dungeon play

I have several different random photos of the kids playing that I've grouped together here. 

When Noah was a toddler, we started out with just a few Thomas train tracks and he would have daddy build him a new track every single day. We've found tons more tracks from garage sales over the years and have a large collection. When Samuel became old enough to be interested, he'd ask Noah to build him tracks. But now Samuel is becoming quite the train track builder as you can see from the photo below. Ezra is getting better about not destroying the whole thing. Though he does love to do that just to bug Samuel.

And FYI, that rug is not a random dead guy on our carpet like several facebook friends thought. It's an awesome rug of Han Solo frozen in carbonite. 

We limit video games to a few hours on the weekend. Evie and I don't like them at all so you can guess who does...

The one game I do like is the Michael Jackson dancing Wii game Terry got me for my birthday. No, I will not post the video of me dancing. 

More tracks! 

Terry wrapped Noah up as a burrito and threw the other boys on top as toppings :) 

snowballs and snowmen

At the beginning of December we had a nice snowfall and then the weather warmed up. Perfect conditions for snowmen. Noah rolled a huge snowball; so big he worked like an hour to get it over to the other snowballs to make a snowman. He was sweating like crazy.

Evie was working her own snowballs.

They got them finished! Of course, Noah's was too big to make a snowman out of. 

My kids love winter even more than summer. They say there's more to do outside. They sure do enjoy themselves out there. I love summer forever! 

decorating the tree

Terry mismeasured the height of the tree before he brought it in. I thought it was hilarious, though it made more work for him. 

I'm picky about lights so I get to do it.

Noah is getting to be a good helper. 

Patiently, patiently waiting.

One of my grandma's doves. :( 

 Freckles!

Noah and baby Noah. 

The kids were so excited because I let them hang the breakable ornaments. 

Daddy put together the train track and had to fix a broken train. It's always a big hit with the littles. 

We did a smaller light display outside this year. 

So pretty. I love Christmas lights.  

All done! 

thanksgiving 2015

This year my folks were in Minnesota with Nathan and Ana so we celebrated once at Terry's folks house with Shari and Jesse.

Terry and Jesse spent a while playing Tanks on the Wii. After 18 games they finally beat it. They paused it, posed with the TV, and had Shari take a photo. Unfortunately she missed the shot they wanted. It was funny :)

tree hunting 2015

The day after Thanksgiving we went right out and hunted for our Christmas tree. I love living in the Black Hills! We went to the same place as last year up Nemo Road but didn't find as perfect of a tree. Still a good though.

Here we are having just got out of the van. Newish snow and cold weather. I felt pretty bad for snap's paws.

Heading down the highway to find the next available perfect tree.

How about these? 

Shrugs. "I dunno mom." 

We were coming to the end of the line of trees and still hadn't found "the one." 

Got some pretty pictures though. 

We finally decided on this one down the bank. Difficult to get to and examine.  

We went for it though.  

We swapped me out but since we're wearing the same color coat it's not very noticeable.  

Headed back up the highway. 

I made the kids pose while Terry tied the tree down. Ezra lost a mitten down on the ice below after this.

So pretty up there. 

Looking west up Nemo Road.

And east. 

We had Noah take our photo. 

This is becoming an annual kiss. Last time Noah said it was disgusting. I think Evie said "Ew," this year.

And the family shot. 

gankies

When Samuel is at preschool Ezra has no one to play with and therefore spends a lot of time on my lap snuggling. No complaints here! I love it.

Ezra loves his blankies. He calls them gankies and sucks his thumb with them. But only afgans, especially this one made by my sister. They're all sorts of fun. 

cousin owies

Shari came over one night about a month ago to show us Sarah's glued gash on her eyebrow that she had acquired while she and Grace were running around their living room. She fell into the corner of their coffee table. While Shari was telling the story Samuel was running around our living room. All of the sudden he fell into the corner of our coffee table and hit his head in the exact same spot as Sarah, doing the exact same thing as Sarah had been doing. Luckily, his skin did not break, though it sure did look bad. The swelling went down very quickly, but actually, he still has a bit of a bruise on his eyelid even now.

See? Poor Sarah's owie was in the same place. Not a good two days for the two day apart cousins.

final Watiki visits

For the last two years Terry's folks have given us family passes to Watiki waterpark for Christmas. But this year we'll probably take a break, thus, the title. Here are some photos from our last two visits. 

The weekend before Thanksgiving we made our first trip since summer. And... I'm not even sure what to say about this photo...

Is that Samuel or Ezra?

For the first few visits to Watiki the kids were afraid of the huge bucket overturning it's water on the kid area, but now Noah and Evie (and even Samuel today) like it. There's Noah in the water. 

My chiropractor knew that we often visited Watiki and at my last appointment he gave me a free pass. Very sweet of him. We brought cousin Grace with us.  

We made sure she didn't drown :) 

I don't know what it is, but the kids always do a lot of playing with their tongues and sucking on their hands at Watiki. Ew. 

This cracks me up. Ha ha! Noah.

Grace face! 

I ran into the restaurant/bar area and took a photo of all four of the kids in the slide that goes through there. Dripping, cold and awkward but worth it. 

The rest of the photos are from our visit today during Christmas vacation. We wish their hours began earlier during the week (4pm) because we would go more often. Terry's day off is Friday and by the time 4pm rolls around, we're already worn out or busy with something else. During this break and summer they open at 8 or 9am. 

Samuel made some serious headway today. Not long after we had been there, he, Noah, and Evie spent a long time in the kids area. Samuel used to be very afraid of being up there, especially alone. Today he spent like an hour of time sliding all by himself. Score!

After I took Evie down the big slides three times, I was exhausted (we worked out this morning so my legs were done). Next Terry took Ezra and Noah down the big slides two times. He said Ezra was fine with it until they went to get in the tube but when they came out he yelled, "I did it!" He did the same thing the second time and then freaked out when he saw me. He cried for a while. How cool do they look though?! 

Rowing to the edge. 

Terry took Noah and Evie up the slides a few more times while Ezra recovered with me and Samuel slid by himself. 

We even had lunch there today, which was a rare treat. Terry took the littles while I did nothing. 

Just floating along the lazy river. 

And they keep going... 

...and going. 

We crashed big time when we got home. I can't wait to go to bed tonight.