Sunday, December 31, 2017

Last day of the year

Happy New Year's Eve and goodbye 2017!! Another year flew by and a new one will begin. To keep with my tradition, here's the first and last photos (of the kids) in 2017:



Happy New Year 2018!


And because there wasn't a good place to put this and I didn't want a separate post, here's one last Jake funny:

12/5:
J- "If there's a bad person you can just push them into the fire.:
Me- "Oh gosh, that's awful!"
J- "I know. But that's the best thing you can do to a bad person."
-- after discussing fire safety. Seems I have more explaining to do --

Thursday, December 28, 2017

Will's 10th Birthday!

It happened again. You turned another year older. Overnight. I mean, literally that is what happens, but if feels like just yesterday you turned 9 and 5 and 2 and were born! And now you're 10 YEARS OLD!!!!!!!!!! TEN, Will! You have left the single digit numbers and will only celebrate double digit birthdays from here on out. A decade. How have I been a mom for a decade and how did you grow so fast??!!?!!

Last night as a 9-year-old
I love you, my little man. So much more than I could ever express or you could ever know. Though we have certainly had our ups and downs this year, through it all you've really started to mature and I'm so proud of the boy you are. It does feel like you become more of a gamer with each passing day and now you're really into watching these You Tube videos about playing games (ugh) but that super creative, imaginative Will I've always known and loved peaks through still. And honestly, you are pretty creative in your games as well. I just love watching you express your creativity in other ways. ;) You can really stir the pot with your siblings, you enjoy being an instigator, but very often you come up with fun, creative games for everyone to play. I'm so proud to call you my son, Will, and beyond grateful God chose me to be your mom. You challenge me and push me to be a better mom and better person each day. I love you, happy birthday!!


This year you asked for cake balls so this marks like the 3rd year I haven't made you an actual cake. At least I got to bake you something, though. Last year it was an ice cream cake and I think the year before that just ice cream. You also requested to have friends over to play video games and nerf guns. So we invited your cousins and friends over for a video game tournament and Nerf gun war! You ended up playing laser tag more than Nerf guns, but it was still fun. I've never let you have this many kids sleep over before, but I thought with your 10th, we should go big or go home!
















After lots of pizza (we went through 5 large pizzas!), video games and running around, it was time to get to bed. It was after 10 when we set you all up in the playroom and everyone voted to watch Tron. Several of the boys were awake even after the movie was over. Luke, Taryn & Olivia didn't spend the night and one of your friends came to the party but couldn't sleepover. Everyone else, however, stayed. So we had about a dozen kids here, including ours. This was a lot and I knew it would be, but we knew going into it, this would be a one time thing.

Your dad and I were really proud of how well you managed your company. You did your best to integrate your cousins and friends, include everybody and all around be a good host. You had a great time! Happy 10th birthday, Will!!! I love you so much.

Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Eve was pretty low key for us. We went to the 4pm Christmas Eve service where I sang, then ended up running to IHOP with some friends afterwards. At home, we setup for Christmas morning and got to bed around midnight.

Merry Christmas 2017! As always, we started our morning reading about Jesus' birth from Luke chapter 2 then took our picture on the stairs. The kids had about 4 gifts each to open, so we took things slow and opened them one by one. I got a lot of video, not as many pics.













Christmas blessings from our family to yours!!

Saturday, December 23, 2017

Opryland Lights

We finally made it to Opryland Hotel to see the lights Friday night before Christmas (12/22). The crowds weren't as bad as I was expecting, but I still would've preferred to go earlier in the month. Hopefully we can make that happen next year.

The kids really enjoyed walking around the hotel, seeing all the lights. It was a fun, enjoyable evening even though daddy didn't let us stop at the cute little gingerbread man house to get treats. ;)


 The kids had to pose with the snowman and were calling him Olaf...



 The nativity was so cool and I liked how the lights at the front of the hotel alternated between red & green







Such a fun, pretty night. Now only a couple more days 'til Christmas!!!