Our Christmas...

...was wonderful. We were able to share time with both of our families and just had so much fun with our kids. There is something so fun to watch Christmas through the eyes of children. Their child-lilke innocence and understanding of Jesus' birth is so sweet. Paige "lets" Will play "baby Jesus" with her almost every day. They lay her little baby doll in the "hay" and sing "Away in a Manger". It's almost too precious for words.

Merry Christmas from our family!

We woke up Christmas morning to the most beautiful fresh snow outside our window.

Christmas with Grams and Grandpa

Reading with Grandpa on Christmas morning

Trying out their new dress up clothes - they're a big hit!!

Birthday Boy

Will celebrated his second birthday right before Christmas - I still can't believe that our little guy is 2!!! We had such a fun weekend of Christmas cookie decorating, eating out and hanging out with our family.

Will continues to be such an easy going, fun loving little boy. It's so fun to see his personality starting to really shine through - turns out he has quite a sense of humor and is constantly making us laugh. He got a clean bill of health at his 2 year check up and is in the 50% for height (34 inches) and the 25% for weight (25.2 pounds). Will's vocabulary is growing leaps and bounds and every day it seems a new phrase pops out of his mouth. The only true "2" thing that is starting to show is his opinions....and he has lots of them.....who puts on his coat, who puts him to bed, who gives him his sippy cup, etc. Usually Daddy is the preferred one, but every once in awhile, mom still gets to help him:)

Here are a few pictures from Will's birthday extravaganza:

I was feeling rather brave and had a bunch of our friends over for a Christmas cookie decorating birthday party. We had so much fun...even if it was a little chaotic:)

The kids very focused on their decorating - Paige is obsessed with the color blue so naturally all of her cookies needed to be frosted blue.

Grams and Will

Grandpa and Will exploring the amazing trains

We love you, buddy. Happy 2nd Birthday - you are such an incredible blessing to our family!!!

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you a blessed day as we celebrate Christ's birth!

Love,

The Ferwerda Family

Busy!

The last two weeks have just gotten away from us - we've been busy and blogging hasn't happened! Here's a quick catch up on what we've been up to:

• SNOW!: We've officially entered snow season in West Michigan. The kids just love going outside and have found some new uses for our swing set. It still takes us longer to get dressed than the amount of time we actually are outside, but it's totally worth every second!

My bundled up boy

Sliding is so much more fun in snow pants!

Snow Angels with Cash

• CHICAGO: We didn't take any pictures but we spent last week in Chicago for Ben's company party and visiting my grandpa who's been in the hospital.

• PRESCHOOL PARTY: Paige celebrated Jesus' birthday at school on Thursday with a special little program in her classroom. Too cute - we're so thankful for such a wonderful school for Paige that she just loves.

Singing her songs (and rocking baby Jesus)

No one's looking the right way! Paige and her teacher, Mrs. Wolffis

• FRIENDS: We are so sad that our good friends, The DeKornes, are moving away in a few weeks. We took advantage of a kid-free night to get dressed up, go out to dinner, and celebrate how special they are to all of us. We're so blessed to have such good friends!

The girls -

(everything's fancier in black and white ☺)

we loved our "fancy" night out!

We included the husbands this time around!

Thankful

We had a fun and BUSY Thanksgiving weekend but were so blessed to be able to spend it with both of our families.

We spent Thanksgiving week with Ben's family - so special to be able to see Kate, Brett and Maren and be with the entire extended family for a night too!

Sibling date night to Mamgiamo's - so fun!

Ferwerda Family Dinner - ALL of us!!!

The kids "hanging out" on top of fridge watching Grandpa carve the turkey

We headed downtown Chicago on Friday to spend the weekend hanging out on State Street with the Nybergs. Love this tradition!!

Eating breakfast at the Walnut Room on State Street

Family picture in front of another tree ☺

Didn't quite make it to our high school reunion - but we DID get to reunite with our dear friends, Abbi and Ryan- loved hanging out, catching up and loving on sweet baby Sawyer!!!

Santa Parade

Last Saturday, we bundled up the family and headed to the Santa parade downtown Grand Rapids. The kids absolutely loved it - Such a fun memory with their cousin, Maren.

All the kids lined up on the curb -

we found Jack and Ellie sitting near by

and had fun with a quick cousins reunion!

Thank goodness for hot chocolate!

I'm pretty sure that's how Kate and I survived the cold☺

Cute father/son time!

Crazy Cactus!

We took a family vacation to Arizona last week with our dear friends, the Riedbergers, and had an absolute blast. Paige and Will were obsessed with the cactus and made sure to point out everyone we passed along the way☺ The kids had so much fun playing at the pool and the adults had so much fun soaking up the sun and being together. So very thankful for the gift of wonderful friends and the ability to spend five great days of quality time together.

Our little fishies

Paige and Addie - best buddies since birth!

Paige developed some new dance skills this past week - they are pretty hilarious. Here are a few captured moments of our little dancing queen (and her silly brother).

Ben clearly enjoying himself - Life is good!

Spending a sweet morning with Lolo

Our only family picture -
and of course, we didn't even get one group shot of all of us!

One "Crazy Cactus" and two crazy kiddos☺

We're thinking....

We found out that a little girl will be joining our family in March!!

Trick or Treat

Three is the perfect age for Halloween - I just loved seeing the sparkle in Paige's eye as she figured out the concept of Trick or Treating. She had so much fun dressing up in her costume, celebrating at a few Halloween parties with her friends, and "teaching" Will about all of the things he needed to know about the festivities. Will loved following in Paige's footsteps from door to door. I loved watching his little candy bag drag behind him as he walked down the street. Here are a few pictures from our days of celebrating:

We stayed home one night to hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood. Paige insisted on wearing old costumes and her and Will took over "door duty". They had a blast!

Paige and Natalie at the Kent's amazing Halloween party.

These two bugs are good buddies!

Parker and Will

Cash, Paige and Ava

Trick or Treat at Grams and Grandpa's house!

Our trick or treat group heading out - it was the cutest group of kiddos!

A puppy and a ladybug

An apple a day

We literally have enough apples in our fridge to eat for a month! We spent Saturday morning at the apple orchard with our friends, the Veltings. Being from Chicago, this was our first apple picking experience and we had a blast!

Loading up the kids on the wagon for the ride out to the orchard

Success- we have lots of apples for apple crisps (our favorite fall dessert!)

The kids in front of the apples trees

Full of Fall

We had a weekend full of fall activities. The weather has just been incredible lately - and we've been taking full advantage!

• Nothing says fall like football! Friday night, Ben spontaneously took Paige to her first BIG high school football game...Paige and her buddy Ava had a blast and Paige couldn't stop talking about all she saw and experienced (For example: her first time using a port-a-potty. She thought this was pretty great...oh dear).

Ben, Paige and their buddies Mark & Ava

(and Kaiya...who didn't get to go with the older girls...poor Kaiya)

Daddy/Daughter time

• We took off Saturday morning for some delicious donuts at Robinette's. The kids played on the huge apple, saw the big pumpkins with Grams and ate the most amazing donuts.

It really is a HUGE apple:)

Fun with Grams

• We spent Sunday night with great friends, enjoying a ride down the Thornapple River on the pontoon boat. The leaves were beautiful and we all had so much fun hanging out and enjoying the night (Thanks, DeKornes!)

Paige, Natalie and Ava - three peas in a pod!

And the Mommies....me, Heidi (and sweet adorable Reese) & Meredith (possibly 3 peas in a pod as well:)