Surprise Visit from Grandma and Grandpa

Grandma and Grandpa came down for a surprise visit today. The boys did not know they were coming. Alex and I were playing dominos in the family room, he looked up, and there they were. He was so excited! Grandma and Grandpa stayed to see William off the bus. William read his baggie book to Grandma and the boys showed off their computer skills.  Alex was not about to be left out - he picked up the Thomas game pretty quickly!

Alex's turn!

Baggie Book time

Computer Class

Hockey and Skating

Phil has been playing basketball on Thursday nights with our neighbor. Unfortunately, last Thursday he came down wrong from a block and fractured his arm. He went to urgent care first thing Friday morning and they gave him a splint and said he needed to keep him arm immobile for the rest of the day. William had the day off school, so Phil was able to come up to Grand Rapids with us for the day. We went over to the Hofmeyer's to finish up Will's woodworking projects. He now has a shelf, a tool box, and a treasure chest. He is pretty proud of his work. In the afternoon, we went over to Grandma and Grandpa's to visit for a while. Then we met up with some friends to go to the Griffin's hockey game. We originally were going to spend the night at our friends house, but we decided to head home after the game. Phil's arm was getting a bit sore and he hadn't slept well the night before. The boys were disappointed that they weren't going to get to "camp out" so we let them set up their sleeping bags at the foot of our bed. The rest of the weekend was fairly low key.

Go Griffins!

Will the Toolman

Hot Wheel Races

Computer Time

Back on the Ice

Weekend Activities

On Friday night, we were supposed to have family movie night at school. They had to reschedule for later in the month due to all the snow days so we decided to have some of William's friends (and their parents and siblings) over to our house for pizza and a movie. The kids were having so much fun playing that we didn't end up watching a movie! 

 On Saturday, Phil and William drove to Detroit for the day. They went to the Auto Show, rode the people mover, had lunch downtown, and then went to visit with Aunt Maran, Allie, Emma, and Grann. While they were gone, Alex and I played trains (of course) and even got to go sledding in the yard and build a snowman.

Sledding Fun

On Sunday, the boys asked if we could take them sledding. It was the perfect day for hit so we packed up and went to a local park. We spent about an hour sledding and had a lot of fun! Alex started off on the smaller side of the hill but it didn't take long for him to venture over to the big side.  We were all pretty tired when we got home!

Quick GR Trip

On Saturday, Phil and some friends went to Ann Arbor for the Michigan basketball game. The wives and kids decided to get together for dinner so the kids could run off some steam. The boys and I drove up on Saturday morning. The roads weren't too bad - just a little slow. The boys spent the day with Grandma and Grandpa and were able to do a little sledding in their yard. They had a nice time playing with all their GR friends and then we spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa's. Alex got to sleep in his new sleeping bag for the second night in a row. He said, "I love it. It is nice and cozy."

Showing off his new birthday clothes from Aunt Katie and Uncle Will

The (not so) little boys

The kiddos

Snow Days!

Last week, William had Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off for snow days. Not only did we get a lot of snow but we had sub-zero temperatures on Thursday. The boys and I spent the days playing a lot of board games, converting our train table into a lego table, making pasta, playing hockey in the basement, and doing other miscellaneous arts and crafts projects. On Friday, it was actually fairly warm out (around 15F) so we were able to play outside a bit. On Friday night, we had family movie night and then the boys camped out in the family room. Alex was so excited to finally be one of the big boys.

Sorry!

Snow fort in the cup-de-sac

Parking garage for our hot wheels cars

Lego Table

My sous chef

Our poor garden

So excited!