Cassie visits!

We were happy to have Cassie with us from the 12-15 and enjoying sharing christmasy things with her. I put my giant pile of Christmas books on the sun porch next to my little Christmas tree and she loves to go look through those and find new favourites. Currently number one is Who is coming To Our house! a story about the animals in the manger wondering who might be planning a visit to their home on Christmas Eve. 

Cassie loves going to Friday night basketball with dzadza and the kids, and has started asking about it as soon as she comes in on Thursdays! She runs around like crazy, which is great in my book! 

Jerry's team started basketball practice and the girls were by happy about that. The Pink Panthers are back in action for another season-- go Coach Jerry!

And speaking of great dads, in spite of 4-6 inches of snow which fell on Saturday afternoon, Jerry loaded up the older kids and took them over to Calvin college in Grand Rapids for Matt Bedner's band concert. This is a wonderful holiday event, all the sections dress up and compete against each other to be audience favorite! And the music is phenominal! They did make it back and forth safely. 

Cassie and I made home made playdoh and had a blast smooshing and playing.

On Sunday we went to the VFW for Breakfast with Santa. I was happy that jake could go and get to see Cassie visit Santa. The breakfast was great and included an omelette station. Funny story: there is a dance floor, and about 8 kids were running and playing on it when they were finished eating. We encouraged cas to in in. She did for a bit, then a kid half a head shorter than her started to push her. As I got up to go interfere he gave a hard shove and knocked her to the ground! I dashed over and picked her up and comforted her, went and told the kids parents, and then Cassie says " I need to tell Santa!" So we go back over to his throne, no one is visiting at that moment, and she goes right up to him and says"Santa, a boy push me down and I cry!" Santa picked her up and told her she was okay, then he says"would you like another present?!" Suddenly she is not crying any more, and happily adds a Christmas pooh bear to the rubber duckie she had gotten earlier! As my dad would have said, she is quite an operator!

I stir it!

The finished product!

Cassie works on her potty skills, she is up on the counter to avoid the ever inquisitive Harry!

The meijer pony(still only a penny)!

Target! Cassie helped me shop...uh huh!