Hubby's Christmas Present

What do you get for the man who has everything, who doesn't really collect anything, and whose wish list of tools is out of my budget?  Why, a toy that he will kill himself with!  I did put on one myself, and play around a little bit, but, even wrapped in a bubble of air, going up against this dude is a bit frightening.  

 He was nice enough to let the children use them.

 And they of course had lots of fun.

 They also enjoyed the ability to hit each other without getting into trouble.

 I mean, who wouldn't love that?

They took to balling up inside, and asking someone to roll them across the lawn.

I love the giggles :)

I kinda love this picture a little bit!  Its such a great one of Kaitlyn!

Speaking of Kaitlyn, she is my child who likes to wrastle and fight the least.  But she did figure out how to do some cool kind of handsprings in them.

Sometimes you get stuck....

Kari could also be a formidable opponent as well.   She is significantly larger than any of her siblings or visiting cousins at that point.

But what good is it to be wrapped in bubble wrap unless you can ram into each other at top speed?!?

No good, I tell you.  No good.

Kari's Rollerblades

Up until about a year ago, Kari was wearing my rollerblades and playing around the driveway a tiny bit....  However, her feet are bigger than mine by a good 2 sizes, so....  that didn't work anymore.  For Christmas we decided to give her her own pair!  Hubby had roller blades growing up, so was much better placed to give her a few pointers.

 But I told hubby I wasn't interested in getting her blades unless she had the proper protection.

 And since he broke his wrist as a youth doing stuff like this, he didn't have much of a leg to stand on. ;)

 Our old driveway was much to steep and bumpy, and the road was much to busy to let the kids ride on it.

 That is one of the things I love about this new neighborhood so much!

The ability to play in the street!!!

Christmas Day 2017

I know I am such a horrible person...  I made all the kids line up and take pictures on Christmas morning.  It was torture.

 But when they finally got downstairs, they were so excited to see what they got!

 Hollers of "Look at this!" abounded from everywhere.

 There were a few surprise favorites...  Like the fishing poles.  Neither of which have been used for fishing as of yet.  Unless you count the balcony stairs....

 And Kaitlyn and Karley got twinner hedgehog pets.

 Kari got a green binder with card holders.  She immediately retired to her room to organize her Pokemon cards properly.

 And the mermaid pillows were a hit too!

 Everyone enjoyed writing messages on them and then watching them disappear.

And my favorite part of Christmas morning is the german pancakes with apple cider syrup.  I also love and appreciate the leftovers later!

Christmas Eve 2017

 For our first Christmas in our new home, we invited hubby's family to spend it with us!  And we were lucky enough to have a lot of them with us!  

 Goofy kids and all!

 It's hubby's family's tradition to open presents from the family on Christmas eve.

 It spreads out the present opening for two days instead of one :)

 Hubby got a fun Harry Potter chess set from his sister...  We haven't observed them playing and fighting by themselves, but we assume that kind of thing goes on while muggles aren't watching.

Donnie and Catherine brought up this cool treasure map thing.  I lost interest in it fairly quickly, but hubby and uncle Map spent quite a while reading all the letters, looking at all the artifacts, and deciphering where the treasure was.

Ain't family togetherness grand?!?

Working up to Christmas 2017

So I came home from camping, to pack and go to UT for Grandpa Paul's funeral, to come home for Thanksgiving, to finish school for 2.5 weeks before finals started.  Thankfully, my first semester was a fairly light semester, and I only had 3 finals, only one of which was cumulative.  The day after I finished finals, while the kids were still at school, I spent all day cleaning.  Literally all day.  Jonamon and Pickle were going to be spending Christmas in Florida, but were going to drive up for a day or two to see the new house and hang out with the family before hubby's family arrived to spend Christmas here.  Cleaning all day had me beat!  And I didn't want to mess anything up.  So we went out for dinner that night, and when we came home, Grandma, Grandpa, Pickle and Jonamon were waiting!

It was so nice to be able to show off the house and to spend some time with them, even if it was too brief for my liking.

One thing everyone liked was the Teeter Totter.

 Because, how better to stretch your back than by hanging from your ankles?!?!

 Right Gramma?

 One night we headed to the store to grab a few things and Pickle asked us to pick up some herbal tea for her.  We sent her this pic to make sure it was the right one, and she responded with "That's the right tea.  But I sure hope the goober is included ;) "

 We were able to open the crafts and Christmas presents from the grandparents before they left, which meant we had a few things to work on.  Such as this lemon that turns into a clock!

 Kari got to be part of a fun "tradition" where we got to help "decorate" this kinda ugly picture and then doorbell ditch it for the next unsuspecting person.

