Slow Fade

I recently watched this video and thought it very moving. The Lord placed it on my heart to share. Make sure you pause my playlist before playing.

The ladies I work with

I thought you might all enjoy taking a peek at the great gals I work with. We have a meeting once/month and for our December meeting did some special Christmas things and also took a picture. We are missing two from the picture, my supervisor Sue (who was taking it) and my good friend Lori. Most of these women I have worked with for the 10+ years that I've been at the County.


Carol, Robin, Me, Cindy, Linda, Helen and Phyllis

Kuiper Family Christmas

Abby with Elaina and Evelyn just waiting...


Von and Randy with the "thankfulness" candle. We each pass around this candle and tell what we are thankful for from the previous year.



Kara and Joel



Grant





Traci, Andy and their girls opening their gifts


Look at all those gifts!



Dad and Mom Kuiper


Mike and Karen

Mitchell Family Christmas

Ever since I can remember we have gotten together with my mom's side of the family to celebrate Christmas. It's really hard to believe that Grandma Mitchell has been gone from this earth now for 12 years and Grandpa for 8. Even though they are not physically with us anymore, there are many reminders of them. The biggest one is the fact that we would not all be here without them!

This year we all met up at a Nature Center that my Aunt Ginny is a member of. It was really fun and it's always good to be with family.








Mikayla, Abby, Will and Josh with my dad watching a tortoise go for a carrot.



Luke, Angie and Cheryl also were enjoying some of the reptiles! That's my cousin Jeff and his son Nicholas in the back of the room.


Daring Josh...



No Mitchell Christmas party would be complete without at least one napper!

Sleepover

Not only is it Christmas time, but it is my sister Angie's birthday (yesterday). So, part of her birthday present this year was watching Will and Mikayla for the weekend. The kids just had a blast. We went sledding and went to Chuckie Cheese to play and Pizza Hut for supper. Good times.


Josh's fort at his school - the kids have been working on these forts for the past couple of months


Mikayla making a sledding track at Josh's school


Abby having some winter fun!


Josh won 200 tickets playing a game at Chuckie Cheese - we were all quite proud of him!




Abby loved having her older cousin Mikayla over for the weekend!


Will and Josh reading books before bed

De Vries Family Christmas

We were blessed to be able to celebrate Christmas with my side of the family this afternoon. I say blessed because of many reasons, but one was the 2nd snow storm in the past 3 days that we are receiving. Plans were rearranged a bit so that Todd and I could be back in Holland before dark, but we had a great time. The kids stayed in Grandville tonight as Todd and I both have to work tomorrow, so I'm sure they will have a blast tonight and tomorrow. Meantime, I have some time on my hands to post right away!

The WHOLE family gathered for dinner!

Mike, Luke and Micheal


Todd and Cheryl and Mike's dog "Bear" - looks like a bear, huh?!


Isn't this a beautiful picture of my mom?


Ang, Jim, Will, Mikayla and their dog "Moe" - yes, there were FOUR dogs gathered as well!

Thanksgiving -Part 1

Actually, the pics I'm posting are of our Thanksgiving get-together in the evening with the Kuiper family. We met up with the De Vries Family in the afternoon. I forgot our camera, so we had to take pics on Todd's cell phone. I'll have to post those pictures in a Part 2 segment. For now, here's some highlights of our evening at Todd's Aunt Von and Uncle Randy's house. Again, I have so much to be thankful for. I may do a tad bit of complaining about going to two Thanksgiving parties in one day, but, really, what a blessing to have so much family.


cousin Grant


Evelyn, Abby, Von, Mom K. and Karen



Randy, Andy and Elaina


Evelyn and Mike


Joel and Kara (the newlyweds!)


Traci snuggling Elaina (I love this picture)


And I couldn't resist posting this picture of our children enjoying a cartoon on the day after Thanksgiving. My mom says that I used to sit like that. I don't know how because there is NO WAY I could do that now!