The Conclusion of the Advent season!

All month we have been celebrating Advent in our house by lighting the Advent wreath and singing a song that goes along with it as well as telling the stories leading up to the birth of Jesus using the figures from Joshua's nativity set. The parts of the story are retold each day and added to as the weeks go on (if you are familiar with Children in Worship it is this style of story telling). By the end of the Advent season Joshua could help tell the story of Jesus' birth. Unfortunately time was so limited on Christmas day as we had to go from one celebration to the next we didn't have time to do our Advent devotions. So, the day after Christmas we were able to tell the complete story and light all of the candles, including the white candle which Joshua had patiently been waiting for! We even sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus! What a joy it was to share the beauty of this Advent season with Joshua and see him really internalize all he was learning! I love that I can share Jesus with Joshua this way!

The angel visits the sheperd in the fields.


Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem.

More Christmas with More Family!

Christmas was a jam-packed day filled with lots of food, family and fellowship. After our little family celebration we headed over to my uncle Steve and aunt Cher's house to celebrate Christmas with my extended family. It was a delightful afternoon! Joshua was spoiled once again with a Fisher Price construction site set from Great Grandpa and Great Grandma, a cool Hot Wheels track from Jim, Nancy, Danielle and Whitney and a cuddly bear and two great books from Steve, Cher, Matt and Rachel! What a blessing to have family that is so loving and generous! Thank you! Christmas night we were able to get together with Cory's extended family. Unfortunately, I never got my camera out to take a picture of the goings on. It was nice to see some faces we don't frequently get to see and to catch up with those folks as well. Overall it was a busy and fun-filled day!

Our Little Family Celebration

Our own family celebration seems to be tucked in between other celebrations, which works pretty well. Due to time constraints that come along with trying to pack tons in a day we had Joshua do his stocking on Christmas eve morning and his gifts from us on Christmas morning. He loved his little surprises in his stocking, especially the pretend camera (a re-do of the same camera I had as a child) and the Insta-snow! For those of you who aren't aware there is this cool stuff out there called Insta-Snow that is a powdered polymer that when mixed with water expands into a cool, white,fluffy substance that can be played with. Just click on the link and you will see a demonstration by its creator. Joshua also enjoyed opening his gifts. He was so good about choosing a gift and after opening it playing with it for a while. We actually had to prompt him to open another gift! I over bought for him this year because I started picking up things in November and just tossed them in the storage closet. When I went to wrap everything I realized it was a bit much given that he gets so much from others as well. We gave him a Moon Sand set, a puzzle, two books, the Leapfrog Word Whammer, Candyland Castle game, Chutes and Ladders, a Tic-Tac-Toe game, and a John Deere semi truck with a trailer and digger. We enjoyed making some Christmas memories as a little family!

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Gronsman Family Christmas

Christmas Eve night we gathered at my dad's place for our traditional celebration. Dave and I had worked for hours on preparing the food and were ready to sit and enjoy the fruit of our labor. The food was delicious as always! After dinner it was time for gift giving and receiving. Joshua was very excited to give away our gifts since he had helped me wrap them up. Joshua gave Uncle Dave, Uncle Phil, Ciejae, Great Grandpa and Great Grandma pens with his picture in them. Papa received a special key chain with Joshua's picture on it. Joshua had a riot opening all of his gifts. Once again he was spoiled by Papa with lots of new clothes, a safari Jeep and trailer with animals, shake -n- go cars and a race track! He also got a new pair of Jordan shoes from Uncle Phil and Ciejae. Uncle Dave surprised him with a Playmobil boat. Wow! Thanks for all your generosity!

Just a side note- Joshua has been infatuated with Dave since we picked him up from the airport so, during dinner Joshua kept asking Dave to dance, but Dave wouldn't oblige. At one point Dave told Joshua he would dance during the next song, so when the next song came on Joshua immediately went over and got Dave out of his chair. After the celebration was done and we were packing up to leave Dave turned on a song that just made Joshua turn on the major dance moves. So, our evening ended with a little dance party! What a riot!

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Uncle Dave!

A while ago I asked my brother Dave to schedule his flight home for Christmas at a time that Joshua and I would be able to come and pick him up. I figured Joshua would enjoy going to the airport to see the planes and would be very excited to see someone he knows come off of one! So a few days ago I told Joshua that we were going to pick up Uncle Dave at the airport on Sunday around lunch time. Every day since I have been asked if we were going to pick up Uncle Dave! After a few changes in flight plans, thanks to overbooked planes and delayed flights, we were finally able to meet Dave at the airport this evening. Joshua was very excited to see him, as were the rest of us! We saw his plane come in and pull up to the gate and then watched him come out of the gate into the airport. Joshua couldn't stop smiling at Dave. We went out for dinner and Joshua just kept asking Dave all kinds of questions. It's so nice we can spend time some time catching up this week!

