It's been too long, so it's high time for another update! We are so proud of all three of our beautiful daughters and thankful for who they are growing up to be. What a precious blessing to be parents! Norah is going to be in middle school soon! She is a bit nervous about it, but she will do great and are so thankful Jesus is always with her and guiding her!
We last left off at about Thanksgiving, so we have some catching up to do! We celebrated Christmas at Thanksgiving with the Schut side in Des Moines, and loved meeting new cousin Stuart! We were at home over Christmas break and celebrated as our own family of five and with the De Jong side. We went to Des Moines for a few days too just for fun. All the girls were in the Christmas program at church and played a piano song for that too. Norah played Angels We Have Heard On High and did great! This was her last Christmas program as an elementary student- wild! For New Years, we celebrated with our friend party/trivia contest, and we stayed overnight at a hotel in Sioux City as a family that had a bowling alley and pool in it, and enjoyed tubing too at the snow hill. Much to be thankful for!
Second semester went really well. For the most part, Norah enjoys school and had great friends and teachers this year. We are so thankful she feels safe at school and learning well and kind in the classroom. I volunteered in her room once a week and it was special to be able to see what she was doing and help out! Great teachers are remarkable and so grateful for those sweet souls investing in our girls! Norah got good remarks on her report card and encouraging words from her teachers. She finished up 5th grade Sunday School and had a great year with an amazing teacher who made lessons really meaningful. It's been so sweet to watch Norah start to take notes during Sunday School and church. Norah took piano lessons all year again and it's fun to hear the growth- she is definitely advancing and playing harder music! While practicing wouldn't be her favorite thing, she does a pretty good job of just persevering and getting it done! She also did another semester of band and choir and did so well! For the most part, I think she enjoyed both of them. She started off not loving choir, but I think it grew on her. She learned some really neat songs in choir and learned a lot on the clarinet in one year! She had a music concert in January and a band/choir concert at the end of the year in May, and did amazing!
Norah finished up her lyrical and jazz dance class and had a “night at the movies” themed dance recital. A new fun thing Norah got to do was AAU volleyball. Wow, what a difference that is to what she has done in the past- so fun and grown up! It ran from January-March, with practices one day a week after school and seven Saturday tournaments. Norah was on the Dutch Spikers team. She enjoyed and it was really fun to watch! Kley and I also got to get in there with learning different ref positions. Norah also enjoyed spring rec soccer and did wonderfully!
We celebrated Lucy and Ellory turning 9 in February! We got to celebrate at Ice Castles in Minneapolis, bowling in Le Mars, and a family outing to Culver's, Tilt indoor arcade, and ice skating. March was so fun because we got to go to Orlando with De Jongs! It was the best week and we all had a wonderful time. The hotel was great and had such a fun pool area with the biggest lazy river we'd ever seen! They also had special huge water slides and a water obstacle course that we got to do one afternoon. We went to Sea World, Legoland, American Girl store, Magic Kingdom, and Universal. We loved it and are so glad we could go! We celebrated Easter in Des Moines and had fun doing egg hunts and Easter baskets with cousins, and also got to celebrate with De Jongs with a fun scavenger hunt when we got back. Thankful for the best reason to celebrate- His death and resurrection! Tulip Festival was a bit of a disappointment because we had sickness in the house. Lucy got it the worst and had a fever and was coming out of both ends for days, and Kley, Norah, and Ellory got it too but not quite as bad as Lucy. We were still able to do a decent amount for Tulip Festival, but people weren't feeling amazing for it. Glad we were still able to do what we did, get a few photos, and enjoy part of it! Overall we had a very healthy winter thankfully. At the end of the year, Norah had her overnight field trip to Hidden Acres and tour the capital building in Des Moines and it was great! I got to go along as a chaperone. We enjoyed the capital tour and lots of fun nature stations!
A huge highlight to the end of spring was meeting new cousin Miller! He was born on March 24 at 21” and 8 lbs. 1 oz. We finally were able to meet him at the end of May and we were all so thrilled to hold him! Welcome to the family, Miller! So fun to add two cousins within six months of each other. Norah felt the end of the school year was bittersweet, which is great because I'm grateful she loves both school and summer! Norah is really into listening to music, writing stories, crafting, building lego cities, and playing elaborate games of house. It's so fun to continue to watch her grow and see what she loves and where the Lord is leading her. We love you so much, Norah! Being your parents is a deep blessing!
