Weekend In Grand Blanc

We spent the weekend in Grand Blanc visiting the Holleboom family.  We had planned to make the trip a couple weeks ago, but had to postpone it when Rebecca got sick.  It was a fun weekend.  Rebecca had so much fun playing with all of her cousins.  It's so cute to see them all playing together now (except for Jonah of course :).  Everyone had dinner at Grandpa and Grandma's house.  Then we just visited and watched a few old home videos.

On Sunday we made our final visit to Good Shepherd CRC (where Mary grew up).  They will be moving to a new location in a few weeks.  It was fun to see some old friends and visit one last time.  After church we all stopped for a quick lunch and headed home.  It was a short trip, but still tons of fun!  We always enjoy getting to see the whole family.  We're looking forward to seeing Grandpa and Grandma again next week when they come out to watch Rebecca one day.  Rebecca will be especially excited.  She seems to have a special bond already with Grandpa...just like Mommy did when she was little.  For now we're getting back into the swing of things at home...and Rebecca is catching up on sleep :)

And just a few odds and ends updates on what Rebecca is up to these days.  She is still and avid reader.  We are now on chapter 15 (out of 16) in one of the Chronicles of Narnia books.  Rebecca is also very interested lately in wanting to learn how to read herself.  She knows the alphabet and many of the sounds the letters make.  She knows the uppercase letters very well.  We're working on lower case now.  And she likes it when Mommy spells words/sounds them out for her.  She has learned how to spell/recognize a couple words already.

Rebecca is also doing very well with her numbers.  We're still working on higher order counting.  But she pretty much knows all of the numerals (0-9).  Although she's convinced that 0 is 10 :)

Rebecca is about the most curious little girl we've ever seen.  She walks around almost the whole day asking "what is that" about everything she sees...everything.  And she even does it if she already knows the answer.  She just wants to keep learning!  She wants to learn about every detail of every page of her books.  She is so interested in learning that when she plays with Little People, Barbies, dolls, etc. most of the time she is having one of them "teach."  She'll say "she's gonna teach about food...she's gonna teach about toys...he's gonna teach about houses..."  By which she means she wants you to make the doll talk about something...so she can learn more :)  It's fun to see her soak up so much information...but also tough to keep her challenged :)

She is still a great singer and knows so many songs.  But she's not content with always singing the ones she knows.  At bedtime every night she asks for "a different song."  Again and again and again.  Mommy and Daddy are running out of ideas.  Maybe we'll have to start making up songs.

There is always more to say, but we'll leave it at that for now.  And end on Rebecca's most recent quote (when asked if she's a cheerleader or wants to dress up as something)..."you just want to be yourself."  Couldn't ask for anything better :)

Independence Day 2010

Our Independence Day was more like Independence Weekend :)  On Saturday we just spent some time at home as a family.  Sunday we went to church in the morning.  Then in the evening we went to a Whitecaps baseball game.  This was our first game of the season.  Rebecca loved it!  She was so excited to see the "big pig" and "big chipmunk" (actually a beaver) (Franky the pig and Crash the beaver).  She wanted to go say hi to them, but we didn't have a chance for that.  She was also very excited to sing "Take Me Out To The Ball Game."  She requests to sing that before bed every night :)    Rebecca enjoyed some stadium food...chicken fries and hamburger.  And she got her special request of (another) ice cream cone with peanut butter cups (just like at MI's Adventure).  We are learning that Rebecca is quite the little charmer.  While waiting in line for our food someone gave Rebecca some french fries.  Then we ended up sitting next to a really nice couple.  The lady gave Rebecca some of her fries and a flag bandana.  Plus she kept asking for our camera to take pictures of us :)  The couple that sat in front of us was very nice too.  They weren't bothered at all by a toddler kicking them in the back or tapping them on the shoulder.  They thought she was so funny, cute and smart.  They loved how she talked about the game.  Rebecca must have really won them over...after we had already eaten and had ice cream the lady brought Rebecca a baseball cap dish of dip 'n' dots!  She sure got spoiled there :p  It wasn't too conducive to keeping her calm or getting to bed on time.  But she had a blast.  And she did well staying up a bit late.  Although she did sleep a lot the next day.

