the minivan voorsts.

laurelai's second birthday.

we started the day by frosting and decorating the cupcakes we'd made the day before. the sisters were especially helpful/hungry.

then, laurelai was clearly two. two is so much cuter than one, don't you think? ...although, one is pretty cute. i think i miss one already. but not too terribly much, because HELLO?!! two is so darn cute.

then, we kicked it into high gear with the actual party shenanigans. first shenanigan on the agenda: lunch.

then it was time to blow out the candles and try the cupcakes. laurelai blew out the first candle on her own, but then seemed to get really concerned about the blown out candle and started to pout, so i had to blow out the second one for her. she seemed grateful.

and our last shenanigan of the day: opening presents. she was totally mesmerized by this baby doll whose eyes open and close.

and this card contained stickers, a fact she clearly didn't hate about it. (when she opened it, she whispered, 'woooooowwwww.')

and this very realistic baby doll potty chair was such a hit, she decided to christen it herself the following day when i wasn't looking.

in all, it was such a great day, and laurelai had so much fun. i had a blast, too - last year, we were on vacation on her birthday, and we threw her a party at my grandma's. so this year, it was kind of like getting to throw her a first birthday all over again, since it was the first time we got to do the house up all party-like for her and serve the classic van voorst birthday trio in her honor: sandwiches, chips and grapes.

and laurelai seemed a-ok with it. which is the greatest part.

old threshers time again!

well, it's labor day weekend, folks, the time of year when we trek down to my hometown for the old threshers reunion. what is the old threshers reunion?! why, you poor ignorant soul. it is only the BEST antique tractor and crafts festival one could ever hope to experience. and before you go calling lame-sies, you need to check yourself. before you wreck yourself.

because, see here. you can ride a working, antique trolley. (maybe i should have spent a bit of time with the cropping tool for this photo. girlfriend is not helping my case that this is a good time.)

and you can drink all the sarsaparilla your tiny little belly can hold.

and you can pet the farm babies.

and you can wield a broadsword, just cuz.

you can watch the bee colony at the honey stand.

you can ride a real-mccoy steam train to an old western town, to watch a bank robbery in action.

you can mow down on the world's largest pickle.

you can check out literally hundreds - maybe thousands - of antique tractors and other pieces of farm equipment, you can visit the log village and watch them baking sourdough bread in a dutch oven over an open fire, you have access to any kind of food ever made of pork products, you can purchase anything you want, as long as it's wood and embellished with wood-burnt letters with excessive apostrophes in frequently unnecessary places. (the van voorst's hou'se! establish'd '07.) you guys. it is seriously one of the best times of the year. (although when you're big-pregnant and it's like 700 degrees outside, it does put a bit of a damper on the day.)

the kids had a blast, and had a dance party to 'the cheat is not dead' in the car on the way home.

it was a great day!

for fun old threshers flashbacks, here and here are the posts from our trip down in 2012, and and here is the post from our trip down last year.

'what's up' weekly.

we had a busy weekend this past week. it kicked off with an early wake-up on saturday so that i could be in waterloo by 7:00 to pick up my bountiful baskets order. i'm still deciding on whether or not i like bountiful baskets well enough to keep doing it. our site is run really inefficiently, so i'm thinking i may not continue to order once the weather turns cold so as to avoid standing around in line outside all the livelong day. but we'll see.

the brothers kicked off their morning with snuggle time on the couch.

then, the girls and i frosted cupcakes (pumpkin! gluten free! amazeballs!) and my mom and grandpa arrived to celebrate laurelai's second birthday. i'll share more about the whole shebang later.

and laurelai isn't the only one growing up - atticus lost another tooth!

then on sunday, my sister came from des moines to visit. it was the greatest because she is the greatest.

monday, we took the day off of school to recover from the weekend. i slept in, took a 2.5-hour nap, and went to bed early. i'm getting to that 'constantly exhausted' stage of pregnancy where a walk to the mailbox requires a good, old fashioned 'sit down' afterward. it wasn't helped by the fact that i started another whole30, which seems to make me really sleepy. so this week, i've slept really well, i've slept really hard, and i've slept as often as possible. it's been wonderful.

todd moved to a new department at work, so his schedule was different this week than normal. because of this, i took all the kids with me to the chiropractor on wednesday morning instead of leaving some home with him. i had the big kids just do their school work in the waiting room. it is so great that school is so portable.

on thursday night, todd took the big kids to the salt company, the weekly worship and teaching event of our college ministry. they had a blast. atticus liked singing the songs. penelope liked the sermon, because she got to color.

aaaaaaaaaand, weekly preggo photo. that upper arm mass is really getting out of control.

and that was our week!

the black hills: day nine.

okay, last south dakota post, i promise. not only because we left for our vacation exactly two months ago to the day and i should have wrapped this up long before now, but also because i only have one day left to blog about. my computer keyboard is being a huge turd, and i'm tempted to put it off a bit longer, but it's time, don't you think? so bear with me if i give up on using actual words to describe any of this.

we headed out first thing in the morning, after getting some great pictures with todd's parents. now these are some great-looking van voorsts, amiright?!

our first stop was the famed Wall Drug, where we got the famed free water. and did a bunch of other stuff, too.

... like find ourselves totally underwhelmed by an up-close experience with a buffalo carcass.

...and majestically ride a majestic jackelope.

and ingalls-it-up under a too-modern-to-be-authentic banner of freedom.

...and clearly love getting randomly sprayed with water.

wall drug is a legitimately weird place.

on the next leg of the trip, the kids were getting really (really really) grouchy and sick of driving. there was way too much whining and fighting going on, so i made everyone put on fake mustaches. finneas and i thoroughly enjoyed the joke. the other kids...did not.

finneas, in fact, loved his so much that he didn't want to take it off once we arrived at our next stop, the mitchell corn palace.

side note: what on earth does this say? if you use a standard latin alphabet, it's a safe bet that your guess is as good as mine. is that sixth letter a T? an R? a C? i'm thinking it's like a magic eye puzzle, and you're supposed to stare at it for a really long time to figure it out?

anyway, back to photos from the corn palace.

finneas' mustache aged him enough to allow him to drive a tractor and stare confusedly around as he sat in a combine.

and more inexplicable hilarity ensued.

for dinner, we stopped again at the blue earth, minnesota rest stop, which has a playground. this little one was adorbs. as per usual.

and to quell the kids' (and my own) impatience on the very last stretch of our trip, i passed out glow bracelets. i was the hero of the hour and we had a rave in my honor.

and that ends our fabulous vacation to south dakota! thanks for bearing with my tardiness in posting!

video vednesday: i told him number seven!

i realize this is totally dumb, i just love how hysterical this guy gets, and how his friend just BOLTS out of the house and down the street and doesn't come back. good times.