The Catch of the Day

Bazzy and Kris have several silly games they play together, but the newest favorite is "big fish". Like the picture above, Bazzy is the big fish that has been caught and he wants Kris to dangle him upside down like the catch of the day.

Mia had to jump in on the action and pose with today's catch.
Don't they look proud. ;)

My BRAVE Boy

My sweet son has become such a confident and secure little boy over the past year. He has always been a total sweetheart, and I felt for him when he really wanted to try something new but he just couldn't quite find the courage. Last year he REALLY wanted to go on this little car ride at Tulip Festival. He mustered up the courage to finally get ON the ride, but shortly before it started he burst into tears and Kris has to go rescue him. It about made me cry, cuz I knew how badly he wanted to ride it. Poor little buddy. :(

THIS year, he decided he wanted to ride it again. I honestly was ready to do another rescue mission before the ride even started or possibly DURING the ride...but instead all we got were the HAPPIEST Bazzy smiles ever. He was SO happy!!! It was actually freezing when we were doing rides. His little teeth were chattering the whole time, but he would not stop waving and smiling. So stinkin' adorable.

Here is my BRAVE little boy....

Not so sure

Charlotte is still trying to figure out what she thinks about grass.
At least she's staying in one place for once. ;)

The little man

Schools out!

The perfect night

The weather is amazing tonight!

The kids are enjoying the warmth and the green grass.

Sorry earth

How many trees had to give their lives to cover the amount of paperwork my kids came home from school with today? Wow! I know it's three kids worth but holy smokes. Craziness.

The VZ's Are Moving On

I realized after getting several emails that a lot of people don't know that we are moving to a new house. I keep mentioning packing, but it didn't occur to me that people from out of town probably have NO idea that we're moving again. Yes- we're crazy. Moving again. We're only moving about 6 minutes away though this time.

We've been renting the house we are currently in and we were planning to buy it when our house in the country sold. BUT our house in the country didn't sell for over a year. This meant that we were out of our renting/buying contract that we had on the house we are currently in. We decided it might make sense to take advantage of the low interest rates and great house prices, so we looked around and found a house that we loved. We made a low offer and after a bit of negotiating they accepted our offer and we are thrilled. The ONLY thing the kids care about is that our new house has a swimming pool. I guess I can't blame them. LOL! I've never really thought we would ever have a swimming pool, but if it's already there...why not, right? I think it will be fun to have pool parties on those blazing hot summer days. So if you're in the area, stop on by! :)

Oh no

Can someone please come over and follow my baby up the stairs for the next six hours? Nothing else seems nearly this fun in Charlotte's world today and it's getting kinda hard to pack. LOL. Thanks. ;)

Tulips

The Tulips in OC were BEAUTIFUL this year. I had fun with my macro lens in the tulip garden one morning while the kids were getting ready to walk in the parade. They have a garden where you can see all the varieties of tulips and then order them so you can plant the bulbs in the fall. I still haven't decided exactly which ones we want to plant this year. There were so many that I loved,
but here are a few of my favorites.
(My absolute favorite is the last one pictured. The stripey red and white one. Unfortunately it's just a random mutation from another type of tulip and the only one's they had were 3 of them in their private garden. I was tempted to dig up one of the bulbs... ;) )

We're having another girl.....

.....stay with us this summer.

HA! Yes, I was trying to freak you all out. NO we're not pregnant. NO we're not adopting again. We are going to have a Japanese student stay with us for a month at the end of July. Friends from our Christ Care group have done this in the past and they asked if anyone would be interested in hosting a student for a month (they will have a student too, so it will be nice for the girls to have another Japanese student nearbye). We thought this would be a great experience for all of us as a family, so there will be one more VZ for awhile before school starts. I hope she is ready for all of the action and sillyness that comes along with being in a household of 7.
Could be quite the experience. ;)

Crazy boys

Our nephew came over today and our house is crazy with giggling goofy
little boys.(who canNOT stay still for a picture. LOL.)

More Tulip Festival

I once again took a billion pictures at Tulip Festival. It will take me awhile to post them all, but I know that my family at least will enjoy seeing all of them.
I will continue to post new ones when I get the chance.

We LOVED Wicked last night. Wow. SO good!

Cute- mb

We made trips to the refugee families houses today to deliver mowers
and gas cans and teach the new family how to run the mower. We were
excited to see grandma nart and she was very excited to see charlotte.

We are going to see wicked tonight! Can't wait!

The big one

We took an hour off from packing this afternoon and went mushroom hunting. It's sunny and warm so we thought we would try again. We found five, including this really big one. We are getting better. :)

5 Little Dutch Kids

I haven't had time to sit down and go through all of our Tulip Festival photos, but I wanted to post a few quick for my family. I know they are excited to see pictures and I have a TON that hopefully I will be able to post soon. We had a great time and I got to eat Poffertjes 3 times, so I was very happy. :)

Chicken stop

We made a last minute decision to see if the chick fil a was still
open in Sioux city and it is! Kevin and Florida family- we took this
picture for you and please tell the chick fil a people we really need
one in Omaha!!! :)

Dutch girls