The Year in Texts

 Our family group text is not a place for the faint of heart.

 I thought you might enjoy reading some of our highlights from this past year. 

We Christmased

 We had a very nice Christmas.

Chloe was proud of her stocking. 

Everyone picked out their favorite gift(s).

And for least favorite presents, Reed coined the new phrase "punishment present"...which was for his glow in the dark running belt (so he won't get hit by a car when he runs in the dark) which he doesn't want to wear. 

And my mom had me take a picture of my table setting, which was the only other picture I took Christmas Day.

We had all of Christmas taken down, and the house pulled back together by noon yesterday, which I think might be a record! 

Merry Christmas

 Merry Christmas! 

Here are our Santa pictures this year. 

Advent Calendar Drama (Again)

 So you'll remember last year when I posted about how I had to label everybody's advent calendar to keep them from fighting over them.  Well, I labeled them all again this year, and I thought everything was going fine until Jason started complaining about JR's advent calendar.  

Apparently Jason is super upset that JR has already eaten all his candy.  I told Jason that JR was allowed to "play advent calendar however he wanted" and not to worry about it.

But Jason is worried about it. 

So much so that Jason brought it up to me again, and thinks I shouldn't buy JR an advent calendar next year if he "isn't going to do it right."

I. Can't. With. These. People. 

And here's a picture of JR with his finished advent calendar, which if Jason gets his way, will be his last... ever. 

Christmas Eve Eve

 I hope you have as much fun this Christmas Eve eve as Willie!

Cool Pics

 I know I'm doing a terrible job of keeping up with my blogging.  I'd like to say I'm busy trying to make Christmas magical for my kids.  But I don't think you can use that excuse when your kids are teenagers and a grown adult. 

We got these pictures of Kyle the other day and I thought they were great! I'm never able to get any good pictures since natatoriums aren't known for their great lighting. 

He's Back

 JR got home on Friday, and I'm still not sure how he pulled it off, but I just checked his grades and he made the Dean's list.  Here's his recent happenings, and as you'll notice there are no pictures of actual studying or learning. 

New Article

 Reed's latest article came out this week.  He was even nice enough to include his brother! 

December Already!

 How is it already December 4th? I'm not sure how that even happened. Kyle had a dive meet on Friday evening and I, of course, have videos.

Enjoy my commentary on this one...I've complained for years that no matter what his dives look like he's going to get a 5.5, so I hardly know how to react when he doesn't.

He was in the lead on 1 meter until the last dive when this happened.  

You can literally see his knees buckle.  

Luckily he didn't fall in the water (that would have been a no score), so since he saved it, they considered it a balk, and he got half his points for the dive...which here it is. 

And wound up finishing 3rd.