Martin, Lisa and Julie (floor)
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Christmas Day 2014
After church on Christmas Day we went to my moms for a delicious meal and then way too many presents. I wouldn't really say that each person got overloaded with gifts but, when you have a 16 person family, the mound of gifts is pretty huge. We open 1 gift at a time and it literally took over two hours until we were done opening. It was a great day!
Monday, January 12, 2015
Christmas Eve
On Christmas Eve we had a 5:00pm service at church which features the Sunday School children. Bennett and Ashley were both in this service and Bennett played the part of Joseph.
After church we came home and the kids found out that Santa came while we were gone! Imagine that. Bennett and Ashley each had 6 gifts.
Bennett got: construction themed bedsheets, a USA puzzle, a Snackeez, game Pop The Pig, Curious George 4 pk of books, a Bulldozer
Ashley got: Frozen themed bedsheets, a Hello Kitty puzzle, a Snackeez, Little People School Bus, Frozen Seek & Find book, Imagination Magnets activity board
They both seemed pretty happy with their gifts and we spent about $75 on each of them. Lucky for me, I had lots of Target giftcards saved up from Swagbucks so technically, I probably only spent about $40 per kid.
After gifts we had a lasagna supper, they played with their gifts for a bit and then off to bed. Mike was tired also so by 8:30pm, the house was quiet and I was bored/lonely. So I decided to go to my moms for alittle bit and see what they were up to. I watched a home movie with them which was interesting...we were all so young!..Kristen was 3. It was a video of our family opening up gifts on Christmas 1998. Then, I decided that since I was still awake, I went to the CandleLight service at church at 11:00pm and was able to sit next to Shirley.
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Misc. Christmas Pics
We had a busy couple of weeks leading up to Christmas. Here are a few things we were up to.
She was not thrilled at all!
Justin was baby Jesus in a live nativity for their church.
Is that not the cutest baby Jesus (besides the real thing) ever!
I loved how my tree turned out this year. So colorful and sparkly!
My mom, step sister Julie, cousin Jennifer and I went to a Michael W. Smith & Amy Grant Christmas concert. What a treat. Such a great night and I hope it's a concert that I'd be able to see again some other year. (Michael is up in the front and Amy is sitting on a stool right behind him.). In the back is the live orchestra which made the concert so awesome.
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Christmas Card Pics
I saw an idea on Pinterest to find a pretty wrapping paper and to tape it to the wall and on to the floor for a backdrop for Christmas pictures. Ashley already had a sparkly red Christmas dress that I bought for her earlier in the fall so when I saw this snowflake wrapping paper, I bought it to give this a try. It worked pretty good except that it was alittle too shiny in some of the pictures and glared. My kids gave me a run for my money though...around 70 pictures to get 1 decent one!
This was the one that worked for the card.
Here are a few that didn't.
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
Ashley Update
Ashley will be 14...I mean 4... in just a couple weeks. Here are a couple things she's been up to:
- She really enjoys preschool. She is pretty independent so I think she has alittle bit of a hard time being told what to do sometimes while there. But it's so good for her to be around the other kids and get some interaction with others without me there.
- Ashley has been picking up the reading from Bennett's homework and is learning how to read a few words. But besides the reading, she's actually learning to spell words pretty easily too. One night while I was making home-made pizza she learned how to spell pizza. Well, a few weeks later I told Mike to "either go get M-c-D (McDonalds) or p-i-z-z-a" and Ashley said "I want pizza!" She knows how to spell Mom, Dad, Bennett, Ashley, cat, pizza, cake, the...probably 12 words. She probably can read about 20 words.
- She enjoys drawing pictures, playing with Little People, following me around the house (all day), talking (all day), whining (all day), playing dress-up...girl things.
She had a fall trip to a pumpkin patch with her preschool class.
Her teacher occasionally will post pictures on a facebook page from the preschool day. On this particular day she got to be the Special Helper.
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Halloween
This year for Halloween we went to the Halloween Party in our town again. It's getting easier going to this party since the kids are older now and can play the games by themselves and understand what to do and to say thank you after they play and get the candy. Again this year, cousin Amy was in town with Evan and Grace so the four kids had fun seeing each other this night and playing together at Shirley's during the weekend.
The actual night of Halloween was a night when Mike worked and Kristen had a volleyball game and it was very cold. So instead of me taking them out trick or treating around town, we dressed up in our costumes and went to the volleyball game instead. Luckily they didn't seem to mind. But because of that and being really rushed to get to the game on time, I didn't get any pictures of just the kids in their costumes with the pumpkins. Oh well, next year.
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Kristen's Volleyball Season
The month of October has been very busy heading to Kristen's volleyball games. She's a sophomore this year and is starting again on the volleyball team at Bethany. She's having a pretty good season personally and the team is doing so-so. They haven't won that many games but have been able to keep the games close for the most part.
Ashley has enjoyed going to many of the home games with my mom and myself. Bennett says they are too boring.
Awesome photo that the photographer at Bethany took.
(a really great video clip I was able to take of her)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)