The Rest of December and Happy New Year!

Thought I'd finish off our December adventures...

Made an ornament for a cow collecting friend...

Had a pajama party with some of our favorite kids! 

Not everyone would take a pajama picture though :(

Took them all too see the Christmas lights on Christmas Eve before taking them all home to enjoy it with their families. And made sure to give all three their special photo books from 2014. I started the tradition last year and plan to keep it up for as long as those kiddos are in our lives (or until they graduate, whichever comes first, LOL!)

Got their Christmas Eve pjs... This year I decided to match them. Ninja Turtles are a favorite of both so they became the obvious choice.

She has a giraffe collection and enjoyed this unique rope giraffe we picked up at the fair this year. It was supposed to be a birthday present, but we forgot all about it. Ah well! She still loved it!

An unflattering picture of me and my beautiful new necklace, LOL!

A beanie with his favorite basketball team!

Her favorite gift!

His favorite gift!

They decided to watch a movie on Christmas night and fell asleep in the same bed!

Got invited to Six Flags on New Year's Eve

The snow hill was not as fun as they remembered... but they still enjoyed it a little.

Took a picture in a snow globe.

Saw some dolphins perform

Only character we saw all night

Tried to eat a giant candy cane, :)

And waited around for fireworks that were less than mediocre. Ah well, it was still a blast. Happy 2015!

I know that Christmas has now passed us by but I thought I'd throw in the kids' class performance I mentioned in the last post. Don't be fooled by how it starts, it really is comical!

And if you have a few more minutes, this one is from the church performance and it's cute:

"Light of Christmas" by Owl City & Toby Mac

Again, Have a Happy New Year!

December Happenins' (so far)

Whew! It's been a bit since I posted here. Then I posted on my 365 for a bit in a vain attempt to catch up there and then... well, December happened. But we've enjoyed every bit of it (or at least a large majority of it! LOL!).

Celebrated a certain handsome man's birthday at the beginning of the month. He requested potato soup and a quiet evening home with a netflix movie and he got it.

Playing harder than ever!

Had the "worse storm" in years... ummm, yeah. People took off work and kept kids home from school for this dud of a storm. Although it did flood quite a bit in some areas. This storm and the subsequent rain that followed for days has taken the edge off of our drought. And yes, that's Koda's crater all caved in and filled with water.

Made some ornaments for a gift exchange.

Bethany got an award for memorizing 300 verses.

More basketball... although his game has been hampered by back pain due to tight hamstrings. A recent growth spurt is slowing him down apparently. Lots of stretching and has recently been put on two weeks of no activity. For an active kid this is pure torture. Please keep him in your prayers for quick healing.

I know it's hard to tell but the pic above is of his best game ever. Even in pain he played hard. The photo is of his pass through traffic to a teammate who made the shot. Awesome play, too bad it's a not-so-awesome pic.

We finally got the Christmas tree decorated and the kids wanted to do an impromptu photo shoot. They got dressed for it and everything!

Made a "tree farm" for a school gift exchange. It was a lot of fun and we've heard that the girl who got it has no plans to spend the money because of the awesomeness of the gift. Yeah, wonder how long that will last when she's short on cash, LOL!

We forgot to get a pic of Elisha's present to give out. We put money and candy in balloons in a box that said "Pop Me". Stuffing those balloons was waaayyy harder than folding the trees in Bethany's gift.

Class performance of "Deck the Halls". Hilarious! I'll try to remember to post the video soon. Elisha is second row on the right, in dark clothing so he's kinda hard to see. Bethany is front row third from the right.

The class performance was followed by the band performance.

Santa came to the preschool again (and Bethany made a surprise visit to see him!).

Then came home for a quick pic before a shower and a beard trim, HA!

Church performance of "Light of Christmas".

Another video I've got to get posted for you to see. The kids did awesome!

Photo with "Cow Santa" at Chik-fil-a. They may be too old for photos with the real Santa (except for Daddy-Santa, of course) but a silly Santa was a blast. Getting breakfast at Chik-fil-a was a bonus!

Attended a Living Nativity at a local church. I hate to say it but I think the kid may just have outgrown this as most of it is geared for smaller children.

Well, that's it for December so far... If you don't "hear" from me before then...

Merry Christmas! 

My Daily 5 ~ #13

Miss Me? My internet was down all week due to technical difficulties. I had to wait almost a whole week for what I needed to come in. I was having withdrawals! That's actually a little bit scary when you think about it. Didn't realize I was so dependent on my internet!

I'm not going to post all of my dailies because that would be just a little crazy, so I'll pick a few of my faves from the week and that will be that. Then I'll start again (hopefully) tomorrow.

417. no work on Columbus day

 418. walkie talkies

420. hiking and caves

426. that both kids have basketball practice on the same nights this week (at the same place and time too!)

430. that Bethany is actually learning to save money

437. a quiet evening alone with Yohn

439. measuring the neighborhood with Elisha for a school project (not the project itself, but just the time with him)

445. shopping with Bethany for costume materials

(Photos from our recent camping trip)

 He's stumped... LOL!

Father's Day 2014

Happy Father's Day to the handsome man in my life!

Smellin' Coffee

Egad! What's this? A post? Yep, it's me! 

Sorry for being MIA... again...

But here's a video to make it all better, right?

It's my kiddos this past Sunday morning and the kids' worship team singing Smellin' Coffee by Veggietales for all the moms in the audience. Then they went and gave out flowers and coffee cup (and scented) candles to all their mommies. Awwwww....

Elisha and Bethany are on the right side of the screen. Elisha is in yellow and Bethany in blue. 

Sorry for the extra 15 seconds or so in the beginning... you just never know when those sound guys are going to start up the music! And yeah, feel free to click off it at the end too. There's probably about 45 extra seconds on there as well. 

More From New Year's

These are from our New Year's "Duck Dynasy" style photo shoot:

I don't look so great in this one but Bethany just cracks me up!

Crazy Rednecks! Ha! Ha!

She gives me some of the best facial expressions!

And yes, that is her toy gun that she thought would be a great addition to our little theme. Of course we couldn't bring real guns to a public park without the cops getting called on us, but her bright yellow and orange gun really does add to it! :)

Always so easy to photograph, he was excited for this "photo shoot" and pretty much knew what pictures he wanted to take and how he planned to pose.

We definitely had fun with this one!

Our New Year's family photo became a new tradition a few years ago. Last year we decided to theme it and the kids have given me ideas to theme this year's on and off the past few weeks. We decided on Duck Dynasty because there are three DD fans in the house (Yohn, Elisha & Bethany), two family members have matching shirts (Yohn and Bethany), and one dressed up as Uncle Si for Halloween (Elisha). Given all that, even though I'm not hugely fond of the show I do have camo pants and a shirt to go with it, so we went for it.

To see 2012 & 2013 photos just click on the links.