The season has begun...

the garage sale season that is!  Here's our first find, a pink fluffy fold up chair for the girls.  $3!  What a deal :)

Happy Easter!

 We finally got around to decorating our eggs this afternoon.  The eggs have been hard boiled and waiting in the refrigerator for a week.  Today was the first day we had some extra time.  Abby labored at the store over which egg decorating kit to use, but finally decided on the stickers and shrink-able one.  Good choice!  Here she is using a hair dryer to shrink wrap the paper onto the egg. 

 She was so  meticulous with her stickers, placing each one carefully on the eggs.  It was fun to watch her mind work. 

But the most important thing was our celebration today of Christ's resurrection! 

Christ the LORD has risen today!

Happy Easter from the Heneveld family!

Cartwheel Fun!

Abby's been learning to do a cartwheel and loves to do them anywhere there is open space.  Grace, never one to be left behind, tries her cartwheels too.  She's got a long way to go, but Abby's not too bad.  :)

Who built the ark?

82 Degrees in April?!?!?!

I can't believe the thermometer actually read 82 degrees. In April! It definitely gave me a taste of summer. I can't wait until summer. It's my favorite month. Summer...just saying the word makes me sigh with relaxation and joy. After church we went for a bike ride and then headed to the park. The girls loved it. It was so windy during our bike ride that we had to stop to rest Abby's legs. It was hard work going against the wind. But felt so good! The park was packed with families. I think everyone just wanted to get outside to enjoy the day. Abby has conquered all of the play areas and loves being the big sister. She climbed on everything. There were several other girls for her to play with and they went running from here to there and back again.

Grace loved it too, but spent most of her time just wandering around. She walked with her bag of goldfish and even shared with another little boy. It was cute to watch. She giggled and giggled and wanted to try everything. That girl has no fear! I had to keep a close eye on her.

The slide was her favorite. She LOOOOOOVED it!

My two beauties. I am a blessed momma.

Hair

Don't you just love this new look? :) Her hair always looks like this after I take out her style. I had four pigtails with twists in today. I had new beads on the end of each one and finished it off with a snap. But Grace, who always leaves her hair alone, decided the beads were just too much fun to play with and kept pulling on them until they fell out. So, the style didn't last and had to be taken out. I just love how her hair goes all Albert Einstein when I take out her styles. It's just too cute!

Homework Helper

Hannah came over for dinner tonight and brought her homework. As soon as she started her reading, Abby grabbed some paper and created math problems for her "homework" and then she grabbed the ipad so that she could look exactly like Hannah while doing her work. It was fun to watch!

Grace on the other hand, didn't have any homework on her mind. She just wanted to escape! She found the door open to the garage and climbed outside. Silly girl! She loves to go into the garage and wreck havoc on all the toys. I'm going to have to keep an eye on that one.

We had another great day! We headed out to the Secretary of State. I had to renew my driver's license. Don't you just love when they take your picture? Definitely not something I ever look forward to. After that trauma we headed to the Aquatic Center for some swimming. It was open swim for the toddler group (6 yrs. and younger) and the girls loved it! We were in the water for an hour and a half. Then it was home for some lunch, naps, and more playtime outside with neighbors. After a quick trip to Target, I made lasagna for dinner. I love lasagna! I was planning on making some homemade bread with it but never got around to putting the ingredients in the bread machine, so I had to make monkey bread instead. I am addicted to monkey bread! I wonder if I subconsciously didn't get the bread ingredients ready because I really wanted monkey bread. And to top it all off, there's some left for breakfast. Yum!

But let me just tell you about dinner at our house tonight. I think we might have scared Hannah. First of all, Grace ate dinner in just her diaper. I took her clothes off because she tends to make a mess and lasagna stains. I didn't want any extra laundry, so the clothes came off. Then half way through dinner Grace decided she was done eating and took off her shoe and played with it. This is normal for Grace. For some reason she loves to take off her socks and shoes. But then she threw it and it landed in the lasagna dish. Ugh! Not to be outdone, Abby grabbed her flip flop (yeah, who knows why she's wearing flip flops in April!) and tossed it in the air and it hit the dog. All this while I'm trying to enjoy my monkey bread. After a few consequences and conversation, all was settled and we moved on with dinner. Hannah was laughing so hard and trying to hide it from the girls. I'm not sure she'll come to dinner again anytime soon, but then again, maybe she will because we're funny cheap entertainment! :)

But now the girls are sleeping and I'm getting ready to do some school work. While cleaning today I found my school bag and remembered that I have report cards to work on and papers to grade. I'm hoping to be so productive that I'll get it all done tonight and not have to worry about it again. Here's to wishful thinking!

