nothing like summer in michigan

it seems as though summer took a long time to get here this year. however, today was an awesome reminder of how awesome summer is here in michigan - especially on the lake! as the slogan says, "yes michigan.....the feeling....forever".

family date night

tonight we went out just as a family. we are blessed to have a lot of people in our lives and love hanging out. most nights of the week we seem to spend with friends. a usual question from any one of the kids at any given time is, "who is coming over tonight?". well tonight, it was just the five of us. we went downtown grand haven and walked around and then found ourselves at one of our favorite restaurants and sat outside for dinner. we had so much fun together.
tonight i was reminded of how precious my sweet family is..... considering earlier today i was beginning to question if i still wanted to be a mom. it sit here writing this amazed at how fast it all goes by and what an honor it is to be their mother.

thursday=settlers

our goal for the summer was to play settlers of catan with our friends the olthoffs every thursday night. although we didn't quite meet our every thursday goal, we have played together quite a bit. i love our dear friends and am so thankful they'll play geeky games, eat brownies and enjoy "christmas in a cup" with us.
dave won!

mother of the year!

i was an awful mom today...... i have nicknamed our tv "nicki - the babysitter" to make me feel better about when i tell my kids to go and sit in front of her. today was one of those days. i had a bunch of loose ends to get caught up on and found myself working all day in front of the computer. fortunately dave took the kids to the gym in the morning - but the rest of the day was spent with "nicki" until we rushed out the door at 6:15 for a meeting a church. there i earned more points for my mother of the year award as i left them for the next two hours in the church nursery and did i mention that i didn't feed them dinner. so, i pulled into burger king at 9:30 to buy the kids dinner and on our way home lilly says to me, "mommy, you are the best mommy ever!" then luke & caleb chimed in, in agreement. i almost started crying - as i thought about what a neglectful mother i had been to the kids today. i know that their praises were coming as a result of the fast food aroma filling our vehicle - but hey, i'll take what i can get and appreciate the fact that they will love me despite my inadequacies and short comings :)

47 in a 30

this morning as i was heading back to the hospital to have a ct-scan done on my kidneys to see if there are any more little stones finding a home in there, i found out that laketon (the street the hospital is on) is 30mph. i was driving 47 as the police officer so kindly pointed out. as the police officer came to my car with my ticket in hand this is what happend....

officer: here is your ticket - i cannot be leniant when you are exceeding the speed limit that much.
me: i'm sorry - it's been a long time since i've gotten a ticket
officer: yeah, your record is clean
me: i'm just glad my kids aren't in the car
officer: (with a chuckle) nothing like trying to explain why mommy is getting pulled over
me: (with a gigle) yeah!
officer: you have 10 days to dispute this ticket - just call this number
me: dispute it?....(giggle)....i know i was speeding
officer: so, where were you headed in such a hurry
me: to the hospital for a ct-scan, i was here last week with kidney stones.
officer: i hear those are awful
me: yeah, the worst pain ever. i wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. (with a giggle) i wouldn't even wish it on you...
officer: (full blown laugh)....i hope everything is ok - have a nice day!
me: you too!

now this is where it gets funny.... so, i roll up my window and put my car in gear to go when i look in my rear view window and see the police officer waving me down.... so, i rolled down my window and he approached the car and said...

officer: let me see that ticket
me: ok (handing him the ticket he had just given me)
officer: i am going to just give you a warning (tearing up my ticket)
me: seriously? (in shock)
officer: yeah, it's just really nice to have someone take responsibility for what they did and be so nice.
me: thank you....(pause)...thank you!
officer: have a nice day maam and slow down

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!!!!

lilly and her funny words

some of you may not know that lilly had a very difficult time talking. at 2 and a half she only had about 10 words. she screamed A LOT in frustration because she wanted to talk so desperately but just couldn't for the life of her figure it out. with the help of a speech therapist - by her third birthday lilly was a talking fool, but not without a few mis-formed words. lilly's under developed pallet made it difficult for her to form certain sounds and as a result she had a hard time enunciating certain words. today you would hardly be able to tell that she ever had a problem with her speech. if you spend more than five minutes with her she will talk your ear off :) so, i tell you all this because i just had to chuckle tonight at how how she say's mcdonalds. now, i'm not sure if it is actually a struggle for her to say the word or if she says it this way because she's so used to saying it that way..... but i love it when she asks to go to "mcdongals".

