Happy Easter

Just a few days late...

I thought the girls might be getting too old for an egg hunt but I was wrong. They were waiting for it all day long. Mimi prepared the eggs while we went to church. Thanks Mimi! 

The joy of candy filled eggs!

Blue really wanted some candy but all he got was a kiss:)

 

 The next day, these Lindt dark chocolate bunnies came in the mail.  Thanks Liz and Grandmother Gail. Yum!

 

Snow Days

We had about 3 inches of snow and lots of freezing rain. The whole town has shut down today and tomorrow so no teaching for Daniel or me!

Here's how my SC girls boogie board in the snow!

Swimming

This is a collection of pictures taken over a week or so. We have some very generous friends who allow us to use their pool anytime and so we have been over there a lot. We spent July 4th there with our good friends and ended the night with a wonderful vegetarian feast followed by the traditional Kruidenier fireworks spectacular.

Daniel played many games with the kids in the pool. Most of the time it was Marco Polo with Arianna on his back.

We've also had playgroup at the public beach area at nearby Lake Murray. A great group of friends!

Celebrating 10 Years Together!

Today we celebrate out 10 year anniversary. 

We are still so in love. When you are first engaged and dreaming of your life together you really don't know how your love could grow. Ours sure has. 

We are best friends. We love working together and playing together. We have 2 amazing children and a wonderful life. I look forward to many more beautiful years together.

cousins

The kids had so much fun playing with their cousins the entire week we were in Baton Rouge and Jackson. Here's a few pictures from the day we spent at my dad's house. The girls opened a few presents then spent the rest of the time playing outside.

Here's dad and their cute little dog Gadget. He's so silly and loves playing with my dad's hair when he sits down in his chair. They say he can spell since he gets so excited when they say, "Gadget, you want a T... R...E...A...T?" It's hilarious.

Here we are in Jackson visiting more cousins, opening more presents, and having a good time.

 

I got to spend some time with my grandmother who is healthy and happy and will be 98 years old next month.

 

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning seems so long ago. Here are a few photos from the busy day.

We opened presents to and from each other first thing. It was still dark outside. The girls actually woke up at 2am trying to come out and start their day but I heard them talking and told them to go back to sleep. They were very disappointed. I can remember it being very hard to go to sleep on Christmas Eve when I was their age.

We took a short break and enjoyed some homemade monkey bread. This is what Daniel's family had every year and we are continuing the tradition.

Here they are in their new feetsie pjs enjoying some candy from the stockings.

Daniel's family from came down from Charlotte bringing more gifts and food. We shared a wonderful feast. It's always a pleasure having them here. We missed Stephen and Liz who couldn't make it down this year.

The Kruideniers left late in the afternoon and after a few rounds of the game Catch Phrase. Next, Mimi and BB came in from Tennessee. They gave Arianna this beautiful violin that she has been asking for since the fall. They gave Ellen a microscope which we have been figuring out these past few days. More pictures of that to come.

The day after Christmas we drove down to Baton Rouge and Jackson, MS for Christmas part 3 and 4. Stay tuned for more photos of that trip in the next post:)

Alley cats in the garden

I'm combining more Halloween photos with a garden update. I got my camera working again thanks to Do it yourself digital camera repair blog. I'm afraid it's a temporary fix so I sent Daniel and the girls out to take some pictures while it was working yesterday.

The garden is just beautiful these days. Daniel works hard out there and his work is paying off extremely well. We are still eating from these huge eggplant. (Arianna is holding one of the smaller Japanese eggplants but we have the globe variety also.) The lacinato, or dinosaur, kale that is in the front of this picture is so big. We have been harvesting from it for about a week now and loving it.

The cats are hiding behind the lettuce that are providing fresh salads every day!

They are standing in the middle of the garden and you can see the large broccoli that is forming some nice little heads. The cabbage is in front of them. The tall plants with stakes behind them are our second try at tomatoes.

Collards are in front of Arianna and lupine cover crops just starting out in front of Ellen.

Here's the whole crew dressed up and ready for trick or treating last night. We enjoyed a lovely potluck before heading out  in  our friend's neighborhood in the 78 degree temperature. Thankfully it was not raining yet, but we were all sweating by the end of the night! I love the South.

Spooky Halloween Story by Ellen

First of all, my camera broke this week and so Ellen has been taking pictures with her camera for me. I also wanted to post this story that she wrote for her writing class. She came up with it all by herself and I helped her with spelling and punctuation. They had been learning about how to write conversations and spent last week sharing Halloween stories with each other in preparation for writing their own. We carved pumpkins last night and this is a picture of hers. She hasn't come up with a title yet but here is her spooky Halloween story.

One October evening on a Halloween night I was getting into my costume for trick or treating. My parents and sister were across the street talking to our neighbors. When I was done getting dressed I suddenly heard the back door creek open. I went to see what it was. I saw nothing but I heard a deep scary voice. It said, "Follow me." I asked, "How can I follow you when I can't see you?" He told me "follow my voice!" So I followed his deep voice. While me and the voice were walking I was trying to think who or what this voice was. I thought that it might be a ghost. But before I could think about it any more the voice said, "We are here." I looked up and there towering above me was what looked like a haunted house. It had creepy vines winding in and out of windows and bats flying around the top. I asked, "Do I have to go in there?!" It said, "Of course you have to go in there. Isn't it beautiful!" I thought, "He is definitely a ghost!!!!!!!" Then suddenly I found myself off the ground and sailing through the air. Before I knew it I was in the haunted house! A witch had carried me through the air and set me down in the Haunted House.


