Monday, January 3, 2022

Christmas 2021

Christmas 2021 was wonderful!  The kids are all at such fun ages, and I treasure all the sweet moments and hypotheses about Santa throughout the season.

Merry Christmas!
Snazzy in our PJs from Grandma and Grandpa

We took our annual trip to Frankenmuth before Christmas Eve, and did our usual visits to Bavarian's pools and arcade, along with a car-ride tour of Christmas lights (where we got lost in the outskirts of Frankenmuth a few times!), and we opted to get the "chicken dinner" takeout in our room.  We tried to avoid the big crowds and thankfully got some time in the top-secret pool that most people overlook!  The next day we went to Bronner's and got some fun ornaments before heading home!

Still no Santa at Bronner's because of COVID, so here's
another lame photo with a statue.  Ben is unimpressed.

Annual throne photo

Acrobatics in the hotel room

Ben and Evie fighting over who gets to "drive"

Ride or die - don't mess

Roller-coaster simulation, they really enjoyed it!

Sometimes you gotta kill some space aliens

Attempting to take on Daddy in air hockey...

Top secret pool for the win!

We all prefer the hot tub!


On Christmas Eve we did church and spaghetti, got out goodies ready for Santa, and took showers before the big day!

Carrots and cookies and eggnog for Santa!

Getting ready for bed

Maggie's note for Santa

Christmas morning was just perfect!  The kids were so tired that they "slept in" until 7:30 - this is big, they normally start stirring at 6am!  We opened lots of great presents downstairs and hung out.  My parents came over later in the morning for a yummy brunch and some more presents - I really loved getting to see them on Christmas!  Christmas morning in the new house was definitely a success, and felt "like home."

Action shot

We got Ben a gardening set with his own wheelbarrow
and watering can - he'll have fun this summer!

Annual Christmas ornament from Jamie
(AP Bio, if you know, you know)

My ornament for Jamie - note the amazing hand-made bow!
(Squid Game - this is a coffin.  I went dark this year).

Maggie's gift for Jamie - an artist dinosaur

One of Ben's favorite toys - his own vacuum!

Love that my parents came in PJs too!

Aww, love these two!

In the afternoon we went to the Donoghues for presents and family time.  The cousins are so happy playing together, everyone was in pajamas, and it was just a really relaxing day. Everything was great, and I think my favorite part was holding my new niece Jane (more on that below)!

Look at all these beautiful grandkids!

The family

Ben always feels the need to cuddle with me
if I'm holding baby Jane

Family selfie!

Other news that I'm late in posting!  Amy and Rex welcomed beautiful Jane Noelle earlier in December and she is just an adorable little peanut of smooshy love!  The kids were super excited to hold her (for like a minute)!

Evie got to be the first one to hold her,
because she "never gets to be first!"

Wisely wary

Not impressed with Maggie's stories

Ben "holding" Jane, he was very loving and gentle

Some others:
Jamie designed this ornament for all Royal Oak residents and got a lot
of laughs on Facebook... Caracals and garbage cans. Not going to try to explain further.

Making hamburger cookies for Jamie's co-workers

These two

Finished a pretty complicated Lego set!
(so far no one has "blipped", seems we are safe)

Grammer watched the girls for a couple days during their break
when we had to work - even made and decorated cookies!

A date with my girls!

Bobby is old!

Mixie Magic fun

Dump truck, stacking all that garbage

Working on painting the Avengers canvas with Daddy

Looking good, Maggie!

This stud knows how to ring in the new year
(peacefully asleep!)

Got some good snow this weekend!

Ugh, Christmas is over, so much to clean!


Saturday, December 11, 2021

Happy Birthday, Maggie!

Our marvelous Maggie is 9 years old!  Time has flown!

9 years old!

Maggie continues to be a very kind and genuine person, loves to read, bake and do art projects (especially her comic books), is an awesome big sister and the family's pep-talker.  We love her and are so proud of the young lady she's become!

