Ashley's Birthday

Ashley had a good birthday. She was really worried about it not being special at school. We made brownies for her to take into her class and she said that she got lots of attention at school. Danny also took her to get Kolashes (They are kind of like a sweeter than normal roll, filled with anything from eggs and bacon or sausage to jams) for breakfast that morning. It is one of her favorite places to eat in the morning.

I made her a chocolate cake, her request, but didn't feel like decorating it the way she wanted. She asked if she could decorate it herself. This is how it ended up. Pretty busy, but she was super happy with it. The cake was one of the best I've ever made, by the way. So good.

We had dinner at Black Bear Diner (also her request), which they kept open just long enough for the birthday girl to get her birthday dinner. They only had one cook in that night and they were turning people away because they planned to close at 6 pm. We were actually quite impressed with how quickly they brought our food out. 

We can't believe that she is 14. She is growing up way too fast. All of our kids are growing up too fast.

Alyssa's Sweet Sixteen Birthday Party

For Alyssa's party, she chose to have a murder mystery party. It was titled "Murder at the Teen Idol Awards." The characters were all knockoffs of actual celebrities: Justin Bebre, Taye Swiftly, Miley Cypress, etc. Here is Alyssa with 2 of her best friends before the party started.

We had fun turning our small dining and living area into an afterparty of the teen idol awards. Thankfully, Danny had a lot of supplies at the convention center that he was able to bring home for the party. We served a 3-course meal to everyone. The appetizers were pretzels, Chex mix, and fruit kabobs. Dinner was chicken, salad, and baked potatoes. Dessert was French beignets (they are like donuts, kind of), scotcheroos, and mini cheesecakes.

They all did a really good job of dressing up and getting into their characters. We had this red-carpet backdrop as they walked in where we got a photo of each person that came. This was the girl that won the award at the end for best dressed. 

Mostly, they stood around in circles talking to each other throughout the party.

Shortly after dinner was served, the murder occurred near the bathroom.

We played a couple of short games in between the meal courses and handed out new envelopes to everyone. The first game was facts about the year 2005 (when Alyssa was born). The second game was a How well do you know Alyssa trivia.

After the murder and at the end of round 2, everyone had a chance to write down their guesses of who the murderer was and why.

Alyssa ended up being the one who did it. She didn't know until she opened the envelope at the beginning of round 3. She was okay with it, though.

Everyone that she invited to the party came. All 16 of them plus Ashley, Tyler, Camden, Danny, and I (yes, we dressed up and had characters, too. But we knew the outcome, so we didn't join in on the mingling).

Alyssa had such a fun night. After the murder mystery was over, they pulled out "Just Dance" on the Wii and took turns playing until leaving. I think everyone was gone by 10:30 or 11. Danny and I were exhausted. It took 3 days to get the last traces of the party cleaned up.

Christmas

We had a nice Christmas. We got home from California on Tuesday evening. the boys had their 2nd covid shots scheduled for Wednesday morning, so I went with them and asked if they could squeeze me in for my booster shot at the same time. They did and we all went on our way. The next day (Christmas Eve) I was feeling a bit off. Not really sick with covid symptoms, just not feeling great. We went to Gawbie and grandpa's house that afternoon for the Wheeler Family Christmas party. We had a pancake bar for dinner, Gawbie read us a story about Santa Claus, we acted out the nativity, had a visit from Santa, and then opened presents. It was a fun night, but I was still not feeling great. That night I noticed that my arm was red, swollen, and hot at the injection site.

It lasted through Christmas and the day after and then gradually got better. It was followed by some slight cold symptoms (not sure if they were related). It was nice when I started feeling normal again.

 Danny and I attended his work Christmas Party (Alyssa came with us to work it as a server, as well). We were supposed to dress up as our favorite Christmas movie character. We went as George and Mary Baily from "It's A Wonderful Life."

Our elf on the shelf, Peter, had a funny moment in the bathroom in early December.

The kids were excited for their new jammies on Christmas Eve. This is our last picture with Peter for the year.

We always get a picture on the stairs Christmas morning before heading down for presents. Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa, for starting that tradition.

