Winter Fest Part 2

As you may recall, we went to a Winter Fest a few weeks ago at a local campground. They opened up for another day and we had to go back. This time we went with some friends and perhaps everyone else that was there the last time told their friends too. It was much more crowded than the last time. But we still had fun.

Brooke wanted to ride the ponies again. I went with her this time and Nathan went with Charlotte

Nathan finally got his chance to climb the wall of ice. When he came down he had a huge smile on his face. I think he enjoyed himself.

He made it all the way to the top!

Next we went to a tubing hill. The problem with this hill was that there were too many tubers and not enough tubes. And it was very steep. Brooke was only able to go down a couple times. Brooke is on top of Nathan in this picture.



We got to ride the horse drawn carriage ride again. This time we did it in the daylight which was nice so we could see what was around us and part of the campground.
While we were waiting for our carriage ride, we went out onto the frozen lake. In the background is someone ice fishing in their hut.



Nathan and our friend Shawn playing teatherball. I don't think I've played that since about 5th grade. Apparently Nathan hasn't either because I guess Shawn won??



This was the good sledding hill we found after dinner. It wasn't very crowded at all so we had our pick of the tubes. And it wasn't so steep, just long. It was hard to get a good picture of Brooke and Nathan tandem tubing since it was dark but I got one. Brooke was having a blast and was out there for about an hour. Charlotte was done being outside so we hung out in the building.
There was a pool table, Foosball table and ping pong table inside that kept us pretty entertained while we waited for everyone to be done. I tried to play pool but she kept hitting my balls with her ping pong paddle.



They also had snow shoeing, cross country skiing, ice skating, broomball, smores, and more. Brooke wanted to go ice skating but we just didn't have time. It was a fun day and we are all definitely tired. Hopefully they do it again next year!

Update

So not a lot has been going on here. It's cold and so we've been staying inside. It hasn't snowed much lately though, which is a good thing. Don't get me wrong, there's still snow on the ground. And the sun has been shining a lot, which it doesn't do very often.

I watched the neighbor kids last night, minus the 6 year old boy. The first thing they had to do was put dress up clothes on. We watched Enchanted, which is everyone's favorite movie, no matter how many times you've seen it. My girls have many of the lines memorized. I actually had to hide the movie the other day, so I didn't have to watch it over and over again. Literally, Charlotte will watch it over and over again all day long if I let her.


We got to watch cute little Kylee. Charlotte kept wanting to hold her and Brooke wanted to carry her around, because she has seen her older brother do it. (Not Brooke's, Kylee's) Brooke so badly wanted to feed her a bottle. She was a perfect little angel and it was fun to have a baby for a couple hours and then give it back to her mom. :-) If I had another baby, it would be smothered with too many hugs and kisses from my children.
Charlotte thought she needed a baby of her own.
A couple weekends ago, I had a girl's day out with some friends. We went to Grand Rapids and had a great time shopping, eating lunch, and even saw a movie. I found Brooke's Halloween costume for this year at KB Toys going out of business sale. It's Hannah Montana! She was thrilled. Except I have to hide the outfit or she'll wear it everyday and it'll be ruined come Halloween.
We're going to the Winter Fest again this weekend so hopefully we'll have some cool pictures of Nathan ice climbing. Bye!

Patience is a Virtue

So my patience and persistence paid off! After calling Game Stop EVERY DAY to see if they had WII fit (and every other store in town) I finally called up Walmart on Friday and they had it!! I couldn't believe it! As much as I don't like Walmart and Nathan refuses to shop there, they really came through for me on this. I was out the door in 5 seconds flat after I got off the phone with them. I wanted to do a little more shopping while I was out but thought someone might steal it out out my car so I just came home and Nathan got it all set up. I know some of you mentioned trying ebay or Craig's list, but I really didn't want to spend any more money than I had to. I spent at least $30 less at Walmart than I would have on Ebay or Craig's list. Now, $30 may not seem like a lot of money to some people, but it is to us students!! Really, we couldn't affored the WII fit, but it was either a gym membership or WII fit to get in shape. (By the way Christine, did I ever give you back that workout tape? I can't find it anywhere).

So I took some pictures of Brooke working out alongside her daddy. It was pretty funny!

He was doing a step aerobic workout and she was trying to step at the same time.

