Mini.

My friend Kara has added some baby hair clips to her collection designed specifically for infants and babies without a lot of hair (i.e. Ella). Check them out here

Our Weekend

We are finishing up one of the most relaxing long weekends I can remember in a long time. We kept things pretty simple and stayed close to home which was nice. It's fun to travel around too but not always very relaxing with two little ones.

Friday we worked in the yard and Matt spread the six yards of bark we had piled in our driveway. That evening we had our friends Katie and Ernie and Derk and Bethany (+ kids) for a grill out and a camp fire.

Saturday we took it easy again, and in the evening Matt and I had a date night to celebrate our anniversary - dinner at Rose's in East Grand Rapids.

Sunday we took the kids to John Ball Zoo, and the kids got a kick out seeing the animals, especially the tiger, monkeys, and the goats. In the evening, we took a bike ride to the new ice cream place in town, Scoop's, and we're happy to say it's a very nice 2 1/2 mile bike ride from our house. Ella enjoyed her first entire ice cream cone.


Today, we woke up early to watch Matt run in the Jenison Ambucs 5K (Chad, Yesenia, and Dad T. also ran). It was quite the feat to get the kids up and out of the house by 7:45 but we did it and the kids were excited to watch Daddy start and finish. He beat his previous time and made it in just under 22 minutes. We went straight to the Jenison parade after that and the kids caught and ate tons of candy. This was Ella's first parade and she was happy to figure out that people were throwing her candy. She quickly learned to open it and get it in her mouth really fast before Mom and Dad noticed. We went to Grandpa and Grandma A.'s for brunch and then came home and we ALL took three hours naps (heaven!). Our last activity of the weekend was Aunt Cara's 15th birthday party - more eating and playing outside for the kids.



Hope you all had wonderful holiday weekends too!

Weekend Plans

Here are Dylan and Will (neighbor boy) standing on the mountain of bark that was delivered to our house this morning. If you need us at all in the next few days, we'll be outside spreading bark until this pile's gone.

Life is...

I love those Life is Good t-shirts that you see around with cute little pictures of happy things on them. (In fact, my parents try to get the grandkids Life is Good shirts every summer as condo-wear. Aren't they cute??)

Anyway, I recently came across another line of apparel that strikes me funny in a weird way - Life is Crap. A few examples...

It seems like everywhere I look lately I see someone going something really hard, and after a while the pain and sadness can be overwhelming. My mom and I first saw the Life is Crap shirts in a catalog and we both burst out laughing because sometimes there is no other explanation for what we go through in this world. My sister-in-law recently had an appendectomy because her appendix suddenly burst...can you think of anything else so pointlessly crappy? (BTW, we're thinking of getting a shirt special ordered with an appendix on it...is it getting any funnier yet, Michelle, or still too soon?? Love you...)

Now, to be serious for a moment...

Life sometimes is crap. There's evil in the world. There's sin and darkness and pain. Of course, I also know the flip side that life really is good because we have Jesus and hope and grace. When times get dark though, I think it helps to acknowledge that sometimes things are just hard and ugly and unfair. When I'm working through a hard situation, it helps me to grieve everything that's wrong with this world first - to acknowledge that it isn't fair, it's isn't right, and it isn't what God intended. From there, I can move on to praying for the peace and the hope and the justice that life with Jesus brings.

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33 (NIV)

I was laying in bed this morning trying to find the energy to get up, when I heard this on the radio. Knocks the wind right out of you. We have always been big fans of Steven Curtis Chapman and he has done wonderful things both in the name of Christ and Chinese adoption. An unbelievable tragedy - sometimes life seems so hard. Just keep praying...

In Memory of Maria

New Ride

We are the proud new owners of an SRX. Matt's been watching the GM auction site at work, and he finally found one with all the equipment he wants at the price he wants. The only compromise was the color - white's not our first choice - but since we're buying used this time, we couldn't be too picky. Sad to say, but this is only our second used car (out of nine cars total) since we've been married (the first was a hand me down from Mom Jen after we got married). There are some definite downsides to being in the car business, but a perk I have enjoyed are the new cars and the frequent changes :). Most of the new cars we've had were leases (and fabulous deals), but there haven't been any great lease deals lately, so we decided to go used this time. This SRX is a seven seater though, so we can hold on to it for a while (and no, there is no baby news coming from the Terpstra house anytime soon...we've got all we can handle right now!)

Quick Update

• Ella has been sick with a stomach bug since Thursday. Not cool. She's finally starting to look better today.
• Just found out my sister-in-law Kara will be coming back to town for about a month while Brett is gone doing training in various places. He will join her here for the July 4 weekend for a visit.
• Looking forward to a long weekend coming up with Matt off Friday through Monday. Four day weekends are rare in the car business, so we love them when we can get them!
• Planning on buying flowers and spreading bark this week. You know you're a grown-up when you actually look forward to such things.
• Today's our anniversary. 7 years!!

Currently Watching...

We just got done watching Juno...LOVED it.

Run Matt Run

I thought I'd give a shout out to my hubby for running the 5K River Bank Run on Saturday in 22 minutes, 8 seconds. He would have loved to finish under 22 minutes, but I think he did just fine :). My brother-in-law Chad also ran his first "long" race, finishing the 25K in 1 hour, 47 minutes.

We knew those boys could play basketball...who knew they could run too?

Happy Mother's Day!

[A Mother's Day interview with Dylan, written down by Daddy and included in my card...]

Q: Mama helps me with...
A: My problems and taking care of my sister.

Q: Mommy's pretty because...
A: She's a lady!

Q: My favorite thing to do with Mama is...
A: Play baseball outside.

Q: Mama loves me and Ella because...
A: We're special.

Q: I love my Mama because...
A: She's a good Mama and just because.

Did somebody say "Garage Sale"?

My friend Katie's family is having a garage sale this week and they said I could tag along. I started going through the basement (a disaster ever since we moved) and I came across a thing or two...

bye bye Tory...

So my time with my Torrent (aka Tory) is coming to a close. The lease was officially up last week and we have to turn it in on Wednesday or they will come looking for us :). 27 months ago, Matt surprised me with this vehicle and it's been perfect for me and the kiddos. We are still (!) in the process of finding another vehicle to replace Tory. The lease deals aren't great right now, so we're looking at buying something used but when your husband is a car salesman, he tends to be a little picky. Our first choice is a Cadillac SRX (we'd really like a 7 passenger vehicle, but we're not ready to take the minivan plunge), so we're hoping to come across the right one soon!