family picture

(click on photo to enlarge)

Not bad for taking it with the timer on the camera.

Soccer

We just finished our second week on this year's soccer season. Once again we have a great coach and a fun team. Brendan is still loving it as much as last year.

Brendan doing a throw in.
Brendan with his friend Connor Brendan celebrating a goal, even though he didn't kick it in.
Brendan heading towards the goal
Brendan's friend Drew kicking the ball.

We are so proud of you, Brendan!!!!! Keep up the good work.

I so bummed....

my sunflowers are almost finished.

Sunflowers are one of my favorite flowers.

They always put a smile on my face.

Preschool Field Trip

Last week we went to Hoekstra Farm for a Preschool field trip.

It was a wonderful day and we had tons of fun see the animals.

Lucas by the Ostriches
You can't see Lucas, but it's his hand that is feeding the ring tailed lemurs a fruit loop.

The Zebras were a favorite...even for me
Class Photo


Mrs. E feeding the emu

Lucas with his girl friends....I think Austin's jealous.

Completely Clueless

I am a newbie when it comes to vegetable gardening. This is my second year of veggie gardening and I was excited about growing pumpkins for the boys this year. My only problem was I was clueless that if you want pumpkins at Halloween, you need to plant them on Flag Day.

So I have pumpkins already sitting by my front door. In past year, I would have thought you were nuts if you have a pumpkin by your door just after Labor Day. But not this year, we are getting ready to trick or treat early...now if I could just have colder weather so the pumpkins will last, otherwise I will still have to buy pumpkins at Halloween.

Canning Season is Offically over at the Van Dam Household

Okay so I am offically sick of canning and freezing food. I still have plenty of tomatoes coming, but I will either be giving them away or throwing them in the field. Here's the load down on what in the freezer and on the shelf in the basement (or someone else's shelf)

First the freezer stuff:
3 batches of Strawberry Jam
3 more batches of Strawberry Jame that didn't set. (It works great for Strawberry Lemonade)
1 batch of Peach Jam
8 bags of frozen corn
6 bags of frozen peaches
Misc bags of frozen chopped onions and chopped green peppers

Now the canned goods:
24 quarts of mixed green/yellow beans
22 pints of spaghetti sauce
30 quarts of peaches
22 pints of peaches
8 quarts of salsa
95 pints of salsa (already given 36 pints away)

I know I planted a few too many tomatoes plants, otherwise I think we did okay. I wish I had more corn in the freezer, but the corn just didn't want to grow this year. So until next we will be enjoyed my past few weeks of labor.

First day of Preschool

What did he actually eat tonight????

Look at that face, he just plain naughty.
Here's his supper, I think it all made it to the floor, in his hair or on his face and shirt.

Instead of eating the cheese curls, Connor was smashing them with his sippie and then pushing them on the floor.

Water + Sand = Fun!!!!

Sunday night we visited my in-laws at the Conference Grounds.

Brendan and Austin playing in the lake

Lucas did not like his shorts getting wet.

Lucas has this habit of sucking his thumb and putting the other thumb in his bellybutton. I finally got the opportunity for get a photo.
Connor absolutly loved the water and sand. He was covered from head to toe.

Brotherly Love...if only for a moment.

Last Minute Vacation

Make a Smilebox scrapbook This past Thursday evening we packed up the boys and head south to Fort Wayne, IN. Mike had heard that one of the country's top ten children's zoos was in Fort Wayne and seeing how our boys love seeing all the animals we thought it would be fun. I had to drop off a few bags in Caledonia, on the way out of town, okay maybe is wasn't really on the way out of town, but none the less we were still only 10 minutes south of our house (Hastings) when we stopped for supper 1 hour after we left. And that wasn't our only detour. Mike likes to take m-37 south to I-94 to I-69. and that's fine, except this time when we got to I-94 there was so much traffic backed up that we just kept going instead of turning onto I-94, not really knowing where we were. Of course Mike keeps defending himself by saying we were never really lost, but I beg to differ. If it wasn't for the nextel signal that kept going in and out of service and the google map on the nextel, I don't know if we would have gotten there at all. It was definitely an adventure. After stopping at three different hotels, we finally got to our room, (no, we don't make reservations before hand, that would mean we actually planned the vacation), and it was way past the boy's bedtime Of course they were excited because we were staying in a hotel room (we don't do that much) and they were making lots of noise and Mike was trying to keep them quiet so we didn't wake anyone. As the boys were getting their PJ's on we had to get out the sleeper sofa for the twins, go back the to front desk and get a pack -n-play for Connor (I'm so glad they had one.) and get Brendan into the closet...he was going to sleep on the floor. Finally the lights were out and it was quiet. Friday morning, I was thankful that Mike had picked a hotel with hot continental breakfast. And after two trips back to the hotel room, everyone got what they wanted for breakfast - Lucas and Austin had fruit loops, Brendan had Frosted Flakes, Mike and Connor had...well I'm not sure what they ate seeing how they ate in the hotel lobby and I had eggs, hash brown potatoes and sausage. It was really good and it was FREE!!!! Next it was time for the Zoo. The boys were so excited!!!! Of course we needed to find a bathroom right away, and Brendan was already getting impatient. It was a great zoo, much bigger than John Ball and more impressive than Binder Park. The only downfall was there weren't any African Animals-zebras, griffaes, lions, elephants. That exhibit was going to be finished next summer. That was a big bummer for me, because those are my favorite parts of any zoo. Brendan was super excited about seeing the komodo dragon. First the boys saw a statue of a komodo dragon and I think they thought it was real - none of the boys wanted to touch it until I told them it was pretend. Then we saw the real komodo dragon who was in his "hut" and after a few minutes decided to come out for the boys, Brendan thought that was cool. Some of the other favorites were the sea lions (we were there when the zookeeper was feeding them), petting the python snake(I kept my distance, I don't like snakes), and watching the monkeys. We had a great time even if we were only gone for 20 hours....until our next adventure.