oct. 19th

yes, i know october is still a ways off. but this is the date a group of us gathered to talk about this evening. as renovate continues to grow one of our visions is to work with and in our community, partnering with existing organizations. on oct. 19th we have the opportunity to work with every womens place, an organization who both shelters and cares for women and children who are coming out of domestic violence. as a church community we will be going to their facility and offering a day of pampering to the women which will include hair cuts/styling, mani's/pedi's, massages and facials. we will also be offering child-care, food and gift baskets which we are hoping to fill with items that may or may not be covered by government assisted aids (ie: diapers, disposable cameras, gas cards, etc.). we are all really excited about the opportunity to serve hopefully 50 women in this manner. although we have quite a feat in front of us in terms of raising funds and donations i believe it will all come together. already we have a number of people within the renovate community who are volunteering their skill sets to help with the day of pampering and care taking. so, if you are reading this and would like to either donate or help participate in any manor please let me know. blessings to you all!

blueberry pick'n

today we got to go blueberry picking. YUMMY! friends of ours have a blueberry patch in their backyard that they open up to friends and family. this year was our first year taking advantage of the opportunity. we picked for a little over an hour and filled up an entire bushel basket. it was so much fun watching the kids eat more than they picked. lilly ended up being the only one who actually contributed to the stash we brought home. it was a beautiful day. for dinner i made blueberry waffles - they were delicious! i can't wait to go back and pick more - i want to make sure we have plenty to freeze :)

new series - artwork

i just finished designing the next teaching series artwork for church. dave hasn't actually approved it yet, so there may be some changes. what do you think? the new series will be starting on aug. 11 titled, "what if everyone cared, prayed, shared".

i actually took this picture at the "public market" in downtown seattle this last winter. here is the original photo... gotta love photoshop :)

OUCH!

well, i'm only into this "blog post a day" thing 6 days and i've already blown it :) now, i do have a pretty good excuse..... i was in the e.r at hackley hospital most of the day yesterday passing a kidney stone. seriously, i never need to experience that kind of pain and agony again in my life. i have heard it said that passing a stone and child birth were on the same pain spectrum and i will admit that the two are both extremely painful however there is one blazing difference......when it's all said and done you have a stone vs. a baby.

meeting mackenzie grace

we drove into grand rapids today to meet mackenzie grace. the newest addition to the pohlad family. she was born on her big sisters birthday, july 27. it is james and annies fourth child - amazing! we had a blast hanging out with them, my other brothers and rita and of course all of the kiddos. mackenzie is beautiful and looks a lot like her daddy :)

losing it...

i went into the bathroom, 15 min. before a family (whom i had never met before) was coming over for dinner, and saw an all to familiar sight. pee! all over the toilet. needless to say i was frustrated. so i called the boys and told them they needed to clean the bathroom. i gave them the necessary tools to complete the task and sent them off to clean and i went back to the kitchen. a few minutes later i realized the boys were in the basement bathroom (i wanted them to clean the bathroom off the family room). here is how the conversation went:

me: what are you doing? (shouting, like every good mom, from the top of the stairs)
boys: cleaning the bathroom - and we're all done (very proud of their work)
me: where are the paper towels you were using (i'm not sure why i asked this - i guess i just knew what the answer was going to be)
luke: i flushed them all down the toilet (showing me an empty roll)
me: WHAT!!!! (running down the stairs to see that the toilet was about to overflow. AHHHH! (i totally lost my cool and swore)
boys: i'm sorry mommy!!
me: GET ME THE PLUNGER!!!!
boys: i'm so sorry mommy.
me: go up stairs and clean THAT bathroom.

after cleaning up the mess in the downstairs bathroom i took a deep breath and went and apologized to the boys. i hate it when i lose it on them. they did end up cleaning the right bathroom and they did an excellent job!

just the two of us....

this evening dave and i got to go out, just the two of us. we drove to grand rapids and visited another covenant church, fellowship covenant church. dave heard about a thing that was going on at the church called, the church basement roadshow with tony jones, doug paggit and mark scandrette. when we first got there i began to wonder what we had gotten ourselves in to. however, i was incredibly blessed by the evening and the words spoken by these passionate men about God's great love for his people.

afterwards dave and i went to adobe (one of my favorite drive thru mexican restaurants from back in the day). we sat in the car savoring our meals and enjoying each other. i realized tonight how few times we get to be, just the two of us.

on another note - we are in the middle of our series at church called summer cineplex. this morning james bean spoke to the movie the matrix. i haven't listened to the podcast yet - but i hear it was awesome! so, i thought i would put a link in case anybody else might be interested, click here to listen.

so, if you haven't noticed i am trying to post a blog a day for the month of august. not sure what i am hoping to accomplish - just thought it might be fun :)

beach day!

today we went to the beach for the first time as a family. don't get me wrong we have all been to the beach but not as a family, until today. it was awesome! we borrowed a friends skim board - everyone had to give it a try (except me, i don't need anything broken...lol).

the boys found big sticks and battled each other for over an hour - it was pretty funny to watch. none of us can wait to go back!

