Tree Decorating

Every year I lose more and more helpers for Christmas decorating. Emmy is about the only one that still looks forward to it. Everyone else knows that it is a lot of work and a lot of hauling boxes up and down the stairs. I will say, I don't really look forward to decorating but I love when the house is all done being decorated and it feels Christmassy in the house. I also like unwrapping the ornaments for the tree and looking at them.

Scout looks like she is exhausted from decorating! She likes the idea of having a tree in the house. Her and Lucy are always intrigued by us setting up the tree. 

The two crazy elves helped decorate the tree. It looked great! 

Every single year there is drama with the lights. I promise that the lights all looked the same in person but in the pictures the bottom lights look weird.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care.

Emmy is the only one that is small enough to be lifted up to put the star up now. She is fine with that!

 

Black Friday Shoppers

Abby and Emmy spent Thanksgiving night at Brooks new house watching the new Wednesday show. They were really excited to spend the night with Brook. In the morning the plan was to hit a few of the smaller downtown shops for Black Friday shopping. By the time that I had met them downtown, the girls already had cut matching hats and had stopped at the coffee shop for coffee. They were hoping to see Draven there, but he was sick that morning. 

Brook had Emmy looking like a tiny 16-year-old in ripped jeans and cute tops.

Abby and Emmy tried on clothes at the Buckle. Brook works at the Buckle so she helped them pick some cute things and then we knew what they liked and what fit so Susie and I could buy them as gifts later.

Brook found her dress for Winter Royalty. She looked beautiful in this color. But let's be honest, she looked stunning in all the dresses she tried on. She just had to pick which one she liked the most.

 

Thanksgiving 2022

Happy Thanksgiving. It has been 2 years since I have got to spend Thanksgiving with extended family. Two years ago, was Covid and last year Abby and I were both sick, so this year we were excited to see everyone. We had lunch at moms. We had way too much delicious food and ate until everyone felt miserable. Later that evening we went to Lutz's and had appetizers, soup and desserts. It is always good to have a relaxing weekend back in Norfolk.

These 2 always have a great time together. I am glad that all the kids have cousins that are close in age to them. 

 

Deer Hunting 2022

Last year Caleb didn't get a deer, so he was excited to get out there this year! He was excited to use Grandpa Steve's gun which is the gun he shot his first deer with. We had made plans for him to go to Norfolk and then Lester and him would head to Orchard to hunt at Grandpa Jim's land. Lester had been scoping out the area and had seen a lot of deer, so they were both excited. We had even planned to get him to Norfolk for both weekends of rifle season, so he had plenty of opportunities to get one. We went online to buy his permit Saturday morning and there were no permits left! We felt horrible. I guess since we aren't hunters, we didn't know that they had drastically reduced the permits that they were giving out this year due to a deer disease that decreased the population. Between talking to Lester and searching everything we could online we came to the sad conclusion that the only permit he could get for the area of Grandpa Jim's land was a doe permit. As you can imagine Caleb was pretty upset about the entire situation. After discussing it he decided that what he really wanted out of it was deer sticks so buck or doe it didn't really matter. Lester and him went to Orchard on Saturday the first day of rifle hunting and scoped out their spot and waited. It was getting pretty dark, and we hadn't heard anything, so we assumed that he didn't get one that night. A little after sundown we got the text that he got a good-sized doe, and his shot was great because they didn't have to track it at all it went down right there. Nice work Caleb!

They got it field dressed and loaded in the truck. After church on Sunday Caleb called and told me to get his deer checked in online. The website wasn't working, and I thought maybe it was overloaded with people. Nope! As it turns out you now have to check your deer in at a check station in person. Well, the problem with that was that Lester and Caleb had already started to debone it and had it cut up pretty good. Again, not a hunter but I guess this is very problematic and you can get in a lot of trouble. Lester and Caleb took the cooler of meat, trash bags of deer parts and the head and begged for forgiveness at the checkpoint. Turns out this was on the permit, but guys don't read directions. They thanked them for being honest and it all turned out fine. Caleb and Lester got the deer taken to the locker and Caleb decided to pay for the processing because we told him if we paid for it, he had to share the meat. He really wants that jerky and those deer sticks! Since we obviously know nothing about hunting, we are super thankful that Caleb has an uncle that is willing to take him to do this! Thanks again Lester!

 

Our Life

If I could pick one picture to sum up our lives, it would be this one! With 4 kid's things are hectic, messy, busy, loud, chaotic, expensive, unpredictable and so much fun. Most of the time! They are forever picking on each other, in each other's space, trying to get someone to stop doing something, teasing or picking on each other. I love that the wedding sign Happily Ever After is behind them. I would like to think that there is a lot to be learned by living in a large family even if somedays it feels like I didn't have enough time to give to anyone. They learn tolerance, problem solving, independence, getting along, and how to be a family. So, as we go through our days that seem a bit too much to handle somedays, I will remember Happily Ever After. 