Spring Break Fun

We have been having a very relaxing, yet productive spring break. We started the break off with play-dates with friends and neighbors. I absolutely love my neighbors! They invited us over for dinner on Saturday night for grilled pizzas. These are soooo yummy! Kaylana read to Abby and Grandma Bette while they waited for the pizzas to cook. Christina was in charge of the grill and I was the assistant, aka the "runner". If you're ever looking for some new ideas for the grill, you should try these pizzas, seriously, they're delicious!

Here's Grace enjoying her pizza and playing with Christina. Both of them were in goofy moods. Later that night we played the Wii and I'm proud to say that I did amazingly well!! Usually I'm a second place person, but it must have been my night because I was in first place over and over and over again. In fact, Christina wouldn't leave until she won a game. (I posted this one just for you Christina :)

Later we headed down to visit my sister and her family. It was my niece, Julia's, birthday. She asked for a giant cookie cake rather than a normal cake so I did a little research and this is what I came up with. I cooked the cookie in 2- 8in pie tins and then put ice cream between the two layers. It was so yummy! I'll definitely make this one again.

Here are 3 of the girls goofing around while they wait for us to sing to Julia. Don't you love the bowls on their heads?

Here she is! Julia turned 8 years old. She is a beautiful, amazing awesome, fantastically sweet girl. We love her so much!

One day we had to pick up the girls from school, so Abby and Sophie were playing around in the car while we were waiting. These two crack me up.

After school and before softball practice, I took all 5 girls to McDonalds for sundaes. There was a play area and they played together until Lauren had softball practice. Then we headed home for pizza and the movie "Tangled". We headed home later today, after some shopping at the outlet mall of course.

Busy!

We have been busy! It's been a while since I've blogged so I thought I would update you with some pictures. I've been really enjoying Grace's hair lately. The picture above is a two strand twist done in a sunburst style. It turned out cute. I've also done bantu knots (my favorite), puffs, and pig tails with beads at the end. I finally bought a beader and I've put several beads in her styles and it works well. I ordered some more fun snaps and I"m waiting for them to come this week. Grace is such a trooper when I do her hair. I put in her video, strap her in her chair and go to it. If I can't get her style done in 25 minutes, it's not happening. I also like them to last at least 2-3 days. My mornings go so much better when I don't have to worry about detangling her hair.

We've also been busy with playdates and friends. Nyah and Abby were snuggling together to watch Dora the other night. Too cute! Spring break has brought lots of playdates with neighbors, cousins and schoolmates. We've been very sick for March (Abby had the flu and strep throat, Grace had a double ear infection and the flu, and I had the flu and a nasty cold) so it's nice to be healthy and to have friends over to play!

This week we started spring break. The first thing Abby wanted to do was play school! I couldn't believe it! She told me that we needed to do math, reading, art and recess. Then she told me that I could be the teacher and that I would be a good one because I'm a teacher in real life! Too funny! Later in the afternoon we headed outside to play. We all needed some fresh air so after a walk we did sidewalk chalk and played softball.

Oh, and Abby got new shoes. This is big news in our house. She needed new shoes for school and so we went shopping. I picked out 3-4 different pairs for her to try on and she didn't want any of them. She wanted the shoe with the "bling". She begged for the shoes with the "bling". She cried and whined and pleaded for these shoes. Well, I gave in. I mean, they are only shoes right? She was thrilled! They've been on her feet ever since!

Here's our nightly ritual. When we finally get home, Abby starts her homework. She usually has both math and reading. I make the lunch as she reads to me. I'm so impressed with her reading! She's able to read quite well. In fact, look at all the words in the book in this picture and she can read the whole thing! Way to go Abby!

March also brought our school music program. All the kids were singing songs from Mary Poppins. Abby did a great job. Here she is with her friend Hannah from her kindergarten class.

So, we've been busy, very busy. But I'll do my best to keep up with the blog. Enjoy the pictures!