O Christmas Tree!

Thanksgiving is over and the Christmas decorations are out!  We had a little extra motivation this year to get our tree up early!!  I always love putting up the Christmas tree as it just adds so much excitement and sparkle to the whole house!  The kids were extra excited this year too, and they were great helper in decorating the tree. 

 

Shane was pretty excited to rediscover some of the ornaments that he made.

 

Faith was very helpful, and she loves having so many ornaments with her name on them!  One of the benefits of having the same name as a Christian virtue!

 

The tree is decorated!!  We made sure to create full ambiance in our decorating as afterwards the kids had some hot chocolate and watched Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer!  I think one of the highlights of Christmas each year is the family memories that are made!  We are looking forward to another wonderful Christmas season preparing to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Even though it's a few days late, the sentiment remains the same!  Happy Thanksgiving from the Poelstra family!  This was a bit of an unusual year, given the unpredictability with the baby's due date!  It was challenging to make plans not knowing if or when the baby would decide to be born.  Since she did not make her arrival early in the week, I was thankful that she held off on Thanksgiving day!  Steve had to work Thanksgiving and Friday, which made it extra nice that she stayed put! 

We ended up having a nice day (even though we missed Steve of course!!) as we went to church in the morning and then to a friends house at night for dinner.  It was a relaxing day, which was nice too.  So this year I am especially thankful for the many very good friends that we have made here in Ventura who reached out to us and welcomed us to join them and their families on Thanksgiving.  I wish we could have spent the day with everyone who invited us over!  It's comforting to know we have "family" all around us! 

Thanksgiving Celebrations begin!

This is a week that has been highlighted on our calendar for a while!  We are all looking forward to both Thanksgiving as well as the baby's due date!!  It has been a bit crazy carrying on with life as ususal, yet planning for everything "just in case" the baby makes her arrival. 

Last week Shane and I went to the mall to get a few quick errands accomplished, and since he was such a big helper, I treated him to Auntie Anne's pretzels!  Thus the picture above!  We had a nice time!

 

On Thursday of last week Shane's preschool class sang a song in front of chapel.  Shane really does a nice job of participating in the singing and motions!  It's pretty adorable.  On a side note, Steve and I were able to watch the kids practice their songs for the church Christmas program yesterday, and again, Shane was so fun to watch as he really gets into the songs!

 

After chapel, all the preschool classes joined together for a Thanksgiving feast.  Faith and I were able to stay for that, and it was a fun morning of spending time with Shane at school and getting to know some of the other preschool moms.

 

Shane and I were both excited to find this Michigan t-shirt at the Gap while we were at the mall!  Apparently it wasn't a popular item out here in So Cal as it was marked down to just $5!!  How could we resist a bargain like that?  He wore it on Saturday to cheer on the Wolverines!

The latest from our fam

While we haven't been doing too many exciting things lately, I thought I would put up a few pictures from the past week. 

Sunday was such a beautiful, clear day, we went up to the cross at Grant Park for a panoramic view of Ventura.  It was obviously a popular idea, as there were many people up there!  In this picture, Faith is holding a picture of Flat Stanley!  One of my cousins in Michigan has a son who is in first grade, and his class read a story about Flat Stanley.  Since he is now flat, he takes adventures because he can be mailed across the world in an envelope!  So Stanley has come to Ventura for a visit, and we are taking him on a few adventures around our city before he is mailed back to Michigan!

On Monday we took Flat Stanley to the beach to see the pier and play at the beach park.  It was a windy day and we almost lost him, but thankfully he is still around!

 

Also last weekend we went to a birthday party at Chuck e Cheese.  The kids love to go there!!  It was Valentina's second birthday, and she is the sister to Shane's dear friend Miles.  It was a fun afternoon of pizza, cake, and of course games. 

 

With it being a little warmer the past few days, we could not resist a stop for some Fro-yo at Tutti Fruitti!!

 

And finally, Faith wrote a poem in school today that she wanted me to share!  The assignment was to choose a color and come up with some ways to describe the color using the senses. 

 

 

Pink

 

Pink is a doll.

Pink is cotton candy.

Pink is cake.

 

Pink smells like flowers.

Pink feels like a pillow.

Pink looks like watermelon.

 

Pink adds a smile to my life.

Halloween!

This past week was filled with all the fun and excitement that accompanies Halloween!  Naturally, the kids were super excited about Halloween and all of the festivities associated with it.  And we even carved our pumpkins this year as opposed to putting potato head parts in them.  The kids weren't too into it once we started as they didn't realize there would be goop and strange smells involved!  And Shane is the one who wanted the mad/sad pumpkin face!

 

The kids had many opportunities to wear their costumes.  On Tuesday we went to a lunch Halloween party with some of our homeschool friends from church.  Our hostess, Nicole, went all out fully decorating her house, making seasonal foods, and planning fun games for the kids!  After that party, Faith went to Kindersmusik were she also wore her costume and did some fun Halloween singing and dancing.  Finally at night, the kids had costume night at Awana!  To Awana Shane wore his Iron Man costume and mask that we bought earlier this fall, but to everything else he had to be Buzz...again!!

 

On Halloween night we went to a friends house again this year for a party and trick-or-treating.  We had to pose for a few pics at home before heading out!

 

Before going trick-or-treating we attempted a group picture of all the kids.  I think this is most of them!  It's always fun to go as a group.  While Faith had a great time, Shane was a little scared of some of the really decorated houses along with the costumes some people were wearing who were handing out the candy!  After a few scary houses, he would wait to see if the person was wearing a costume, and only go up to get candy once he saw that it was a "regular" person!  He ended up asking to go back early!

 

I had to include this picture too because I thought Shane's expression was just too cute!