 

Sophomore Winter Formal 2022

Bryce and Caleb went to Winter Formal this year. They are always last-minute kind of guys on deciding plans, so Caleb had finally made his final decision to go just a week and a half beforehand. I had already been out shopping with Bryce and Bree for his outfit and I knew that the stores were picked over on mens formal clothing. Bryce had ended up finding a black slim fit suit that looked really nice on him and he went with a blue shirt and bow tie to match Bree's dress. Caleb wanted to do a suit also. We went to Kohls and found a jacket that fit him which is not easy since he needs a long. They didn't have the matching pants though, but they were available online, so we ordered those. We were feeling pretty accomplished about having out shopping done. Until a couple days later when the pants came, and they weren't the correct ones to go with that jacket. I panicked a little because we were now at 4 days until the dance. I had commitments the next 2 nights, so I sent Caleb to Emsuds (the men's clothing store where they are amazing), I told him to ask for the cheapest suit they had. He returned 30 minutes later, and he had picked out a suit, by himself! The pants had to be hemmed, it's tough to find pants that are a 32x36, so he had to pick it up on Thursday before the dance. I was so relieved that it didn't even matter that it was more expensive. Both boys looked so nice! They clean up pretty good. 

Caleb had to make sure that everyone knew he was the taller brother. 

Bryce has a girlfriend now which is a whole new thing to our lives! It seems so weird and yet Robb and I met when we were a year older and got married eventually. Her name is Bree and she is really sweet. They are both crazy about basketball and that's how their friendship started was by shooting hoops at the Y. She has been over to our house a handful of times and Bryce is over at her house a lot too. 

They looked so nice together. They both like cool shoes so they wore their Jordans instead of dress shoes. That was a brilliant move on Bree's part because heels are brutal. Bryce even remembered that he needed to buy her a flower and told me what to order. 

I had contacted Nancy, that owns the wedding barn across the street to see if we could do pictures there. The original plan was to do outdoor pictures, but the night was freezing, and it gets dark so early that using the wedding barn was perfect!

Is it even a get together unless someone gets picked up for a picture. Bryce was voted easiest to pick up. Left to Right (CJ, Brody, Caleb, Noah)

Bryce and Bree went as a couple and there was one other couple that went with this group, otherwise it was just a group of friends. They all seemed like great kids, and it was funny to hear them banter back and forth with each other. 

These boys are going to pass us both up in height!

They have already passed up grandma and grandpa. Thanks Bob and Susie for helping me as I frantically tried to pull together snacks, drinks and clean our house to host the boys while they were getting dressed up. I guess I should just know to prepare for the unexpected because they aren't great at making plans much before the plans are actually starting. As Susie reminded me, they are only this age once. Make the most of it. Keeping that in mind we let them stay out until 2am at the after party at Claire's house and then they had the guys sleep over at our house. 

 

Emmy's 3rd Grade Concert

Emerson had her 3rd grade concert tonight. She looked beautiful in her dress, and she let Abby curl her hair. We had to do some convincing to get her to wear a dress but shopping with Grandma Jody helped the situation. 

Her and her friends all looked adorable all dressed up.

Emmy, Kenzley and Mikayla

Olivia and Emmy

They did such a good job on the concert! We found out tonight that they have 233 kids in the 3rd grade class. If they get any more kids, I don't think they could fit them on stage. It was tight!

 

3 on 3 Basketball

For 3rd graders this year at Norris they offered girls bball but it was 2 practices a week and out of town tournaments. Emmy wasn't sure she was that in to playing basketball, but Robb was able to convince her to play 3 on 3 like she did last year. She was a bit reluctant at first (Emmy is a home body and anytime she is signed up for it she has regrets that she doesn't get to stay home) but the commitment was low with 1 practice a week and 6 weeks of games. She ended up loving basketball! This little team was fun to watch. It went from Robb having to remind them to take it to the top each new possession to our girls getting a few fouls for trying to get the ball away from the other team by reaching. As the other parents often said, "Emmy is scrappy'. She isn't afraid to get in there and once she is after something you can see her concentration on getting that ball. She has Bryce's ball handling skills and Caleb's scrappiness. We may have a pretty awesome ball player on our hands. After this season was over, they all enjoyed it so much that they signed up for regular basketball. It will be fun to see how they improve as the season goes on. Bryce and Bree even came to the last game to support her. She thought that was pretty cool!

Leigha, Emmy, Olivia, Kenzley

This is the last year that they get the lowered hoops. Next year will be a learning curve with regular height hoops!

Robb always lets them pick their team's name. This year they decided they wanted to be the Black Labs. Needless to say, it was a little embarrassing yelling go black labs, so Robb convinced them to change it to puppies. Still odd but at least not as bad!

 

Turkey Disguise Project

Every kid in our house has now done the turkey disguise project. This and the Santa suit one are my favorites. Emmy decided to disguise her turkey as a peacock. Abby helped her with the idea and all three of us got to help with making it. I was the glue gun person. It turned out adorable and Emmy was really proud of it!

 

State Volleyball

Norris made it to State Volleyball and Robb had taken the kids to watch the first game on Wednesday. Norris had won that game and now played Omaha Skutt which is a team that they have went up against the last 2 years and lost. The game started almost 2 hours late so Emmy and her friends were pretty wired when it started. I think we got a glimpse of them as high schoolers and it was a little frightening. These 3 third grade girls had about as much school spirit as the kids sitting in the high school student section. Originally, they were sitting behind us, but I told them that they were going to make my ears bleed and I had them move to in front of us. The game was a super close one and it was neck and neck until the end. It was a very exciting game to watch but also a very stressful game to watch. Norris lost in the 4th set that went 32-30. Mom had come up so spend a couple days with us, so we drug her to all this craziness too.