Christmas 2018

We had a lovely Christmas this year. Lots of smiles and happy kids, good food and company. We were happy to have my parents join us for the day.

The annual reading of The Night Before Christmas.

Wesley wanted a gaming headset from Santa. He's very into Fortnite. 

She wanted a big warm blanket from Santa, she loves blankets!

Rudi is a happy camper as long as he's in my parents laps.

I tried my hand at making tamales (low fat, vegan) for the first time. They were delicious!

Decorating gingerbread houses, best part is eating them!

That girl could make slime every hour of every day if given the opportunity.

Family Pictures

When my sister was here over Thanksgiving we decided to try and get some family pictures taken all together. It was nothing professional, just a tripod and a park but I think they turned out pretty well.

Santa!

Seeing Santa at the public library has been a tradition since 2012. The kids have enjoyed it thoroughly and it puts us all in the Christmas spirit. This year Wesley said he's too old to do it anymore. I knew the day was coming and to be honest I'm surprised we made it this long. But Greta is nine years old and still wanted to go so we all went as a family to see Santa (Wesley said he'd go for the cookies and punch). It was a mad house this year! So many people attended. It was a 2.5 hour wait to get your picture taken with Santa and Mrs. Claus. We learned last year to walk in, get the little card (they call the picture on your card when it's your turn) and leave. We went and ate pie to pass the time last year, this year I had a gift card to Applebee's so we ate brownie sundaes there. It's a fun way to pass the time.

Wesley decided to be in the picture this year, but he wanted to sit next to Santa. Love these big kids of mine!

Ice Rink

Over Thanksgiving we were informed that we had an ice skating rink. Didn't even know this existed! It took our relatives from Minnesota to inform us of this. They are quite familiar with their ice rink and their boys skate and take lesson frequently. So we all drove downtown to try our hand at not falling on our rear ends. It was great fun, Wesley excelled at skating. He's always been quite good on roller skates so I assumed he'd pick it up quickly. Greta on the other hand was so frightened of falling that she sat it out. It took a lot of coaxing to finally get her out on the ice. She did one lap and called it a day. But, upon leaving she said she'd like to come back and try it again sometime when it wasn't so full of people.

Thanksgiving

We had a lovely Thanksgiving this year. My sister and her family visited and my folks were here too. It was a full house with lots of crazy kids running around. Three boys and one girl meant many Nerf wars and hundreds of bullets on the ground. The kids played an epic multi day game of Monopoly with Papa. Good times.

The wind graced us with its presence so kites were able to be flown. Greta did particularly well keeping hers in the air.

The precious pup, Rudi, was here a lot and was introduced to our crazy clan of canines. He did great and played well. It was very difficult to photograph the pup without him moving....I was happy to get the second picture below. The only one out of 20 without him moving.

I felt the need to try some non meat options for Thanksgiving this year. My sister and I are both plant based so I went in search of a Tofurky for us. I found one at Whole Foods (along with a Field Roast variety). I put them both in the crockpot and served them up for the big meal. They were not good, I'd say barely edible. Oh well! It was worth a try. Back to eating all the delicious side dishes (that's all I really like anyways).

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Rudi

My parents lost their sweet miniature schnauzer Dieter a couple of months ago and while there will never be a replacement for that wonderful dog they did get another to try and fill the void. Meet little Rudi. He's tiny and snuggly and so adorable. I'm looking forward to seeing him over Thanksgiving. He'll be meeting our gang of dogs, I hope he's feeling ambitious!

4H Fun

We've been part of the local 4H group since April and have been having a lot of fun. We didn't participate in the fair this summer since we had just signed up and didn't have projects made but we are hoping next summer to enter items. Every year they have a bonfire and we meet for our monthly meeting while eating yummy food. It was fun.

For the local Fall Festival the 4H group enters a float and we got to ride on it this year while throwing candy. The kids had fun and we won 3rd place in the float contest (it helped that we had live animals on the float). It was so cold though!

Go Wesley!

A few weeks ago Wesley had his first Karate Tournament. We went about a year ago and watched one just to get a feel for what they are all about. He was excited and nervous to participate but did awesome. He got first in his age group for doing his kata. He was pretty pumped to bring home a big trophy. So proud of that kid!

Happy Halloween!

Well another year of trick or treating has come to an end. Sean was remarking how easy it is these days with older kids, they don't need us to hold their candy buckets or take them to the doors. They are so very self sufficient, which is lovely! Greta was a unicorn, we found this pajama like suit on Amazon and she'll be able to wear it all winter since it's nice and warm. Wesley wasn't sure he even wanted to dress up since he's a big 6th grader now but in the end he opted for my old sumo wrestler suit and a face mask so nobody would recognize him.

We took them to our church trunk or treat as well as the cities event. Happy Halloween everyone, and happy 43rd anniversary to my parents!

It's not Halloween without pumpkin carving. It's nice to just set the kids up and let them go at it. I cut off the top but they did everything else including all the sawing of holes.