Merry Christmas 2011

Since we were navigating Saturday Christmas Eve services, and a Sunday am service, we decided to celebrate our family Christmas on Friday. Bright-eyed and ready to go!

Opening the skateboard . . .

. . . and the skooter!

(the PINK one -- a very important detail not to be forgotten)

Side note: This was a gift (a turtle candle) Joshua purchased for me using some very hard-earned shekels from Shekel Shack through Sparks. Very special indeed! Means more than any store-bought gift every could!

Daddy opening K's gift she made at preschool.

Love it!

Tyler opening his big dump truck . . . although I think he was perfectly satisfied with his 5-inch fire truck -- with lots of buttons, of course!

Funny story -- half way through our gift-wrapping session, Bryan scampered off to the coat closet (see in background). He had "forgotten" to wrap my gift (which was hidden in the light bulb box) and so he grabbed some used paper from one of the kid's gift, went to retrieve the gift, "wrapped" it again, and gave it to me. So sweet:) (too bad he forgot to remove the original tag!) We both had a good laugh!

A much-awaited CD player so she can sing to her favorite songs in her room!

And we finished things off with some snowmen pancakes!

Remember those infamous "potholders" you made as a kid . . . yep, we're in that stage now!

Happy Thanksgiving . . . a little late:)

Since I suppose late is better than never . . . thought I'd post some pics from Thanksgiving. We made a trip to WI to see Bryan's family -- and it was a nice break to get away. A trip to the park is standard operating procedure -- Grandma with twins on either side.

There was some machinery parked next to Grandma and Grandpa's getting ready for a job coming up -- let's just say Tyler was keen on checking it out! It's huge when you're right next to it!

Notice T's mouth -- yep . . . he was making his tractor sound!

Playing with legos.

Grandma had saved some BIG pieces of cardboard just for our visit -- what a treat! Daddy engineered a rocket . . .

And always a game of ping pong (or two, or three)

Since J's birthday was in a few weeks, we celebrated early!

Perfect!

Mint oreo ice cream dessert -- yum, yum!

Uncle Mark and Tyler playing a mad game of Memory . . .

All smiles!

Happy 7th Birthday!

Ok . . . just realized I never posted Thanksgiving pics, so we'll go out of order! Just finished celebrating Joshua's 7th bday with some school and neighborhood friends tonight! Everyone with their coats on . . .

. . . to go outside for our Treasure Hunt! Lots of fun (and time) to plan!

Found 12 of the 13 green puzzle pieces buried in the mulch. Originally it was to be in the sandbox . . . however, the top had blown off, and there was a layer of frozen ice. Oops!

Figuring out what the invisible ink says

. . . High in the sky, 50 stars, 13 stripes . . . (thanks to the neighbors for letting us "borrow" their landmarks!)

Messages in eggs

Putting paper slivers together to make a picture . . .

. . . of the mailbox!

Popping the balloons -- some had clues, some did not

Yikes!

More teamwork . . .

Picture out of order -- our "treasure cup cakes" --

Last decoding clue . . . so much fun to hear these 1st graders reading! And the last clue was "For the very last place, look in a trunk. Not in a car, and kinda looks like junk."

(Notice where all of the pics were taken throughout the night!)

Yep, we were on the treasure box all night!

Opening gifts

I'll let you guess -- was it a quite pizza dinner, or a loud pizza dinner????

Bryan the magician came to the rescue . . .

Singing Happy Birthday!

Silliness!

I think we needed a few more coats, backpacks, and shoes!

Happy Birthday bud, we love you!

Happy Birthday Kayla, cont'd

Kayla has had quite the "extended" b-day celebration because of Bryan's travel schedule! Last weekend we celebrated her "family" birthday after church. For whatever reason, she felt it necessary to change into (summer) clothes as soon as we got home . . .:)

Happy 5th birthday!

Trying out the apron and chef hat from Aunt Carly and Uncle Brian -- it seemed to do the trick!

Today she celebrated her birthday at preschool since it was our helper day.

Glad the preschool teacher was making sure she didn't catch her hair on fire . . .:)

The watch -- that was her selection from the much-awaited birthday box!

One of the "helper" responsibilities is marking off the calendar -- it's a BIG deal, you know!

Our lucky two-for-one deal at Pizza Hut last night

Ten minutes after starting in on our pizza, Pizza Hut came by our
table with another full pizza and a personal pan pizza. They had
accidentally put our order in twice. We had lots of pizza!