Merry Christmas

I'm a little late, but before we hit 2014 ... Merry Christmas!!

Reindeer Farm

While we were home for Thanksgiving, we also took a trip to a local reindeer farm.

Don't let the reindeer in this picture fool you, this is still in front of my parents house. We kept trying to get pics of the grandkids with Mom and Dad. Somebody has to have at least one good one.

Here's Shae in front of real live reindeer! I had to convince my sister I got one good shot, because Lord knows the kids didn't want to stop and pose. Not much, anyway.

Nana and Jacob did manage to pose for us.

And so did Makayla with here momma.

I snapped one with Joey in it. (He and Ashtyn barely stopped running for a minute.)

The reindeer farm is also a tree farm. Clearly, these are new trees, and it was cute to see Jacob towering over them.

Who doesn't love some crazy poke-your-head-through Santa and reindeer? Hope your holidays were as fun as ours were!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yes, I am very behind on my blogging. I thought I might try to catch up a bit this week. So maybe next week you'll see some Christmas pictures. Just deal with it.
Jacob was so excited to get to sit at the big kids table all by himself. He was ready to eat!
Happy humans getting ready to dig into their Thanksgiving feast.
I managed to get one shot of all the kiddos sitting at the table together. There were eventually some adults to manage the madness, but they were all so happy to be together.

We managed to get all the great-grandkids, Stella included, to sit on the couch. Of course, in the one I snapped where they're all looking, I had issues with the flash and/or shutter speed. I did some finagling in iPhoto, and this is what I came up with. (I'm sure one of my sisters, or one of aunts who had their iPhones out, has a better one.) I love these kids.

Oh, Yeah, the Birthday Party

So wow, I'm really behind on the blogging. Let's catch up a little. In mid-November, we had Joey's 5th birthday party at the Wildwood Nature Center. Aside from the flood warnings and the tornadoes that touched down down-state, it went off without a hitch.

The kids had a great time eating lunch.

Even Jacob and Cooper had fun listening to the instructors.

After lunch, the kids were able to pet the animals in the center. There was a ferret, turtles, a snake (Joey wouldn't touch that one!) and some guinea pigs. I think Joey loved hugging his friends the best! 

 

After the animals, the kids got to play paleontologist (it was a dinosaur-themed party) and figure out where the fossils fit on the diagram.

 

The next adventure was building an exploding volcano! 

Then it was time for the cupcakes and singing.

I couldn't believe when they all put the party hats on. That just was the icing on the cake for me! (OK, and all the science stuff was great, too.) 

All the Little Children

This weekend was our good friends' daughter's first birthday. We all braved the cold and made it into the city to celebrate. The kids get along so well, it's wonderful. You take off their jackets and shoes, and away they go!

After playing and dinner and cake (of course!) I thought we better get all the kids on the couch before they start melting down. It was perfect, because there was a little one for each of the bigger kids.

Princeton Class of 2024 (if I did the math correctly).