Since we moved in Maggie has been asking Jamie to paint her an Avengers mural on her wall, and she also complains that it's too hard to draw her comics in her room.  So we got her a desk for her birthday, and Jamie did some amazing art work for the room!

Maggie's favorite avenger, Scarlet Witch - started like this

Finished product! (and a psyched kid)

He added LED lights on the back... pretty sweet

Big Avengers canvas that Jamie plans to paint alongside Maggie

Maggie is always asking if she can sleep in our bed for the night, so we pretended like we were being extra nice and let her sleep with me the night before her birthday.  Jamie then proceeded to set up her room until like 3am... he's such a good Dad!

I delivered pancakes in bed as requested, and Evie and Ben got a kick of it too.  Maggie didn't have school on her birthday due to the Oxford shooting incident, and she was bummed.  Jamie stayed home with her and Evie and took her to see Ghostbusters which she loved!  Afterward we had a soccer game where her team sang to her, and then rushed home to start her sleepover with two new buddies from school.  I convinced her not to have a party now, but said we'll have a big pool party in the summer with all her friends to make up for it!

Breakfast in (my) bed...
there are strawberry stains on my sheets, sigh.
\
Post game review

Evie got to have a friend sleepover as well (mostly to keep her out of Maggie's hair for the night)!  We did a "Nailed It" challenge since that's one of Maggie's favorite shows.  I gave them some monster cake examples to replicate... they had a really fun time working on them and were very proud of their results.  

Hard at work
\
Evie and her friend were judges...
but I let them play with cupcakes and frosting too

This was the goal...
\
Nailed it!

I love the lips

We went through like 5 cupcakes, but eventually
ended up with this masterpiece!

Maggie was extremely proud of her creation

Playing with her gift of kinetic sand

We had the grandparents over on Sunday for a special dinner with the birthday girl, where she was spoiled even more!

I asked Grandma to make Maggie's fave:
Carrot Cake!

Love that enthusiasm!

Ben was into the birthday song

Grandma made Maggie a beautiful rainbow blanket!


Jamie spent the weekend putting up our Christmas lights, and he did a fabulous job!  Second story lighting is perhaps the most terrifying thing ever...

This photo doesn't do it justice...
people really dig our Christmas Unicorn!

We finally got Ben's daycare photo...
2-1/2 years old, cute as ever!


Wednesday, December 1, 2021

Thankful

We got to see lots of family for Thanksgiving this year, which was so nice!  We went to Betsy's house for a delicious Thanksgiving dinner and then had a festive taco night at my parents' house the day afterward.  I also got to see my see-star Jody and her family!!

Just the ladies

Jamie started our Thanksgiving day with
artsy pancakes! 

Impressive

Kids table!

We successfully got Evie and Ben to pet the dog... by the
end of the night, they were all friends!

Big sis

Grammer got gingerbread houses for the kids to work on!

Jody and Ed brought their adorable guinea pigs
(or hampster pigs as Evie calls them)

Cuddles with Chimi and Churri

Yay for family!!

Playing Jamie's intense game - Stair Ball

Grammer and Pops with their grandbabies!

Always flirting

Gorgeous nieces

We had our first real snow of the year, and the kids were thrilled to have an entire park's worth of snow to play with across the street!

Evie was into it!

Do you wanna build a snowman?

He thinks snowballs are hillarious

Best part of snow days

I also celebrated another year of life earlier this month.  I had a lovely day being spoiled by my family and a fancy shmancy dinner with my hubby.  Sadly I sprained my ankle pretty bad the week before, so I spent a lot of this month hobbling around.  Four weeks later and I still can't run/jog... frustrating!

Mom hooked me up with a delicious dinner and cake!

Singing our birthday ballad

Here's some other randoms:

My brownie helpers... cleaning the bowl

Ben loves to "drive" with Grandma

"Planking" is a thing again at Jamie's school, so he got a
cute picture of Ben to share

Firemen came to pump down the hydrant, so
Ben got a new hat!

Sleepover at our place!

Cuddle buddies

Easy Bake oven fun

Gobble gobble!