a double birthday party

Since we are home on our Spring Break right now, we decided to combine 2 of our sweeties' birthdays and have a double celebration!  Halle's birthday was back on March 3, and Daisy's is coming up on April 25...so we celebrated them in the middle.

It was such a fun evening as both of our families gathered together at Nathan's parents' house.  Halle was looking forward to this for weeks, and Daisy loved her cake more than any of our other 1-year olds ever did!

And YES...I know I am camera-happy.  Especially when it comes to our kids.  And especially on their birthday parties.  So just take that as a warning. :)

Here is Halle, ready to start her party!  She is such a sweet and beautiful little girl.  She loooooves Hello Kitty, so I made her this cake:

Here is Daisy, the other birthday girl!  She won't be 1 until the 25th, but that's okay.  She is also such a sweet and beatiful little girl!

The 2 birthday girls...I love this picture!!

Some of you might remember a couple of months ago, at Kaine's birthday party, we had so much fun playing "Pin the Tail on the Lion."  So we were going to play that same game for Halle and Daisy's party, but then we were thinking that all of our guests just played it 2 months ago!  So we came up with a new game:

Kiss the Princess!!

I can't remember if this was Nathan's idea, or one of his parents'...but it was so fun!  The morning of her party, I took a picture of Halle like this:

Then Dave took it to get printed at the Print Shop, and it came out like this:

And then we had each person put red frosting on their lips, and in much the same way as "Pin the Tail", they had to "Kiss the Princess"...it was so funny!  Hopefully everyone doesn't mind me posting the pictures of this:)

It was so fun:)


Then, it was time for the customary pinata.  This is a tradition that is fun, but we aren't sure if we are glad we started it or not:)  Pinatas take time to make!  But our kids love it.

Daisy was extremely excited to get her hands on this cake!!  As we were singing to her, we could barely get the candle blown out in time before she started eating it.  She was ADORABLE!!!!

And Halle was anticipating her gifts all evening! 

Everyone went out on the patio to talk when all the activities were done.  It was a beautiful evening.

A blogpost wouldn't be complete without a crazy picture of Layla:)  She is so funny!

What a fun evening.  Thanks so much, mom and dad, for letting us have it at your house!  And thanks everyone else for coming and putting up with our crazy game:)  You are all good sports!!

Spring Break!!

Does anyone else think it is strange that I am 29 years old and I am enjoying a Spring Break?  Haha!  I do.  I feel like a kid again!

So our Spring Break officially began on Friday after classes, but we drove down this morning.  We left at 8:00 in time to go to church in...Leo!!  It was so great to see everyone--it has been months since we have been in Leo on a Sunday.  So that was so great.

Then we headed down and now we are at Nathan's mom and dad's house for a few days.   We were so pleasantly surprised at the beautiful weather!  We enjoyed being outside all afternoon/evening.

Nathan, Kaine and Halle went on an "adventure" to the creek out back in Dad and Mom's yard...

I caught Halle picking her nose:) 

Kyle is such a good uncle...he played for a long time in the sand with our kids!  They loved that.

The boys went "golfing"...

While the ladies (Mom, Gma and me) took took the girls on a walk!

Right now, I am enjoying the whole "college schedule" thing!  As much as I LOVE being in classes, it is fun to have a break to visit family and friends.  We have lots of stuff planned for this week, and hopefully I will blog about lots of it!   Playgroup with my amazing friends and all of our kiddos, going to a Perspectives class with Michael and Jane, birthday party for Halle and Daisy, out to eat with my Grandma Schwartz, up to Gateway for an evening with Paul and Nichole, family gatherings for Easter...we are going to love spending time with everyone!

a very quick update...

It seems like we have been soooo busy lately!  We have had lots of homework, lots of enjoying the BEAUTIFUL weather, and lots of getting together with friends and missionaries who were visiting the school(which results in late nights)...and no time for blogging.  So we are excited for our Spring Break, which starts after classes tomorrow!  I am hoping and planning to play some major catch-up on the blog next week (which we will be spending back home, with our parents--fun!!). 

