On the Week After Christmas

Since we were potty training Nell, we limited our outside excursions and stuck pretty close to home. One afternoon Mark took the big kids swimming, but otherwise we mostly enjoyed our new gifts and the kids played with neighborhood friends.

The snow stuck around for just another day or two before the rain came back and washed it all away.

Aubree took Bryce and Thane out and taught them how to roller blade.

Graham enthusiastically tried his hand at learning how to draw super heroes (a fun gift from the Moses family).

The big kids enjoyed Nellie's aquadoodle just as much (and sometimes more) than she did (another great cousin gift, this time from the Keske family).

The laser tag guns provided hours of entertainment. 

With Mark being home for the week, Nellie got to regularly play with play dough. He's much nicer about that than am I!

Bryce doesn't always do well with breaks from school, so I kept up the minimum subjects. One of his writing assignments was to write a thank you note. This one is definitely a keeper!

New Year's Eve fell on Sunday, and the kids decided to coordinate their outfits. The boys all wore their grey suits and Aubree and Nellie wore black and white dresses. I didn't realize until I was taking this picture (on our way out the door to go to church) that Thane's grey suit is way too small. Whoops!

Bryce looked fantastically dapper in his new suit. He loves it.

For our New Year's Eve, we had a small, last minute party with our neighbors. They came over at 7pm with the plan to leave at 9pm. When 9 came, we were in the middle of a game and no one wanted to stop. When the game ended, we kept talking and they didn't end up leaving till nearly 10:30pm. They're the best!

We learned a new dice game called "Dirty Pirate." Graham really wanted to play, but didn't quite understand the strategy of the game. When it was his turn, he called out "dirty pirate!" whether it made sense of not. It was the entertainment highlight of the night.

Right before it was time to go back to co-op and our regular routine, our good friends from Arizona came to visit. Bethelle stayed the night and was able to attend the first day back to co-op with Aubree. Having Bethelle was so much fun! Aubree loved being able to share her unique classroom experience with her friend.