WALL FAMILY

These are the Valentines we made for Rylee's class...he did most of the work and did a great job!  Rylee is lovestruck!!   They get their lips from their momma!  Kirk and the boys made this one for me!  I love that they made something this year! My Valentine to Kirk...remember doing these??  I hid the candy before I made this poster in my sewing box.  Safe place to hide it right?  No one else would get into my sewing box.  Guess what...Kirk found them in there when he was looking for some thread and ate part of the Big Hunk!!  He found out later why he should not eat the things I hide!

We got the game "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader"  for Christmas and played it one night.  What we learned is that we are NOT smarter than a 5th grader!!  But we did try! There are no pictures of me because I snuck these pictures of everyone else and no one snuck any of me...smart people! (just not as smart as a 5th grader... he he!)

Our Christmas was wonderful!  It would have been nice to see some more family and friends but minus that it was a great holiday for us! At least this year I didn't have to work!    The traditional Christmas Eve roving tree and Santa visit...    Grandpa Gary and Grandma Teri came for dinner and brought presents for the kids.  They loved their presents!!  It was a good evening and the kids really enjoyed their visit. Just before bed the kids opened their Christmas PJ's, which were blue cozy robes. Rylee kept checking out the presents they would get to unwrap the next morning, he was SOO excited! They made cookies and set out cookies and milk for Santa. Then it was Christmas morning!!  The kids woke up really, really early!  They woke up at around 3:30, or at least Dylan did. They waited for Kirk and I to get up and finally decided to wake us up at 6:30 am.  Sounds like they had pati...

Rylee's school Christmas Program.  He's the cute guy in the front row with a black sweater with red/white stripes across the front.  Rylee LOVED the Christmas songs this year, he sings them all the time.  I love that he is so into the holidays! Sorry about the shaky video!     Dylan's band concert. These are the 6th graders. They did such a great job this year and made huge improvements from last year. Dylan is the one that is second on the right playing the trumpet. We are so proud of him for working hard at learning this new instrument. 

We had lots of pictures taken of our Christmas tree so I thought I'd add one here...Tis the season! Here is a little project I came up with because all the cards falling down everywhere was driving me crazy!  It didn't take too long and didn't cost anything since I had everything on hand.  Kinda fun! Rylee made this cute letter with the candycane heart!  It says I love Mom, I love Dad, I love Dylan, I love myself, I love Jordan, I love Rusty....So cute!  And we all love Rylee! Rylee's class had a Christmas Elf party at school.  They were so cute and had fun!  Everything they did was for elves.  They made mini elf barbells (a pretzel stick with marshmallows on the ends) Elf cones (bugle chips with canned cheese squirted into them) Elf trail mix,  and mini milkshakes (made in baby food jar).  What fun!

Dylan is now a Pre-Teen!!  That is how he likes to look at it.  His birthday fell on Thanksgiving this year so he didn't get to do a whole lot to celebrate with friends.  But he did get his presents and a big old dinner and a visit from his Grandma and Grandpa.  He chose to have pie in place of his birthday cake since he was going to have the cake for his party the following weekend and it was Thanksgiving after all!  This is Rylee's present for Dylan which he had just bought at a thrift store for himself just the day before.  But the gesture was sweet and it was so fun to wrap a present for his brother! The weekend after Dylan's birthday we planned a sleepover with some friends.  I didn't get a whole lot of pictures because they spent most of their time down in Dylan's room.  Here are a couple though when they finally surfaced for cake and ice-cream.    The ice-cream we made in ziplock baggies...cute idea but a little messy!...

Dylan and Rylee love to come and help me at my work.  I don't really understand this because they don't like to do things at home but at least I get to see my kids when I wouldn't be able to otherwise. On this day my co-workers son came to work with her too.  The younger kids got to do some dishes while Dylan got to make some coffee and help make cookies.  I was going through the pictures on my phone and I found out what happens when you let your 5 year old play with the phone...he takes LOTS of pictures!  Here are just a couple of the many, many pictures on my phone.   And just in the last couple of days Rylee has really liked to talk on the phone. This all started with when he got one of his friends' phone numbers.  Now I have to really watch him cause he calls and if he doesn't get an answer then he calls again and again.  I think I'm in trouble! On the phone with his friend Kaden!