Wrapping up our winter break

The girls had a few play dates over the break. It's always nice to get a break from entertaining ourselves and have some friends to play with.

The girls with Daphne and Briony

We also spent a lot of time with our cousins. It's fun to play with some different toys... Avery was almost dinosaur food!

We had one day where we put together a bunch of puzzles!

The girls played with their new toys... and I tried to organize everything. I went upstairs to clean up a bit and found Barbie and Ken like this... I'm not sure why Barbie has a light-saber, but whatever! Ha! :)

We finally got to swim at Grandma Ruth's pool! It was under construction for a long time, but now it's back open! We had the whole pool and hot tub to ourselves. The kids (and Grandma!) had such fun!

New Year's Eve

We hosted New Year's Eve at our house again this year. The Wilkens and Buffos came over and it was chaos as usual.

Avery tested out the backdrop and some of the party favors before the party.

We always have make-your-own pizzas... the kids love it!

Natasha loves pepperoni!

Speaking of chaos... first, due to some melting cheese in our ovens, the fire alarms kept going off in our house during the cooking of the pizzas. We had to open up the house and get some fresh air flowing through. Then, the kids were playing with glow sticks in the basement when Beckett (of course, it was Beckett!), decided to chuck a glow stick at the TV. Well, unfortunately, the TV cracked and now we can only see the bottom half of the TV... oh, Beckett! He seems pretty upset, huh?!?

We like to celebrate "midnight" before the kids melt down, so that's about 7:00-ish. :) We have a countdown and balloon drop for the kiddos. Frankie was a little freaked out about all the excitement. But, the older kids love it!

Then, we all toast to the New Year... the kiddos with ginger ale and the adults with something a little stronger!

We tried to get all the kiddos in one picture, but you know how that goes! Frankie was having none of it, but I think we managed to get the other kids together.

Such a fun time! We had a mini-Euchre tournament while the kids played. Matt and I came out the big winners! Probably due to all that practice we had when Lauren and Lee were at our house. :)

Happiest of New Years to you and your families! :)

Old friends

We spent the next few days visiting with old friends.

First, we hosted the Klemme's at our house. We had met up with them over the summer at their lake house and the kids all had a blast together. They were able to come over to DG for a bit to hang out again. The adults watched lots of football, drank a few beers, had some tasty smoked pulled pork (courtesy of Matt and the Green Egg) and played Euchre way too late into the night (Lee and I were the big winners)! The kiddos had fun playing school, putting tattoos all over each other and just hanging out. I didn't take a single picture (surprising, I know!). We ended the weekend with a trip to the Harvest for brunch before they headed back to Indiana. Fay (the owner at the Harvest) noticed that Matt was more chatty and smiley than normal and guessed he had maybe had a little alcohol the night before! I said yep! Maybe he was still feeling it a little! :)

On Monday, one of the girls' friends from daycare/pre-K who had moved away, came into town and arranged a little mini-reunion for the girls, Maddie and Hannah. The girls all picked up right where they left off and had a blast at the trampoline park. Coincidentally, these friends used to be neighbors with someone we work with who has a son in junior high that the girls got to meet at a BBQ once last summer. Morgan made fast friends with him them because he is really into geckos and they talked about geckos for hours at the BBQ. So, they brought him along to the trampoline park to help out with their little one while the girls played. To say Morgan was excited to see him again is an understatement. :)

Morgan vs. Maddie

Avery, Morgan, Maddie, Hannah

Girls with Zack and the little one, Gus

Maddie, Hannah, Avery, Morgan and Gus

Cuties! - Maddie, Avery, Hannah, Morgan

Enjoying a cool snack!

After two hours of jumping, the girls were tired!

So sweaty and tired!

Lego Day & Bowling

The day after Christmas, we relaxed at home and put together all the new Lego sets we got. Legos are intense and come with instruction booklets that are hundreds of pages long! So, this definitely took a chunk of time!

It was nice to have a day to unwind after the craziness of the last two days. Then, on Friday, we decided to get out of the house. So, we went bowling. The girls have such different approaches to bowling! Morgan just runs full speed and launches her ball as fast as she can. It seems to work well for her (with a little help from the bumpers!) Avery tries really hard to aim and bowls slowly. She gets frustrated easily because she is very competitive and hates being in last place! Matt and I even bowled. I miss the Sunday night league we used to be in... such great memories throughout the years!

There was also some veggin' out on the couch! Another favorite activity!

Medal Week at Gymnastics

The girls have been taking tumbling at a nearby gymnastics place. Right before break, they handed out medals to all the kids. They did a little ceremony announcing each kid and having them pose on the podium. Morgan was sick, so she was sitting out, but they still gave her a medal.

Star Student

In first grade, the kids all take turns being the star student for a week. They get to bring in pictures of themselves and their families for a board in the hallway. They get to be line leader for the week. And someone from their family gets to come in and read to the class during snack time one day. Morgan was the star student for her class the week before Christmas break. She had a blast picking out the pictures to take and she was super excited that I was coming into read to the class. She picked out a fun book that the kids really enjoyed. She sat next to me while I read with a big smile on her face. She made a big deal of picking me up from the office when I got there and taking me back when I was done. So cute!

"Play" money

The girls came running upstairs from playing in the basement with this wad of play money. Morgan asked if the greener one was real. Turns out someone must have snuck a real $20 bill into their play cash register at some time and the girls just found it. We still aren't sure who did this as no one has claimed responsibility. Ha!