Anyway, just wanted everyone to know we are still here, still loving training, and still excited about missions!  In fact, the more we learn the more excited we are!  Not excited in the sense that it will be so much fun, but excited in that we are learning more and more from the Word about God and His heart for the unreached peoples.  So we are so thankful for that. 

We are looking forward to catching up with many friends and family members this coming week...and hopefully I will be able to do lots of blog posts! 

Here is a cute picture of the 2 youngest members of our family...Daisy and Israel.  These 2 are so cute!  They will be good friends:)

More to come next week!!

check out my friend's giveaway...

My good friend, Sarah, is having a great giveaway on her blog!  It is for a thirty-one bag (they are awesome!)  The consultant, Bethany, is a good friend of mine, too.  So go to Sarah's blog to check it out!!

LOVING this weather!!

Wow.  This weather has been amazing!  As you all know, this time of year can seem kind of loooooong.  So we were very pumped to get outside!  Today it is especially warm, but these pictures are from earlier this week.  We went to the park with Aaron and Jill's family after supper one evening, and our kids had a blast.

Between our two families, we had to bring 4 strollers and a scooter:)  I'm sure we looked like quite a crew, walking down Michigan Avenue!  Since Nathan and I don't have a double stroller, we have to pack our kids in.  Halle likes to ride in her "little house", as she likes to call it.

Daisy absolutely loved the walk!  I was telling Jill, last summer Daisy was just 3-4 months old, so she really doesn't ever remember being outside (besides just being carted to the van in her carseat in the bitter cold)  So she was loving the outdoors:)

The swings were a big hit!

I thought this was soooo cute!  Our friends Stephen and Rachel taught us this last year.  I didn't even know these swings could be used for 2 babies, but it works so great! Daisy and Israel were loving it.  They were in this swing for probably a good 20 minutes or so!

And then we put Layla and Ivy together!  It was definitely a tighter fit, but they liked it for a little while at least:)

 I love this:)

So much fun!  Yay for spring!

Halle's birthday post...

Halle celebrated her 4th birthday this past weekend!!  I think 4 sounds so much older than 3...like she is not so little anymore:(  But that's okay, because the older she gets, the more she continues to delight and entertain us with her amazing God-given personality!  She is so much fun!

So Halle's birthday was this past Saturday (March 3).  We traveled to Bluffton the day before and spent Friday evening with Nathan's parents.  Mom M. made a really good dessert and Halle was thrilled to have her first celebration:

 We were so glad Gma Steffen could be there, too!

So that was a really fun evening!  The next morning, Halle woke up and was so excited that she was finally 4 years old!!

My dad told the kids a story at breakfast, like he always does when we eat breakfast at their house:)  (He pretends the salt and pepper shakers, the cinnamon shaker, etc are people in our family and he "acts out" the story.  Our kids LOVE it!!)

Kaine, Halle and Layla had fun getting into my parents' dress-up clothes:)

Then Nathan and I took Kaine and Halle out for lunch.  We did this for Kaine's birthday, also, and it was so much fun!  We let Halle choose and of course she chose McDonald's :)

(Kaine and Halle started to get cold, so we shared our coats...it was so cute!)

Then we got back to my parents' house and my mom had a cake for Halle:

So we had a small celebration right after lunch for Halle's birthday.  We are planning to have her official party in April (combined with Daisy's).  She will have a special cake, pinata, etc then.  I'm sure I will post plenty of pictures of that in April!

That evening, we went to Nick and Jessica's house with our friends...it was so fun, as always!  We love our friends:)

And Halle had another candle to blow out there!  Jessica was so thoughtful and gave Halle a present from all the kids, too.  Halle loved it:)

Happy birthday to our sweet Halle Rae.  We love her so much and are incredibly grateful to God for blessing us with her for 4 years!  (so far!)  We can't get enough of this sweetie:)