Christmas Part 2

Josh is helping with Callie's rooster. 

And here she is with the awesome rooster marionette. 

Best shirt ever for her!  I don't know if she will wear it, but it is awesome! 

She loves her squishy cat pillow. 

Big boy legos for my big boy.

Levi got a bone and Percy wants it so badly.  He managed to steal it, but it didn't last long. 

Josh thought this was fantastic.  I agree. 

Art stuff makes her happy. 

She wanted a fitbit so badly.  Now she has one, but doesn't want me to see her stats because she doesn't want me to know how late she's staying up! 

This was the reigning best gift for a while. 

Excellent gift choice from his girlfriend. 

A clarinet from her aunt and uncle!  So fun!

 Best gift ever.  It totally made Christmas!  There is a series on Netflix called "The Haunting Hour" and it is a series of scary stories.  One of them is called "Big Yellow" and features a hideous mascot called Big Yellow.  Callie thinks it is the scariest story out of them all.  Marian hid in her room and had sewed this amazing replica of Big Yellow.  This was Callie's face when she pulled it out.  She is terrified of this thing.  It was awesome.  Best gift ever! 

The details are fabulous.  And SO accurate.  Google Big Yellow and compare.

The kids made her hide it because it freaks them out so badly!

 Percy had a good first Christmas.

Christmas Part 1

Percy is ready for Christmas!

The tree is ready and the loot is prepped! 

Levi is ready. 

Percy and Levi can't wait. 

Rylee is ready! 

And the loot-fest begins with cinnamon rolls and hot cocoa for breakfast.  Grand and Grandpa's box is opened first. 

I'm not sure Dan thinks his shirt is as funny as Miranda and I do! 

Loot for Delaney. 

Legos for Rylee. 

She loves lemurs and this is her favorite thing. 

I love a happy Callie. 

Dragon for Marian. 

He is definitely happy with all the awesome boot socks. 

Fine, she gets more photos because she is cute and cooperative!

Marvelous Marian

Marian will sit at the table some evenings, hunched over her sketchbook doing something.  she strongly discourages peeking and hides her work if she thinks someone might be looking her direction.  I have respected her privacy there and it paid off.  She was finally ready to show her sketch book, because she was finally done with it.  She had filled most of the pages over this past year and only now was she willing to let us see. And it was utterly worth the wait.  She is SO detail oriented and had so many fun things to look at.  I snuck photos of my favorites so I could share, and the pictures do not do them justice.

She used sparkly gem stickers for the stars and it was pretty cool.

This insect museum was a hoot.  Someone commented that it was like a "Far Side" comic. It is!

ALL THOSE FLOWERS!  I don't even know how long it took her to draw and color them.

I don't know if she made up the beasties or read something that inspired her to draw them.  And the sparkly gem stickers on this one don't photograph well either.  

A Day at the Park

 Some ladies from the Branch were going to meet at a park.  I decided to be brave and see if I could find it.  And the kids really needed to get out of the house.  So we went off on an adventure.  The good news is that we found a great park.  Bad news is it was about 1/2 mile from the park our friends were at.  We played at the big park for a bit and then managed to meet up with our friends at the other park.  It was a good morning and a lovely time was had by all.

Having fun on the wide slide.

And even more fun..... 

This the Urasoe  Park.  Pretty cool, isn't it!

Rylee is a crazy driver! 

There were 100 preschoolers at the park and about 15 of them were on the roller slide park.   

Delaney finally got a turn. 

It was a good slide. 

 It was great... until they caught up with the preschoolers.  

It is hard to go fast when you have little kids in front. 

When that happened, they just turned around and tried to roll backwards back up the slide.  So a good time was had. 

 Climbing structures are always a hit.

And then Rylee says, "Take a picture of me!"

It's not Christmas till the Cookies

 The kids had the entire week before Christmas off of school.  It was nice.  Sort of.  I was not feeling well for half of it.  But we did manage to make gingerbread cookies!  These kids are awesome.  They don't just slap a little frosting on.... no, each cookie must be a masterpiece. We did use a lot of frosting.  But they had a marvelous time and made some amazing cookies.

Delaney worked very hard.

Marian was disgusted that I only had these sprinkles to use for decorating.  So she got creative. 

My sweet Rylee. 

 Callie worked diligently.  

Even Josh got in on the action. 

He produced this masterpiece and then ate it. 

Delaney was particularly proud of this "Patrick SeaStar". 

Some of their delightful creations.  (Apparently oreos can be used for a wide array of decorating purposes!) 

Even Percy wanted to help. 

But he wasn't much help.