Christmas 2012

We spent Christmas in Minnesota this year.  Christmas was a little different for our family...it was just the 6 Pack!  We celebrated with our usual traditions and had a nice time.  Thankfully we were able to celebrate Christmas with our extended family while we were home for Thanksgiving.  Here are a few of my favorite things...

• looking for my older children and finding them in their room quietly playing Goldfish
• passing out 2 of our Blessings Bags to homeless people on Christmas Eve...it was 18 degrees at the time & we were on our way to church
• seeing the kids faces light up every morning when looking for our Elf on the Shelf
• candle light service on Christmas Eve @ Berean Baptist Church
• Emery & Eli wearing Santa hats delivering baked goodies to our neighbors
• watching Home Alone with the kids and seeing the pure enjoyment on Eli's face
• celebrating Jesus' birth with a birthday cake
• playing Minute to Win It games with Emery's class at school
• it was a white Christmas...in fact we've had snow on the ground for the past month
• watching Emery & Eli fly down the street on electric scooters Christmas morning...the high was 2 degrees that day so they had to take 10 min. rides in full snow gear
• spending 3 days at Arrow Wood Resort together & many "1st times"...ice fishing, snowmobiling, water park, swimming pool, sledding 

Thanksgiving

Over the river and through the woods to Grandma & Granddaddy's cabin we go!  When Scott got off of work on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, we headed to Indiana with a van full of kids & presents.  This will be our only trip home so we took a little Christmas celebration with us.

Mom's cabin is nice & cozy and we managed to squeeze us all at one table & 2 bar stools.  The table was beautiful!

Eli.loves.the.cabin!  He would probably stay there if we would let him.  Grandaddy built a big fire which kept Eli busy for a couple of days.  It was rather warm those couple of days and we were able to be outside all the time.

Scott's parents and Grandma came up for Thanksgiving too.  This made it nice for us to be able to have a lengthy visit with all of the grandparents.  We have a tradition of putting together a puzzle on holidays.  We all pitch in and work on it together.

Here's the finished product!

Elese kept busy doing some crafts that Grandma had for her to do.

Grandaddy and TC took a few naps in the chair together.

Dessert time!

About this time all the guys headed out to shoot Grandaddy's guns.  This is also a tradition and something Eli looks forward to all year.  Grandma knew Brother Bear would be upset if he didn't have a gun too...a trip to Wal Mart before we arrived solved that problem :)

Grandaddy has taught Eli exactly how to shoot a gun and how to handle it safely.

Loading the bullets.  See the new UnderArmour sweatshirt?  The UnderArmour fairy arrived at the cabin while we were there.

Grandma & Mamaw brought Eliot out to see the shooting action.  He quickly decided it was too loud and was having more fun running around.

Time for some family shots.  Thank you Cameron for being the photographer...even on your day off and with cheap cameras!

Generations

This shot of us is pretty good!  I mean, Eliot's not even sucking his thumb :)

Grandma Visits!

In early November Grandma flew up for her second visit!  She was just in time for Eli's first basketball game and Scott's debut as coach.  I'm just remembering that she was visiting the same weekend as the kids fall break.  This was good because the bigger kids were home and got to spend more time with Grandma.

Right before the game I managed to get two of them to pose.

Coach Scott & Coach Roland getting them all ready for the game.  Several of the kids are in Eli's 1st grade class.

Eliot & Elese have enjoyed running around and playing with the other kids this season.  This is Caroline and I just love her style. :)

Grandma had her iPad out and ready to go.  She video taped the game and we were able to share the video at Thanksgiving with family.

The first game was a little rough.  The were really clueless and the coaches had to walk them through the game.

Most importantly, they still had fun!!!

Go Eli!

We had an awesome visit with my Mom.  She was able to stay for 3 nights and the kids loved every minute of her visit.  She and I were able to sneak away on Friday and she did all of her Christmas shopping for the kids.  On Sunday we wrapped all the gifts and now we're just waiting on the big day!

Carving Pumpkins!

A couple nights before Halloween we rounded up the kids and jumped right into carving our pumpkins!  We chose 2 pumpkins just to be easier on all of us :)

My favorite picture!!!! They all look happy and they are all looking at the camera!  Woo hoo :)

Halloween Party

Halloween in Minnesota was a really good time.  Our new neighborhood does a fantastic job of pulling together and making fun events for the kids...well, the parents too!  The Saturday before Halloween we had a neighborhood party.  All the kids & parents dressed up for a fun night of activities.

Families coupled up and sponsored a game in their garages.  We covered one side of the neighborhood for an hour then moved onto the other side.

Along with the game they usually handed out some sort of prize.

The most fun thing about this weekend was that Aunt Michelle & Kylee were in town for a visit.  It was Kylee's 13th birthday and she and Michelle spent a day at the Mall of America and then a day visiting us.

Elese had an adorable costume that we made at home.  She was "Gluten Free Girl!"  Kylee dressed as Sun Drop Girl, Emery as a Shake It Up character and Eliot as a pirate. 

We made our rounds to the houses and had a great time.  Eli well, that's another story...he wasn't into dressing up for the party!  Sigh...this is his typical Halloween attitude & I have no idea why!  Seriously, he does this every year.  Scott & I just ignore it and move on.

I love how all the neighbors really put the fun into for the kids.  There are sooo many kids here and they are truly making memories together.

Eliot was pretty amazed at the games.  He would participate but took it all in first.

Once he had the ring pop he was golden!

Love it!

Sweet Makenna was dressed as the main character from Brave.  Emery & Makenna have become friends and she lives just two houses down!

We finally made it down to our garage!  We had ring toss around 2 liters and the Bozo Grand Prize Game...which was a total bust!  We had the cans too small and too far apart so we just ended up going with the 2 liters.  I'm telling you, if you ever need a game that the kids LOVE, do a ring toss around 2 liters.  I swear you won't go wrong with that game!

Ok, ok, so Tracy didn't bring all Coke products down but hey it's ok!

At this point Eliot was FROZEN and was happy to sit in the stroller and suck his thumb :)

So here's my costume for the night..."Super Mom!"

Keith & Scott were all dressed up too!  Scott was Coach Tressel as a throw back to our Columbus days.  He carried around Tressel's book and passed out tattoos to everyone.  Fun times!

After all the games we had a costume parade then that night there was an adult party.  Looking forward to another great Halloween next year :)

Fall Break

Since school doesn't start until after Labor Day, our kids don't have much of a fall break.  We did get 2 days off and Scott took a day off to spend some time as a family.  We decided bowling would be a good option for a day of fun!

This is Eliot's first time to bowl.  He loved it and enjoyed all the kids helping him.

Elese had a good time too!

Scott was all about showing us his bowling skills.  A couple of years back a co worker to him to his parents bowling alley and they outfitted Scott with spiffy white bowling shoes and a shiny ball.

I think he's still got it!

Check out the face...he was determined to carry his own ball!

Big sister help...love the face!

They didn't have shoes small enough for Eliot & Elese so they just wore their socks.  About half way through both little ones lost interest but had a great time.

Eli turned out to be the best bowler aside from his Daddy.

I got some cuddling time when Brother Bear got tired. :)

I have to laugh at this one.  This is a typical photo of the 6 Pack...at least one person isn't cooperating!  Oh well, at least we were all there :0  We finished off the afternoon with lunch at Red Robin and a nice nap.