I Almost Tossed It

We've already got the kids registered for Camp Olympia this summer, so when I got a flyer in the mail from them I didn't look at it to closely. I glanced at it as I was about to throw it in the trash, and thought...that picture looks familiar.

 

 

Yes, that's JR coming down the water slide.

Think we can put this on his resume? Does this count as modeling?

Needless to say, this piece of mail went from almost in the trash to on the fridge.

2014 In Review

It's time for the annual blogdown cliptacular.

As always, selected clips may not be considered the"best" thing that happened that month.

 

January

Houston was crippled by the icpocalypse.

There was literally one icicle, causing us to miss 2 days of school.

 

February

The Broncos lost the Super Bowl.

JR cried and screamed, "They're not even trying to win."

 

The Seahawks are now referred to as "The Team Who Shall Not Be Named" in our house.

 

March

My science fair project was awesome.

It's already been re-used this school year.

 

 

April

Reed's allergies were so bad I thought the poor child had pink eye most of the spring.

 

 

May

Kyle and Reed went on a field trip to the lamest place on the planet: Moody Gardens in Galveston.

They saw a penguin, and that's pretty much it.

 

 

June

The boys took my favorite picture of the year in St. Thomas while we were on the Disney Cruise. 

July

I loved seeing JR as the Tin Man in The Wiz.
I hadn't seen him in costume before the show, and I actually burst into tears when I saw him on stage. But it was okay since my mom and Granny Sherry did too.

 

 

August

My mom and I went on our first ever girls' trip to Seattle for my friend's 20th anniversary party.

We had a blast.

 

 

September

We learned that Abby can tell time. She lets herself in the doggie door between 1:30-2:00 to go pick up the kids from school. She's also super photogenic.

 

 

October

My book character pumpkin was awesome, but it didn't win squat.

 

 

November

Kyle's hidden hula talent was discovered.

 

 

December

The boys went to a Texans game and saw JJ Watt do his thing. It was a big deal.

 

 Here's to 2015!

 

Last Chance

These are the pictures that didn't make the blog cut this fall/winter.

I figured I had today to get them on here before the year ends.

And yes, many I looked at and thought, "Why did I take that picture?"

 

Selfie with Kyle

 

 

Kyle trying to burn off his tongue on a Pu-Pu platter

Jason with a chicken

 

Reed eating ice cream at Dairy Queen

 

 

Reed eating ice cream at Baskin Robbins

 

Kyle at the dermatologist (He's fine.)

 

JR wearing lederhosen

JR's chorus from Hansel un Gretel

 

Reed on pajama day

 

Kyle on pajama day (they were different days)

 

 

Kyle at this football team's pancake breakfast

 

 

I normally wouldn't take pictures of Jason sleeping on an airplane, but look what's on his tray table.

It makes me giggle to think he'd open his eyes and a cow would be looking back at him.

(Stuffed cow...compliments of Kyle)

 

 

The boys after JR's opening night of Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

 Reed on a field trip (Kyle in the background)

 

Hot chocolate break

 

 

A Christmas card picture reject, but one of the few of us all together.

The other Half

Telluride was nice enough to showcase every single weather system that could possibly show up in December on our 4 ski days.

 

Here's our first morning on the gondola.  We don't have a return gondola picture that day because the 80 mile an hour winds knocked out electricity, and the gondola.  (We had to ride the bus down.)  I also don't have ski pictures from that day because I was having a hard enough time just standing up.  Kyle and Reed were literally getting blown backwards back up the mountain.

 But typical mountain weather, the bad doesn't last long.

We had a gorgeous, perfect Christmas eve day.

This is the very tippy top of Telluride. It's gorgeous.

Now take a good look at the picture above, because the one below was taken at the top of the little hill you see behind Jason's head the next day.

Snow, but at least no wind!

 

And it was for sure a white Christmas since it kept on snowing. (That's Reed)

 

 

This was my ski lift partner.

And no, you don't normally have snow all over your goggles, but when you cartwheel as many times as Kyle does, it tends to end up there.

 

 

Being the daredevil of the family does mean you spend a lot of time trying to find, then dig out your skis.

 

 

What the others looked like on the lifts...

 

and while skiing.

 

 

 

In town we were able to find Rudolph and The Abominable Snowman.

 

 

 The kids left Santa a bowl of Fruit Loops and a Coke for Christmas Eve.

Reed wrote him a letter asking if he could leave them 1 or 2 small things there, but to take their presents to Houston.  Santa was nice enough to honor their request.

 

 

And we had Christmas Day service on the mountain.

A very beautiful "church" indeed.

About Half

I was going to try and wrap up Christmas and before Christmas in this one post, but I think that's too much, so here's about half:

 

Jason took Kyle and Reed to have their picture made with Santa. 

JR and I were someplace else (I'm sure one of his practices for something.) 

 

 

Then the little guys had their Christmas party at school.

I helped in Kyle's class since there were already 25 mamas helping in Reed's.

(Notice the live table decorations...cause 1st graders really appreciate a good centerpiece.)

Crafts in Kyle's room. No tablescapes.

 

That night we had Jason's work Christmas party at our house.

We had about 60 people, a food truck, and a band.

 

There are no pictures, which I'm quite happy about, since at one point in the evening I sang/performed "Girls, Girls, Girls" and a few other 80's ditties in their entirety. 

What can I say...the band gave me the microphone.

 

I would also like to add that I wore winter white from head to toe and didn't spill one thing on myself! (I actually got more compliments on my spill free winter white outfit than my Christmas decorations.)

 

The next morning (and boy did it come early) we did the 12K of Christmas run since Jason's company was a sponsor.  We totally would have bailed, but Kyle had been looking forward to it for weeks.

 

He was most excited that he won the costume contest.

 

He got to stand on the winner's stand and won a bag of hot chocolate. Super exciting stuff.

 

 

And the next morning we boarded a plane for Telluride.

 

And that seems a good place to stop.

Almost Back

Well, I almost feel like I'm back in the land of the living.

We got home from Telluride the night of the 26th and we spent most of yesterday trying to get Christmas put away.

 

The house gets so torn up from putting up Christmas and putting out the "normal" stuff, that the kids said it looked like we were moving in...again.

 

And though the decorations are put away, all the Christmas presents haven't found a home yet, so there's still plenty of stuff around.

 

Here's hoping we'll all be back to normal again tomorrow.

Merry Christmas

Nothing says "we're celebrating the birth of Jesus" quite like Kyle in his gingerbread man costume with the Chick-fil-A Santa cows.

So I will leave you with that image.

I'll be back after Christmas!