15

This beautiful girl turned fifteen at about two this morning.  I remember everything just like it was yesterday.  She was in no hurry to come out but once she did, she's taken this world by storm!  



A couple of things you may not have known...

*Holly was born with reddish hair.
*At my fourth month ultrasound, they told us our baby had hydrocephalus.
*John was completely convinced our baby was a girl even though we decided not to find out. He didn't even want to discuss boy names.
*Holly screamed through her entire first bath.
*My mother-in-law painted her nursery and my friend Susie painted clouds on the ceiling.
* I had gestational diabetes during my pregnancy.
* For our last date as a childless couple, John and I went to see the movie, Jerry Maguire. The cost of a movie was $4.00 back then.
*My mom held Holly before I did.
*All of my doctors told me the baby was going to be over nine pounds (thankfully she wasn't).
*I fainted the first Sunday I took Holly to church (thankfully I wasn't holding her).

Holly, your Dad and I are so proud of you.  We get a little sad sometimes because you are growing up so fast but mostly we are excited to see all the wonderful things God has in store for you.  When I took you home from the hospital I was so scared I was going to mess you up but you were such a good baby and you made things pretty easy for me.  You've been nothing but a blessing these last fifteen years.  I love you so much!  Happy 15th birthday!

Mom

real quick

Real quick because I have like a billion things to do today...

***We dropped off this certain student teacher off in Seattle on Saturday.  She is on to her next adventure in Le Mars, Iowa.  Eat lots of ice cream for us Kim!  We'll miss you!

***It's cold here.  I like the sunshine but it is cold.

***I am signing up Holly for driver's ed today.  That feels very, very strange. 

***Took some pictures of the kiddos yesterday before they changed out of their church clothes.  It was cold outside so it was a very quick photo shoot.

 I'm going to try to take one in front of this bush every week during Lent.  It usually blooms by Easter Sunday.

***Happy Monday!

Thursday randomness

**This little princess is such a big helper lately.  She loves to clean, sort laundry, bake, and help her daddy outside in the yard.  We often need to remind ourselves that this phase shall soon pass and we should enjoy it as long as it's here...even if that means it takes us twice as long to clean, sort laundry, bake, and do yard work.

**Holly got a new doo yesterday.  She's been waiting for the musical to be over to cut her hair.  She got a couple of inches taken off and added some layers.  She was NOT happy when no one in her family noticed (except her dear mother).  

 

I cannot believe this beautiful girl will be 15 in a couple more days!  Crazy.  

 **John told me I couldn't make the kids eat beets anymore.  I think it's because he doesn't like them.  Anyhoo, he didn't say anything about Kim so I made her eat one last night.  Sam told me I needed to take a picture or her eating it. 

Nearly as good as Sam's reaction.

Tuesday randomness

**First, a ditty about laundry...

Laundry seems to never end

Laundry is not my friend

If I wasn't so prudish

I would become a nudist

**We took the whole family out for Chinese this weekend.  Here are some things we discovered about one another:
1. Kim wants the super power of time travel.
2. Holly wishes she could live in the Victorian age (provided she was wealthy).
3. Sam's dream vacation is to go to The Fun Zone
4. If John could have an endless supply of any one food, it would be beef.
5. Katie is no good at eating with chopsticks.

**This is what happens when the girls have to pay for a meal themselves.  Apparantly, the mall closed before their movie started the other night so they decided to kill some time at Bostons.  They ordered waters and the cheapest thing on the menu which turned out to be some sort of desert in a shot glass.  Takes me back to my days at Dordt when we'd go to Chi Chi's (which BTW is not a naughty word in Spanish) order one Coke with two straws and eat lots of free chips and salsa.

**Katie's friend Elise came over today.  She likes Ken too.

They are good buddies!

Good thing for me, Elise is my buddy too.  She shared two of her Oreos with me.  I love Oreos.  I cannot buy them because I have a problem with them.  My problem is that I can eat the whole package.  I can eat the whole package in one day.  My sister-in-law Janet has the same problem.  We both have actually eaten a whole package of Oreos in one day.  We can also both eat an entire hard-shelled taco in one bite.  We have pictures to prove it. 

**Both of these shows have started and I am loving it.  America's Next Top Model starts next week.  Hello, my name is DeAnn and I love Oreos and reality t.v. 

