Merry Christmas

Fancy Clothes

Over the weekend, we attended the wedding of one of Kurt's cousins.  In the boys' words, we put our fancy clothes to attend.  I made them happy by wearing a pair of heels and packing mints for the church.  It's the little things...

Santa!

First year of Santa with no tears!  I did have to drag Ri across the floor to meet him, but again no tears and even a smile!

Week of musical delight.

I had the awesome opportunity to attend Garth's World Tour in St. Louis.  Excellent performance and we were so close we could see him sweat!!

Later in the week, Kurt and I made a quick trip back to STL to see Black Veil Brides in concert.  Google that, You Tube that and then maybe chuckle a bit that Farmer Kurt and I attended!  The real reason for attending was to see the boys' beloved Uncle Jesse...

The boys really wanted to go too, but alas, they will have to wait for Uncle Jesse to visit them. 

Joseph & Mary

Mary even had heels on!  

Reindeer Ranch

The Polar Express

Ginkgo Leaves

They make a great pile to play in, but boy are they heavy compared to other leaves!  

Randoms from the month of October.

Grandma Sandy painted both the boys a pumpkin this year.  Pretty fun surprise to come home to.

Elephants ears as big as the kids!

We grew our own pumpkins this year.  They were supposed to be mega pumpkins but they were planted late and somehow miraculously escaped being harvested by a combine.

Walnut harvest #492 of the season.  We think we finally have them all!

And finally, the way I spent most days...

Halloween 2014

Darn the cold weather!  Kurt's skirt looked better without jeans...

What a difference a year makes...

This year, we were quite delayed in sending out his birthday thank you's after some major printing problems.  When it was Ri's turn to autograph them all, he had a hard time sitting still long enough to sign more than a couple a day.  Finally on Sunday, he was given the choice of finishing his stack of thank you's and then playing outside OR he could write a few, take a nap and then have 2-3 to write each evening.  He decided he would finish them all because he didn't want to do anymore in the evenings!  Smart boy.

Soccer season has started!

The Ellis Campout

Cohen taught us how to play color tag.  It might have gotten a little competitive among the adults!

Sparklers to finish off the evening before we tucked some boys in the tents.  Riley immediately came inside with me.  Cohen, and Justin had to come in at 2:00 a.m. due to the rain…only cell of rain in the state of Illinois and just happened to be over their tents!  Brody, and Kurt slept the whole night through.  The boys napped most of the way home the next day after so much excitement with their cousins!!  Thanks for letting us come and play!!

TEN!

Pre-School

Riley started 4 year old Pre-School today.  He was up before the sun and ready to go downstairs.  Kurt told him it was still time to sleep.  He refused to go back to his bed or crawl in ours, so he curled up in the cozy chair in our room and fell back to sleep until he fell out of the chair!  Oops...I did get to sit and rock him for about twenty minutes after he fell.  Didn't mind that extra snuggle time one bit!

(I sort of cringed when he picked out his socks, but he at least he didn't pull them up to his knees like he usually does!)

It was an easy drop off today for both boys.  Brody wanted to walk Riley to his room so we did that, and then Riley wanted to walk Brody back to his room.  I was fearful Riley was going to begin his typical cling-on routine as we walked back to his class.  However, Eli was there when we walked in and so all was well in his world.  

Brody thought day one of Kindergarten was pretty great.  His favorite part was playing outside TWICE and as K student, he now gets to cross the bridge in the playground!!

Kindergarten

The Night Before Kindergarten...

Tomorrow is the day...the day we send our Brody to Kindergarten.  We have double checked the backpack, partially packed a lunch and clothes are laid out.  We read the Night Before Kindergarten and B laughed because he didn't  know why a mama and daddy would cry when sending 'their kid' to school?!  And there I sat crying as I finished the book.  Their room was just dark enough that he had no idea...

Brody is ready.  He really is.  I will probably be the mom wearing sunglasses into school so no one knows how much Kindergarten has rocked my world.

The thing is, I think that the way I feel tonight will be repeated many times in the future as more and more milestones are reached...

Just the other day they were two and snacking off the same stool at Grammy and Grampy's.  Tomorrow, they will dining at school....

Showering Emily with Baby Love!

Emily and Brett will soon welcome their first child into the world.  To help them prepare for parenthood, we were able to shower them with baby love.  I believe Emily’s baby will be Grandma’s 13th great-grandchild.  Boys still outnumber girls in her great-grandchild count.  Will Emily’s baby add to the number of boys or girls?  Time will tell…

While we were busy at the shower, these boys, plus Cohen, were busy in the dirt pile.  I’m not sure I had ever seen such dirty kids…pictures really do not depict just how dirty they were.  There was a ring around Katy’s bath tub after we pulled them out!  But, boy did they have fun and sleep well that night.