October excitement

Proud Grandpa Scott and Grandma Barb with Mitch and Kendra's new little girl MacKenzie

My college friends and I got together last weekend in Wisconsin


Having some fun at the Hat store

Here we are ready to start shopping

Megan, Nathan and I with the puppy Dakota at a Stuive Birthday party

Ella in her Elephant costume

Nathan trying it out too

Darin, Tricia, and family

Mom and Dad with the grand kids

Dan, Laura, and Family

Tim and I

The whole Beckering gang

Celebrating Avery's 1st Birthday

Nathan and Ella checking out the soybeans

"I think they're ready Grandpa!"

Nathan and Ella loved Grandpa's big truck

Caleb and Benett

Sharing a "cousin" moment

Nathan joined later to make it 6 in the tub!

Helping Dad rake the leaves

We love to hug (sometimes)

Picking out pumpkins

This farming stuff is great

Ella loved jumping in the hay

Amazing how quickly time gets away from you. We have had some busy weekends and I finally have a little time to get the blog updated. The weekend of Oct. 24th, we headed back to Leota to visit family. I have to work Thanksgiving so we thought we would go early to possibly have Tim help my dad do some harvesting. Well the weather did not cooperate, but we had a great time being with family. We got to spend time going to Aunt Nadine and Aunt Karen's (who each spoiled Nathan and Ella royally with treats) and then we got to spend a day with my aunts, cousins, and grandparents. It was so nice to see everyone again and I cannot believe how big my nephews and nieces are getting. Nathan and Ella loved being on the farm and seeing the cows and Ella, especially fell in love with my parent's dog Hershey. Ella nicknamed him "Doo..ahhh!" The next weekend I went up to Green Bay, Wisconsin area with 6 other college girlfriends. It was our 10 year college reunion, and we finally made plans for all of us to get together. We had a blast up in Door County. We did a lot of shopping and eating and tried our best to keep the local economy alive. Now I am back to reality. Our November should be quiet and then we are planning to go back to Minnesota for Christmas. We have been spending some quality time outside raking leaves. This is the only time living in a forest is not so fun. Otherwise not too much new going on here. Talk to you soon.

Fall is here

We hold hands..sometimes!

Ella in her Elmo outfit

Nathan loves to hold this bottle of lotion. He brings it with him where ever he goes

Before we go on our "play date"

Helping dad rake. I couldn't get them to look at me.

Ella in the pink frosting room at "Art Prize"

Ella and Nathan chilling at "Art Prize"

Is she part of the exhibit?

Family picture, but kind of blurry

Hi everyone. For those of you who do not live in Grand Rapids, "Art Prize" is celebration of local artists. They have exhibits all around downtown Grand Rapids. People can walk all over and view them and then vote for their favorites. We went last week Friday (while the weather was still awesome). It was a lot of fun and a great way to publicize downtown Grand Rapids. Nathan and Ella loved all the people and excitement. It sure feels like fall around here the last week. We had talked about camping this weekend, but with the weather being cold, wet, and windy, we decided to call it for the year and make some big camping plans for next year.

Looking back on the rest of summer

Making our Lego Tower

We love to play downstairs in our playroom

Watching "Thomas" with some snacks

At the Hudsonville Fair

Watching "thomas the train

We love Watermelon

Well it is about time I get back to blogging don't you think!!! Life has been pretty routine so there has not been a lot to blog about. Nathan and Ella are 21 months old. Hard to believe. They are repeating more words as time goes by. Some of their favorites are "Truck, broke, cheese, juice, momma, daddy, and the ever popular, "no...no..." They also like to speak their own dialect. We have been trying to get it on video, but they always stop when I bring out the camera. It sounds like a broken Chinese/Japanese language, but they will look at each other so intently when they are talking, that I am sure each one knows what the other is saying!

They love to play with their Thomas trains and now they just got a new train track on a garage sale, so Nathan has been very busy playing with that. We still venture to the nearby park almost everyday. They love to play in the sand there. What will we do when we cannot go outside.

Tim continues to look for full time employment. He has been somewhat busy with contract jobs, but not full time. I stay busy with the ICU and have had some extra classes at work to keep things busy. We haven't found a house yet. There are tons of houses, but we are taking our time. We hope to go camping next weekend and then we are headed to Minnesota on Oct.22 to see the family. I have to work Thanksgiving, so we thought we would go home to help with harvest. I think Nathan and Ella will love riding the tractors and combine.

Well that is about it. I'll try keep up better with my blogging. Have a great weekend

Playing Downstairs

It has been yucky weather around here so we are getting out some of our energy by playing downstairs

Feeding the bears

Nathan and Ella love their stuffed bears. We do a lot of feeding them, combing them, and hauling them around the house.

We miss you Grandpa and Grandma Beckering

Camping in August

Nathan taking a look at the beach

Ella cashed out at the beach

Now Nathan taking a snooze at the beach

We love chips

Using our new camper for the first time

Ben and Nathan taking a tubby bath

Ella loved to be right with the boys. Not so sure Trenton likes her on his bike!

Anna just relaxing

Hayden loves camping

Ben, Trenton, and Luke had quite a bit of fun together

Nathan and Ella pushing Anna around the campground

Bath time for Ella

Ella showing us her "muscles"

Nathan liked the pool

What is going through their little minds!

Best photo of them before church

Ella giving us her cheesey smile

It has kind of been a whirlwind summer here. I see now I have not posted in awhile, so I will try and give some updates. After our Beckering vacation, we spent a little less than a month living by Tim's parents until we could move into our rental house. It was kind of nice to have built in babysitters, but I am sure Mom and Dad Stuive are enjoying the quiet and toy-free house. We moved into our rental in the last week of July. We feel pretty at home here and really enjoy their big backyard and having a park a couple houses down from us. The kids have adapted well to many new environments so we feel thankful for that. The first week of August, I went camping with my friends Rachel and Carissa for a week at the Christian Conference Grounds near Holland/Grand Haven. We had a great time. Oh yes, there were the few melt downs by the kids, but we felt better knowing we were all in it together. There were 7 kids to 3 moms at times. The husbands were up a lot which helped out. Nathan and Ella did good. They had to adjust to sleeping in a camper and we had one afternoon of crying it out, but after that they slept good in the pack n plays. We really enjoyed our using our camper for the first time and we hope to go on a fall trip in September. Now life is pretty back to normal. I am working my 2 shifts a week at work and Tim continues is hunt for a job. He has a couple more leads so we are praying for the right one. It has been a nice summer and cannot believe we are already in August. We have been looking on line for houses, but nothing specific yet. We will keep you informed. Hopefully my next post will be sooner than later. I'll try post some pictures of our rental house next week.

Nathan and Ella's first pool

Here is a short clip of Nathan and Ella in their first pool. They loved it, but I am sure there was more water outside the pool then in the pool by the end of their playing