Winter Fest

We had lots of fun today at a Winter Fest that a campground in town had. Lots of activities and they were all free!! We love free! They had ice climbing, wagon rides, pony rides, snow shoeing, cross country skiing, broomball, tubing, and much more! It was pretty cold, but don't worry Mom, we had on LOTS of layers. Our first stop was to check out the ice climbing. Here is a guy in action. Nathan wanted to try it but it was pretty crowded. You have to sign a waiver to do it. When you have to sign your life away, I'm not sure it's something I'd want to do.
Our next stop was the pony rides. Here we are waiting in line.
Charlotte on her pony. I was really surprised that she really seemed to enjoy it.

I got to walk with her and the pony. I was having a hard time though, because Charlotte was kinda falling to the side and I was trying to direct the horse, who for some reason was going faster than my little legs could carry me. I got a pretty nice workout. Needless to say, we only went around once. It was making me a little nervous.
Here's Brooke on her pony.


After the pony rides we went to the cafeteria where they were serving a free dinner. Hot dogs and chili, potato chips, cookies, hot chocolate. It really wasn't that good, but at least it was free. We warmed up as well and headed to the wagon ride. Now there's some pretty horses. They took us all around the campground. Unfortunately it was dark and we couldn't see much of it but it was still fun.


After that we went back to the lodge and enjoyed some more hot chocolate. Here is Brooke finishing hers up on the porch. Charlotte was having a meltdown because she had just spilled hers all over the table and wanted more.
It was lots of fun. They're having another free day on January 31 so we may go again because Brooke wants to go tubing and Nathan wants to go ice climbing. Brooke also wanted to try to ski, but I'm not sure if she could do it but we'll try. I'd like to try snow shoeing.

We came home and the kids were wore out! (YAY) So they went to bed and we invited some friends over to do what else? Play WII!! Fun times were had by all. Here's Kim kicking my butt boxing. I just need a little more practice. I did win in bowling though, and my golf game is getting better.

7 Day Forecast

This is what life in Big Rapids is like. Lots and lots and lots of snow. And look at those low temps!! 1 degree?!

Things my kids are doing

So Charlotte got a new bed. Well, new to her anyway. She's been in a crib but she's so big it was time to move her. So my sister loaned us an old toddler bed. She's been doing fine with it, but I went to check on her last night before I went to bed and this is what I found. She was on the floor! Why do kids do that?
It reminds me of when we moved Brooke into a regular bed. She got a twin bed right before she turned three. When I went to check on her after the first night she was UNDER the bed. I couldn't find her for a minute. She must have a thing for sleeping under the bed because last summer while living with my parents I found her under Charlotte's crib. She had moved her pillow and blankets and everything. I couldn't find her for a few minutes and was started to worry a bit.

Brooke had her first spelling test today. She spelled all the words right! Let's see, she had to spell hat, bat, fat, ram, yam, ham, and a few others. Let's hope she gets my spelling genes because I won the spelling bee in 5th grade and I'm pretty proud of it. Mostly because I haven't won much else in my life.

We're trying to get back into the swing of things. Brooke hasn't gotten up in time to ride the bus all week (or maybe it's mom) so I've taken her. She hasn't been too cranky after school so that's good. Nathan starts his second semester on Monday. It's been nice having him home this week. We've ran lots of errands and gotten a lot done around the house. We even drove to Grand Rapids to do a little shopping with our gift certificates we got for Christmas since Big Rapids doesn't have any good stores. We had a good time and a nice lunch. Except for the part where Charlotte puked in the Toys R Us parking lot which is the first place we stopped. We were almost going to go home but as we were cleaning her up she started acting fine. Really weird. So we kept shopping, but first I had to buy her a new coat because she had puked on hers. Luckily I had brought an extra pair of pants. I went into Target to find the cheapest coat or jacket and found an adorable red pea cot for under $10!! It's so cute, I may have her wear it all the time.
We looked all over Grand Rapids for a WII Fit but can't find it anywhere!! It's started to really make me mad!! Apparently you have to be at the right place at the right time. Grrr...Why doesn't Nintendo just make more to keep up with the demand? I don't understand. So we've been hitting up Game Stop every day and will until we get it. Oh, and you can't pre-order it! What's up with that? So if anybody finds it, buy it, send it to me, and I'll send you a check! Thanks!!

WII Tournament

Our Community Center has a WII and we've been talking with some of our friends about having a tournament. We finally set it up and played on Saturday. It's nice because there's lots of room and they have a big screen which is pretty fun to play on. We also brought our WII so the little kids could play too. So we brought lunch and snacks and toys for the kids to play with and played all afternoon.

