showed really fun pictures of Legos depicting the Christmas story and sang some Christmas songs with the kids. We love Pastor Love!
Remember how I was so bummed that Maguire's Christmas party was canceled because of the snow day? Well...because school was canceled 3 times before Christmas, the school decided to have a make up day on the Friday before break--perfect! Unfortunately, only 3 out of the 6 kids in Maguire's class were able to make it that day, but the 3 that were there had a grand old sugary time! I made the "Pin the Nose on Rudolph" game for the kids to play and they didn't want to be blindfolded, but they were very honest about closing their eyes really tightly! And the other funny thing was that, even with 2 chances each, none of the kids got the noses in the right place. But they were all very symmetrical in their placement :) Maguire just adores preschool and he & I both wish he had school more than just on Fridays!
The kids sure loved playing out in the freshly fallen snow. They were SO anxious to make a snowman. It wasn't the greatest packing snow, but Ashlyn, Maguire, Kyle and neighbor Elizabeth weren't to be deterred. It was a short, stumpy snowman, but they were proud!
