Merry Christmas

We hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas! We definitely had a wonderful time celebrating the birth of the Savior and spending time with family

Happy First Birthday Josiah!!

Wow--I can't believe that today Josiah is celebrating his first birthday. At times over the last year I thought it was kind of going slow but all of a sudden the year is up--crazy! We are looking forward to hanging out together as a family today and then celebrating tomorrow with the immediate family--of course the theme for tomorrow is Winnie the Pooh!!

Here is one of the first pictures we have of Josiah when he was born:

I put Josiah down for his morning nap and then a little while later I heard him crying super hard and this is what I found when I went upstairs:


This was the first time he did it and then he did it a couple of more times throughout the day!!

Tonight I started the massive task of pulling weeds from our yard--they are overtaking our yard. I was super excited to see a small tomato growing in my little container. I have never grown any vegetables so hopefully it will taste ok!!

Crawling

Josiah is doing such a great job of crawling on his knees finally. Here is a short video of him crawling!

Father's Day

We had a super busy Father's Day weekend. On Friday night we headed up to Tinley to celebrate with my family. Then I headed over to Beth's to play Bunco with her friends. It was so much fun even though I didn't win any money :( Then on Saturday we went out for lunch with Tim's parents and Phil & Julie. We headed out to West Beach for a while to let Josiah play in the sand and water. He loved the sand and did not even eat any--which is a big surprise. Then we went to Tim's cousins, Melanie's graduation party. On Sunday we decided to celebrate Father's Day with just our family and it was so nice and relaxing. Here are some pictures of Tim & Josiah on Father's Day, unfortunately all of the pictures that we took of our dads did not turn out :(

1st Birthday Card

Josiah received his first birthday card in the mail from Aunt Jo and he was very excited to receive it. Thanks so much Jo!!

1st haircut

Josiah has a little bit of a mullet so we decided today to cut that off. We were going to go to a barber to get it cut off but they wanted to charge ten dollars so we did it in the bathtub. I don't think it looks too bad!

1st Birthday Pictures

Today we headed out to Merrillville, IN to have Josiah's pictures taken. We went to Portrait Innovations and they did such a great job. Josiah did so much better than last time which made picking out the pictures much more difficult. Here are some of the best ones:

Ouch

Today I was trying to be a good wife and make my husband a wonderful dinner. I did not have any bread crumbs at home so I looked for a recipe on-line. I found one where you make the bread crumbs in the blender (I know they sell them in stores--I've heard all about it :) ) So, I started to make the bread crumbs but all of the bread wasn't being shredded so I tried to help it along by pushing the bread down with my finger (obviously not thinking!) Once I realized what I did I threw a paper towel on it and went to my neighbors house and asked him to drive me to the ER. I still was not sure how my finger was because I did not want to look at it. He was able to drive me to the ER and Tim and my mom met us at the ER. Once we were assured that all I needed was stitches--Tim took Josiah home and mom stayed with me. I ended up getting 6 stitches--with one of them being in my fingernail. I also have a small break at the tip of my finger. I guess from now on I will buy bread crumbs at the store :(

Kaitlyn's Baptism

On Sunday we were able to witness the baptism of my niece, Kaitlyn. She wore the baptismal gown that both my sister and I wore which was really neat.

Kaitlyn & Pastor Erffmeyer
Pastor Marshall, Erffmeyer, Kaitlyn, Rob, Lisa & Austin
Kaitlyn in her beautiful gown
The four generations
Me, Kaitlyn & Lisa

More pictures

Babysitting Austin & Kaitlyn

Today I watched Austin & Kaitlyn so that Lisa could get some stuff done before Kaitlyn's baptism. We really had a lot of fun. I took all 3 kids for a walk--Josiah rode in the sling and they rode in the double stroller. After we got back we colored some pictures for Lisa. Then the kids relaxed and played with the toys. It was a very enjoyable morning for all of us!!

Josiah decided to color his face instead of the paper
Kaitlyn & Josiah

Circus Pages

On Monday night we went to a circus called Circus Pages that took place at the Kankakee County Fairgrounds. We were a little concerned when we showed up and we were the first ones there but we were able to get really good seats because of it. My whole family went with but unfortunately Tim was not able to go with because he couldn't get out of work. We were able to do a lot of exciting things including: having some cotton candy; Josiah, Austin & Kruesie took a pony ride for the first time; we were able to see white tigers, elephants, camels and ponies. The kids really seemed to enjoy it and were very well behaved considering that we had 5 kids under the age of 2 1/2. Here are some of the pictorial highlights:

Austin on the pony

Josiah on the pony
Kruesie on the pony
All of us with the best seats in the house.

Tim joined us at Rob & Lisa's house for pizza and took a picture with Josiah and his coloring book

Our Easter

We came home after a long Easter day and Josiah was still awake so then we were able to finally give him his Easter basket from us.

Easter-My Family

Afterwards we went over to my parents so that we could see everyone real quick. Josiah enjoyed getting his Easter bag and visiting with his cousins.

Easter--The Schaap Side

We celebrated Easter by going to the 8:30 service at OPCRC. It was good to be there with some of my family. Then, we headed out to Tim's parents to celebrate Easter with them and the Schaap side. We were kind of sad that none of the cousins showed up but I guess they had other things to do :(

Great Grandma Schaap, Grandma Krooswyk & Josiah

Uncle Lar & Josiah
Our Family
Josiah--all dressed up

Pre-Easter Get Together

Tonight we got together with Tim's family since we were not going to see Joel & Beth for Easter. We enjoyed having Papa John's for dinner and enjoying spending time with them (we missed Phil & Julie because they were in England). The kids enjoyed receiving Easter stuff from Grandpa & Grandma Krooswyk.