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Friday, December 28, 2018

CHRISTmas 2018!

We had a busy season as usual this Christmas! We kicked it off with our annual Christmas party with the Cains....the kids are always so excited for a visit from Santa and he didn't disappoint this year! We had so much fun eating and opening gifts and playing our White Elephant exchange.



Somebody brought Beanboozled and let me tell you.....I will NEVER play that game again. Ever. If you're not familiar, it's a game where they have different colored jelly beans that can either taste like something good (peach) or something disgusting (vomit). So you spin a wheel to see what color you have to eat and then basically don't know for sure what you're going to taste. Of course, as luck would have it, I got the vomit jelly bean. Literally gagged for 20 minutes. But we all got a great laugh out of it!

A few weeks later, the kids had their Christmas program. They were thrilled, as you can see...
Those faces.....you would have thought I was asking them to jump off a bridge with how put off they were by taking this picture. Sigh. At least they're cute ;) All of the grandparents got to come watch them sing their hearts out!


At some point in the season, we took a few pictures for mom to use for her Christmas cards.




The Kirkpatrick's had a sick kiddo on Christmas Eve, so we got together with Nick's parents and opened just a few presents and had dinner. It was quiet without ALL the cousins, but it was nice. I didn't get any pictures of Christmas Eve.

That night we left cookies out for Santa with letters.
 Just in case you can't read Tommy's, I included a close up. And it says COUCH, not....the other thing you might think--ha!

We got to bed and the kiddos woke up so excited the next morning!






We opened presents and hung out for awhile. They both got a bunch of stuff to take to Florida/Disney World (they just didn't know yet that's what it was for!). We got them both DVD players as their big gifts and they were so excited! We knew they'd come in handy on the 20 hour drive to Disney.

We got around and headed to my mom's house to have Christmas with my family. We were telling my kids and my nieces and nephew that morning that while we were in Florida, we'd be going to Disney! They had no idea and we were so stoked to be able to FINALLY tell them. We put together a scavenger hunt for Christmas morning...






We put each clue in an envelope with one kid's name on it so they would be able to take turns opening the clues. They had so much fun opening the clues and figuring them out--the final clue was a box with each of their names on it. They each had a stuffed Disney character and a balloon in their box and the balloons said, "You are going to Disney World!"

They were thrilled! And we were just as excited to tell them! It was a fun morning for everyone :)

After mom's house, we went home and crashed and just relaxed for the rest of our Christmas day. It was perfect!

Saturday, December 1, 2018

Thanksgiving 2018

Thanksgiving was super chill this year! We hosted my family on Thanksgiving day. It was nice not to have to get up and around to try to get out the door this year. We're usually heading to my mom's house by noon, but this year we got to lounge around for a bit before everyone came over. I did a face mask and the kids were actually reading together (that stopped as soon as they noticed me taking a picture, of course).....


Everybody came around lunch time and we enjoyed a feast and lots of family time together!




After everyone left, Tessa decided she wanted to do a face mask too...."Hello, Clarice."

We were doing Thanksgiving with Nick's family a few days later, so we didn't have anywhere else to go. We all crashed on the couch the rest of the evening and the kids ended up falling asleep out there. 

It was such a great day!


Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Girls weekend!

My best friend and I got to spend an ENTIRE weekend kid free and husband free! Not that we don't love them all.....but we drove down to Stockton Lake to have a little R and R.

We left on a Friday night. On our way out of town, we may or may not have stopped to get a bucket full of movie theater popcorn. It was the PERFECT snack for the 3 hour drive.

We stayed up late watching Hallmark movies and then got to sleep in the next morning. All day Saturday we pretty much stayed inside (it was FREEZING cold outside) and watched move Hallmark movies and crafted.

We did go to a thrift store to stock up on supplies for Christmas wreaths. We scored a few good finds--some old Christmas sweaters and some embroidery hoops! We drove around the lake a bit and looked at all the pretty trees. The fall colors were AMAZING and the leafs were as big as our heads!




We made LOTS of cute earrings to sell while we were there! These were my favorites....

On Sunday, we slept in again and watched one more movie before we packed up and headed out for the drive home! Love having girl time with my bestie!

Friday, November 2, 2018

Halloween 2018

Before we get to Halloween, it's worth mentioning that this cute girl FINALLY got to start gymnastics!
 She's so excited because she's taking the class on the same day that her older cousin is, so they get to be in the gym at the same time! It's her dream come true.

I was excited to have hit 50 pounds lost in mid-October! Having buckets of Halloween candy didn't do much to help me maintain it, but it was great to see those 50 pounds GONE!

We kicked off Halloween with the annual fall party at the Cain's house. Michael and I showed up in the same outfit! 

 Ty was LOVING all the food!

 A few days later, Towanda had it's Trick or Treat Street. We met up with the cousins and came home with buckets full of candy!

We ran into Brookie and Michael while we were there.....

On Halloween night, we started off at my mom's and then walked to Brooke and Michael's. Tommy wanted to be a blue power ranger and Tessa wanted to be a taco (which everybody LOVED--people were giving her extra candy because they liked her costume so much)!

After we hit Brooke and Michael's neighborhood, we headed to Nick's parent's house and trick or treated with our other cousins. They had so much fun!

Happy Halloween!

Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Sweet September

September was such a good month for us! It started with Nick's new job and our 10 year anniversary and it ended with flag football and the end of warm, sunny days! And we had several great days in between!


We had lots of fun playing outside, getting messy and taking bike rides and ATV rides!





The kids somehow talked me into agreeing to a new kitty....thanks to our neighbors! They had several barn kittens and one of them gradually made it's way over to our house and I just couldn't say no.


The kids were in the homecoming parade for Circle Rec.


The girls had some girl time and the boys had some boy time!

I did some flower planting--my family was so proud! I am an extreme black thumb and kill everything I've ever tried to keep alive (other than my children). So it was a big deal for me to plant flowers! 


Nick took the kids hunting a few times.


We hung out at Granny's house a lot (she moved to Towanda so she's MUCH closer now)!!

Tommy started flag football and LOVES it!

At the end of September, a few people Nick works with gave us tickets to go to a K-State game. It was so much fun! Tessa got a little bored so we walked around for the last quarter of the game, but Nick and Tommy really enjoyed watching.




We had the BEST September and are sorry to see it's sunny days go!