What year is it?

Oy. The last time I posted was last year.  How am I doing ;)

We were in Golden/Boulder over break then came home and things took off!  I'm blessed to be able to go to Denver and kind of turn off my brain. The trouble with that is restarting it when we get back.  Especially when you come home with a cold you can't shake.  

I caught something at the end of our trip. I was totally on the mend but today feels like 1 step back. I'm hoping I can kick this thing this week!  We've got lots going on! 

Mark called a 21 day fast for our church when we got back.  It starts this Saturday.  Mark and I are juice fasting.  This is a first for me (to do it this long). You'll remember Mark's a pro ;)  I started early because of my cousins wedding I will be attending at the end of the fast. I wanted to be able to get back to eating before attending the wedding.  I am on day 4.  I think part of my feeling bad has to do with my body detoxing.  Sadly I didn't put the best stuff in it over the last couple months.... I'm hoping to feel better soon.  In actually excited for the health benefits of juicing!  My body needs a reboot! 

The kids and I started up school this week.  We all loved and needed the break.  We didn't go full on.  We're kind of easing our way back into it.  I seriously love homeschooling! 

Here's a few pictures from our time away.  We had so much fun with aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, grandmas and grandpas. 

This was Christmas morning at our house. 

This was taken at our friend's house.  We've spent the last several Christmas' with them.  They're family!  We played games, ate food, went sledding.  Had a good time. 

Our friend Kim gave Kale a Last Supper Lego set.  He was thrilled to have real disciples! 

This was the beginning of the mountain of presents up in Golden.  We arrived there Thursday night and had Christmas with my family.  7 nieces and nephews create tons of presents! 

Jack got a big Darth Vadar.  Yes.  Yes he did. 

Kate's big present was a bed for her American Girl dolls and matching outfits for them.  She even got extra money to go shopping with her aunties for more clothes.  She doesn't look disappointed does she? 

Lilah saw Kate getting her picture taken and wanted part of the action. 

Kale got a Lego Clone Gunner Ship.  He had another perfect, thrilled reaction to yet another Lego set. 

This little cutie pie was who we got to shop for this year.  She's my brother's daughter Emma. She liked our gifts :)

This is my niece Ashlyn.  And this is her Chandler smile. (Hopefully you've seen Friends and know what I'm talking about)

Some more adorable pictures. 

Aunt Katie and Gavin. 

Gavin with his hat on that I made for him. 

All the babies fascinated with Kate's toy. 

This one is just too hilarious!

Ashlyn, Gavin, Lilah and Emma. Oh and the dog Cutler. 

One night we attempted to see Zoo Lights.  We underestimated the crowd! Our second attempt was successful though. Here's a few pictures from there. 

This is my nephew Gavin.  At first I didn't recognize him. He's usually always smiling! 

The crew looking at elephants. 

Jack, Lilah, Kale and Kate. 

The crew looking at giraffes. 

The whole crew. 

I was supposed to have LASIK surgery that day to correct my right eye (that got over corrected in July) but I had some crazy, freak allergic reaction to who knows what and my eyes swelled.  I decided to skip the surgery...

The second half of our trip we headed to Boulder to hang with the cool kids. 

Kieran 

Sweet Alannah

And um Kale ;) 

We did Christmas with the Palmers on New Years Day. 

Grandpa reading the Christmas story. Doug, Kale and Jack

Julie, Mike, Grandma and Mark

Kate, Alisha and Chad 

The great hat from Aunt Julie and Uncle Mike. 

We only got to spend one day with the Palmer cousins.  :( a little here and there with Allanah as we arrived and left.  They're starting to warm up to us and it's so fun! 

The last night we were there Mark and I weren't feeling well (the start of the awful cold!). We watched Return of the Jedi.  Jack hadn't seen it before and I didn't even think about how he'd react to the movie.  I figured he'd love it.  I think he did but the sweet boy cried when Yoda died and he went and snuggled Kale.  You would've thought that would've clued me in to the final scenes but no.  Still wasn't thinking.  Poor guy had to watch Darth Vadar die and it about sent him over the edge.  Lots of tears then! His favorite character was gone.  Broke his sweet little heart :( 

Especially after he got his own Darth all ready to watch the movie...

If you made it this far you're amazing.  I think I'm all caught up now. 

It's easier

It's easier to get behind on blogging this time of year.  Easier to get caught up in the activities and easier to forget to document them.  That's not necessarily a bad thing.  But in reality I want to remember this stuff too.  So I'll do my best to catch up with pictures I do have. 

Today Mark is gone working on a 12 page final paper.  We had a late night last night with our staff Christmas party.  Uber fun!  So I've got the kids today. A little hungover from the excitement of yesterday.  A tad whiny and a tad bored. I'm resisting putting on yet another Christmas movie until after quiet time.  In the meantime they are asking what they can do.  

Instead of letting them run free I've tried to create things for them to do.  I started with toilet cleaning but Kate was the only one to take me up on that....I moved on to salt dough ornaments (Pinterest to the rescue once again). So I got all excited and starting making the dough. I asked for help but Kate and Jack ran to get paint even though I told them it would be a while till they could 

No matter.  They got into painting paper while I made, rolled and cut salt dough. I had a blast cutting out ornaments (Kale wasn't all that interested either).  Kate and Jack didn't even pause to participate. 

Kale painted mistletoe. 

After I got the ornaments in the oven to bake I said "let's wrap presents!"  Chirp chirp.  That's the crickets chirping. So I wrapped presents and they watched and fought each other with wrapping paper rolls. 

Then came time to decorate the ornaments.  Again, I had a blast by myself. You really can't say I didn't try! 

BUT! They did go into the boys room and create this year's nativity scenes.  Which I love!  And if they don't want to do activities with me then they can have fun together :) 

Here is Kate's: Mary, Joseph, Jesus lying down in the tunnel, the donkey, the white Legos are sheep and the sword is the star. Love it!

And Kale's: the shepherds are wielding guns (clone troopers), as are the wise men (storm troopers), the droids on the roof are the host of angels, and Mary, Joseph and Jesus are inside. Again, I love his creativity. 

And now for a bunch of other random phone-dump pictures to catch you up on this month. 

Our visitor the other morning. Mishka was going nuts! 

We watched this movie.  It's one of my all-time favorites. Such a wonderful portrayal of the whole Christmas story.  Makes me cry every time. 

Mark has been spending a lot of time at the office finishing up his two classes.  We've spent a lot of time doing this.  Like his beard?! 

The kids and I have been finishing up school and baking.  Lots of baking. It helps to keep us all sane.  Here we are doing gingerbread cookies.  They were yummy!  We tried homemade marshmallows but I wasn't impressed.  At all. 

The finished product looks like flowers but they're snowflakes. 

Been wrestling a little...

Sent out our staff Christmas card. We're nerds :) 

But the nice ones are beautiful. 

Silly us. 

We took a family day and went to see Frozen. Loved it!  We also did a little Christmas shopping. The kids bought for each other. They'd been begging me for weeks! 

I'd love to say this was a beautiful, special wonderful day.  But I'd be lying.  It was fun.  There were wonderful moments but I did find myself at one time thinking "we've got one day people! Have fun darn it!"  Nice huh? :)

We've done a little sledding with friends. So thankful for Violet to share her sled with Jack. They were hilarious to watch. 

And this picture is too cute to not share over and over.  His expression says to me "look mom! They have me a big stick!!" 

And there you have it. December in one post!