VanDenBroek Thanksgiving

Saturday night we headed to Fairfield for the VanDenBroek Thanksgiving. We went to my Aunt Jean's. She made a wild turkey that Jerry (her fiance) had shot with all the trimmings! We toured their new cabin a few miles from their home and enjoyed playing cards and talking after supper.

Ang and the kids making pickle wraps for tonight.

Aunt Jean and Jerry built this beautiful cabin this summer. It had a wonderful view, complete with horses and a pond!

Elijah and Joshua playing beside each other. (Elijah is 10 days older)

Ethan and Grandpa doing a little farming after supper.

VanDenBroek Bowling

Friday night the kids and I went bowling in Pella with a few of the VanDenBroek's while Mark was in the field. We also went to McDonald's for supper. Ethan was so excited to get his free Happy Meal for reading an additional 10 books for BookIt last month! Uncle Alex and Aunt Ang were nice enough to help Ethan and Amelia bowl while I took care of Elijah and talked to everyone.

Patiently waiting for their turn.

Here is Amelia pushing the ball down the lane. Ang thought she would sneak another ball down the lane since Amelia's was barely moving and hadn't made it to the pins. Unfortunately Amelia's ball made it all the way down before Ang's could pass. This caused the gate to go down Ang's ball to hit it and get stuck. A guy had to go out and get it so the others could start playing again. Oops :)

Uncle Alex helped Ethan. Ethan was every excited to tell everyone that he used an 11lb. ball.

DeJong Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! We hope that you all had a great weekend with much to be thankful for! We enjoyed four family gatherings over the past three days. Our first was Thanksgiving day in Pella with the DeJong's (my mom's side). The kids had a great time playing with Grandpa and Grandma VDB and some cousins they don't get to see very often. We were at the Trinity Church Youth House so we had plunty of fun activities to do!

Ethan and Grandpa VDB playing a little air hockey. Ethan loved it!

Ethan moving on to Foosball with my cousin Joe from MN.

Amelia and Grandma VDB playing basketball.

Fall Music Program

Ethan had his first program of the year on Friday. It was the fall music program at Oskaloosa Christian, the theme was Know, Grow & Go Make Disciples of all nations... At home Ethan will sing his heart out! That is when he doesn't anyone is watching, but as soon as you look at him he's quiet. I love to hear him sing in the shower! :) He did pretty good at the program. Here is a couple pictures of K-4th grade singing.

K-4 singing Stop & Go

5 Months old

Elijah turned 5 months old this week! He's growing up so fast! He likes his cereal much better now, finally. He thinks it's great to pull Amelia's hair and loves to play with his feet. Here are a few pictures taken recently.

Carhartt's new baby carrier.

Elijah helping me do the laundry.

I love my feet!

A New Little VanDenBroek

I have new nephew, Logan Edward VanDenBroek! He is the first child of my brother Alex and his wife Katie. Logan was born Friday, November 14 at 12:27am. He weighed 10lbs and was 22 in. long. (Katie was enduced after being 6 days overdue, he was born about 17 hours later by c-section.) Both mom and baby are doing well!

Me holding Logan. He feels so light compared to Elijah!

He has long fingers and dark hair!

A cute shot of his chubby cheeks :)

Little Monkeys

Last week when I visited school I arrived during recess. I went to see what Ethan was up to and he was playing on the monkey bars with his cousin Gideon. They were so funny! Both boys had to show me their tricks and of course they had lots of races.

Ethan showing me one of his moves. I'm told this one is called "skin the cat".

Racing: it was funny to watch them race, one of them would yell "let's race" and start going and the other would chase. They did this back & forth several times.

Gideon hanging upside down.

Planting Tulips

Monday I helped Ethan's kindergarten class plant tulip bulbs in the school flower garden. The school theme this year is Go make disciples of all nations... and each class has a different country for the theme. Ethan's class has the country of Holland. That is why we did the service project of planting tulips - a dutch flower.

Ethan's group was the first group outside. They dug a hole in the shape of a cross for to plant the tulip bulbs in.

You can see the shape of a cross.

The second and third groups planted the bulbs. They used sticks to make a grid for planting the bulbs. This was something new to me, I usually just dig a hole and shove the bulbs in. It went pretty well and the kids had a great time in the 70 degree weather!

The kids made scarecrows a couple weeks ago. When they weren't planting bulbs they were taking apart the scarecrows.

Reformation Celebration

We don't do Halloween, but for a fun alternative Grandma and I take the kids to Pella Christian to their Reformation Celebration. This is a fun night were they have tons of games and activities that the kids can do at a modest price. Ethan and Amelia loved it! I was a little overwhelmed with all the kids running around on sugar highs!

Ethan doing a dart game.

Amelia and a fishing game.

Ethan trying to get the frog in a bucket.

The kids each got a bag of candy to take home in addition to all the candy and trinkets they received from the games. I left the room to get a drink and came back to Elijah frantically flinging this bag of candy around. Candy went everywhere! It was so funny to see him so seriously trying to get it! Sorry bud maybe next you can have some. :)

Cousins

We took cousin pictures at our house a few weeks ago. Here are a few of my favorites.

On the 4-wheeler, just for fun!

In front of our corn field by the coal mine.

Harvesting at home

Tuesday they came to our house to take out the 40 acres of corn we have around our house. Ethan was so excited when he got off the school bus to see everyone in our field! Ethan hopped in with Grandpa and the rest of us rode with Mark. Unfortunately our ride was a short one, but I did take a couple more harvest pictures.

Unloading on the go.

The corn had a rough weekend in the wind. As you can see the tassels and many of the leaves were blown off. Thankfully the corn wasn't blown over!

Amelia & Elijah with Mark.

Me holding Elijah in the buddy seat. Yeah for buddy seats!