official blog announcement!

I'm not really sure why it took me so long to post these pictures. Blame it on the fact that I'm 11 weeks pregnant??

If you haven't heard the news yet, here you go - "official" blog announcement. Nothing is really real unless it's been posted on the blog, after all.

I went for broke this time and ordered the kids these shirts off of Etsy because I couldn't resist. We brought the kids over to my parents' house in them and my mom just about fell over. The great part is that Dylan's shirt makes sense on its own, but when you throw Ella in the mix people slowly start to catch on.

Next big item...I am due November 17. For those of you paying attention at home, yes, our other two kids' birthdays are also in November (and um, yeah, Matt's is too if you want to get technical). We have in fact realized that we seem to have some sort of "problem" regarding the month of November (or the month of February, depending on how you want to look at it). My due date for Dylan was actually November 17 too, and he was born on the November 13...which was Ella's due date. I realize this makes us pretty weird at this point, but I'm just going to go ahead and embrace it. Plus, I think it allows more attention to be given during my birthday week since I don't have to share the limelight with anyone else :).

I think that's it for now. Feeling OK, but hoping to feel a lot better in the next couple of weeks. My personal mom hunch is that it's a boy, but it really doesn't make a difference to us either way. We will definitely try to find out gender at 20 weeks - sometime around the beginning of July. We realize #3 is going to make our already crazy life even crazier, but we're taking the plunge...if we survive the next year we should be in good shape after that :).

rockin' it out

Last Tuesday, my mom and I went the Michael W. Smith/Steven Curtis Chapman concert. If you know us, that's a somewhat odd sentence that I just typed because we do a lot of things together but they generally don't include going to concerts :) My called a couple of months ago and asked me if I wanted to go and told me to get the best seats available. Seemed like a no-brainer to say sure!
It was just the right kind of concert for us - lots of songs we knew, no peer pressure to stand up the entire time :), and great music. Michael W. Smith music brings me back to my junior high-ish years...swapping my Go West Young Man tape for Katie P.'s I 2(Eye) tape in the 7th grade...making up a lip sync to "Love Crusade" at Camp Ao Wa Kiya during a junior high fall retreat...bonding and swaying through Friends...and the list goes on.
I didn't become acquanted with Steven Curtis Chapman until my college years, thanks to Matt. Pretty sure we went to one of his concerts during that time period and "I Will Be Here" was played at our wedding (I had almost forgotten that until he started playing the song...funny how two kids and 8 years will do that to you!) It's been almost a year since they lost their little girl, and I still remember waking up and hearing the news on the radio. A lot of what he shared at the concert had to do with that tragedy and how it is continuing to shape him and his family.

Amazing...just amazing...to see both of these guys on stage at the same time.

zoo!

Nothing like a field trip to the zoo with a bunch of preschoolers to get you moving in the morning (this is just part of the group). The sunshine was wonderful and I loved running around the zoo with my little guy. I love being with both my kids obviously, but I love any opportunity to be one-on-one with them also. Only three more weeks of preschool...I know I will miss it this summer!

The Only Colors

Here you go Sparty fans...my big brother has a new blog. Some of you might know that he has had a blog for about the past year regarding MSU sports (especially basketball), but the toll of carrying the blogging burden alone proved to be too much (he also happens to have a "real" job.) So...this new blog is more of a collaborative effort with five different enthusiastic writers contributing to a spectactular blog centered on all things Green and White. Check it out.

P.S. My brother is pretty much the smartest and funniest person I know. And he knows a lot about MSU. You will love him. And his blog. Guaranteed.

who doesn't love a puppy?

Thought this cute little puppy might make someone out there's day. This little guy will be keeping my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Brett and Kara, busy out in California. His name's Cooper...everyone now...awwww...

neighbors

So we're getting new neighbors. Exciting, right? Well, what makes it even more exciting is that our new neighbors also happen to be our very good friends, the Oosting's. There has been a vacant lot across the street from us that has been empty since this neighborhood was first built (about 15 years ago). The lot finally went up for sale about the time we moved into this house, but then that couple decided not to build and it went up for sale again last summer. At that time, Derk and Bethany were looking for a house in Hudsonville and when they didn't find a house they loved, they started to think about building and this lot was perfect for them.

