Christmas/New Year

We celebrated our Christmas over New Year's this year. Lucas loved saying we doing Christmas "next year!" Noah on the other hand was not thrilled waiting 4 days to open presents. Most every day he asked "so why can't we do Christmas now?" That boy loves presents!!! So our Christmas/NY eve was spent like this.

Beverages- check

Movies- check

Tovi- check

Games- check

Eli beating me three times in a row - check!!!!!

Presents all ready- surprisingly Noah actually went to bed without shaking one gift!

Stockings ready! Fingers crossed Noah doesn't wake us up at 6am!

7:30 am Noah woke up the house! Yawn!!!

Legos

Clothes

Football scrapbook- Noah loved it!!! He even tweeted about it!!! Woo hoo!

Eli is crazy!

Noah lifting his new weight bench!! He definitely had the "heaviest" presents!

Lucas is the most compliant about getting his pic taken!

Mom fail- gave him a book he already had! :(

Xbox stuff - just what he wanted!

A keurig!! Yeah!!! Thx Santa!

More Legos!

Tv/gaming stand- unfortunately Eli has more than 12 games. But it does help with all of his Xbox stuff!

The aftermath!

Now to put together all the stuff!

Lego time.

So tidy now!! Kinda a gift to me too!

Noah enjoying his water speakers while he napped! Christmas wore him out.

Yummy dinner!

Tovi is worn out!!! Now the Christmas decoration are down and the house is back to normal. We are ready to see what the New Year brings! Happy 2014!

Family Christmas

We had Christmas with the whole family on Monday. It was loud, chaotic and lots of fun! I always love watching the whole family together! I am so thankful that my family is so close and so flexible to move holidays around my work and kids' schedule. Love you all - you crazy bunch!!

Older kids are trained well- as soon as the grandparents arrive they get ready to open gifts.

Stockings are fair game! Kids always want the grown ups to hurry with the stockings!!!

Princess Victoria dishing out all her mother's candy to the crowd! Sure hope you got it all back Jen!!!

Princess Cassi waiting patiently!!

Grandpa sporting his new scarf I made him.

Didn't realize how blurry this was but Trevor seems to like the angry bird ornaments that Eli made for him for the cousin exchange.

Cassi sporting the hat Lucas made for her! So proud of him- he did a great job!

Look what my grandparents gave me!!!!

Cassi loves the box her hat came in!

Princess Victoria doesn't understand why oh why she has to wait to open her gift!!!

More gifts!

Jordan likes the drawing Noah did for his gift.

Noah did a great job and Autumn colored it. It turned out awesome!

Now it's time to play with the gifts!

Homemade pizza and Christmas cookies were great gifts too!!! Only probably is mom said we could only have one plate of cookies!!!! But once the cookie plate was in the bag- there was room for so much more!!!

We celebrated the November/December bdays!

See we are loud, poor Ty!!!

It was a great day! I brought my oldest nephews home for a sleepover- so our fun continued well into the night!!! :) hope you all had a Merry Christmas!!!

Music!

The kids have had a lot of performances this month- so we will do it in 1 post.

The kids performed in the family band at a local elementary.

Noah had his winter band concert for band and jazz band.

Lucas had his first band concert for school.

Eli had his winter program for orchestra.

A weekend of honors!

Noah was selected to be in the Northeast Kansas honor band. He was one of four students from his school chosen. So Saturday, he spent 4hrs learning/practicing with the rest of the students. So proud of him!

On Sunday, Noah had his football banquet. I was luckily able to get the night off work and attend.

Set up

Noah eating with his teammates.

Noah getting his certificate.

The freshman team!

Happy Thanksgiving!

The family did our Thanksgiving celebration last Saturday bc of everyone's schedules. My grandparents had been under the weather- so the boys and I stopped by to say hi before going to moms. It's always great seeing all the cousins together.

A friendly game between cousins. 

Not sure the teams are fairly divided.

The oldest two had just been beat so they needed a break!

Scott watching Cassi while playing on his phone!

Can Victoria come downstairs to play?

Since we are all together, we had to get a pic of all the cousins! Always fun trying to get all the kids to sort of looking at the camera. The boys and I have had a lazy Thanksgiving today. PJ's, Xbox, movies and pigging out. Who could want anything more! Hope you all are enjoying some time with those that matter the most today.

Catch up

Just realized how behind I am so I better get caught up before the holidays.

Noah had a band fundraiser at the beginning of the month spaghetti dinner and silent auction. The Jazz band played so there is Noah on the sax.

Noah turned 15 this month. ( I can't really be that old). The family ( except Andrew's- missed you all) came for dinner and then everyone high tailed it out before the teenagers showed up!

Noah loves getting cards- means there is money inside!!!

Couldn't resist posting this pic with Trevor's face.

They love Noah!

Cake time!

Need a bigger bite Ty?

The teenagers kept me hopping with nachos, s'mores, and white chocolate mochas but I managed to get this pic of them by the bonfire. They left lots of goodies for Tovi to eat on over the next few weeks. I think there were a total of 21 freshman- few more than were even invited. His friends want to know when the next one will be - I may need to recooperate some more!!! Hope you have a great Thanksgiving! Be safe and God Bless!

Happy Halloween!

Lucas had his Halloween party today! He is the creepy unicorn! Luckily the rain stopped, a little chilly but still a good Halloween!

 We are ready for trick or treaters! Unfortunately we didn't have any boo! Lucas and Eli were all ready to scare the kids with the chain saw! Hmmm maybe it's better that we didn't scar any kids for life! The boys had fun and that's all that matters!! Be safe!

9-0

Noah had his final game tonight and the freshman team ended their undefeated season strong! It was wet and cold but well worth seeing them win 50-0 against SMNW!! Go Vikings!!

Noah is in the middle holding the ( - ).

Way to play Noah!

It's been a great season! Until next year!