Spotting Uncle Dave coming into the airport!

"Hi Uncle Dave!"

A New Twist

Joshua has had a ball playing with his nativity set this year, especially since we have been celebrating Advent all month and he has been hearing about the Christmas story, so he really knows who is who. After hearing the story of Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem today he was playing with his new truck with trailer and boat and decided to have Mary and Joseph ride in the truck. I guess he figured driving in a truck would be a much easier mode of transportation than walking or riding a donkey!

Friends

My friend Kim and her husband Matt and daughter Ally arrived in town yesterday for their family holiday celebration. She was gracious enough to stop over so we could exchange gifts and the kids could exchange gifts, but Joshua and Ally didn't open their gifts when together because Joshua was napping and Ally was too excited about being with her grandparents and didn't come along. We missed seeing the kids open their gifts together, but it was so wonderful to be able to catch up with Kim without kid interruptions! Joshua opened his gifts this morning and was thrilled to discover he was the proud owner of a motorized bulldozer and an awesome set of transportation themed cookie cutters! Thanks Ally (Kim and Matt)!!!

Hager Christmas 2007

Last night we celebrated Christmas with Corys' family at his mom and dad's house. It was loud and chaotic, but fun with 8 adults and 6 kids under the age 6. We started with the traditional dinner, which because of the children's excitement didn't last too long. Then it was on to the kids opening their presents. They started with opening the gifts they gave each other - the cousins picked names and traded presents this year. Nicholas had Joshua's name and gave him a cool new Tonka truck with a boat and trailer. Joshua was very territorial with this new gift and kept shouting, "MINE!" every time someone got near it. He was content to drive it around for quite some time. We finally got him back in the room to open his presents from Grandpa and Grandma - a car hauler for his Hot Wheels cars, a memory game, some wooden blocks, a Corvette lamp and a special fence for his animals handmade by Grandpa! After the kids were finished opening their gifts the adults had their turn. The big surprise of the night when dad H. gave mom H. her wedding ring with a new replacement diamond in it - she lost her diamond this summer while camping. It was a great night of celebration! Today Joshua has been playing with all his new toys and enjoying them thoroughly!

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The Holiday Express at the Gardens

Cory had the day off today so we headed over to see the Holiday Express train and the beautiful Christmas trees at Frederik Meijer Gardens. I figured that it would probably be busy, but had no idea that today would be a day for school field trips. There were tons of kids there. Despite the crowds we were able to see most of the Christmas trees from around the world, although Joshua's biggest interest was the train. We spent lots of time following the trains around. They did add a little display of different scents this year which included the scent of peppermint. When Joshua smelled the peppermint he said, "yum, candy canes!" Ti's the season! Glad we were able to get to the gardens to enjoy the seasonal displays.

Visiting the Children's Museum

Yesterday I got to thinking that we hadn't been down to the children's museum since this fall so it would be kind of nice to go. I mentioned my idea to Joshua and proceeded to ask him if he would like to go to the museum with just mommy or go with some friends. His reply was, "Go with Eli." So after a quick phone call to Cory's cousin Missy we were set for a play date at the children's museum. Joshua was very excited about seeing Eli and the museum again! He ate so fast this morning it was unbelievable and even cooperated every step of getting ready so we were able to get downtown on time. Joshua and Eli were off and running as soon as our coats were off. The boys did a good job of playing together, when they didn't run off in different directions! Missy and a I were even able to catch up a little while playing with and watching the boys. It was a great morning of fun together!

Gingerbread Train

We had nothing on the calendar nor anything pressing to do today, so Joshua and I spent some time working on a special project together. I found a gingerbread train kit at Target and thought that would be more fun for Joshua than a gingerbread house. Thankfully it came with pre-made gingerbread train pieces, pre-made frosting and all the candy, so it was just a matter of putting it together. With a two and a half year old this was all the challenge I was up for anyway. So we set to work assembling the train pieces (thank goodness for the EZ Build tray that was also included). I have never actually used gingerbread to make a creation, we always used graham crackers in preschool to make our houses or nativity scenes, so I had no idea how heavy gingerbread is. The tray and tons of icing were the key to making the pieces stick. Joshua enjoyed the assembling bit, but really grooved on the decorating part of the fun. Between eating the frosting and the candy I'm surprised he got the train decorated at all. Now he can't wait to show it to daddy and then try to eat it (I haven't told him yet because I hate to burst his bubble, but I'm sure it's going to taste pretty gross). You can definitely tell this is a two year olds sloppy little master piece, but who cares about the end product when the process was so much fun!

Joshua and his final master piece!

Assembling the train car.


Meticulously applying candy.

Love to watch those little hands!

Joshua loved decorating his train!

