Lucy and Ellory's 6th birthday- De Jong celebration.

We got to celebrate Lucy and Ellory's 6th birthday a little early with the De Jongs! We also celebrated our nephew/cousin's 4th birthday too who is a couple weeks before them. It was a special night- basically family birthday celebrations are some of my favorite days of the year. Lucy and Ellory, we love spending our days with you and you light up our lives! :)

Amma (grandma) let them put as many candles as they wanted and clearly Lucy loved this!

Ellory stuck with 6 since she's turning 6! So fun to see their thinking and personalities.

Happy birthday, sweet girls. You are loved.  :)

And happy 4th birthday to Will!

We have two cousins on the De Jong side, and Will is within a month of Lucy and Ellory's birthday, and Gerrit is two days after Norah's, so it's fun everyone has a birthday buddy. 

We also got to go out for supper on their real birthday with Kley's parents and grandma. So thankful to live close to them! Lucy and Ellory were excited to get a special celebration milkshake for their birthday!

Meeting Brooks and Lucy and Ellory's 6th birthday- Schut celebration.

The whole Schut side was able to come to celebrate Lucy and Ellory's 6th birthday! What fun to have everyone there. My grandparents, who live in the neighboring town to us, were able to meet the two newest great grandchildren, which was special too. It was also pretty special for us because we met Brooks (our newest cousin/nephew) for the first time too! We were going to meet him in January but couldn't because of sickness, so it was extra joyous to meet him this weekend!

Super exciting to hold Brooks Allen! Born 12/29/22- 7 lbs 15 oz at 11:13am. 

Cousin photo- first time with all 8!

Thankful for family!

Bounce house fun.

A local event center had an open house inflatables event- fun for the winter and to get some energy out! Enjoying events like these while the girls are still young enough to enjoy them- a special morning! :)

Happy Valentine's Day 2023!

Happy Valentine's Day from our three favorite valentines! :)

MOA weekend.

Our big Christmas present to the girls this year was a weekend at Mall of America! They were pumped and talked about it many times during the month wait to go. The girls and I came home with some yucky coughs, which meant we couldn't meet our new nephew/cousin (but thankfully they are coming here in three weeks so we don't have to wait long!). Other than that, it was a wonderful weekend and I am SO thankful we could go. What a blessing!

Staying in a hotel is always so exciting! So many opportunities to push the elevator button and put the room key in. Eating breakfast there? The pool? They were over the moon and it was so fun to watch. There was even a hot tub!

We got to do many fun activities! A special surprise was that my parents got to stop and ride some rides with us! We didn't tell the girls they were coming and they loved it! They were there helping my sister and were on their way home. Love this picture of my mom and Norah on the ferris wheel!

Ellory is our biggest Paw Patrol fan of the three and she was excited to meet Rubble!

We tried a roller coaster that was pretty intense! Ellory was nervous and almost backed out, but she did it! She handled it well, but I don't think she loved it. Sitting by grandpa helped!

Norah on the other hand, truly loved it. :)

So did Lucy!

It's hard to see Lucy's face in this picture, but it's pure joy. :)

I know we are getting close to the end of riding rides this small, but I will take it for as long as I can get it!

It was also special that my college roommate, Jackie, and her family got to meet us there too and we could share the fun with friends!

They have three kids and their oldest two are incredibly close in age to our girls, so fun!

Everyone loved the swings!

We enjoyed the ocean animals at Sea Life too.

Tested out the Amazing Mirror Maze!

Crayola Experience was special too- our girls love crafting, so they had a great time!

We also loved Build A Bear and Legoland too. It was a truly great weekend!

Dance camp 2023.

The girls did a dance camp at our local college! I love that we have opportunities like this in our town where you can do things for a short time. You get the experience without committing to a whole year. This camp was just a Saturday afternoon- they got to learn a dance routine and then perform it at halftime of the men's basketball game. What fun! All three were old enough to do it this year, so it was neat they could all go. They were all a tad nervous to go, but they were brave and did a great job!