February 29

My oldest daughter informed me yesterday that I had only blogged twice in February.  Ugh.  I thought I better take advantage of the extra day and get another one in.
I am calling February "the month of yuck" in the Hiemstra House.  We were all sick at one time or another.  Nothing serious but it took us awhile for everyone to get healthy again.  John still claims he's not 100 percent but I think it's mostly because he likes the extra attention.
It's not all been yuck though.
I got these flowers from my honey for Valentine's Day!

The librarian at Katie Kat's school has started a birthday book club.  If you donate some moolah to the library she will purchase a book for your child's birthday.  The book stays at the library but the birthday kid gets to take it home first and a sticker goes in the front that says it was donated by your child.  There was apparently some mix-up when Katie's birthday was so she got her birthday book a little early.  I was pretty impressed by the librarian's chose of book.

She apparently knew of Katie's love for lizards.  This is what Katie picked out from the public library this week.

We have gotten a lot of rain this month.  Our creek is super high.  I went down the other day to take some pictures and I found our log to cross to the other side was partly underwater!

The neighbor's bridge that the kid's like to jump off of was almost completely underwater.

On the bright side though, lots of flowers are starting to bloom and the trees are budding out.  I really love this time of year.  Here's some of the stuff my Dad planted in November coming up.

Just when Holly thought her acting days were over, she was asked to be in a film a friend put together for Dordt's Prairie Grass Film Challenge.  Teams have 48 hours to write, film, edit and submit a 5 to 8 minute film.  You can check it out here.  Her film is from Hook and Reel Productions and it's called "The Fallen". 
In fact, while you're there, vote for "The Fallen" for People's Choice.  It should have won.  No offense to the judges but you suck.
Speaking of my Holly, it was her birthday yesterday.  She's 19.  I'm not sure how that happened because it pretty much seems like yesterday she was 9.

I don't mean to brag here but I think I did a pretty good job with this one.  I couldn't be happier with the way she is turning out.

We had a marathon three-way Skype session with the kids and Doyle and Susie yesterday.  Holly, Jonathan and Hannah had made birthday cupcakes.  Here she is blowing out her candles.

That's about all I have....except for this.

Happy Leap Day!

Life Lately

Not much going on here at the Hiemstra House.  Life just keeps flying by.  Everyone is healthy and happy.  This all makes for a rather lame blog post so here's some pictures documenting the rapid growth of our dog.  A big thank you to my Katie Kat for assisting me in this documentation.

Hi, my name is Carly and I like human food, playing football with Sam, chasing my own tail, and stealing things from the neighbors.

A quick one

Because I have stuff to do today people.  Despite some people (Uncle Glen) thinking I live a life of leisure. 
First off, my sweet mother had knee surgery yesterday.  I think she is very happy that she gets to recover in sunny Arizona rather than snowy South Dakota.
Speaking of snow, here's my college girl.

I'm glad she's smiling.  She likes being cold about as much as I do. I'm pretty sure those are the gals she's rooming with next year.  They are both from Iowa so they are used to the snow and cold. 
And here's my little Cinderella.

I believe in child labor.  It will be a chapter in the parenting book I am writing someday. 
Last week was BEAR (Be Excited About Reading) week for Katie and SOS (Shut Off Screens) weeks for Sam.  I like to call it PMS (Punish Mom Severely) week because it usually just makes everyone crabby.  This year wasn't too bad.  We played lots of games.

And spent lots of time outside with this sweet girl who is getting bigger every day.

At the end of the week, Katie dressed up as a penguin for the book parade.

Here's her whole class.  Most of them were penguins but some of them have really good moms who came up with creative, unique costumes for their children.

Some Sundays, we do a three-way Skype with Doyle and Susie and all three kids. 



It's usually a lot of fun.

We've been planning our San Francisco trip.  I think it's going to be an epic adventure!
Lastly, we finally got a light for our entry way.

I first saw these Moravian Star lights in a Mexican restaurant about 5 years ago and have wanted one every since.

That's it.  Off to tackle my to-do list now!