Christmas Day

We had a wonderful Christmas morning. David loved his very appropriate new shirt from his Hinton cousins.


Amber surprised us with beautiful artistically painted shirts. David got Curious George, Marissa got a butterfly themed shirt, Steven got a really cool tiger shirt, Megan's shirt was covered with images from the Twilight books, I got an amazing guitar shirt and Kelly got "the world's awesomest dad" shirt. We love them! Amber is very talented!




Thank you Amber! I love it!
Zoe even enjoyed her new candy cane bone!

Christmas Eve Fun

The kids got new homemade pajamas for Christmas. They loved them! I think they look great!


Here is our version of the Nativity Story with Aunt Stephanie. Mary holding baby Jesus (we don't seem to have any baby dolls anymore), Joseph, an angel, a couple shepherds and a wise guy!

Holiday celebrations

With all of the holiday celebrations going on, I was able to help out with Marissa's school party.

We also had a gingerbread house decorating party with a couple neighbor families. Way too much candy and frosting, but a lot of fun.

A new way to sled

David decided to sled down the slide of the play structure just for fun. Silly boy!

First snow

Today we woke up to the first "sleddable" snow of the season. Notice, I didn't say "shovelable" snow, which is how Minnesotan's describe this snow. That means that you have to actually move the snow out of the way if you want to get back up your driveway, which is what I spent a large part of the day doing when our snow blower didn't work the first 30 times I tried starting it. So, in between shoveling, I would give it a yank and on the 31st try, it started. David, Marissa, Steven and two neighbor boys enjoyed sledding down our yard (one positive of having a very steep yard). They need to enjoy it while the temperature is still above the teens. Soon, it will be too cold to play outside for more than two minutes, and whenever it takes longer to put the snow clothes on than the kids actually spend playing outside, it just isn't worth it to me. Enjoy the pictures!

Marissa



Steven and David coming down (the mailbox was not injured in this stunt)



This is where they end up, good thing it is a quiet cul-de-sac



Steven

Thanksgiving fun

Amber dishing up her plate with yummy food


We had a great Thanksgiving break with lots of family in town. The kids were in cousin heaven with their Stotts cousins from Kansas, Buer cousins from Texas and Hinton cousins from Illinois to play with. The weather turned out pretty nice so they could play outside, too. 

Early morning shopping and chaos at the Mall of America rounded out the weekend.

We love having family visit!

Growing a Third Eye?

David had a run in with a rock in our front yard the other day. The goose egg was huge and bloody. I finally got a picture of it tonight while he was sleeping on the couch. We keep it covered with a bandaid and it doesn't seem to bother him at all. Talk about a shiner!

Pumpkin Carving

We waited until the Monday before Halloween to carve our pumpkins so they might not be totally moldy by the holiday. David wasn't so sure about touching the guts, but Steven couldn't get enought of it! The kids were all very creative. Amber helped David and I helped Marissa a little. We ended the activity with caramel apples. Yum!
See the resemblance?

The Finished Product on the Front Porch

Pumpkin patch fun

During our week off of school we visited Emma Krumbee's Pumkpin Patch and apple orchard. The kids loved playing in the hay stack, riding the John Deere Tricycles, checking out the scarecrows and of course, picking the perfect pumpkin. Fall here is beautiful!

Sweet 16!

Amber turned 16 years old! Wow, has time flown by. She was thrilled with her tickets to the Rascal Flatts/Taylor Swift concert. She and her good friends Alexa and Madison loved the concert.


We also invited our friends Bart and Loni Davis to the concert. It was quite a party!

David's 4th Birthday

David celebrated his birthday September 6th at Chuck E. Cheese's and he had a blast! Six of his good friends were there as well as his brother and sisters. Everyone had a great time eating pizza, playing games and making a mess with chocolate cupcakes! I am just glad I didn't have to clean up everything! We went through almost 300 tokens! Luckily we had some good coupons for those.


This is David and Steven's friend Matthew. When I asked David who he wanted to invite he said, "Steven's big friend. He is so funny!" David and Steven were happy that Matthew came!


David and Kevin and Tristan


David and Sam



Blow out the candles!

First Day of School

September 2nd was the kids' first day of school. Amber, Megan and Steven decided that 10th, 8th and 6th graders are too old to get pictures taken in front of their schools, but Marissa wanted a picture with her new 3rd grade teacher.

Labor Day Labor

We spent Labor Day morning staining our deck. Steven and Marissa helped out. Marissa even stayed until we were done! Kelly noticed a couple spots that needed retouching after we were done. He is very talented!

David's new trick!

One exciting achievement Saturday for David was that he learned to ride a bike without training wheels! His training wheels were very crooked so he was practically riding without them so I thought we would try it for a little while, not thinking he would actually do it. He took off after about 3 tries. He still needs a push to get started, but then he is off. He won't be 4 for another two weeks! We are in for a lot of excitement with this boy!