December Outings

While family was here for Christmas we went a few places, one of which is a place downtown that has been tagged with graffiti. The graffiti is wonderful and super colorful. The kids had fun posing in front of it.

While we were out we went to a local candy store that sells bulk candy and other goodies. Each grandchild was given $5 to spend. It was fun seeing how close they could get to that $5 limit without going over.

We stopped by the new park that's not too far from our house. It was a pretty cold day so we had the whole place to ourselves. There is a swing on a sort of zip line there that swings around in a loop. It was a big hit with the kids (and adults).

Trying to get the kid and the swing up the ramp became quite hilarious. They would all work together though!

Christmas 2019

We had a lovely Christmas at home this year. My folks were in town and my sister and her family visited from Minnesota. It's always nice getting the cousins together and I appreciate people driving to see us since we aren't big winter travelers (too many critters). We did some fun activities while everyone was here and I'll have to do another blog post about that but I'll share some pictures of Christmas day.

Blake always tries to calm our crazy boston terriers by holding them. They aren't real fond of being held so it's funny.

Greta opening a Hydro Flask. That's all she wanted for Christmas.

A katana sword for Wesley. It's a little sharper than I thought it was.

She got not one but TWO Hydro Flasks. This VSCO girl is excited!

 

The boys got some BB guns and pellet guns for Christmas and birthdays so they went outside and set up a target range and popped off some rounds. It was a beautiful Christmas day in the 60's. Great weather to shoot.

Wesley got a poo emoji hat for Christmas (thanks Stacy!) and eventually I'm like "please take off the darn poop hat so I can get some normal pictures of you!" Hehe.

We had the annual candlelight service at church and snapped a few pictures.

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas!

Christmas Fun at Noni and Papa's House

We spent several days over at my parents house over the Holidays. It was fun to relax and not have to do much for a change. The kids got to play several fun new games on the Xbox while the men sat around and looked at cars (is that what all men do?). Greta and Emery decorated Christmas cookies one day. You gotta have something to put out for Santa!

Some Xbox arcade game was a big hit among the kids and adults alike. 

Rudi soaked up all the attention.

Birthdays, Cookies, Tie Dying & Cows

Sean celebrated another birthday in December. He's such a sweet guy, I'm sure lucky to have him in my life. We celebrated with angel food cake and strawberries and a gluten free & egg free confetti cake. I got him a pellet rifle to target shoot with Wesley. Happy Birthday Sean!

They kids got to do their traditional gingerbread decorating before Christmas. It's funny to look back over the years and see how much I had to help them obviously when they were tiny and to fast forward to now and just set them up with stuff and let them go for it. They sure are growing up fast! Greta was sad that I couldn't find a gluten free gingerbread kit but I redeemed myself with a giant GF and egg free sugar cookie for her to decorate and eat.

Greta's new found love in life is tie dying. She watched several youtube videos and then started asking for die and white clothes. We found Goodwill to be a great resource for white clothing. Since she was still learning it's a lot easier on the checkbook to mess up on $1.50 shirts (not that she messed up!). She did great work, very unique colors and patterns. I was getting into it too. She even found white cotton shoes and tie dyed them! She's my crafty girl.

I saw a fun idea of facebook where a gal took an old piece of barn wood and painted a cow head on it. It had a very Christmas feel and I just loved it and wanted to try doing something similar. I searched and searched for old barn wood and couldn't find anything in the right size or without it costing a fortune. Then one day at Menards I found a prepackaged and cut piece of pine that was the correct size. I wondered if it could be made to look weathered without actually being weathered wood. I thought for $6 it was worth a try. I decided to do a Jersey cow head and give it to my friend Jessica (she loves Jerseys). I was pretty happy with it and I think Jessica liked it.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was quite nice this year. We had my parents in town which was nice. It's always a fun mix of different foods since we have people of different diets. Greta is adjusting ok to not having gluten or eggs, she gets pretty sad when there are baked goods she can't have (mainly cake). So we are working with that. But thankfully she can eat all the crab legs she wants (or I can afford).

After dinner my dad brought a project for the kids to help him with. He's an avid model train guy and thought it might be fun for the kids to learn how to make trees to go on a train layout. I think we all enjoyed it and made some pretty nice looking little trees.

Piercing

Greta decided she wanted to get her ears pierced so off to the mall we went. We invited Abby and Evie and they decided to watch Greta get hers done before they would decide whether they wanted to get pierced.



Greta did great! She didn't scare the other girls away and they both got their ears pierced too. They sure are growing up fast!

Halloween 2019

This year was the first year where I wasn't sure if Wesley would be too cool to trick-or-treat. He wasn't sure he was going to dress up but I talked him into a caveman wig and beard to hide his face. We decided he could either be the Geico caveman or Forrest Gump on his infamous run. Either way he was fully covered and not embarrassed (even though we saw several other classmates out trick-or-treating). Greta was my sweet butterfly.