They just sold their house, moved in with her parents last week, and now there are lots of guys across the street taking down trees to make room for their house! Besides getting really great neighbors out of the deal, we also get a front row seat as their house goes up.

It seems like "community" is quite the buzz word these days, and it seems like there is a trend to move back to cities and neighborhoods to try to recreate some of that community that generations before us (the ones with front porches and not back decks) used to enjoy. Community is also something that is talked about a lot in churches, and in our church in particular, and we are excited to have this opportunity to really live it out. We have been in a small group with Derk and Bethany for about 6 years now, and it's one thing to be there for something emotionally or spiritually but an entirely another thing to be able to be there for someone physically - sharing meals, watching kids, helping out on projects.

Both our family and the Oosting's have no plans of leaving these houses anytime soon, so we look forward to many years of watching our kids play together and grow up together. (And I'm pretty sure we're looking forward to our senior citizen days too :) )

Easter (minus the bunnies and eggs)

We have been talking with our kids about Easter these last few weeks, especially with Dylan since he's at an age to really start to grasp what its all about. For some reason, I get a little stressed thinking about explaining somewhat complex God-related stuff to my kids since I feel like a lot of it is so abstract and the words we use to talk about these things might seem strange to little kids who are usually very literal. I picked Dylan up from preschool a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about what he learned that day on the way home and he told me, "Bad men hurt Jesus and then he died. But then he was alive. But he had no bones. It was a miracle." OK then...guess I had nothing to worry about! I love that he hears the story of Jesus not just at home, but at school, at church, with our family, and with our friends. We are blessed to be surrounded by people who care about our kids as much as we do.

Yesterday, Matt took Dylan with him to the Good Friday service at church. At our church, we don't really have a formal service - instead the church is open for several hours on Friday and people can come in and reflect, pray, and take communion. Afterwards, Matt was explaining to him how Friday was a sad day because we remember the day that Jesus died. And then Dylan says, "But that's not the end of the story, is it?" I love that. It is NOT the end of the story. It might be Friday, but Sunday's coming!!

Amen.

easter egg chaos

I took the kids to the Hudsonville Easter Egg Hunt this morning along with our friends the Oostings. We figured it would be a little crazy and it was! They divided up the park into a couple of different sections according to age, but when they said GO!, chaos resulted. I think it was over in about 30 seconds and Ella ended up with 2 eggs and Dylan had about 8. They were perfectly happy, however, and even happier that they got to play at the park afterward for a little bit. Tomorrow we'll do a little hunt at Nana Jen's house and they should have less competition there :)

Big boy bike!

Big happenings at the Terpstra house - Dylan has his first big boy bike. I was watching him ride his princess tricycle around the neighborhood the other day (yes, you read that correctly...I bought it a garage sale last summer for $3 thinking Ella could use it, but it ended up being the right size for Dylan), and I decided it was about time to get him a proper bike. He's not much of a dare devil, so he's been happy on a trike up until this point. We found this little bike at Meijer yesterday (on sale for $25!) and it's working well for him. We considered putting a little more money into one for him but we figure 1) he'll probably destroy it at some point (boys can't seem to help themselves), and 2) he will need a slightly larger bike before long anyway. Gotta love these little kid rites of passage!

basketball, basketball & more basketball...

So I realized I never blogged about our trip to Indianapolis a few weekends ago. Not sure how you have all gone on without the recap and photos, but here you go a little late. We spent a long weekend in Indy with my family mainly so the guys could go to the Big Ten Tournament. They did a lot of basketball watching and the rest of us kept ourselves busy by shopping, going to the children's museum, and the Indianapolis Zoo. We also attended an MSU pep rally the night we got there and listened to Tom Izzo speak, got free t-shirts and met Sparty. Indianapolis is a fun city to explore - to me it seems like a smaller scale Chicago. It's pretty to look at it and easy to get around. I could do without the four hour car ride with the kids, but I'm not much of a road trip person :)




This past weekend, Matt had the opportunity to go to the Final Four in Detroit with my dad, brother, sister-in-law and nephews. The game on Saturday we obviously very exciting and while Monday night's game didn't turn out the way we wanted, Matt still had a great experience. Matt also got to do a lot of celebrity watching (one of his favorite activities) - spotting MSU basketball players, college coaches, NFL players, and other assorted famous people.

never fear...

...the minivan is here.