Sunday, December 18, 2016

Snow and Christmas Party Time!

Teague brought this picture home from school after Thanksgiving. I can't stop laughing at it! He drew a pretty good turkey. My favorite part is that he drew himself yelling, "Mom!" It's just so true!
Avers likes to cook with us. She helped Kyle and I make a yummy Stromboli with prosciutto, salami, and lots of Italian cheeses. It was tasty!
We finally got some snow around here! We stopped at C Street Park, and we all ran around. Laney especially loved it!
We marched our names into the snow. It was a fun morning!
Carter and Avery had a fun snowball fight against Kyle at Mom and Dad's. Well, it was fun until he accidentally knocked Avery into the fence with one of these snowballs.
I think they were just happy to have good snowball snow.
Get him Ave!
I like her form here. It amuses me!
She loves to climb all over her Dad. He's basically a jungle gym for her. 
We made some spritz cookies on Saturday. They were delicious, and they always make me think of Grandma Vivian.
Sunday was sugar cookie time. Kyle made some delicious buttercream frosting, and we mixed up some bright colors. I caught Teague taste testing here!
My two big boys working on some cookies.
Mom and Jord with Ave's peace sign crashing the party.
Teague didn't last too long because he just wanted to eat the frosting.
He really liked the piping work though!
Ave was a trooper. She helped roll, cut, frost, and decorate all the cookies.
That's my girl!
Our annual "Ave and the cookies" picture. We love to do this every year!
Teague made some homework for himself. I'm so glad he enjoys school. He's starting to bring home lists of words to read, and he does great!
 We went to the East Side Christmas party today. Our friend Leena is a bartender there, and she invited us. They really go all out for the kids. We had a lot of fun. Kyle even got to be part of the magic show there!
On the next swing, Teague busted this monkey piñata open! They had a Darth Vader piñata also. Needless to say, we came home with a lot of candy!
Santa came to the party! I'm glad they got to see Santa this year since we don't have the daycare Christmas party anymore. I guess technically Santa and Mrs. Claus came to their school on Friday. They brought yellow Emerson shirts and candy canes for every student. That's pretty awesome.
Teague was so excited when they called his name. He jumped up and said, "That's me!" He got a cool car racing toy.
Carter got a couple of light sabers that can connect. He's been doing some sweet moves with them all afternoon!
Avers got a really cute veterinarian kit. I was just happy they all said "thank you!" We've had a pretty fun December. It's hard to believe it's Christmas Day in a week. Hope everyone is staying warm and safe! We were happy to hit 17 degrees today after a high of -2 Friday and a low of -36 Saturday night. Brrrrr!

Friday, December 2, 2016

Thanksgiving!

Teague is a beast to sleep with. He usually ends up completely on top of whoever is next to him. In this case, Ave was the lucky one!
We travelled to Watford City for Thanksgiving this year. We left on Wednesday as soon as the kids got out of school and arrived there at 11pm! Ave entertained us with some fabulous whiteboard drawings. This one says #notmom. I'm glad my head is not shaped like that!
We stayed with Erica and Sean (thanks guys!) and gave Hawkins his Birthday present when we woke up. I can't believe he's two already! He really liked the tissue paper!
Erica told us that he was liking Cookie Monster, so we got him a big stuffed animal. He seems to be pretty happy about it!
Then he tried to eat his eyeballs a few times! He's teething, so maybe it felt good!
Avery had some Cinnamon toast crunch cereal for breakfast. She left a couple pieces in the milk. Hawkins ate them and drank the milk, which Erica said he's never done before. He just knows Ave is cool.
These boys all looked very handsome on Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, it was hard to get a good picture of them. Nacho looks pretty great on the back of the couch!
Attempt #2 - Fail! We still love them though.
Hawkins wanted Avery (or A.V. as he yells to her!) to sit with him of course.
The remnants of a delicious dinner: turkey, ham, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry, 3 kinds of stuffing, olives, shrimp dip, rolls, and vegetable pizza! Yum!
Cats just inherently know that Dad loves them. Ha ha ha!
My little turkey!
The best pic I got of my kids - not really that good! They were very good though.
Teague and Link were best buddies this trip. They are both very into Superheroes. This is when they were trying Kelsie's jellybean game. You spun a wheel to land a color. If it was brown, for example, you grabbed a brown jellybean. It could be either chocolate or dog food. It was a crazy/disgusting game! Lincoln was hilarious though. He just ate them all. One time he said, I don't like this, but he kept on chewing it!
He looks so big in this picture. It's hard to believe my buddy will be 4 soon.
Everyone's favorite game - listening to Papa make up words to stories.
Boo reminds me a lot of Jordan. Kids are just drawn to her. I love this picture!
Watford City has some great parks. This one by Kelsie's house was a lot of fun.
Teague led me on a few obstacle courses.
Avers is a maniac on any kind of swing.
Hawkins makes happy noises when he swings. He's just a cutie.
Carterman did a little swinging after he, Landon, and Kyle walked around looking for Pokémon.
These things were super hard to balance on!
This might be my favorite picture of the whole trip. He loved this slide!
He kept yelling, "Auntie Brianna, I see you!"
Kyle went down the slide backwards, but it was pretty difficult to get out!
He and Lando Commando did some climbing. Landon is 10 now! No way! No way!
Papa took a tired Hawkins back to Kelsie's house, where he immediately got his second wind!
Kelsie and Joe have done a great job on their house. I really like it. Link and Teague had a good time playing together there.
They set the action figures up in many cool poses and took about 20 pictures. This one with Kelsie's feet and Emperor Zurg is very artistic.
 R2D2 in Laney's tail is also pretty great! It made me laugh when I saw all of them.
We went down to the Parade of Lights on Friday night. It was a lot of fun. They do a good job decorating Main Street.
They had a ton of fireworks! I'm glad Laney couldn't hear them from Erica's house.
Mom took a picture of her fellow parade goers. Sean, Carter, Hawkins, Ave, Erica, Me, Link, and Kyle.
This picture is pretty cute!
Uncle Kyle can always make Link smile!
Kyle's annual "doing the dishes" picture. He actually reminded me to take this.
Tired guy. I'm pretty sure he threw up right after this. We brought the plague with us to Watford City. We found out Monday that Norovirus is raging through Butte. Poor Teague had it first, then passed it on to Avery, Papa, Kelsie, Lincoln, Joe, Kyle, and Carter. Mom got it this week too. I have been washing my hands about 100 times a day! I don't want it! Sorry again everyone!
Luckily the kids seemed to get over it pretty quick. We had a lot of fun on Saturday at the Elementary School playground. It's awesome! This uneven ring that spins was fun for everyone!
Erica tried to lay on it...
And she's off!
Hawkins trooped all over this!
Carter and Lando played with us too after Pokémon searching. They had the best time together!
Lando had this thing spinning fast! Thanks everyone again so much. We had a wonderful time!
We made it back on Sunday in time to decorate our tree. We beat the snow barely too!
Teague did not sound good at all. I ended up taking him to the Dr on Monday (croup, of course.) He did hang up Bumble though. That's his favorite ornament.
Ave and Carter were really helpful this year. Ave was quite impressed by the number of ornaments she has made over the years. Hope everyone had a lovely Holiday!

July - August 2019

My friend Michelle was in town from Las Vegas. Her brother and sister-in-law always have a fun barbecue for everyone here in town. Dana, Jas...