Year in Review

January: Abby turns 8

 February: Emmy turns 3

Robb and I become Harper's Godparents

We took Bryce and Caleb skiing in Colorado for the first time.

I made it through the Girl Scout cookie season being the cookie mom. Yikes, it was terrible!

March: Bryce and Caleb finish up their basketball season and this is Robb's last year coaching their team.

We took our first annual girls trip with Addison and Andrea to Kansas City.

April: The kids had their spring concert.

Happy Easter

Abby had her dance recital. 

May: Abby tried out volleyball

Last day of school

Vacation of a Lifetime to Disney World in Florida and also the first time our kids have ever been on a plane.

June: Abby went to Horse Camp

Bryce and Caleb turned 11!

July: Abby and Addison attended Camp Sonshine and even stayed for the overnight. Emmy got to go to camp one day with Abby. She attended siblings camp.

Yankton vacation

August: Bryce and Caleb had their first communion.

The boys take up fishing with friends are and pretty good at it.

 First Day of school and Emmy starts doing preschool at daycare this year. Bryce and Caleb are 5th graders and Abby is a 3rd grader.

This was the year of the Total Solar Eclipse that had so many people excited. I guess it is something that will possibly never happen again in our lifetime. So that is pretty cool.

Sept: Girls Scout overnight camp.

We celebrated 14 years of marriage.

Caleb's poor hamster died and his replacement is double his size and more rat looking.

Bryce and Caleb played tackle football for the first time this year on the Jr. Titans team.

October: The boys have their football banquet and got MVP and most valuable lineman award.

Halloween and trick or treating.

The slime craze started.

Bryce starts Norris basketball on the A team.

 November:I made my first turkey for Thanksgiving at our house and it turned out pretty good!

December: Merry Christmas

Low Key New Years Eve

Bob and Susie had taken the kids and had them for a couple days, so Robb and I went out for dinner on the 30th to Vincenzo's restaurant. We don't go there very often because it isn't very kid friendly but it was fun to have a night out. The only draw back was that all of Nebraska is experiencing record breaking freezing cold weather right now so we just about froze to death walking from the parking garage to the restaurant. They are saying that the temperatures which are reaching -10 and a feel like temp of -30 are some of the most dangerous we have had in a while. 

Since you more of less turn into a Popsicle if you leave the house we opted to stay in for New Years Eve. Bob and Susie brought the kids back and Susie had made chili and we had a fun night of staying in and staying warm. We played cards and board games and then watched Emmy and Abby have a dance party. We turned in before midnight because we are old like that. Ha Ha

Happy New Years from our family to ours! So much has happened this year and it is always exciting and scary to see what the next year will bring. Bring it on 2018 we are ready!

Christmas Morning

Santa made a stop at our house again this year. I guess no one was on the naughty list.

Emmy got her Princess Belle tea cart that she had been hoping for. And the bath bombs that she asked Santa for.

Caleb got a video projector that he had been eyeing.

Abby got a chair to put in her craft room and some fun craft stuff that she was very excited about.

Bryce was still trying to figure out what he got. It was a smart basketball that can hook to your ipad and it gives you feedback on how to improve your game.

I had to grab a quick picture with all the kids. We had a wonderful Christmas and I got to be there for almost all of it. I did work Christmas night but by that time we had celebrated all of our Christmases with family so it wasn't the end of the world going to take care of babies for the night.

Poor Caleb had come into our room at about 2am crying because he was worried that if he was out of bed that Santa couldn't come. Poor guy had a fever and ended up having the flu. He was bummed that he was sick on Christmas but I told him at least it was just the day that we were staying home. All the fun stuff was done anyway. I napped for the afternoon so I could work that night and I think Robb and the kids had a pretty low key day also.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve and Christmas were my holiday to work this year, and that had everyone especially me pretty bummed. We had planned around it but when the NICU wasn't busy and I got to be on call on Christmas Eve, I was very excited! I still took a nap in the afternoon because it is inevitable that you will get called in if you don't sleep at all but this meant I got to go to church with the family for Christmas Eve.

We opened gifts in the afternoon so that the kids would have all day to play. Emmy got a veterinarian cart to play vet with her animals. She also got Spirit, the horse, that ate pretend carrots, troll headphones, craft stuff and lots of other little things.

Bryce and Caleb both got Chromebook computers this year. They use these at school to do all their homework on and take tests on so it will be nice that they will have them at home to use now too. Bryce also got some basketball clothes and a new bag for basketball.

All the kids were very thoughtful with their gifts this year and we got fun stuff from everyone. They had made gifts at school and also used some of their own money at Target to purchase family gifts.

Caleb got a Chromebook like Bryce and he also got this football blocking sled that Robb had made. You can add weight and it will help him practice for football next year. He also got a remote control helicopter and a couple other things.

Abby probably got the coolest gift of all and the boys were in on it. She loves to craft and she has a ton of craft stuff but she doesn't have a good place to keep it all. Robb and I had been talking about what to do with this area of the storage room after I got it all cleaned out. Robb wanted a weight room but he doesn't lift weights and I wanted a craft room but lets be honest, when do I have time to craft. We decided that Abby would put that space to good use. Robb built a big L shaped desk and storage shelves and I spent time organizing the craft stuff she already had and buying some fun organizational things to make it cute. She was beyond excited and in love with it. Emmy was having a hard time being happy for her though because she wanted her own craft room.

I love this picture because it is a rare moment that Emmy will give any of the boys in our house a hug.

We went to the 6:00 service and it was wonderful as usual. Each year I hope that the kids will keep getting a little easier and easier to have in church but everyone was tired and Bryce all of the sudden had the runniest nose humanly possible and he made a huge deal about it. Caleb complained that he didn't feel good and he was correct. He ended up sick on Christmas Day. Abby was tired and had a headache and Emmy was her usual distracting self. 

We headed home and worked on getting everyone to bed. We set our special cookies for Santa, told our elves goodbye and read the Christmas story before we headed to bed.