Lucy and Ellory recently.

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! Lucy and Ellory are happy and healthy and what a gift that is.

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. Lucy played Silent Night and Ellory played Angels We Have Heard On High and they did great! 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. Both Lucy and Ellory enjoy school and had great friends and teachers. We are so thankful they feel safe at school and are learning well and kind in the classroom. I volunteered in their rooms once a week and it was special to be able to see what they were doing and help out! Great teachers are remarkable and so grateful for those sweet souls investing in our girls! Lucy and Ellory both got good remarks on their report cards and encouraging words from their teachers. They also finished up 3^rd grade Sunday School and had a great year with an amazing teacher who made lessons really fun and meaningful. Lucy and Ellory took piano lessons all year again and it's fun to hear the growth! While practicing wouldn't be their favorite thing, they do a good job (most of the time) of just persevering and getting it done! They did winter rec basketball, spring rec soccer, and a short few week softball camp and enjoyed it all! Way to go girls! Ellory finished up her lyrical and jazz dance class and they had a “night at the movies” themed dance recital. Lucy and Ellory did great in their 3^rd grade music concert at school- they sang lots of fun songs with a food theme and did a few on recorder too.

We celebrated Lucy and Ellory turning 9 in February! We got to celebrate with both sides- Schuts in Minneapolis at Zack and Karlie's house where we went to the frozen ice castles, and with De Jongs where we went bowling. For our family outing, we did Tilt indoor arcade, ice skating, and supper at Culver's. They each had some friends over for a party- Ellory chose a blue/pink theme with some crafts and Lucy chose a sports theme and we did some outdoor Olympic challenge games. At their 9 year wellness check, Lucy was 61 lbs. (35%) and 4'7” (83%) and Ellory was 64 lbs. (47%) and 4'5” (57%). Ellory is wearing a size 2 shoe and Lucy size 1 and both are in youth large/size 10-12 clothes.

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. Lucy loved the end of the year third grade field trip to outdoor fun day at Sandy Hollow, but sadly Ellory had to miss it because she was sick. They both got to be in a neat interactive play at school about immigration, where they were different characters who were immigrating to the US. They had to give a speech about who their character was and why they were immigrating. They did a great job and was fun to listen to!

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. Lucy and Ellory both felt the end of the school year was bittersweet, which is great because I'm grateful they love both school and summer! Lucy still loves anything sports related and Ellory has been a huge reader lately- so fun to continue to watch them grow and see what they love and where the Lord is leading them. We have lots of outdoor play, bike/scooter rides, lego city building, elaborate pretend house situations, crafts, music listening, and playmobil set fun. We love you so much, Lucy! We love you so much, Ellory! Being your parents is a deep blessing!