Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to our family and friends!!!  We hope that everyone had a relaxing and low key holiday filled with good food and fun.  Amy is LATE with the blog because she got sucked in to watching the Harry Potter marathon with the family on Saturday and Sunday evenings :)

The kiddos only had two days of school last week and they were both virtual due to a lack of available staff.  The kids LOVED it!  Part of Ayson's (and Addie's) gym assignment was to make 10 snowballs and throw them at something :)  Yes, Ayson is wearing Crocks that no longer fit his big hobbit feet...hahaha...sigh.

Ayson hit the stump :)

On Monday afternoon, we headed to a friends house to go sledding!  Good thing we did as our snow has since disappeared :(  Amy and Addie getting ready to go down the hill.

Ayson's turn on the hill.

Leena wrote a message for Addie AND Leena gave Addie a Christmas gift :)  Thank you, Leena (and Ashley!)

Leena's gift to Addie was a stuffed cat that looks JUST like Thunder :)

Monday evening, Santa came by on his fire truck.  

Our friends left us a gift in our front garden!

A bird feeder!!!!  Thank you, Annie and Bob!!!

A Christmas Eve walk in the rain.  Snow, ice, or rain, the kids love playing outside in piles or puddles:)

The Christmas Eve dinner of choice for the kiddos: McDonalds.

Opening the cards and gifts from Grandpa Roger and Grandma Pat.  Thank you, Grandpa and Grandma!!!

Writing out their letters to Santa.

We left Santa two types of chocolate chip cookies: a hard cookie and a soft cookie:)  He liked both!!!

Christmas morning!

Addie hugging the cat condo that she has wanted (for the cats) for two years.

The cats love it!

Opening our stockings

Day after Christmas hike at Baltimore Woods with lots of rounds of hide and seek :)

A walk in the orchard on Sunday to check out the creek.

And to let the kids dink around

We had to hurry home from our walk so that we could catch the last two movies in the Harry Potter series :)

Thankful

We are thankful for our family, our friends, good food, a warm house, and the internet (thanks, Ayson).  We are sending good thoughts and love to everyone and happy birthday to cousin Curran!!!

A week filled with afternoons spent mostly inside - Amy could not convince the kids to go for a walk in the orchard with her:)

Our friend and neighbor lost her Mom last week.  We are sending Ms Annie and Mr Bob tons of good thoughts.  The card we made and sent to Ms Annie.

The kids had snow day on Thursday.  They were SO excited!!!

Addie making a bracelet for her friends Leena and Mackenzie.

While Ayson was busy renovating robots.

Grandpa Chuck spent the weekend with us while Pama and her family spent time together.

The kiddos opening their cards from Grandpa and Pama.

Thank you, Grandpa, for visiting, the Christmas gifts, AND

for staying at the house with the kids so that Amy and Adam could go on a hike by themselves :)

Happy Birthdays and Good Thoughts to All

We had three family birthdays this week!  Happy Birthday to Aunt Shirley, Auntie Julie, and Auntie Holly!  We hope that you had a fabulous and relaxing birthday week!!!

We are also sending good thoughts and love to all of our family and friends.

This week, Addie wanted to play Headbands.  We have determined that "food" and "animals" are not that hard but "objects" are difficult to figure out.

Hahhaha!  Ayson had a very difficult time figuring out the object - a chair.  We thought it was funny that he was in one and holding another one the entire time :)

Adam guessed a rhino on the last round but was stumped for this round.

We girls also broke out the modeling clay while the boys tinkered with computers.

It felt great to get out on a hike over the weekend!

Addie insisted on getting a picture of her hugging a tree :)

The kids wanted to set up the winter village set - so we did!  Next, we will work on the train set that used to be Grandpa Ric's.

ALL that is left of Addie's gingerbread house from last week as compared to Ayson's.  

Adam found the Christmas tree that Grandpa Bob made many years ago and Ayson cleaned it.  Great job, boys!!!

Happy Birthday Adam!

A quick week filled with school and evening activities.  PLUS, it was Adam's Birthday!  Happy Birthday, Didda!!!

The kids were in virtual learning this week due to Addie's quarantine.  Both kiddos did pretty good on remembering when to sign in for their various classes.  Adam said that he loved his new office - though he could hear the kids walking/running around like a head of elephants.  We four are healthy and we are sending good thoughts to all of our family and friends.

Snap Circuit fun.  The flying fans, strobe lights, and music are always a hit!

Happy Birthday, Adam!  He requested another lemon pie. We did not have 44 candles so we improvised :)

Wednesday brought a couple of inches of snow so of course we had to get outside and PLAY!  Ayson collecting snow.

Addie throwing snow on herself.  NOTE:  Addie absolutely hates it when other people throw snow on her.

There was a good bit of snow on the cars that we added to the snow piles

The kiddos posing with their snow piles and snowballs

Virtual learning: art class: learning about horizon lines and depth (when drawing).

The finished project:

Thunder kept Addie company while Addie was in her google meet.

Crazy Shadow was once again carrying around this Barbie doll sweater.  He kept pulling it through the cat door.

Thursday night Spiral Art for the girls

While the boys were tinkering with guitars and computer code.

Silly Elvin! Using Addie's Barbie doll potty and leaving a mess!

Ayson's science class took another virtual field trip to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Seashore in MI to learn about the importance of water and watersheds :)

Making it "rain" on the community that he created - complete with hills and valleys on the parchment paper.

Addie's turn in Art Class

On Friday night, the kiddos made Gingerbread houses.

Ayson's house

Addie's house: front

and back

On Sunday, we decorated the tree

and made gingerbread cookies :)

Goofball kids!

Yum!

School pictures from this year:

3rd Grade

5th Grade