New Year's Eve Christmas and birthday

We love our conglomeration holiday celebrations :) Because of the illnesses of Christmas past, we postponed our celebrations with my parents and sister's family until New Year's Eve. The kids had a wonderful time meeting the newest little addition to my sister's family (keep praying she's forever!) and opening gifts with their cousins/uncles. I love this kind of chaos . . . wrapping paper flying willy nilly, shouts of excitement from every corner of the room, "Look at this!" moments as the kids show each other and their grown-ups what the removal of Christmas paper revealed . . . good times!

After the gift giving was complete (which came after a yummy meal!), we celebrated Caelan's birthday together . . . she insisted we wear the same outfit, although I don't think we got any pics of us together . . . my sister might have, I will have to check her blog again. Grandma J got her the puffy vest and shirt for Christmas and Buck got me one very similar last year. As far as birthday wishes go, this was an easy one to fulfill :)

When it got to her own present-opening time, she took one look at the box Maga handed her and KNEW what was inside . . . her very own Nerf gun to defend herself against the boys :) Just what she asked for!


Mom was brave enough to accept the challenge of watching all the kids so we could take in the Hobbit at a local theater . . . it was SO loud! I haven't been to a movie forever AND can't remember the last thing I saw in 3-D (maybe Beauty and the Beast?) Thanks for the treat, dad!

Look at these fun and crazy kids!

Family pictures are hilarious . . . and now that the kids are getting older, they are actually almost enjoyable! Here is the result of this year's effort (well, technically last year's effort) to capture their cuteness on film (okay on digital, pixel memory :)

Basketball Girls

The ladies of the house wrapped up their first "season" of basketball--with practices during the week and double-header basketball games on the weekends it felt like a whole season! But they loved it and had a great time. Here are some pics from their final games of the season . . . they were on the same team, which made it so much easier (plus it makes me happy when they learn to work together to accomplish a goal regardless the setting :)

Gabby loves to guard!

 Caelan throwing a post! (I can't even do that :)

 Caelan reaching in for a rebound, way to go tall kid! :)

Go, Sisters! :)

Just One Puzzle

We put together my Paris puzzle from last Christmas over break . . . only time for one, but it was fun!