Birthday Girl!

our lilly jane turned 5 yesterday. i am amazed that my baby is already five years old. we had so much celebrating her.

can you say "cheese"

she has been so excited about her birthday and loved all the attention. to celebrate we filled the day with all of her favorite things....

happy birthday princess lilly!

1. lots of presents
2. grandparents
3. went to see kit kiterage - an american girl (very, very good)
4. chuck-e-cheese
5. a homemade cookie cake she decorated all be herself
6. a party dress
7. lots of smiles, hugs and goofing around!

HELP!!

i went out into my garage this afternoon to grab a bottle of water and that's when i saw a very unfortunate sight. a very large puddle was forming in front of our freezer. as i went to investigate i realized that the door was open about an inch or so and as i opened the door more water came pouring out. AHHHH! thankfully, everything in the freezer was still cold, defrosted, but cold. the only things i decided to throw out was all the fish, although it was still cold it kinda grossed me out.

so, this is where i need help. i have aprox. 10 lbs. of chicken breasts, 2 lbs. ground beef, 1 lb. italian sausage, 1 lb. ground turkey, 2 lbs. sirloin steak. we are going to grill up the fillets for dinner tonight (nice alternative to the paninis we were going to have). i have everything in my fridge right now, but am figuring i need to make up as many meals with the meat as i possibly can by tomorrow. my hope is to make up meals that i can freeze for a later date - but i can only think of spaghetti sauce. so, if you have any suggestions, please let me know.

thanks friends!!

vacation at club diller (aka: mimi & papa's)

every summer, since we moved to michigan, we have taken a week to go to "club diller". dave's brothers family; doug, nettie, claire, abby and sylvia join us from portland, oregon and we all hang out together and our mimi and papas. below is a little synopsis of our wonderful family vacation together.

1) hanging out at the pool
2) all the girls went to the salon for mani's & pedi's
3) ate at tre kroner (my fav. breakfast spot) with jeffy
4) stayed up late with our cousins
5) saw indian jones at the $3 theater
6) hung out with a bunch of old friends
7) went to the city (millenium park, ruths chris, and blue man group)
8) visited new community church
9) i got my hair all chopped off (thanks becky!)
10) celebrated great grandma tena - just because!
11) luke learned how to play chess
12) lots of fort building
13) all the boys went golfing
14) annual diller pool party (lots of aunts, uncles & cousins)
15) lots & lots more....

i'm sure i have forgotten a ton of things. needless to say, we had a blast. it is so wonderful to have such an amazing family to hang out with and enjoy the summer with. i love you all! thanks bob and shar! little reminder, 18 weeks from today till we get to party again together on the disney cruise!!!

Happy Birthday Caleb!

This last friday, June 27th, Caleb turned 8 years old. We celebrated as a family all afternoon and evening in celebration of Caleb's big day!

I am so blessed by my oldest son and thankful for the joy he brings to our family. Caleb, I love you so much!!

we spent the day doing the following Caleb inspired things...
1. Qudoba (he loves burritos!)
2. Ice Cream & presents (note the iPod shuffle - he was soooo geeked)
3. WALL-E (he was so pumped that it came out on his birthday - he was sure they did that just for him)
4. BBQ and Birthday Cake! (yummy!)

lilly rides a 2 wheeler!

this morning lilly woke up and announced, "today i am going to ride on 2 wheels". the funny part about her making such a statement is how it reminded me of when she decided she was ready to use the toilet. she walked into the kitchen and just told me she was "done wearing a diaper and wanted to wear big girl panties". it's as though she just wakes up and makes a decision to do something and BAM it's done. today was no different. once we got her training wheels off she got on her bike and without any prompting rode off down the driveway. i was shocked! she spent the remainder of the afternoon and evening going up and down driveways and around and around the cul-de-sac.

lilly we are so proud of you!!!!

florida vacation

we just returned from our 3rd annual trip to don pedro island. it was one of the most relaxing 2 weeks i can ever remember. i am so blessed by my family and the time we are able to spend with each other on this family vacation. below are a few highlights from our trip.