Thursday, December 31, 2015

Year End Spectacular

I can't believe New Year's Eve snuck up on me!
 
Here's our annual year in review.
 
January
 
I ran the Houston marathon. I haven't run (or made any plans too) ever again.

 
February
 
Reed won Valentine's Day receiving 11 lollipop grams and giving out the most awesome Valentines.
 
 
 
 
 March
 
I made the best costumes for the Texas play.  Nobody looked as good as Blue Bell ice cream and Cowboy #7.
 
 
April
 
Baseball with dad is dangerous.
 
 
 
May
 
There was trouble in River City when JR was Harold Hill
 (and then he was Harold Hill again in June).
 
 
June
 
Everything turned in to a contest on our cruise.  Kyle and Jason walked away the ultimate winners with a victory at shuffleboard.  Others were not happy about that.
 
 
July
 
Nobody wanted to come home from Camp Olympia. 
Their talent show entry has become legendary.
 
 
August
 
Jason has never been so excited about a preseason football game.
 
 
September
 
Vegas. Britney. Front Row.
 
 
October
 
JR wound up on both Channel 2 and 11 news
 
 
November
 
Jason "rang" the NYSE closing bell. We were all impressed.
 
 
December
 
The Ingersoll Family pulled off a party for 96!
 
 
And though 2015 was filled with many happy times, I can't end without saying that we still miss our Hunter that we lost this year.
Jason and I both teared up about him just this week.
 
 
Here's to a great 2016!
 

Monday, December 28, 2015

Christmas

We just got home from Breckenridge where we celebrated Christmas.
 
We left cookies and a diet Pepsi for Santa. 
(I don't think we've ever left milk for Santa...he always seems to get a Coke.)


 
Santa left iTunes gift cards and JR got a book and Kyle and Reed each got a card game.
 
We ran in to Santa on the mountain later and told him we'd gotten our presents.
(Who knew Santa was so good looking these days?!)
 

We flew home today, and when we walked in we saw that Santa had been here.
The boys ran upstairs and put on their pajamas "so it was like opening presents on Christmas morning."

 
 
 
Favorite presents included:
Kyle's Dude Perfect attire and Jurassic World.
 
Reed was excited about his FitBit.
(You can see he really needs to work out and loose some weight.)
 
 
And here's JR sporting his new Broncos necklace, Von Miller jersey, and his Deflatriots T-shirt.

Monday, December 21, 2015

Downstairs

These are my downstairs Christmas highlights this year.
No new trees, all things I've had up before so everything is self explanatory.
 
 
 






 
 

Sunday, December 20, 2015

Lots of Celebrating

We've had 2 class parties.

 
 
 
And we hosted a yard/house full of 2nd grade boys after school on Friday, 4/6 of which went to eat pizza with us.
 
 
And then Reed dressed up for Granny Buffie's family party and was the cutest thing ever.
This is definitely the last year I can talk him into this kind of thing. (Kyle refused.)
 

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Well, Lookie There

So guess who made the December issue of Absolutely Memorial magazine?
 
That's right, me!
 
You can see me in the digital issue on pg. 25

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

A Week Left

We've got about a week left with Sam the elf.  He's only forgotten to move once, which I think is amazing.
 
Don't you wish you had ugly, dead, stuffed animals to kiss your elf?

 
And no matter what, an elf in The Nativity never gets old.

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Me! Harry McAfee!

As I mentioned, Kyle also did Bye, Bye, Birdie this weekend.  He played the father, Harry McAfee.
 
  It was a good little part for him for his first time out.  I kept telling him that JR didn't start theater until he was 9, and wasn't in a musical until he was 10. 
 
 
You can definitely see the difference in stage presence between the young ones and the older ones, but that's how you learn.  Kyle's seen enough of JR's shows to know to talk slow and loud.  He had that down.
 
 
Here he is finding out his family is going to be on the Ed Sullivan Show.
 
 
Here's his wife trying to keep him off camera at the Ed Sullivan Show.
 
 
Look how happy these two are to just be on stage.


And here's his big solo.  Kids
 
 
He was definitely singing out during the finale!

Monday, December 14, 2015

Just Add to the Crazy

So if we weren't busy enough having a party for a 100 people on Saturday night, we also had two shows to attend on Saturday afternoon.  Kyle and JR were both in Bye, Bye, Birdie and since they are so far apart in ages, they were in different shows.
 
JR was great (but this mama always thinks he's great). I would have loved to see him play Conrad Birdie (the Elvis character) but he had the main part of Conrad's manager, Albert.
 
He was mad they cut his 2nd solo because they ran out of time to stage it in rehearsals, but he was so good at this one I didn't even mind.
 
 
And, of course,  I got a few pictures.
 
 
On a side note, I wish poodle skirts would come back in style.


Finding out Conrad Birdie has been drafted into the army


Watching everyone faint over Conrad.


With his secretary, Rosie

With his mama

Sunday, December 13, 2015

We Pulled it Off

We pulled off our biggest Christmas party ever on Saturday night. 
 My original plan was to have a Sunday afternoon/evening family open house.  I thought it would be come look at my Christmas trees, have a cookie, chat for a few minutes, and move it along.
 
 
But then the neighborhood Christmas party was scheduled for Sunday and the kids have basketball practice. 
 
 
So I decided to have it on Saturday night.  I assumed everyone would be busy with other parties and maybe a few people would stop by on their way to bigger and better parties. 
I went ahead and invited whole families because, again, I assumed there would be very few people who had nothing to do. 
 
 
The way to get on my invitation list was pretty easy too: If my kids like your kid and you have spoken to me or been friendly in any way, you were in.
 
 
Guess what?
Apparently nobody had anything to do Saturday night because our RSVP list had 115 saying yes.
 
 
Jason and I stayed somewhat calm.  We knew we were either hosting the party of the year, or we were going to crash and burn miserably.
 
 
I made cookies, brownies, and coffee punch.  Jason made chili, little smokies, and all the dips.  We had cheese/sausage/cracker plates, pizzas, tamales, a ham...pretty much anything you can think of that Costco sells to feed 115 people!
 
 
Our actual total was 96 (you always have RSVPers that are no-shows) and the party went off without a hitch.  We didn't crash and burn!
 
 
We took one picture before the party started, but the lighting was weird so this was the best I could edit it. 
 

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Celebrating

We've got Christmas celebrations in full swing around here.
 
Tuesday night was the KD Christmas party.  It was at my house since 
1. the traffic is so bad around town and 2. you can't find a place to park once you get there.


Then last night we went to First Baptist's Christmas "production".  One of the moms from school got a group together of  boy moms and boys.  We had 3 full rows of us.
 
  I didn't get any pictures of our group together, but I got these as we were leaving. 
 
The fist half of the show is secular and the second half is Jesus's birth and death...which is why we have a picture with both a reindeer and a shepherd.

Monday, December 7, 2015

Outside

I've had my Christmas decorations finished inside since about Thanksgiving (11 big trees this year), but we just got the outside done yesterday.
 
We didn't put the lights up ourselves, and this is the best angle I could get where you could actually somewhat see the lights.
 

This is what you see when you walk in the front door. 
I had them put lights in the tree in the backyard too.

I don't have a front porch so I have to cram as much as I can in a little area.

 
 
And our yard bears have been claimed by each member of the family once again.
I'm obviously the girl, Kyle is hanging the wreath, and Jason is the big one.
 
 Reed is the "little one doing the Nay-Nay" and according to Kyle, JR is "chopping down the tree because he knows I like to climb trees!"