SNOW!!!!

According to the news last night we were supposed to get some snow over night and for once the weather people were right! When Joshua woke up and looked outside he was very excited!!! I was excited too, since it meant I got to snow blow for the first time this season. Yes, I enjoy snow blowing and hardly ever let Cory do it. Kind of makes up for me never touching the lawn mower! So we all geared up and headed out to clean up the driveway and play in the snow. Joshua isn't a huge fan of the snow blower, but had fun avoiding it while playing with daddy. I'm not sure who was having more fun running, diving in, falling in, and throwing the snow around, Joshua or Cory! After the work was done we got the sled out and took him for a few rides down a hill down the street. We had been outside over an hour and the wind was a bit too chilly so we didn't stay long before heading home.

Throwing snow at daddy!

Got you daddy!

Going for a ride!

Clear Evidence of Learning!

This morning I was dusting our bedroom when Joshua ran in and said, "Mommy, come see!" He grabbed my hand and pulled me into the living room and said, "I made a big I!" He has recognized a few letters thus far . . . I, O, X, Q and sometimes J . . . but to see him create the letter I out of his cars was amazing. Cory spurred Joshua's creation - as last night Cory was making all kinds of letters using Joshua's cars and Joshua would try to guess which letters they were. As an early childhood teacher and parent I am all about the playing around with letters and language rather than actually sitting kids down and teaching them that an A is an A and so forth. Love to see that all our reading and playing around with letters and words is starting to really impact that little brain of Joshua's!

First time this year playing out in the snow!

Since the snow has fallen everywhere we go Joshua has to touch the snow. So, I decided that we better spend some time in the fluffy white stuff. I had hoped Joshua would help me shovel the driveway, but HA, no slave labor for him! After a few shovels of snow he decided it was much more fun to make snow angels, roll in the snow, crawl in it and of course eat the snow! Perhaps you've noticed he is wearing the same snowsuit from last year; that's the beauty of having a child who is small for his age - you get much more use out of their clothes! We were outside for over an hour and Joshua could have stayed out much longer! I don't know where he has gotten his love for snow, but I know it certainly isn't from me! Although, I must say that now that I have snow pants it makes being outside much more enjoyable because I'm as toasty as Joshua is!

Backseat Driver

Today we were driving down the street and Joshua spotted a trash truck. Apparently he really wanted to see it because from the back seat I heard, "Lady, get out the way! I see trash truck!" This was said a couple of times before we came to a curve and he had a clearer view of the trash truck. At this point however, Joshua must have thought the lady moved out of his way because then he said, "Thanks lady!" Too funny!

Saint Nicholas Day!

Perhaps you may recall from a post last year at this time that we don't really do much with Santa at our house, but we do celebrate Saint Nicholas Day. We began celebrating our tradition by reading a story last night about the real Saint Nicholas who was a Bishop very long ago who helped people, sometimes in secrecy. One of the most popular stories is when Saint Nicholas dropped bags of money through the window for 3 girls so they would have their dowries and be able to get married. People today remember Saint Nicholas by putting their shoes out the by their doors on the night of December 5 and wake up to find treats in their shoes on the morning of the 6th. The most popular gift is gold wrapped chocolate coins. So before bedtime last night Joshua chose some shoes and placed them outside his bedroom door. In the morning he awoke to find a new Advent calendar. He got to open up 6 little doors and find 6 different magnets to put on the stable scene that tell the story of the first Christmas. He loved it, but wanted to open every door and put all the magnets on. We are still working on the waiting part of Advent! I also put a couple of quarters and pennies in Joshua's shoes just like in the story we read last night - I didn't go with the chocolate coins since I didn't want that to be his breakfast.

Finding the coins in his shoes.

Opening the little doors on the Advent calendar to discover little magnets!

Joshua chose the placement of the magnets, interesting set up!

Advent

One of my favorite seasons is Advent, the time of waiting before Christmas. I have lots of memories from my childhood of celebrating Advent and want Joshua experience those same things. Last night my dad came over for dinner and to drop a few things off. He had gotten a free Advent calendar the other day that he wanted to give to Joshua. So, after dinner Papa explained what the calendar was for and let Joshua open up the first and second little flaps. Inside each flap is a little piece of chocolate! Thanks Papa!! Little does Joshua know, but he will be receiving another Advent surprise as his Saint Nicholas gift this week. Stay posted for Saint Nicholas day later this week!

