Photos to finish up 2015

Because the blog was actually created for the grandparents, not for me (thought I do love it myself), I thought that they deserved a post that actually had pictures of the grandkids and a whole lot less of my literary clutter. So don't cut me out of the will just yet! And for John and Debbie, don't print these - there just *may* be some prints already on order for you. So now, in no particular oder (SOME order, not not exact), are the photos of the last 2 months of 2015!

School Halloween parade - Elsa and Bumblebee. Our first foray into face paint, since no masks were allowed.

For the real Halloween we did Elsa's hair up right and turned it white(ish). She was very pleased!

 I even indulged in some makeup. She looked AND felt like a queen!

 Ethan was a pirate. He only wore the hat for pictures, though, and the rest of the night he looked like a scruffy prince not-so-charming

 Patrick's finished dragon costume - it was lots and lots of work, and he was very proud of the result

Eli's full costume. We particularly loved the mask!

 Ethan's pumpkin was "Frankenstein," according to him

 Eli wanted a bat. It looked awesome for 12 hours, but when left outside the sneaky neighborhood squirrels had a pumpkin feast. The next day we were forced to bring the pumpkins inside, where they suffered the fate of warmth and already being carved, becoming too moldy to light come Halloween. Dang. At least we got pictures of their hard work first!

 Caroline's owl. The 3-D beak was the first thing to be squirrel-ized

 Patrick drew his pumpkin himself. I loved the classic Jock O Lantern look!

Eli turned 6! We enjoyed a night out at Dunkin Donuts.

 He wanted an owl-themed birthday party, so I made an owl cake and decorated balloons to look like owls. We had a few friends from church over and ate (this) cake and ice cream.

 He got some great presents....

 ...including a new bike! He's a master at 2 wheels and ridiculously tall for his age, so he has a 20" bike.

Thanksgiving at Joy school - the kids got the entire week off elementary school so they all joined in at home preschool and made lovely turkeys.

 Our Joy School group - Brycen, Eliza, Eli, Jaxen, Caroline, Patrick - Ethan undoubtedly finished his turkey after 10 seconds and decided it was "free play time" instead.

  Christmas - we spent the morning at our house in Pueblo, then went to Parker where my parents, Karl, and Tom and Melody were all visiting. Kari and my mom made a delicious Christmas ham and all the fixin's.

 Same table, different view.

 Same meal, at the kids' table. The cousins are so cute together!

As long as we were already in Denver we made it a point to visit Joe's grandma, Eva. She had fortunately made chicken noodle soup the day before - our kids' absolute favorite!

For Christmas the big kids got costumes - I found them on after-Halloween clearance, but there wasn't anything great in Ethan's size. He just loves wearing the boy's old dinosaur costumes, thuugh, so that works well. The boys are Power Ranger Dino Charge, a new P.R. show that merges their obsession with dino's and Rangers. Caroline is, of course, Anna from Frozen Fever.

 FANTASTIC personalized pillows for each kids, plus great books to read while they snuggle the pillows - from Debbie and John

 Street signs from Joe's aunt Sherrye - so cool!

 We did Christmas Eve pajamas, then drove around town to look at lights. Unfortunately I misjudges Caroline, who was too big for her size 5 pjs, so we bought another pair the next week.

Christmas Eve for mom and dad. A silent night...

 Our Christmas tree

Eli showing off his new kitty ornament from Debbie and John

 Caroline placing her kitty ornament

 There it is! A cat angel

We enjoyed our Christmas advent Calendar! So special

Mom's homemade Christmas advent - each envelope contained an activity, like making gratitude bags, learning verses to Christmas songs, reading scriptures, shopping from the Angel tree at church, cutting out snowflakes, etc.

 Sledding in Parker the day after Christmas. This is Ethan flying off the disc!

Flying or not, he had a great time!

Grandpa giving Amelia a push

Patrick gets a good start down the hill

Joe and Caroline about to take the plunge

The sledding crew before heading out - it was sooooo cold that day!

Ethan playing in the snow back home

Patrick, Eli, and Amelia

 Super-cute cousins

Snuggeling at home in the couch. I couldn't believe they all fit!

This was Thanksgiving week at the Zoo Lights in Pueblo. We went with my parents on the last night of good weather that week, and it was a great show!

Not even cold enough for a real coat!

 
If you made it to the end of this, you have my respect! Hope you enjoyed a ridiculous amount of pictures of my kids and family being regular kids and a regular family, because we sure had fun making the memories together :)

2016, ready or not!

Do I regret not blogging for 2 months straight? Yes. Will it happen again? Probably. But when you can't catch up you can't catch up, and I missed everything from Halloween to Christmas and 4 birthdays in between, so YEAH RIGHT about squeezing that all in.

The good news (it's only good news to me, it won't make any difference to you) is that in my non-blogging time I organized AAAAAAALL the pictures I have ever taken digitally! Thousands upon thousands spanning a decade and they are ORGANIZED - sorted by year, sorted further into month when necessary (the first few years of kids when we took 1,000 photos per month and every months was a milestone for someone), and all put onto my external hard drive - a project of its own because I had to reformat it. Technology and I go together like water and oil, so that was a HUGE success in my book that I didn't set the hard drive on fire (or something equally ridiculous - it could happen with me).