Here is Brooke and the boys

Brooke also enjoyed playing with the boys trains
The little girls had fun running around and trying to open the cabinets in the kitchen
They also enjoyed playing barbies

And Charlotte conked out as soon as we got home.

I think our friends are addicted now. Church was canceled yesterday so we had an impromptu game of golf. School was also canceled today so I'm sure there will be another round coming. Happy Playing!

Christmas Break Recap (Warning: Picture Overload)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a fun New Year! We sure did!! We just got back from a two week vacation to Indiana. I have so much to post! We had a great time visiting with family and playing with cousins and old friends, making gingerbread houses, bowling, karaoke, eating lots of yummy food, and of course, the PRESENTS!! The girls were so spoiled by their aunts and uncles. Here is a cute picture of Charlotte at Grandma Ison's house after church. She loves this little rocking chair and bears. And, of course, another cute Christmas dress. At Grandma Asay's we acted out the First Christmas. Cousin Ty as Joseph and Brooke as Mary. Brooke took her job as the mother of Jesus very seriously. She held that baby doll very tightly. Grandma got the doll at the dollar store and Charlotte kept calling it "Baby Jesus" the rest of the time. Grandma was going to let us take it home, but Charlotte said, "no, it stay here". It was cute.We spent Christmas Eve at Aunt Rachel's house. She had all the fixings to make gingerbread houses. It was so fun!! I have never made one and had wanted to do it but didn't have time before we left. So I was glad they got the chance to do it at Aunt Rachel's. We will have to make it a yearly tradition. Charlotte enjoyed sampling the candy.
A picture of the girls and George. They sure do love this dog. After they were tired of gingerbread houses, they wanted to play with George. George has been in the Cazee family longer than I've been in the Cazee family. He's getting to be kinda old and it's kinda sad. They always want him to sit on his lap.


Christmas morning at Grandma Asay's house.

All Brooke wanted from Santa was a barbie and barbie clothes. Santa can do that. Santa brought some for Charlotte too so we wouldn't have fights over them. Good thinking Santa.

Fun with cousins Spenser, Cade, and Ty in our new Christmas duds.

After Christmas, we headed downtown to see some of the sights. We ate lunch at the Spaghetti Factory. Here we are on the train.

Did you know that Indianapolis has the largest Christmas tree in the world? But, it's not a real tree. Brooke went to the lighting of it at Thanksgiving with Aunt Jennifer. Me, Brooke, and Charlotte are in the middle of the picture, if you can find us. The tree surrounds the Soldier and Sailor's Monument which is also called Monument Circle. You can take an elevator up in it to see the sights from up above, but we decided not to do that. I lived in Indiana most of my life, and I don't think I have ever been up in it. There is also a Civil War museum in the basement of this Monument. We didn't spend too much time in it because it wasn't very exciting for the kids. Brooke did take our picture in this cut-out.



You can take a horse and carriage ride around downtown if you want to pay a pretty penny. Brooke decided she would just have her picture taken in it. By the way, it was actually a very warm day, around 65 degrees. We did have a sweatshirt for Brooke, but she chose not to wear it. Here is where all of Indiana's money has gone: the great and spacious new stadium for the Colts. They tore down the old stadium the weekend before we were there.



We had dinner at Arni's one night with some extended family. Here is a cute picture by the fireplace with their cousins, Regan and Brett. They had so much fun playing with them. They painted their nails, watched movies, read together, horsed around, and had lots of fun.

One night we went bowling with the Bland Clan (thanks for inviting us Gwen!). We had lots of fun, but I always forget how bad I am. The first game I did terrible, I scored about 56, I think. I made a comeback in the second game and even beat Nathan's score, which is a first. There's a glare on the screen, but I think I ended up with 112?. I'm Nature Girl and Nathan is Retired. I didn't come up with the names. That was all Ryan. Afterward, some of us went back to the Bland house to do some karaoke. It was lots of fun but I didn't take any pictures. I guess I was just to into it.

We have finally come to New Year's Eve. We spent the evening with our good friends, the Barkers. The girls just had to play dress up. They are so cute.

They had karaoke too! But the kid version. This is Olivia singing a Jonas Brother's song. Brooke sang "Best of Both Worlds" by Hannah Montana, of course! I didn't get a picture of her though! I did get one of Nathan singing.
Our kids stayed up until midnight, but only 1 out of 3 Barker kids made it. Thank goodness my kids will sleep in if they're up late. They slept until after 10 this morning! But we're home now, and we need to get back on schedule because Brooke starts school on Monday morning! She hasn't been up before 9 a.m. the whole break! Anyway, Happy New Year!