A night on the town

Two of my favorite girls went out on the town last night.  They went out to eat, did a little shopping, did a little flirting and watched "The Vow".  It got mixed reviews from these two.  Neither one of them cried.  Since Holly cries at most Disney movies, that's saying something.

 Aren't they pretty?

Moose and blankets

Meet the newest member of the Hiemstra clan.  His name is Ken.  Yes, he is a giant moose.  I purchased him at Costco.  I'm not exactly sure why.

My mom and I didn't do any major projects while she was here but she did manage to sew the twenty-some patches my kids got on our Washington DC vacation this summer onto their travel blankets.

My forever friend Susie made these blankets for my kiddos and they LOVE them.  It's a great way to remember family vacations.

Susie, not sure if you knew or not since we rarely take her on vacation with us, but we did have a third child.  Her name is Katie and she eventually will travel :)

Wow

Wow.  I am WAY behind.  Sorry about that folks.  Prepare yourselves for picture overload.

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

This little sweetheart looks so cute in her Valentine dress today!



Katie and I surprised this handsome guy with a McDonald's lunch at school.  He was pretty excited! 

I gave my girls Valentine socks the night before and he said, "This is so much cooler than socks!"

Since we were in the building, we had to check up on our Kim.  Here she is with her 4th grade class.  Her shirt says, "I {heart} my 4th graders".  They must love her too cause she got lots of nice treats from her kids. She is going to make an AwEsOmE teacher...even if she does make Kool-aid without sugar!

My folks came to see Holly in her musical.  As usual, we had a wonderful time of not doing much of anything.  My mom and I played a lot of Bananagrams (I love that game) and my dad did a lot of yardwork (I love that guy).  We also went out for breakfast nearly every morning (I love that tradition).   

I cannot believe this is the only picture I took of my folks in ten days!  It's a good one though!

I found this on the bulletin board outside of Sam's classroom today.  The last line says, "Happy to see grandparents".  Grampa, he really misses beating you in Wii bowling!



The last week of January was BEAR (Be Excited About Reading) week.  On the last day, the kids get to dress up as a character from a book they read.  No, Sam is not a Muslim woman.  He is a ninja and give me a break, cause there just isn't a lot of selections for boys in the dress-up box!

Here he is at school in the book character parade.  And yes (thankfully) there were other ninjas.

Since we currently have no home improvement project going on, I was getting a little restless so I impulsively painted an entire wall in my kitchen with chalkboard paint.  I don't like it.  It's messy.  Unfortunately, the kids love it and begged me to keep it so it will stay up for awhile.

Holly and four other members of student council came over on Saturday to write the names of every person in the freshman class (there's about 90 of them) on a foam heart.  The kids wore them on Monday and if they spoke to a member of the opposite sex, they had to give them away to that person.  Two of the kids who came over were boys and I was given strict instructions not to say or do anything embarrassing.  I know, it's hard to believe that I would do anything that would embarrass my daughter.  I passed.  And by the way, Holly kept her heart.  That's my girl.

We went out for dinner the last night of Holly's musical.  Here's two of my favorite girls.

BTW, Holly's musical was a smashing success!  All the kids did great and I must say I think it was the best show I've ever seen...I might be just a little biased though!  My mom ordered a DVD so all of Holly's fans in the midwest are invited over to Pete and Alice's house for a showing...she'll even make supper order pizza for everyone!
Here's a little smattering of pictures.  I ordered a bunch of ones of her on stage but they haven't arrived yet.  These backstage and after-the-show ones we'll have to hold you over until then.

Getting her hair done.

Getting help with her makeup.

Holly's good friend Lauren was in the show too.  They had so much fun together.  Just so you know, the skinny thing trailing down Holly's forehead is her microphone.

Silly girls!

Holly and Lauren's friends brought them flowers one night.  

She had three costume changes so I made her take a picture of each dress.

Love the feather!

Sam's Sunday School teacher was in the show too and when we went to pick out flowers for Holly, he asked if we could get Miss Kristen flowers too.  

Holly and Dolly.

Holly and "her friend and employer" Mrs. Irene Malloy.

Holly and her beau in the show, Barnaby Tucker.

Cassie, Lauren and Holly on closing night.

One very sleepy little sister on closing night.

My mom took a couple of videos on her camera one night.  Let's see if this works...

Wordless Wednesday