Levi, Stacey & Ryan

THELENS

hi family, hope everyone is done shopping. not much happening over here. we havent been able to get down our roads the last couple days. the snow plows obviously leave the country roads for the last of the laast!! we have had several farmers with there tractors plow them so we can get out!! ya know i never really thought of tractors as COOL but i think ive changed my mind. they have many uses and in my book are considered COOL!! we are having lots of fun pulling the boys with the quad. caden falls off on purpose! gavin is hunting with brent and hoping to get a doe. no deer yet this year and we are craving daddys homemade jerkey! it is nice to be on vacation WITHOUT my daycare kids. just to spend time with my family is awesome. a sure needed break! i went with gavin on his class trip to the plantitarium(spelling?) we had fun! first we went to the symphany-- now who in there right mind would take a bunch of 3rd graders to a symphany!!!!!!?? the kids were totally bored!! they were putting there coats on there heads and figiting the whole time!! i wanted to put my coat over my head too!! not a smart choice for hyper kids!! it was the first classtrip i got to go on with him so we were just excited to spend the day together! alright caden took evans diaper off his and hes running around saying "wee, wee!" i think i better sign off before there is a serious problem!! love to all, merry christmas! the picture with brent is , he bought gav and cade a new hat and they wore them all night! i guess its the simple thing in life!!!

Christmas open house invitation

Hello All,
On behalf of Gramma & Grampa TB You are invited to a Christmas open house on Christmas day, any time after 1PM. Grams is supplying the eats so just your smiling face is needed. It might be nice for her to know if you are coming so she can plan for food, but don't not come cause you didn't tell her you were coming. They would love to see everyone! Spread the word!!!
Merry Christmas
Barbara

Collecting Pop Cans

Hello everyone!

This year, Tori, Elli, Mark & I are sponsoring a family as a part of Christmas. We are excited to bless them with many blessings and teach the girls the joy of giving. So we are sending out the word to all our friends and families that we are collecting pop cans as donations. So if any of you have some pop cans that you would like to give us, we will come pick them up and return them. We will be collecting them on Tuesday this week any time before 12:00, so email me or call me if you are interested. c# 616 502-1229 or jenvanderveen@urassociation.com. If you aren't home on Tuesday mornings, you can leave them somewhere and we will swing on by! Thanks all! As I have been doing this I am praying for all families. There are so many who are having a hard Christmas financially and that is not a fun stress to carry! So we pray blessings on them all. Thanks!

Love, Jen

Bethlehem, Snow & Christmas Cookies

Hello out there!!!! In case you didn't guess from the title it's CHRISTMAS TIME up here!!! I must say this might be my favorite time of the year. Not my favorite season, but my favorite time of year! If the snow would all melt on Dec 26 I'd be a happy little mama! =) Anyways I'll describe the pictures - hopefully they'll stay in the order as I see them now once I hit the "Post" button so here's hoping it doesn't get messed up! The first few are of our Christmas cookie decorating extravaganza last night! Makayla was so excited to get her hands on those that she could hardly stand it. (too bad my roast took FOREVER to cook last night so we got a later than 'supposed to' start!) I made Dutch Sand cookies because...well let's face it those are THEEE best cookies for Christmas time! Not to mention they were a family tradition growing up so I may be rather partial! Anyhow I know the neon colors aren't really fitting with the whole Christmas theme but what the heck...it's all I had! =) And the kids had fun, especially eating them!

The next few pictures are of our beautiful snow! Although it really IS beautiful....there's just entirely TOO MUCH of it for my taste! There comes a time when you wonder "hmm...where are going to put anymore of it" - I think I may be there! (how's it by you Stac?) But we've been snowblowing like good little girls and boys....Dan even made a path around the house for the kids. Obviously it's too deep for them to play in, so this way it gives them a place to play besides the driveway or the road! Of course if you ask him he'd say he made it for the meter man because he is 'not going to pay the bills based on estimates all winter long'. Okay - fair enough - but I still say he did it for the kids first! Makayla tried riding her battery powered Jeep through it but to no avail. The thing needs some snow tires I guess, which is something mommy & daddy are not willing to invest in! =)

The other pictures are from an event we went to last weekend called A Taste Of Bethlehem. It wasn't at our church but we saw the article in the local paper and it caught our eye. So we checked it out. It was a seriously bad snow storm that night but how in the world do you tell a 4 yr. old who's heart is so set on going that the roads are too bad? You don't....you forge ahead at full speed...so that's what we did! And we're glad! They did an awesome job getting things to really look like you were back in the town of Bethlehem. Not only were all the people dressed appropriately, but they had tons of food (hence the title TASTE of Bethlehem) all in keeping with the times. Among the people they had chickens, sheep, donkeys & doves much to Camerons liking I must say! He's an animal lover for sure! Makayla wasn't so sure at first but she warmed up to it towards the end. They had a story teller (I think that's one of the pictures), belly dancers, pottery makers, soap makers, etc....it was very cool! And what a great learning experience for Makayla who's a very visual learner!

Anyhow that's pretty what's happening here in a nutshell. We're coming down for Christmas/New Years so hopefully we'll get to see some of your shining faces. Love you all!

THE VELDERMAN FAMILY

"Draft" Posts are now "Real" Posts :)

Hey all. I logged in to delete the blank post that Lindy accidentally posted, and I noticed that there were about 25 posts that had been saved in "draft" mode and never published on the site. That's probably what happened if you ever had a frustrating experience with a post vanishing after you put in a bunch of hard work.

I went through and deleted the ones that were blank and published all the rest, so you'll see the long lost information. There are some cool pictures and updates among them, but they go all the way back to 2006, so you'll have to go on a little treasure hunt to find them. :) Have fun!!

Also, if you add a post, remember to click the orange "Publish Post" button,



and not the blue "Save Now" button.






Have an awesome day! Mark :)

Happy Birthday Andrea Joy!

WHAT WE ARE THANKFUL FOR....

OK, LET ME TRY THIS AGAIN...I DON'T KNOW WHAT JUST HAPPENED....LINDY HERE..I JUST WANTED TO WISH YOU ALL A WONDERFUL AND BLESSED HOLIDAY SEASON. I HOPE YOU ALL HAD A GREAT THANKSGIVING! ADAM, ISABELLE AND I HAVE MUCH TO BE THANKFUL FOR THIS YEAR(AND EVERY YEAR FOR THAT MATTER) BUT WE JUST WANTED TO JOIN IN THE FUN OF ''GROWING BLUEBERRIES" AS KURT AND LISA PUT IT AND GROW ONE OF OUR OWN. YES, WE ARE ALSO EXPECTING AGAIN...A MONTH AFTER KURT AND LISA AND FIVE DAYS BEFORE MATT AND COURTNEY...WHAT FUN! THE GREAT PART IS THAT WE DID NOT NEED ANY ASSISTANCE THIS TIME AS WE DID WITH CONCEIVING ISABELLE. A FUN SURPRISE! I HAVE BEEN FEELING ICKY SO I KNOW THE BABY IS DOING GREAT. GOD IS GOOD! JUST WANTED TO SHARE!