Stitches!!

Garrett gets the award for the first kid with stitches!! I'm sure most of you have seen the pictures on facebook that I put up....if not, go check em out. He seems to be fully recovered (which only took about 30 minutes) and has moved on to the tell-everyone-you-see stage. HA. Here he is after we took the bandaid off that first night....

We will go in tomorrow morning to get the 3 stitches out, i guess they don't leave them in long for the face. This kid needs a helmet. Cale said he got his first stitches at 24 and Garrett wasn't off to a good start. HAHAHAHAA. So true, so true.

In other news= HAPPY EASTER!!! Great start to the weekend, the staff gave us a mystery gift- SO FUN.....have no clue other than the date! wooo!! We're pumped, and super blessed to have so many people that love us. VERY VERY MUCH appreciated. Thanks ladies!!!

Yesterday the kids opened a box of fun from Grandma Rita

then that afternoon we colored eggs

Ryan and I had a hot date with Rachel and Dustin...

We had great weather for Easter today, had a delish breakfast, headed off to church, GREAT service, put the kids down early and headed to Joe and Susie's for dinner...

...and an egg hunt in their backyard. Fun day, got some good pics of the kids and their goodies...I will put more on fb. It seems to be a theme to put up the video of them finding eggs, as I have done that the last 2 years (check out the posts from Easters past if you're bored) Here you have it! Look out eggs- here come the Thomas's!!

Sydney was all over it. If you look back at the boys when they were one, it took them a lot longer to catch on...HA. Syd has two big/fast bros she's gotta keep up with or else!! You saw how G totally ran over and shoved Ethan out of the way!! DANG what a bully. hahaaa. We're working on that. ;) At any rate, favorite shot to end the post....

good ol' DEMOLITION

Our friends Schoonvelds have officially started into their addition! Actually, they've been tearin out the insides of their house for a few weeks...but Saturday they had their big DEMO day and down it came! We stopped by there tonight to peek at the final work Ryan and Heather's dad did today...HOLY SMOKES! And we wanted to see what the boys would say when they saw it...


There were some gasps, they said "it's broken!", and told uncle ryan "you better pick up this mess!" hahaaaaa. Yes, get to work man! You tell em G!

Lansing here we come!

Change of plans today....Ryan had a CE course in Grand Rapids, it's been on the schedule for a while now and I was planning on meeting my girlfriend Kara and her two kids up there for a good chunk of the day to hangout and catch up. As the day came closer though, weather and teething children and the risk of being somewhere with no where to retreat all caused our change of plans. We decided to just drive to Lansing to see them and hangout at her house with snacks and toys and movies and a park down the road. Just a better idea all around. Only got a few pictures in though, as usual....dang.

here we are all ready for the park!!


Look at this little muffin. Kyler turned 1 in Feb!! what a little mini!!

tearin up the park......



a trip to their delicious restaurant....only eating picture- obviously meal time is busy. ha. AHHH he's so cute!!

and then a quick hangout back at their house before getting back on the road


And for the ride home, this teething beauty had a heck of a time falling asleep. We left a bit after nap time, but she slept almost the whole way there in the morning. She's been eating practically nothing the last few days, had nothing for lunch....poor lil lady. And while I was driving I put the camera over my shoulder and took these next few of her misery.






Can you tell its her teeth!?! HA! not that it's funny, but the pictures are kinda funny. It must be painful, good thing we all go thru this when we're little and don't remember it. =) Then she finds her blanky and paci....

and OUT COLD. these pictures were all in like a 4 minute time span. hahaa

only she didn't sleep very well cause she kept waking up to cough....then she cried for the last like 45 minutes. SO, I put her to bed at 5 when we got home and she's still sleeping!! Guess she's not gonna eat dinner either today!! we shall see if I wake up tonight at 2 with a wide awake baby. =) I do like all the hugs she's in the mood for now though. And last night she fell asleep during dinner on Ryan's chest, so we're tryin to save up those moments for when she's better and running away from us again. haa! Anyhoo, aside from teeth, it's always great seeing Kara and her boys...we were dreaming of the day when we can actually go to the park and sit on a bench and talk...and parent from the bench. hahahaa!! soon enough im sure!

Hhahaa

one more project!

So here you have our stairs down to the basement.... BEFORE = empty and white and boring. AFTER: behold!


Stole this idea from Jenny conklin's house, they have a sweet more decrative version in their kitchen and totally fun. Erin suggested putting it down here...genious. I have been wanting a place besides our side of the fridge to hang up their ..."artwork" cause they always ask for it to be put up, so this is perfect. $3.50 package of green plastic coated wire and a couple of extra screws we had here at home....WHHHAAAAAA-LA! They got really excited when I showed them this morning. obviously it will be ever-changing, which is the beauty of it. Let the art begin!

Some Weekend Fun

So here's what we've been working on this weekend....

First, in our basement we're trying to get a little work out corner goin so we can maybe get to it with our P90 again. Before we came back to NE, I was searching for different ideas on how to put up a pull up bar since we dont' have any door frames down there. Found a couple good ones, ran them by my dad and he put together the frame part for us and I brought it back home from NE a few weeks back. Then Erin and I put em up one night, but we still had the problem with the bar rotating thru the hole, so last night ryan put some construction adhesive in all the holes and taped up the bar so it's easier to hold on to. Check out the results....

And a couple weeks ago we found a super cheap set of dumbbells online so now i think we're set! Now pray that we have enough energy after the kids go to bed for a workout..... hahaaaa Thanks dad! Looks great!

Secondly....The fort has been making us nervous with those big windows. We have had many a friend with little kids come over, and with Sydney being so small....even the boys. I admit, we have climbers, so I'm sure it's only a matter of time before they think they can just be-bop their way out the window and scale down to the ground. NOT GOOD. And it's not really that safe to have kids over and then just let them go downstairs with out us. freak me out! SOOOO, we did a little doctoring last night and......


...made a jail!!! Hahaha, just kiddin. but at least they can't fall out now. They can still shoot nerf guns through those windows. =) And you might have noticed the drywall mud, one sand away from being ready to paint! WOOP! I'm ready to be done working on it, so better get a move on and get it done.

And lastly, probably the most work, on Saturday afternoon we rented a thatch machine for $40...TOTALLY WORTH IT. Last year we just raked....and raked, and raked, and raked, and didn't even TOUCH the amount of dead grass we came up with using this hog. We had it for 4 hours and it was on the whole time. Joe helped us too, here's what they were doing....

HA! Apparently g kept getting mad at him cause he was falling asleep while he was reading. soooo funny. But soon after this it was nap time for the kids and then he was outside helping us. =) Now feast your eyes on THIS yard!!


Look at the heaps of dead grass. unbelievable. And pretty nasty. we couldn't rake it up fast enough....then Ry would go back over it again and rake up some more piles. Seriously....SO WORTH $40! that would have taken us WEEKS of raking to get that much out (3 packed dumpsters full) and probably sore arms for a month. haa ANNNDDD notice the color of our yard compared to everyone elses. oh ya, totally brown! one might think it's because of the dead grass laying on top, buuuuttt it's really that color underneath. not embarassing at all. Hurry up spring!! Altogether great weekend and the weather is gradually getting warmer. can't wait to spend some more time outside (even though it's raining today) doing yard work and getting the garden ready! Woop!