Great time at Great Wolf

As you can tell by Sabrina's face, we had a great time as a family for a couple days at Great Wolf Lodge in Traverse City. (This face is also known as the cheese face...she's been bustin it out when we say cheeser cheeser!) We spent much of the time in the waterpark and Sabrina LOVED it! We had a hard time getting her to leave! She ran from pool to pool jumping right to daddy with no hesitation! She also went down the slide a couple of times by herself!

After we had been to the pool once, Sabrina knew the magic words and here's what we saw:

Some shots at the park.

Playing in the Kiddie area :)

Sabrina playing with the jumping jets and wondering why this one isnt jumping!

Brad and Sabrina stood nearby as 1,000 gallons of water dump over the fort and kids of all ages.

During our visits to the waterpark, Sabrina saw the older kiddos wearing these lifejackets and kept grabbing them off the edge of the pool. Finally we went and got one for her and put it on and she was happy as a clam! Strange thing because she HATED the one at the cottage! This one she modeled like an expensive leather jacket!

On the lazy river with daddy.
We also had some great food at the hotel. (This was the only family shot we got so it's included by default!)

All in all it was one of the most fun things we've done as a family thus far!

Christmas Fun!

Crazy to think that this is actually Sabrina's second Christmas as last year we celebrated when she was only a few fays old! This year was much different then last as Sabrina is a ball of energy and can actually open presents! She loved ripping off the paper and had lots of fun discovering the new toys from her loved ones.

This year we celebrated with the Iverson's in Saugatuck and then drove up to the cottage to celebrate with the Hooglands. We also snuck in time to celebrate on our own at home. Truely the best part was spending time with family. We feel so blessed to have such wonderful people in our lives to celebrate with! Here are just a few shots of the parties from this weekend.

Opening stockings with Grammie...

What could it be!

Auntie Kate makes great farm animal noises....Lesson learned: Next year when is says "some assembly required" we'll do it ahead of time. Sabrina was so excited to play with her new house, that she tried to "help" daddy along. It did not work. The finished product!

10 Weeks and Counting

As many of you may know from reading the previous post, we are expecting our second ball of energy! Lots of people have asked for the "details" so I'll fill in the gaps here. I'm 10 weeks plus right now and am due July 13. So far I'm feeling great compared to how I felt with Sabrina which is such a huge blessing as I need all the energy I can muster to keep up with her some days! Yes, we will for sure find out what we are having probablly in a couple of months. We have seen a heartbeat (thanks Trish!) and everything seems to be going well! Thanks for all the well wishes! We will keep you all posted!

Sabrina's 1st Birthday!

Wow, it's hard to believe it's been a year already. Sabrina has grown so much and brings us so much joy and laughter. I can't imagine my life without her!

To celebrate this big milestone, Sabrina had 2 parties! One with the Hooglands and one with the Iversons. Both were a blast!

We ate dinner...

We opened presents....Everyone was so thoughtful! Sabrina even got into ripping off the paper some!

Some new PJ's and a new slide, WEEE!!!

I got some new books and spent some time playing with my cousins!

Then we ate cake, and I got some too! In fact, I had a whole cake all to myself and I made a great mess! Mommy and daddy were suprised it wasnt worse though!

The biggest suprise of all was the T-shirt mommy and daddy gave me at both parties that said "I'm the big sister!" No one could believe that my mommy is pregnant again and I'm going to be a big sister ,Yipee!!! Mommy says I have to wait until July, 13 though to meet my brother or sister. Check out the video of the reaction at the Hoogland Party. (Unfortunately I didnt get the camera out fast enough for the Iverson party!)

1 Year pictures

Check out Sabrina's 1 year pics here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/clpphotography

I will post some pics and video of her at her parties soon!

First Thanksgiving

It was Sabrina's first Thanksgiving and it was a busy day. We went to both the Hoogland and Knott sides to celebrate and she really hung in there! The bummer part was, Kate and Austin weren't able to come due to Kate having to work. It just wasn't the same without them, but we thought of them often! The Knott's really outdid themselves with the spread this year, for some reason there ended up being more than usual, but it was amazing! Sabrina especailly loved the ham, cheezy potatoes, and corn. Then off too the Hoogland's. We missed bowling but got leftover dinner and played bingo as an appetizer for Christmas! I won dishtowels and Brad won coffee cups.

Unfortunately, we had battery issues with the camera and didnt get the shots we wanted, but we had jsut enough to get part of a message from the Hoogland's just before commencing on the annual game of BINGO!

