Christmas Tree Hunt 2016

On November 28th we headed out to the Family Farm with Nonnie, Poppie, Mimi, Uncle Cheese and Dodie to pick out our Christmas tree! We've been going to this farm for a couple years now and love how you pay by donation and the money goes to help feed third world countries. Plus, they have a cute cow barn with cows to feed and an amazing slide which you have to climb the hay bales to get to.

We were going to meet up with some families, but filled up the wagon just about with our family alone, so we headed out to the tree fields and met up with friends when they got there later.

The tree hunt picture was a lovely family picture!

The tree hunt was on! The kids took off in different directions all searching for the perfect tree. Some Berg and Pella chose very tiny trees and Jasper picked a huge one. We marked our perfect tree with our hats.

Some cute kids we found among the trees.

All the kids helped Dada chop it down and we took a picture with our tree. Then we rode the wagon back got some hot cocoa and treats, said hello to our friends and then headed home for Pella's birthday party!

Baby Bear's First Birthday

Tuff's belly name was Baby Bear, so for his first birthday we decided to give hime a Bear Party on his actual birthday!

We decorated in green, red and browns and put up chalkboard signs, burlap, and painted trees and bears in all the windows. The chili was hot and cornbread muffins were ready to eat as guests arrived.

We made up an involved game, which Tuffy didn't even play, but all the other kids were great sports. The kids got in teams of two and were the Papa and Mama bear and had to find their bear cubs, a bag of gummy bears. But first they had to get food; berries (a bag of raspberry cookies), an insect (plastic toy bug) and fish (Swedish red fish). Jasper and Grace found their bear cubs the fastest. Before the game, I had to hide all of the items all over the house, which took a while so Dada led all the kids in the longest version of "Going on a Bear Hunt". It was hilarious.

Everyone who came to love our Baby Bear.

Then it was cake time!

Tuff was definitely our best one year old cake eater. I think he ate half the cake!

Tuffy's second "kissing picture"!

Happy Birthday Tuffy! You are so loved. Your brothers and sisters all race to you and bargain with each other over who can hold you and feed you and clean you up. During your first year of life, we moved, so you will never know the Lake Louise house. You had to transition to formula from breast milk at 7 months because of Baby Thumper and it took you a while to make the switch. You hardly ate any baby food, because you love to feed yourself you've mainly eaten tiny bite sized pieces of whatever we are eating. You love "Itsy, Bitsy Spider" and other songs with motions. You love music and bouncing your body up and down is your dance. You can sit. You don't crawl or say any words yet. You love people and to show off in front of others. You love to get your brothers and sister to do whatever you are doing. Usually, hitting the table and then lifting your arms up and yelling. We are so happy to have you in our family and know you will do great things with your life to glorify the Lord! We love you, Tuff!

House Changes

The beginning of Nov. we painted the dining room and finished taking all the carpet out of the dining room and kitchen on the16th of Nov. This red tile will one day be slate (probably) but for now, it's better than super dirty carpet.

Our new table (from Restoration Hardware which I love, love, love!) was delivered on the 17th.

And while Nonnie was painting away in the bathrooms, Poppie and Dada were busy installing lighting in the living room! This house is coming along!

Eben's Maker Birthday!

Eben really wanted a Maker Party for his 12th birthday, and we found out that on the 7th of November Barnes and Noble was hosting a Maker Fair, so it seemed like the perfect combo. Plus, we were already behind in throwing him a party. The boys all came over and ate chips, Wendy's hamburgers and soda. That's what the boy wanted. We decorated in purple (his favorite color, see his shirt) and Eben set up some squishy circuits that we borrowed from computer clubhouse.

After they all ate, we headed to Lakewood Town Center for the fair. Really it ended up being more of some demonstrations, but this is also Eben's favorite store, so it was ok. We saw and participated in the demos (after begging the guy, apparently they thought they were done for the day) then looked around at fun games, toys and books. There were a couple of cool robots.

When we arrived back home, we found out that Dada had been hard at work ripping out the carpet in the kitchen!! Who puts carpet in a kitchen? It was so dirty and gross. Now we have gross looking red tile! Much better. (It looks dirty because of all the carpet glue.)

 We kissed our big 12 year old boy.

We sang him happy birthday and ate his birthday brownies, which I think he has chosen for two years in a row now, and then we watched him open some very great techy/Legoey presents.