Monday was the usual celebration in Grandville.  After sleeping in to catch up from the game we went to the local craft show.  Mary got a beautiful hand made small wooden cutting board.  From there we went to the parade.  Rebecca really got into it this year.  She loved seeing all the kids and getting candy.  She wasn't too crazy about the loud fire trucks and motorcycles.  And she didn't really like the "scary guys"...people dressed in Star Wars costumes.  But she really did like the dancers, cheerleaders and bands.  Rebecca got a couple frisbees and some more beads too.  We all took long naps in the afternoon to catch up from a busy weekend.  At night Justin and Mary watched fireworks from the porch as always, enjoying homemade ice cream.  Maybe next year Rebecca will be old enough to stay up...and we won't keep her up late the night before ;)  Thankfully she slept through all the noise again.  Funny how that doesn't bother her yet a creak from walking past her room can wake her up.  Selective hearing I guess.

It was a fun weekend celebrating our country.  We are blessed to live in a place with so much freedom.  God Bless the USA.  It sure was hot, but it was a fun weekend.

Michigan's Adventure

Life has been pretty crazy lately with Justin's summer class, work stuff, church stuff, sickness, etc.  So we decided to take a day to do something as a family, spend time together and just relax.  Yesterday we took Rebecca on her first trip to Michigan's Adventure!  Justin and I went to Michigan's Adventure every Labor Day from the time we got married until we had Rebecca.  And it was fun to get to go again.  We weren't sure what Rebecca would think of the rides and the water park.  Thankfully she loved it!!!  She had so much fun.  She was grinning ear-to-ear and even sticking her tongue out on some rides.  She went on the little cars (that go in a circle), the cars you drive (w/ Mommy and Daddy), the merry-go-round, the ferris wheel, the drummer boy (like the tea cup ride...which Daddy likes to really spin!), the whale (another one that goes in a circle, but goes up and down a bit), the boats (goes in a circle) and the train.  Her favorite was the merry-go-round.  She had to go on it 3 times so she could try different animals.  And she didn't want to get off.  She would have been content to have it keep going for a half hour straight :)  So far it looks like she'll follow in Mommy's footsteps and be a roller coaster lover :)  Can't wait until she's big enough for more rides.  Maybe someday we'll even get a chance to go to Cedar Point with Grandpa Holleboom.  3 generations of roller coaster fans :)  Justin and Mary only got to go on one roller coaster ride each, but it was still a ton of fun.  Just seeing the smile on Rebecca's face and the excitement in her eyes was enough to make the trip worthwhile.

At one point when we were at the front of the park there were some Peanuts characters walking around.  Rebecca was fascinated by them!  A "big boy" (Charlie Brown) and a "big dog" (Snoopy).  She wanted to shake their hands and talk to them.  Later she saw Lucy and Snoopy.  She kept giving Lucy a big hug.  I guess she did NOT inherit Mommy's fear of people in costumes :P

After the rides we went to the water park.  Last year Rebecca wasn't a huge fan of the water, so we weren't sure what to expect.  She was very hesitant and first...and clung to Mommy for dear life.  But after a while she warmed up and wouldn't even let us hold her hand :P  She went on 2 different water slides (for little kids).  And she went into the wave pool with Daddy.  We had to force her to be done in the water because she was shaking so much and her lips were getting blue.  She would have played longer if we let her :P

We ended the day with Rebecca's (and Mommy's:) favorite thing...an ice cream cone!  What a great way to end our fun-filled day.

This was our first experiment with skipping Rebecca's afternoon nap.  She did great.  She didn't get grumpy at all.  But she was VERY tired when we left.  She was out cold about 60 seconds after pulling out of the parking lot.  It's good to know she can handle it once in a while, but she is definitely not ready to drop her nap.  And I don't think we want to see what she's like if she had to do it 2 days in a row...or if she didn't get any sleep during the day at all (at least she got about a 45 min. nap in late).

We're looking forward to the holiday weekend.  We'll be heading to a Whitecaps baseball game on Sunday (Justin's Father's Day present).  Then on Monday we'll visit the anual arts/craft fair and parade and watch the Grandville fireworks from the front porch.  It's nice to have some good family time.