Bare belly dancer

Sorry another sideways video! No excuse, just a complete dummy move :)

Naughty New Trick and Nice Visitors

This past weekend was lots of fun as Sabrina now has extended her exploring to climbing. On toys, on the fireplace, nothing is to big or scarey for Sabrina. Unfortunately it totally freaks mom and dad out! In this picture, Sabrina got a big "No NO!" as she pushed her learning center over to the footstool and climbed on it to get on top of the other!

She also found these boxes and didn't love the "Sweetie, we need to get down".

Another fun part of the weekend ws having Kate and Austin home for a couple days. They spent a few hours visiting on Saturday and then we got to see them again for brunch on Sunday! It didn't take long for her to warm up to her Auntie and before long we were all having a great time!
S

Diaper Duty

A favorite activity of Sabrina's is pulling things out of drawers, cupbords, bags, etc. The diapers in her changing table are no exception! The video is a bit long, but at the end she does a little talking (sort of)! This post is for you Laura and Ashley!

A mom's work is never done

For a funny mom tribute, go here:

http://wholesalesuppliesplus.blogspot.com/2007/09/my-life-being-mom.html

Baby Love

One of Sabrina's favorite toys lately is her baby doll. She drags it around with her and points to it's eyes, nose and mouth. In the rare cuddly moments, she will grab the dolly to snuggle with. Wed. night Sabrina and I spent some time with Kathy and Grace. I tried to get a picture of the girls together, but with two busy bodies, this is as close as I got! Oh well! It was fun to see the girls playing together (as much as two 9-10 month olds can!).

Shopper in Training

Sorry it's been a while since I've updated, my camera battery has been dead and I've been a bit lazy about taking pictures so I thought I'd post an old pic in the mean time. This one's for Kate!

Sabrina's now in intensive training to get her shop on. She was practicing how to juggle the plastic and say CHARGE IT!

Kissy Face

Today out of the blue, Sabrina started kissing the faces of the babies in her Boo, Baby Halloween book. She kissed every page! I laughed so hard. I had to coax her some to do it for the camera, but it's still pretty cute. She just looks so proud of herself!

Halloween was just Ducky!

We carved.....

We scooped...
We got messy....
We got sudsy...
We tested candy....(not really)
We got dressed up....

And we made a new ducky friend (thanks to Nana and Poppy!).

Mornings

I am by no means a morning person, but how can you NOT love mornings when I have my little sunshine grinnin back at me!

Vacation

This past weekend Brad and I took off without Sabrina for a little R and R in Cabo San Lucas. We had a great time! It was a beautiful resort, 95 degree weather, good food and perfect company. We spent time by the pool and went into downtown Cabo. All in all a great trip, but we couldn't help but miss Sabrina! We are so lucky that she has awesome grandparents (and Aunt!) to take great care of her while we away! It definitely gave us piece of mind knowing she was in such good hands! Thanks guys! Here's a brief tour of our trip...

Obviously not Brad, but he wasn't too jealous, even though he was a snappy dresser, this guy had NO personality! We met him in Downtown Cabo near the marina. We did some shopping and ALOT of walking!The view from our hotel room on the 6th floor (the top floor). It was incredible! The room was huge and we could keep an eye on all the happenings!

These two shots are from one night out by the beach and at dinner. The food that night was great and it was so awesome to sit out at 10 PM and have a relaxing meal

Apparently there was a hurricane coming toward Cabo Tuesday or so and the day we left we began to see some HUGE waves! The video does not do it justice, but they were about 20 ft high!

Scarey Ghost!

Lately Sabrina has been developing quite a sense for adventure. Her latest thrill is tossing a blanket over her head and walking around the house....Yes, it is a problem. She laughs and giggles and walks into things. Most times she just plops down and laughs, other times it brings tears but regardless of the outcome, she continues it! I fret and chase after her to keep her from hurting herself! I realize now that I bought the wrong costume...she'd have been a perfect little ghost! My apologies for another sideways video! I'll get it figured out one of these days!


No worries, no one was hurt in the filming of this video :) Just one of many close calls!

Like mother like daughter

Pumpkin Parade

Zeelands Pumpkin Parade was very different that years past. Most years it's something that you wear a sweater to and take an extra blanket and maybe sip some hot apple cider but not this year! Mom, Kate and I thought we would take Sabrina to the parade and since out house is not that far from downtown, we thought we'd walk! Not so smart! It was WAY too hot to enjoy that trek! Notice from the pix that Kate had jeans on with a short sleeve turtleneck SWEATER and mom had a long sleeve twinset! Not ideal...but we persevered. Once we got there Jamie joined us and we settled in in the shade of a tree which only cut the heat a little bit. Sabrina realy enjoyed the parade and the quality time with her Nana and Aunties. Amazingly we all survived the walk back and Sabrina crashed out in the Burley.