The kids with the gifts on Christmas Morning.

That evening, we celebrated Alyssa's birthday by going to Tepanyaki, as usual. Then we opened presents and had some ice cream. We saved her birthday treat for her sweet 16 party that we had a few days later.

Lula's Puppies

We said goodbye to Lula's last litter of puppies in November. It was bittersweet for us. The puppies are so cute and fun, but it is nice to have Lula home permanently with us.

The breeders 2 female dogs had litters of puppies around Christmastime(15 total), so the kids are itching to go over there and play with them.
 

California

We took a quick trip to California the weekend before Christmas to visit Grandma and Grandpa. We didn't do a lot of the normal California things that we have done in the past. We mostly just wanted to spend time with my parents. The kids had fun exploring all of Grandma's toys. Alyssa played tennis with Danny. We pulled out a Christmas puzzle (which we did not finish before we left, even though Alyssa and I worked diligently on it for 3 days). On Sunday, we slipped away to go see Danny's brother, Brian, and family. Bobby's family also joined up with us after church and we had a BBQ and let the kids have fun playing. They recently moved into a new house, so it was nice to see it in person. Unfortunately, I did not remember to take any pictures while we were over there.

In planning for the trip, I asked mom if there was anything around LA that she could do that she thought the kids would enjoy. She came back to me with Disney on Ice. That idea got shot down when we learned that our boys, who were not yet fully vaccinated, would have to take covid tests in order to go. We thought that would be too much of a hassle, so she didn't get tickets. After we got to their house, Mom mentioned this Christmas lights display at the LA arboretum. Since it was outdoors, there was no need for vaccinations, and she thought she could handle the mile walk around the gardens. So on Monday night, we headed off to the light show. It was actually really cool. The kids loved it, and mom made it around the gardens with a few rest stops.

We were so glad that we were able to go down there and spend this precious time with Grandma and Grandpa. It was also nice to escape the cold and soak in some warm California sunshine.
 

Thanksgiving

We hosted Thanksgiving for Danny's family. We had to bring home some supplies from the Convention Center, but everything turned out well.

Danny looked up a video on how to carve a turkey and it looked so pretty laid out on the plates.

Danny's brother, Bobby, and his family flew in from California to spend the holiday weekend with all of us. They bought the kids cookie decorating kits. They had fun with them.

We also went to Cabela's together to visit Santa and look at the animals and fish.

It was a fun weekend with family.

Fall Leaves

I don't know why kids love playing in leaf piles so much. We had quite the leaf pile in the fall and they had an hour of fun playing in it. Even Lula joined in.

 

Halloween

Our 3 younger kids are a bit obsessed with this computer game called Baldi's Basics. The setting of the game is an empty school. The goal is to find 7 notebooks in the school and answer the 3 math problems in the notebook and then escape from the school before Baldi, the math teacher(in the green shirt), gets you. The catch: some of the math problems are impossible to solve...as in they use symbols like $%^^$## instead of actual numbers. Oh, and when you get the math problem wrong, Baldi gets angry and chases you faster. And he gets more angry with each problem you miss. Oh, and as you go through the halls, you sometimes face obstacles like the girl in the red shirt that makes you stop and jump rope with her, or the principle(in black) who sends you to detention. The robot thing with big hands pushes you back if you run into it in the hallway. The broom pushes you out of a room if you open the wrong door. I'm not quite sure what the other things do, but the kids thought they were important and included them in their costume theme. If you look closely at their group picture, all of the things they are holding represents a character. 

Their cousins are in the picture and not part of the theme, just their to have fun trick or treating.

Ashley was Baldi

Tyler was the Bully - He steals your candy(which I think is supposed to stop Baldi from getting you).

And Camden was Principal. 

Alyssa did all of their make up. We didn't get a picture of Alyssa, but she dressed up with her friends in an 80's theme.

the kids had fun carving their pumpkins this year, too.

I made jack-o-lantern pizza's on the 30th before the kids went out trick or treating.

The kids got a lot of candy and were sad when the fun was over.