Christmas Tree Tradition

Saturday we headed out for our annual Christmas tree hunt at Lenderink's Tree Farm. This year Shawn, Erin and Owen joined us in the quest for the perfect tree. With the cold temperatures and snow on the ground we were dressed in full winter gear - this year even Shawn, Erin and I donned snow pants for the outing. We wandered for a little while until we happened upon the trees we thought would be perfect. The boys were enthralled as they watched Shawn saw down their tree, but not quite as interested when Cory cut ours down. We walked back to the front of the tree farm where the boys, including the big boys, were excited to go sledding. I think this activity was a highlight for Joshua and Owen who both wanted to go down the hill over and over with various people escorting them. We ended our morning roasting marshmallows by the big bonfire. Joshua and Owen preferred non-roasted marshmallows and Owen only preferred pieces of marshmallows fed to him by Joshua. It was a fun morning! Sunday we set the tree up and decorated it as a family. Joshua didn't have a ton of interest in this, but did find some ornaments that have become his favorites that he hung on the tree. What a great start to a fabulous season! The video below is a recap of our weekend.

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Funny Quote

Yesterday when I went to get Joshua out of his bed after his nap he was sitting there with a very sad look on his face and before I even got to ask him what was wrong he declared, "My smile is broken!" Huh??? It took me a minute to figure it out, but yes indeed his smile was broken. Earlier in the day we had been to Costco with some friends of ours and as we checked out the lady at the door drew a smiley face on Joshua's hand. During his nap the smiley face had rubbed off. As he told me a few minutes after I redrew the smiley face, "My smile wiped off in my bed. Mommy fixed it!" Love to hear the language and now I can start recording all those funny quotes!

Christmas is coming!

It's so much fun to watch Joshua discover all the Christmas excitement this year! We enter stores and he wants to see the Christmas trees, he wants to find lights decorating people's houses as we drive around, and he was thrilled to see his nativity set again. I have always thought that children get the most out of Christmas as they seem to notice all the little things this special holiday brings and now I get to see that first hand as Joshua experiences his third Christmas. I must admit Advent and Christmas are my most favorite time of the year, minus the snowy, cold weather. My hope this season is to cherish all the little things such as lighting the Advent candles, cutting down our tree and decorating it together as a family, celebrating Saint Nicholas Day and reading the stories in the Bible about Jesus' birth and the events leading up to that special day. So to help make this change in seasons more apparent to Joshua we ushered out the pumpkin and scarecrow from his room and brought in a miniature tree that we decorated with lights and ornaments together today. A perfect way to start off this holiday season!

Thanksgiving Recap

We started out our morning surprised by the dusting of snow that had fallen overnight. Joshua, along with our cat Logan, were the only ones really thrilled to see the white flakes. Joshua wanted to go walk around on our deck, but instead just laid on his belly and reached out the slider to touch the snow. We have been reading winter themed books for a week just in preparation for our first snow. One of his favorites is A Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. He was quite puzzled when the little boy's snowball disappears from his pocket after bringing it inside. So, we gathered up some snow off the deck and put it in container on the counter to see what would happen. Joshua enjoyed little tastes of the snow and was interested to see the snow melt and change into water. All the excitement over the snow along with watching the Macy's parade on TV made for a very fun morning.
For lunch we headed over to my uncle and aunt's house. We had a scrumptious lunch and some great family time! Joshua got to explore some of my cousin's old toys which he thoroughly enjoyed. He even got to take a little remote control car home which he has played with every day since Thanksgiving! Then it was over to Cory's uncle and aunt's house to spend some time with his side of the family. We didn't eat much at this gathering as we were still stuffed from lunch, but we did have some fabulous time catching up with family. Jeremy, Cory's cousin who is in the Army, was home from Iraq and shared some pictures and video of his experience over the last year. It's a whole different perspective, that's for sure! You'll have to pardon my lack of pictures, I was spending too much time talking and hardly ever reached for the camera.

This Thanksgiving we give thanks for an almighty God who has blessed us with wonderful family and friends and so many other blessings we can't even begin to list them all!

Gathering with family.
Joshua tickels my cousin Matt.

Taste-testing the snow.
Checking out the snow!

Birthday Girls

Our friends Doug and Sheryl have two beautiful girls who have November birthdays, Ava's was last week and Hannah's is this week. So last night we went over to their house so Joshua could give them their birthday presents. Joshua usually loves giving people gifts as well as offering his help in unwrapping them, but this time he was too enamored by all of the girls' toys. Ava, having just turned one isn't into the presents yet, but Hannah had a great time opening up Ava's gifts and her own. I must say it's kind of nice being able to shop for girls instead of a boy all the time. All those cute toys out there for little girls makes me want to be a kid again! Of course many of the toys I had as a child are now returning to the current scene - Strawberry Shortcake, Dolly Pops (now called Snap 'n' Style) just to name a couple. And has anyone noticed how many classic Fisher Price toys have been redone and have returned to the stores?!?! Glad my mom kept all of our Fisher Price toys from our childhood as they are now the old classics.

Joshua gives sweet Hannah her gift.

Joshua tried out Ava's new Bouncing Zebra toy.