It was very creepy inside. There were spiders hanging from slimy walls. I saw vampires making evil potions. I saw skulls all over the ground. Four vampires were sitting around a table drinking blood. They said, "This blood is good! Come have a drink with us!" I said, "No thank you," and I walked on. Soon I came to a big group of ghosts watching tv. My Halloween costume was an alley cat. When they looked at me they thought I was a real alley cat. They whispered, "Here Kitty Kitty." I don't have any idea why, but I went to them. Then suddenly a werewolf chased me out of the haunted house and back to my home.


So, if you don't want to see a real haunted house with creepy things inside it never listen to a scary voice on Halloween.

A Dog Party

Ellen wanted to have a potluck/sleepover party to celebrate her birthday this year. We invited our group of friends to come over Friday night. They all brought vegan side dishes to go along with the big pot of chili that I made for dinner. (I had separate dog bone shaped pb and js, tings, and fruit for the kids.)

We have a tradition of making a pinata for every birthday party. I posted instructions here last year on how to make a pinata with kids. I got this year's design from a picture of a puppy pinata online. The girls and I started on it about 2 weeks ago and worked on it a little bit every few days until Friday morning. The girls wanted it to look like our dog Blue and I think it came out pretty nice! Ellen said next time she wants to make a simple pinata so that we don't have to destroy something that we love:)
The kids played dress up, watched the movie Hotel for Dogs, played in the dark on the trampoline with glow sticks, and stayed up late. Most of the kids/families left between 10-11pm. We only had one sleep over. They've been playing quietly all morning.

I love having parties mostly because I know how much the kids enjoy it. They have the best time with all their friends over. There are toys everywhere and I've washed a ton of dishes, but it is all worth it to see those big smiles on Ellen's and Arianna's the entire time.

Home for July

My goal is to stay in Columbia for the month of July. We did a lot of traveling to visit family and friends over the last few months. It's not as though I think about my year in advance and plan to be out of town every other weekend, but with good friends and family scattered across the eastern U.S. I have come up with good reasons for road trips.

Life at home is full. We are continuing our "school work" so the girls spend time every morning learning math, recorder, and reading good books. We are also going through a history curriculum called The Story of the World and we'll be doing nature studies and filling our nature notebook. The afternoons are usually open to swimming, errands, playgroups, or free time. So here's a few fun pictures of the past week having fun with friends.

Swimming at Lake Murray with a group of friends. The girls loved being in the lake and playing in the waves.


The kids making funny faces and taking a short break while picking blueberries at a farm in Lexington, SC. We'll go back at least one more time to get more and make jam. Picking fresh fruit (especially strawberries and blueberries) is one of my favorite things to do. I love being outside and surrounded by the smells and colors of fresh berries.




Fourth of July was spent at our home with some friends and fireworks. Our friends brought over the slip and slide.
It is a Kruidenier tradition to splurge a little on fireworks twice a year at New Year's and July 4th. I didn't get any pictures of the big ones that Daniel lit and we all sat back and enjoyed, but here's one of the crew playing with sparklers.


I'll be posting a garden update and some photos of our recent house/remodel projects soon!

Christmas trip part 2

For the second part of our trip we drove to Baton Rouge and stayed a few nights at my brother Neal's house. There is a bit of a gap in my pictures (no pics at Neal's house) since the camera broke the last day in B'ham. Thankfully we were able to use Christmas money to buy a new and better one while in BR. Anyway, we had a short visit with more family at dad's house in Baton Rouge before driving to Jackson, MS to celebrate the new year and see more family! My brother and his family, and my mom and BB, and our family stayed at my aunt's house with more cousins and my grandmother. We ended the trip with fireworks on new year's eve and drove home all day on the first. What a wonderful trip. As always, it is so good to be with family. We were sad to leave but so are so glad to be home:)

Christmas at the lakehouse

This year we spent our Christmas traveling through the southeast. Our first stop was the lake house near Birmingham. We stayed there from Christmas Eve through Sunday with Daniel's mom Gail, his brother David, and his sister Anna. (Stephen and Liz we missed you!) I took lots of pictures before the camera broke so I'll let the slide show tell the story of our trip. It was awesome. Thanks to Daniel's uncle and aunt for letting us use their beautiful lake house.

Thanksgiving Highlights

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with lots of family and food.
On Wednesday we all went to see a local production of the Nutcracker. It was a great way to start the holiday season. Later that afternoon William drove down to spend Thanksgiving at our house. We loved having him here.

We cooked lots of food and shared lots of SILKNOG!
We had blueberry waffles for breakfast which the girls helped mix. Thanks to William for bringing the waffle iron and fixings!
I cooked a big dinner...my biggest dinner yet. The menu was all vegan and included Tofurky, gravy, mashed potatoes with roasted garlic, sweet potato casserole with ricemallow, stuffing, broccoli slaw salad, curry dish by William, rolls, cranberry sauce and my first ever homemade apple pie and brownies. It was all served on the china from Daniel's grandmother. This is the first time we've used it.

We did lots of reading together. The girls read to us...William read to the girls...Daniel read to the girls...Ellen read by herself.


The girls slept in the playroom so Grandaddy could have their room. Like always, Max finds a cozy spot on Arianna's sleeping bag!

On Friday we drove to Mountain CityTN to spend the weekend with my mom, BB, brother and his family. We met them at Hawksnest ski mountain for snow tubing. It was a blast. Sadly, my camera is having issues since the rechargable battery is dying and I haven't replaced it yet. I only got a few pics with my mom's camera. Maybe I'll post them later. Besides tubing we went to see the festival of lights and the christmas celebration in Blowing Rock, NC. Saturday most of us spent the day snuggled around the fire in the cabin. The cousins played in the hot tub on the deck and the dads took the kids on a very long hike up the mountian. We returned home today. As always we were sad to say goodbye to family but happy to be home. I'm sure you can relate!