 One of the projects that we had been putting off getting done was assembling the pool table.  Hubby really wanted to get it finished before his family came into town.  And he did it!  Look how happy he is :)

 We also played around with some decorating again.  We had been trying to find a rug for the family room and/or the formal living room.  We had ordered this one, unrolled it, and immediately rolled it back up.  We didn't like it.  But it sat there for about 3.5 weeks before I could get back around to wrapping it back up to return it.  The day before I was going to send it on its merry way, hubby suggested we look at it one more time.  Low and behold, we actually liked it!  Its kinda a cool marble looking thing, and it brings in more of the blue.

 That allowed us to move the rug that we originally had in the family room into the formal living room.  We really liked the rug, and it turns out that it matched the new couch amazingly!

I'm telling you, I am NOT a decorator.  And it can be overwhelming and exhausting to me all the options and decision to make.  But slowly things are coming together. :)

Kelsey Kindergarten Christmas Program

I am not gonna lie.  I am a little bit sad that my older children never did programs at Ladonia.  I don't know why.  I don't know if it wasn't in the budget.  Or if the teachers weren't up for it.  I just don't know.  But one of the things I have enjoyed about going to the Smiths Station schools is that Kelsey (as well as the other children) have occasional programs that I get to watch, and say "How cute!" and record for later blackmailing ;)  This was the Christmas Program from Kelsey's kindergarten year.  They sang songs and danced and acted.  And it was SO CUTE! 

I won't lie. The songs are not necessarily for the feint of heart.  And they were much cuter in person.  But for grandparents and future "aww" moments....  here they are!  All the classics!

Frosty the Snowman

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

Jingle Bells

We Wish You A Merry Christmas

Before she left for Christmas Break, Kelsey wanted to get a picture with her teacher.  She sure did love Mrs. M. Riley!

Kindergarten teachers are such special souls!

Kari Christmas Concert 2017

Kari's 7th grade band year was the first year that we started going to band concerts.  They were not always thrilling for her younger siblings.  Dylan brought a few small things to play with in his pocket.

And Kelsey spent time decorating the program.

And I.... took some pictures when I could get Kari's attention.

And even when I couldn't...  she is there.  Behind the baritone thingy.

But I failed to take videos of the music.  An incident for which I am verily ashamed.

And then the other bands got to play their songs, and we got to sit and listen to them too.  The music was ok, but not as thrilling because we didn't know someone who was personally playing in them.

And that is the magic of middle and high school band.  You get to listen to your own, and other people's children play music!  Yay!

Unfortunate Kelsey

Since we have moved into the house, Kelsey has had a few unfortunate things happen.  First, she had a small bike wreck.  There is a retaining wall between our property and the neighbors.  And for some reason, Kelsey didn't see it, and rode right off it.  She landed on her face...

 I remember when something similar happened to my brother, but he must have landed on his face much harder, because his swelling was significantly bigger.  Thankfully, Kelsey only had a small amount on her lip.

 The other unfortunate thing that happened to Kelsey was that, like her sister, she got an abscess.  Unlike Kari, whose abscess was inside her throat tissue, Kelsey got one on her bum cheek.  Not exactly something I can take a picture of and show you.  It was painful for her to sit on, poor child.  I took her to the pediatrician, but they wouldn't pop it with it that close to "something so vital".

 If you look carefully, you can see that she is sitting to the side, putting as little weight as possible on that one cheek.

 So we had to go to a surgeon to see what we would need to do about it.  To distract her from what was going to possibly happen, and because it was a decent drive and a decent wait, we brought her DVD player with her.

 The surgeon felt that it was awfully close to popping on its own, and didn't want to put her through trauma.  He did poke and prod it a little bit, poor child, which based on her squirming and tears was pretty painful.  It was red, and hot, and distended her poor little butt cheek.  He also prescribed her an antibiotic to help clear it up and make it so the infection didn't get worse.  So I took her to get icecream afterwards, because icecream fixes everything!

Thankfully, the next day, it came to a head.  All it took was a teeny, tiny tweezer prick (pulling a hole in the top layer of skin to allow the infection to come out, which thankfully she didn't even feel) and it all came gushing out!  (Sorry if that is gross).  We didn't have to push or prod (not that she would have let us).  We just had to try to keep it from running down her leg.  In fact, we took her into the bathroom and stood her up on the counter so she could see for herself that A) we weren't doing anything to her, and B) it was coming on its own.  For the next few days she was on the antibiotic and we put neosporin and bandaids on the area because it continued to leak.  

And now she is good as new!  She hardly even remembers that it happened :)