Eben, you amaze us all the time. You are super creative, funny, responsible, witty, original, kind, helpful and cute. I can say you are cute even though you are twelve, because amazingly, you don't get embarrassed! You are very confident. You love computer clubhouse, computer games, wii, Studio C videos, anything on the computer actually and books. You are super helpful with your siblings, they love you and look up to you so much and you love your brothers and sisters, especially Tuff right now because he's the baby, and you love babies. You always have - good thing, you've been around a lot of babies in your life. You serve at church in Promiseland on the Serve Team and in Awana on the Serve Team and serve on the Adult Tech Team on Sundays. You are a great servant and are so quick to drop what you're doing and obey or help out when asked. We know God will bless you and use your servant's heart for His glory for His kingdom. Happy 12th, Cutie EbenMan!

Snow White and the Harvest Carnival

This year I made a deal with the kids for Harvest Carnival. Usually the kids choose the theme that we will all dress up as and I work hard to get everyone's costumes put together so we can go to the Harvest Carnival at our church as a dressed up family unit. But this year was the only year we would have 7 children in our family for Oct. 31st, so they agreed to be the seven dwarves from Snow White. I told them we would make it even funnier and they would look like real dwarves if Dada was Snow White! They were excited about that one and Dada said yes to our little plan. They all chose which Dwarf they would be and miraculously they all wanted to be a different one!

They all made the cutest little dwarves and wore their beards and pouchy bellies happily, but Dada, of course, was the fairest of them all.

A sweet young couple in our church, who are now in our young marrieds group, dressed up as our family next to the carnival booth that they ran. They taped clothes on the wall with balloons as heads and rocks as faces and dressed up as Peter and I. It was the best thing of the night! So hilarious!

So we started our evening at their booth and went around the room playing the cute carnival games, getting our badges marked off, posing for random pictures and getting candy.

Seeing all of our friends dressed up in their costumes is a highlight, too!

The Rest of October 2015!

Eben turned 12 on Oct. 20th! Even though were weren't having his party yet we took him out for Red Robin burgers for lunch. He got a sundae and a birthday song!

Later that night we went out for milkshakes at Herfy's Burgers because Berg had finished his next Phonics reading box. Everyone chose a partner and a flavor and some milkshakes still didn't get finished!

On Oct. 23rd Tuffy decided to learn how to climb stairs, which is a good thing since we have many stairs in this house. These stairs in the hallway are actually very good little stairs to practice on because he can't fall very far.

Oct. 24 we went to our free pumpkin joint - the Lakewood fire department!

We didn't carve them until Oct. 28th because we've made that mistake before and they get all moldy. This time it was just the little five as Eben and Kivi chose to go to youth group at church instead of carve. Everyone worked really hard at cleaning out their pumpkin and then lost motivation for actually carving faces on them. Tuff loved how the inside of the pumpkin felt and just kept trying to eat his.  Then the kids made up a cute little tune to sing to him to get him dancing and it went on forever. They all stopped scooping and just danced to their little song. Except Berg, he was very determined to finish.

Jasper's Building Birthday!

Jasper's birthday is on September 20th. We were actually living with our friends the Millers at the time. So poor Bubba had to wait a while, all the way until Oct. 17th, so that we could get our act together to have his party. Eben's birthday is on October 20th so we thought ready or not, we better have this party before we get all backed up in the birthday process! The good thing is that he chose a building themed party and we just happened to have a gazillion boxes!

The first game we played was a team challenge to see who could build the best building out of their materials. Blocks, logs, stick blocks or Legos. The parents judged and decided that the stick team won.

We got our group photo and ate lunch; "build your own" cashew butter and jelly sandwiches for the kids and soup for the adults.

Then we let the kids loose for some big box building in the newly finished basement. They ended up making a fort where they all had their own "houses" in the walls. Even Tuff got his own box house.

Next we played a game we had played at camp a few years ago where one team tries to build a wall and the other team tries to knock it down. The girl team built their wall faster and won.

We kissed the birthday boy, sung him "Happy birthday" and ate delicious cobbler. 

We played one more game where I hid candy all over and inside the kids' fort (they had built another one) and they mad dashed to find it all. Kind of like a piñata, but it didn't take as long, and no one got to hit anything.  

Jasper opened his presents and felt loved. It was a good day!

Jasper you are such a joy to have in this family. You are encouraging, exciting and eager to do most anything. You do love to build. There is no material you cannot build with. You are Mr. Outgoing and have tons of friends because you make everyone feel like your best friend. You are amazing at math, working hard at reading and spelling and probably wish that drumming and dance were school subjects. You are very precise about certain things, your bed has to be made before you sleep in it. You like a certain order. You cannot be distracted from a task once you begin it. You love doing cartwheels (to your brother's dismay), shorts, and Arnold (your hair). You are still loud, but we don't care, because your so super cute. We love you! We love how you love others and love God and can't wait to see what you build for Him out of your life. Happy 9th Birthday, Bubba!