Loot!!!

Trent got a new robe for Christmas (among numerous other things!)
Jared wanted a flight simulator
Byron hoped he'd get a Corvette game!
Chloe loves to snuggle on anything soft! Right now it's Trent's robe!
Byron was so thrilled to gift us his gift he made in Kindergarten! They painted their foot and 2 hands, and put them on a piece of burlap, then made a "reindeer" out of it. I was in the classroom that day they were painting the hand/footprints, and Byron's were by far the biggest! No surprise there, eh?

And they're gone......

Lauren and Sandy have moved....it is hard to believe that they are gone. They've moved far enough away that we'll probably only see them once or twice a year now. Here the kids are by the for sale sign.

Riley enjoying being up on top of the air mattresses stacked by the window.

Gingerbread houses

Jared and Byron got to build gingerbread houses in school this year. Jared's class built "grinch" houses...in other words, green frosting, and made to look as awful as possible! I think they had way more fun than the times they've had to make them as pretty as possible ! It was interesting, though, that most of the girls in the class still tried to make as neat of houses as they could! But the boys had a great time making a wreck of a house!

This is Byron's gingerbread house. It barely survived a minute in the house (well, just long enough for a picture) before being eaten!

Nutcracker Ballet

Jared and I got to go to the Nutcracker Ballet w/ his third grade class. The first four rows were reserved for all the 3rd graders in his school. It was so fun to go there and have such super good seats!

Good-bye potluck

Lauren and Sandy are moving away! We had a potluck for them at our house after union meeting. We will miss them!!!!

Trent at 11 years old.

Jared

Jared at 8 years old. This is my favorite picture of him.

Byron

Byron at 5 years old.

Our family picture

The day was so nice for pictures...overcast, so we didn't have to fight the shadows and squinting so much.

3 boys together

I thought the 3 boys' pictures turned out really well. They were such good sports about the whole deal.

2 buds

Kelsey and Byron are 2 buddies. Byron is always writing letters to her every meeting, and Kelsey has always been so good to him. We took SO MANY pictures that day, we never did get Kyla and Trent, or Jared and Kendra together. It was to the point of "too much already"!!!!

6 kids together

Here are our 3 boys, and Lauren and Sandy's 3 girls. The kids are so close, that it is going to be tough w/ them moving away. We wanted to get some special pictures.

Lauren and Sandy's family picture

We went to a park and took family pictures and individual pictures of everybody. I'll include some of Lauren and Sandy, but I'll leave most of them for Kelsey to post on her blog which you can see here. http://kelsey-girlsawesomeblog.blogspot.com/

And a few misc. others

Lefse!!!

We made lefse the day after Thanksgiving! Lauren and Sandy came in, along w/ Andy and Eleanor. They brought their lefse grill as well, Andy brought 2 wonderful rolling pins he'd made, and we all brought our appetites! We had 2 rolling and cooking stations going, and we just rotated around the different "work stations" as we wanted to...so nobody was left rolling the whole time! The kids ate and ate! Well, so did we adults! For those of you who don't know what lefse is, it is a Norwegian food...and since Lauren and I are Norwegian, and our spouses WISH they were (hee hee), we all enjoy it thoroughly. It is made of potatoes, cream, salt and flour. After being rolled thin, it is baked on a big round HOT grill....just briefly on each side! Then we eat it warm w/ butter and sugar! YUM!
I love the wrinkled nose on Byron. He had 5 in a row at the beginning!

Eleanor busy rolling! All the kids rolled except Bryon...not sure how he got missed! Guess he was too busy eating!
Sandy's a pro! See....it pays to be married to a Norwegian! It rubs off on you!

Jared's turn! The kids all did great! This is when to teach them! Already this year, Kelsey was a huge help! She did lots of rolling!
Kelsey kept running up to her dad with her floury hands and "getting him" on his cheeks...of course he had to retaliate! This went on a number of times....after their 10 minutes on the time-out chair, we thought it would be a good idea to get a picture!

This is the pile that was left...I'm sure we ate just as many!

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving Day at Lauren and Sandy's....our last time before their big move next month! It was very special! Andy and Eleanor were also there, but somehow I guess we didn't get a picture of the adults! Notice Trent's new contacts!
Toooooo many desserts!
After dinner, we went to a park and the kids played baseball, while the adults "walked it off!"

All the kids....