More to Come

This year has been exciting and eventful as every year is. Stay tuned, next year will continue to be interesting as we build our new house, move, have school changes, job changes etc. The one thing that won't change is that we are a crazy and fun family who will never have it all together but together we will have it all. Or lets at least hope we can hold it all together!

 Goodbye 2015, Welcome 2016!

Christmas with Mom and Dad

Christmas was a little different this year. Dad and Cindy were in Arizona visiting Grandma Mona and Mom went to Grandma and Grandpa Walnofer's for Christmas so we decided to have a mini get together at Steph's on the day after Christmas and we had a Christmas at our house in January.

It was nice to get to see family for Christmas even if it was very laid back day. The kids got to play with Draven and we got to chat. Emmy and Abby had fun playing with Vinny.

Mom and the kids on Christmas Day

 

Emmy calls her Aunt Tef and is obsessed with her!

It was interesting getting ready for  a Christmas at our house after the kids brought home millions of new toys but it's our family I guess they were alright with our house being crowded and cluttered. Robb made stuffed pork loin and we had lots of other delicious food. It was a houseful with Mom, Dad and Cindy, Mitch, Courtney and Weston, Steph, Jon and Draven, Jess, Chris, Luke and Jace.

 

Dad and Cindy with all the grandkids.

Mom and all the grandkids.

All the kids had a great time opening gifts and our entire living room was full of paper flying everywhere.

Steph got Emmy a carebear. A toy from our childhood.

Steph and her pillowcase that she makes the kids every year.

Caleb was thrilled with his new watch.

Mitch, Courtney and Weston.

Christmas with the Lutz's

We headed to Norfolk on Christmas night. We had woke up to a dusting of snow but as we got closer to Norfolk it started snowing incredibly hard. It was probably some of the worst unplanned weather we have drove in in a long time. Thankfully we made it to Norfolk safely. The kids were excited to see Grandma and Grandpa and of course Santa had stopped at their house and left stocking stuffers for the kids and us.

We celebrated Christmas on Saturday. Ginger, Aaron and the kids were there and Grammy also got to come. Emmy was a little overwhelmed again so she found her spot next to grammy and stayed there throughout present opening.

Andy looks so huge next to Abby! The girls both got their new charms from Andy.

Abby got a camera. She was SO excited. From that point on she took pictures of everything and everyone and about a million selfies of her and Emmy.

 

Emmy's all time favorite Christmas gift was this giant white bear that Ginger and Aaron got for her. She decided to name him Bop. Random but it stuck.

Caleb got his air soft gun . Now this kid has more weapons than he should ever need!

Bryce also got an air soft gun. Now they can shoot at each other I guess.

Grammy Hanson made all the kids robes. They all looked so cute in them! It's so neat that she picks something to make for all the kids each year,

It is always fun to come back to Norfolk and spend Christmas with our families. I feel bad that I didn't get any pictures of Bob and Susie and the kids.

Christmas Day

The kids got up bright and early because they were so excited about seeing if Santa had come overnight. The girls were thrilled to see that Santa had brought them a power wheels car. Emerson was thrilled to be the passenger and Abby was more than happy to drive her around.

 

Bryce got his Kevin Durant shoes. He was pretty excited. We had asked him over and over again to make sure that he would be alright not getting toys and he said that he still wanted shoes. We were happy that he was excited!

Caleb got a bow and arrow. He was excited to see that he had got what he asked for. It was a successful Santa year and no one got coal.

Emmy was excited to see that she got a monkey in her stocking. This monkey showed an alarming resemblance to the monkey in the movie Outbreak so we fondly refer to it as outbreak monkey.

Caleb proudly holding his weapons.

We woke up to a white Christmas which was a very exciting surprise. We had the entire day to play with all of our new toys so we got all bundled up and went outside to play with the new cars. Emerson wasn't too sure about the snow.

 

I thought this was too funny. We have a trailer full of kid cars.

We probably broke multiple rules but we went to the school and let the kids drive around. Emmy was fine once she was in the car. Abby had a blast and was a super crazy driver!

Us girls only made it about 30 min and we were too cold but the boys are stuck it out for a couple of hours.

Caleb loved driving and Bryce seemed nervous too drive and Caleb was a terrible backseat driver.

They had a good time driving and doing cookies all over the playground. We had fun playing in the snow and then we packed up to drive to Norfolk to spend Christmas with our families.

 

Family Christmas

I had to work on Christmas Eve but I got home around noon. The kids were so excited to open gifts and Robb and I were really excited to watch them open their gifts.

Abby was thrilled to get a caboodle filled with makeup.

Caleb wanted shoes. I guess they really are growing up. The boys wanted shoes and clothes this year.

