William's Holiday Party

I had a great time this afternoon helping out at Will's holiday party. I was in charge of organizing it and I think we had some fun activities for the kids: personalized snow globes, snowflake slime, snowman magnets and a gingerbread hunt throughout the school. For snacks we had: a hot chocolate bar, snowy day snack mix, melted snowman water bottles, and a make-your-own melted snowman cookie. The kids all seemed to have fun and everything went smoothly!

Snow Globe Station

Melted Snowman Cookies

Slime!

Caroling Field Trip

Last Friday, two of the Kindergarten classes and two third grade classes (not Will's class) went to a local nursing home to sing Christmas Carols to the residents. They put on a little show in the lobby, handed out homemade cards, and then went caroling through the halls. Alex has on the neon green and orange jacket and is wearing his hipster glasses.

Portage Hockey Classic

On Monday night, William had the opportunity to play a game at Wings Event Center before the Portage Northern vs. Portage Central Hockey game. The father of one of Will's teammates is the coach for Portage Central and invited the team into the locker room before the game. They got to sit on the bench between the players and watch the coach draw up plays on the board. Then he gave our kids a pep talk before they took the ice for their game. It was a full ice game and then they got to sit on the bench while the high school kids took their warm-ups. Then, they joined the players on the ice for player introductions and the National Anthem. Will's coach was on the ice with them and he took video clips of most of the game. It is fun to watch them play from "on the ice." (Video is really long - you can skip around. Look for #7 with the orange tape on his stick.)

#7

Alex on the Dance Cam

Happy Hanukkah

We celebrated the first night of Hanukkah with a nice dinner in the dining room: brisket, matzo ball soup, latkes, apple sauce, challah, salad and Hanukkah cookies. The boys each received a few gifts: new US and World placemats, weather stations for their rooms that will measure the temperatures inside and out as well as humidity (we thought it would be fun to compare their rooms and the external temperatures in the front and back of the house), and a new game. We spent the evening playing dreidel and learning the two new games.

Santa

This morning, Phil took the boys to hockey while I hosted my annual cookie exchange. After hockey, the boys went downtown for lunch and then got to meet Santa. They were excited to share their Christmas lists! After Santa, they went to climb Kalamazoo for a few hours.

Brunch

So many cookies!

Happy Birthday, Grandma!

We woke up on Saturday morning to snow! The boys spent quite a bit of time outside playing in between hockey practice. After Will's afternoon hockey, we drove to Grand Rapids to celebrate Grandma's birthday. We went out for a nice dinner with Grandma and Grandpa and the Hofmeyers. Then we went back to their house for cake and presents.

Chicago Fun

On Friday morning, we left for our annual holiday trip to Chicago. Grann drove in Thursday night and made the trip with us. Phil and the boys dropped us off at the hotel so they could park the car and take the train back. Then we wandered around a bit before having lunch at Shake Shack. Then we went to Water Tower so the boys could use their Lego Store gift cards. They made their purchases and then we stopped back at the hotel to drop off our bags. Then we walked down State Street and the boys skated at the Maggie Daley skating ribbon. After a quick hot chocolate, we went to dinner at the Walnut Room. There were some new decorations on the tree this year! After dinner, the boys went for another train ride.

On Saturday, we walked to the Metra station after breakfast. We took the train to the Museum of Science and Industry and spent several hours there playing in the water room, seeing The Amazon in the Omnimax Theater, watching the giant pinball machine, learning about weather and watching the trains in the model. After the museum, we had a late lunch/early dinner at Gino's East before heading back to the hotel so the boys could swim. Then we walked to Zoo Lights.

On Sunday morning, we took a quick walk before heading home. It was a fun week as usual!

Trying on ND helmets in the Under Armour Store

Trying on ND helmets in the Under Armour Store

State Street

And they're off!

Walnut Room Tree

MSI

Water Room!

Alex's favorite part of the museum

Alex is still watching the trains...

Leaving our mark at Gino's East

Leaving our mark at Gino's East

Zoo Lights

Sunday morning walk