Also good news (but only good news for me, it won't make any difference to you), I've been plugging away at transcribing my journals! 30+ journals x 100 pages each = far to heavy. 100 pages x 1 ridiculous teenager = nobody wants to read all that nonsense. All the equations pointed towards downsizing those journals and I've made great progress - about 8 journals transcribed! I've lost pounds of paperweight AND saved someone from an emergency optometrist appointment from eyeball strain caused by all the eye rolls involved in reading a teenager's innermost thoughts (*involuntary shudder*).

The new year means out with the old and in with the new, and I wanted to be out with the old vague sense of guilt about those two monumental projects and in with a finished and organized product. In that vein it looks like it's going to be a good 2016!

Joe's resolution this year is to get more personal in his communication and choose calling over texting. Texting is quick and easy, but leaves room for misinterpretation, particularly misinterpretation of someone's tone, so he feels like he should take the time to really communicate. That said, he really doesn't call OR text me or anyone in our families, so this resolution only affects work.

My resolution is to say "no" to crazy. If I am asked to do something that I feel is unnecessary or over the top, I give myself permission to say "no," politely but firmly, and not feel guilty about it. For instance, I was watching a 1-year-old for a lady in our ward who worked, and what started as a small favor rapidly turned into an expectation on her part and bitterness on mine. Rather than continuing this negative train, I politely said that I was unable to keep watching her son all the time. I'd been upset so long about being taken advantage of, and all it took was a 2-minute conversation to take back control of my life! This also means asking for help when it is something that needs to be done but I feel overwhelmed doing it myself. Previously I've just pushed through the suckiness and felt drained and bitter afterwards, when really nobody was asking me to shoulder it alone - it was a matter of personal pride and pickiness that I did it all myself. Now I'm trying to be more flexible about how things get done - an imperative part of delegation is learning not to micromanage! Hopefully 2016 brings peace in my heart and not craziness in my head as I work to simplify using those resolutions.

December photo dump

Christmas stockings are doooooone! It is so wonderful to have a mother who can teach me how to embroider, then sits down at does it herself. Thank you!!

Speaking of embroidery, Grandma Jacobs made adorable felt cat ornaments for each of the kids. Since they have a ton, and we don't have any, this is happily as close as we'll come to having cats in our Christmas tree.

Parker trip!! It was FRIGID, but we went sledding in 0 degrees and the kids loved playing in the snow for very short periods of time, followed by gallons of hot chocolate.

Barricades are useful when babysitting a one-year-old

The New Pajama Crew is ready for Christmas eve! Sadly, I bought Carolines pajamas according to her age, not her actual size, so those 6T monkeys will go straight to her cousins. 

 

November photo dump

Poof! Eli turned 6!

When the birthday boys asks for an owl cake, you bake that boy an owl cake!

A surprise tea party with cousins! The Phelps came down just for the day to help Jonathan's mom and step-dad paint their new house. They moved just a couple blocks away... AFTER Kari and Jonathan had already moved to Denver! Saaaaaad. 

                                

Warm fall days are best enjoyed in the leaves, with cousins. Isn't life magical when the leaf pile is big enough to swallow you whole?

I just got Gaffiganed - I turned the kids down from eating those chocolate cupcakes in the back, in order to serve them "fried cake, with syrup on it!" "Pancakes.... how did those slip through?"

While observing the elementary school Halloween parade, I enjoyed random kindergarten projects on the wall. This particular project made me laugh! 

Patrick (with his art teacher) was awarded 3rd place in the Pueblo City School District-wide contest for a peice of art on patriotism, and given this plaque in recognition for his placement in their First-annual Pride and Patriotism night. What a night! What a kid!

This was not Patrick's art, but he seemed to enjoy practicing his eagle at home. On a scale of One to America, how free are you tonight?

Chop chop! We just shortened our morning routine by 10 minutes and infinite amounts of whining.

Cleaning out behind the boys bed, these socks are straight-up stuck to the wall with sweat and foot funk. Grossss!!!

6:30 am. orange slices. Safety first!

Watching a movie with grandpa. Safety first!

Home sweet House Paint

We've never been crazy about the outside of our house, but painting a house is a big and kinda pricey job (I am always boggled by the price of paint!) so we've put it off. Until now! After participating against his will in yet another Project Paintbrush Joe, where people come together to paint a house in one day, Joe was raring to paint our house! But then he was hunting two weekends in a row, then I had some crazy busy weekends, and then we found ourselves closing in on the end of November but still! Determination and a lucky few days of nice weather won out.

Our beginning. The paint scheme was fine... but dated. And the paint was old and chipping so it needed new paint anyway. We came up with THIS:

 Two people. Two weekends. Two coats of paint, and a wholes new house!

 We like it.