Bryce also got a pair of basketball shoes.

Emerson was a little overwhelmed with the whole thing. She was more interested in watching what everyone got than opening her gifts. This drove the kids crazy because at the end of opening gifts Emmy still had 4-5 things that she wasn't interested in opening.

We got the Pie Face game as a family. It should make for an entertaining game night.

Emmy looking sleepy during present time.

Bryce and Caleb got a zip line to use off of the deck in the new house. They were pretty excited. As you can tell from the boys gifts I lost the battle this year on getting items that aren't going to harm the kids.

 

Robb approached me about getting the boys a "real" go-kart months before Christmas. I initially said no but I could tell that he really had his heart set on it so against my better and safer judgment I finally gave in! Robb was so excited! He spent a lot of time on craigslist and online looking for the perfect one. He finally found what he wanted around Thanksgiving and lucky for us we have the lake house garage that we can secretly store LARGE Christmas gifts for a month. We let them ride it up and down the street a couple times.

Abby got a new bike. She was thrilled with her rainbow color bike. She got so tall over the last year that she had completely outgrown her other one. Too bad that it will be cold for the next 3 months but she will enjoy it this summer.

We didn't forget Lucy. She got a blanket and lots of her own toys to destroy. I'm sure it won't stop her from destroying all of our stuff too.

Later that evening Emmy was ready to open more gifts. When she had Robb and my undivided attention she had fun opening more gifts and playing with her veterinary set.

Oh course Christmas Eve would not be complete without attending Christmas Eve service. As we learned last year, our church fills up very fast for all the Christmas Eve services so you have to get there very early. We arrived early and Robb walked around with Emerson so she wouldn't get too out of hand before the service even started. The big kids sat with me and we had our second glitter dress fiasco. Susie always makes the girls Christmas dresses and this is the second time now that we have chose fabric that is glittery and sheds glitter literally everywhere you go. By the time service was about to start Robb and Emmy headed back to sit with us and Robb was covered in glitter from carrying her and our seats and floor were covered in glitter from Abby moving around. It really was such a mess that it was comical! The service was beautiful and had some wonderful music. Mya, the girl that had been helping watch the kids over Christmas break was one of the singers so the kids really enjoyed the music. As our life goes lately, Emmy was restless and a pill in church so I split my time sitting with the family and juggling her as she climbed on me like a monkey and the other half I spent in the café area since she was crying or on the verge of a fit.

After church we went home and got things ready for Santa. The cookies were all put on the plate with care. The carrots were laid out in hopes that St Nicholas would soon be there. Robb read the Christmas story and we got all the kids tucked in tight knowing that it would be an early morning and a late night.

 

Seeing Santa

The kids have been writing out list for Santa and have been teaching Emmy all about who the bearded guy is and why she should love him. They have convinced her that sitting on Santa's lap will be really exciting. I was thinking she would be crying before she was even out of my arms but instead she thought Santa was great and was happy to sit on his lap. To make things even better he had reindeer with him.

Caleb asked for a bow and arrow.

Bryce asked for Kevin Durant shoes.

Abby brought her list. She asked for a Power Wheels car and craft supplies.

It was fun seeing all the kids talk to Santa. They can't wait for him to come!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

Since we were in town and didn't have any plans the weekend after Thanksgiving we got our tree early. We debated about if we should go to the Christmas tree farm or go to our trusty flower shop to get the tree. After some discussion we decided why make things hard. The flower shop has beautiful trees, it's close to our house and usually they don't have many big trees so our decision on which tree is easy. As expected they only had a couple 9 ft trees so we picked our favorite and we were off to decorate it. This year with the addition of a trailer, getting the tree home was much easier than it usually is.

The tree was much bigger around than we thought, so our usual spot didn't work. We still found a spot for it.

As always the kids had fun unpacking all of the ornaments and looking for their favorites. As you can tell from the dance costume, it took us a couple of days to get the tree up, lights on it and decorations unpacked so it was Tues night by the time we were actually getting around to decorating. Sometimes things take awhile to accomplish in our house lately.

This year Emerson was pretty excited and curious about having a tree in our living room. She had fun putting a couple of ornaments on but she had more fun taking them off and showing us the pretty ones. By about a week in our Christmas tree was undecorated from about 3 feet down and over decorated the rest of the way up.

The boys were finally good at spreading the ornaments out evenly but between Emerson and Lucy the ornaments got rearranged on a daily basis.

Our tree ended up beautiful! I love unpacking all the ornaments and looking at the ones we have gotten throughout the years.

It was Bryce's turn to put the star on top. This is my photo proof so I know who's turn it is next year.

Emerson loved looking at all the ornaments and saying "petty petty".