Last post of 2016

And for the grand finale of 2016, I took the kids to Grammy Pammy's house.  It was time to see some cousins and have a little bit of Christmas with Lanny.  It was nice to go, since we hadn't been to Grammy's in over year.  Andy got the gift of time to himself, time to work and time to work on the school house.  

Liam, helping Grammy make paluszki (maybe this is the right spelling).  They are a delicious Polish dumpling-like food that we love to eat.  All the kids got excited to see them cooking.  And, what's fun is that I have another picture of Liam from a couple years ago helping Grammy make the same dish.

The O-niners.  Love getting pics of Abi and Liam together.

Jacob looking cute.

Oh, the cousins have an air hockey table.  The boys loved it.  They also had fun with the karoke machine and used it, among other things, to announce and commentate on the air hockey games.

I also had fun with the karaoke machine.  

Presents from Lanny!  Kella got her rainbow horse.  

Blaze the car for Kinley.  She loved that show on tv.

Ewan got more action figures for the army he is amassing in his room.

Camping stuff for Marcus.

An "active robot" for Liam with some awesome dance moves.

Look, more soldiers for his army.

Aunt Bitsy, modeling a new helmet for one of the cousins.

Cale, our budding engineer, with a new robot building kit.

Lanny got some weeping angel jams from Aunt Claud-don't blink!

Cale also modeled the new bike helmets.

Love that I got a photo of me and Bitsy together.  This is going on facebook!

A last pic of the o-niners.  

We stay late at the cousins and kept all the kids up way past their bedtimes.  We slept one more night at Grammy's and then came back home.  Where these lucky kids got to open more Christmas presents, this time from Grammy Linda and Grandpa Jerry and Uncle Chris and his family.

Crowns from the poppers.  Sending the old year our in style.

The boys stayed up and the parents dozed on and off in chairs.  We played games and watched Star Wars and tried to time the explosion of the Death Star in the movie with midnight.  (we were close). A simple, easy way to bring in the new year.  

Happy 2017!

Christmas!

Such excitement for Christmas here!  Santa worked long and hard to find just the right things for each of these red-headed children.  I think he was successful.  Also, I didn't have to

work on the eve-a great present for me.  Here's some pics, but not too many since I didn't want to celebrate behind a camera lens.

The night before....

All the stockings...too heavy for my makeshift mantle that I've done in the past.  So much easier just to lay them out on the couch.  Plus, clearly some things did not fit in the stockings.

Christmas day is was fun to hear kids run down stairs to find their stockings and  presents.  Except for Marcus, he did not run.  He is too cool.

Cale-happy with his panda things.

Some super-heroes for Kella.

Ewan-excited for presents.

I think all the kids loved their presents.  Kella wished there were more.  Kinley, Kella and Liam all helped Grammy Pammy open her gifts (as in, opening the present on the way to handing the present to Grammy).  I don't remember too much fighting that day. We had new toys and new games to play.  New electronics, too. And, we had a killer dinner, made by Andy, of beef brisket plus sides.  A great day overall.  

Grammy, reading with Kinley's  pigs.

Hats and presents from Aunt Claud!

So fun to be able to spend this day together! 

a little bit of Christmas program fun

Smack dab in the middle of December was Kinley's preschool Christmas program.  I forced everyone to come.  The promise of cookies afterward sweetened the deal.  Kinley did great.  It's always funny to hear her teachers talk about how much Kinley has improved through the year.  They have a great perspective, because they have known Kinley and her personality since she was born.  

Kinley's class dressed up like eskimos.  

The preschool sings. Kinley is in white, in front.

A close-up.  Kinley had her hair up in a bun for dance that morning, and she wanted it that way for the program. So cute!

more cute!

And, even more cute!

Santa came and just a couple of the kids wanted to see him.  Kella was excited to tell Santa she wanted a dog, a cat and a bunny for Christmas.  (pretend of course)

Liam wanted to smell test this Santa, ala the movie Elf.  I don't think this one smelled like beef and cheese.

Let's hear from Cale!

Well, Happy New Year!  To finish out another year, let's see what Cale has to say about some of his favorites.  He turned 12 in November, you know, so this post is right on time.😊

What is your favorite....

color.....green

toy....2DS 

stuffed animal....my duck

thing to sleep with....my duck

fruit....pineapple

thing to eat for lunch....leftovers (Cale does not like sandwiches)

dessert....cake

drink....root beer

birthday dinner request....steak (which he got)

animal....panda

book....Steelheart

game....Pokemon Moon

movie....Rogue One

When you grow up, what do you want to be?

An engineer

For fun, you can look back and compare Cale at 11 and Cale at 10