New Years Eve

We had a fun family New Years Eve.  We made some party hats, played a lot of games, had a little dance party, drank some sparkling apple cider (from goblets), and then had a silly string fight at the stroke of midnight (10:00pm).  We were willing to let the kids stay up longer, and Ethan did.  But Leah asked to be tucked in around 10:15.  Which was sort of shocking to me.  I've never heard her ask to go to bed!  I got hit by a stomach bug right around 10:00, so I was out for the count for the rest of the night.   New Years Day was pretty lame too, but luckily Ross was home and had no problem taking over for the day.

Ethan was feeling feisty one day and he and his cousin made a bunch of signs for his room.  My favorites are, 'Dad this is cind of my place' and 'And don't bother me when I'm naced.'  Haha. He's a funny kid.

 The last day of vacation we decided to have an 'Epic Fun Day'.  We each took turns choosing something fun to do all day long.  Ethan chose playing legos, Leah chose painting a giant mural, I chose a sock fight, then we went to the Matt Ross play place, then the kids played Mario Kart by themselves for a while and giggled the whole time, and then finished off by playing a game.  I would say it was pretty Epic. :)

After preschool the other day.  The cute kids 

who are participating in the preschool co-op.

 Jovee gets the most excited and happy right at bedtime.  She's also struggling to nap every once in a while.  I really don't want her to be done napping any time soon!  At least not until the summertime.  She was being so cute the other day in bed with me the other night.

Playing with dad's phone and putting pens away.

December 2014

Long post ahead!

We finally made it to the tree lighting ceremony at Downtown Overland Park.  They had it this year before Thanksgiving, which I thought was a little weird, but we enjoyed a quick little stay watching Santa light the tree.  Ethan went to see Santa, but Leah wasn't feeling it that night.  Ethan asked him for the game of Life.

 Our yearly Home Depot visit to pick out our tree.  Maybe some year we will go to a tree farm and actually buy a tree there!  For now Home Depot works great.

 Ethan showing his love for our tree.

 Leah getting some sewing lessons. She made a couple of simple ornaments.  

She was pretty proud of herself. :)

 Leah got a face-painting set from her Aunt and Uncle.  She put it to good use on Jovee, and then in the bathtub she ended up looking like a little bearded gnome. :)

This is our first year with the Elf on the Shelf.  I realized I was not doing it because everyone else was doing.  And that's a silly reason.  Our Elf mostly moved from spot to spot, but a couple of the nights he was a little more creative. :)  The kids named him knuckles.  And if you look close you can tell that he spelled his name with the blocks in his tower!

 

Jovee did not like Santa!  Poor Santa.  He looked like he didn't mind too much though.

 Building a snowman across the street at the High School.

The kids and I went to Deanna Rose to see their light show.  The kids really loved it.  It's pretty impressive the amount of lights used for it.  And it's great that it's free.  

This is the best picture I got.

 The kids and I also went to Union Station to see the trains.  It was more decorated this year than I remember from years past.  Plus they had even more trains set up.  It was really fun and festive.  Jovee was content to sit in the stroller most of the time too, which was really helpful.

Leah accessorized her Christmas outfit with a garland from Target and washi tape.  

The girl's checking out the snow and waiting for guests to arrive at our Playgroup Christmas party.  

The Elf being held hostage.  

Knuckles getting back at the lego guys with the dinosaurs.

Christmas Eve we had a really simple dinner of cheese and crackers and summer sausage.  And it seemed extra special because it was candlelit, and we used goblets. :)  Next year we are going to try a greater variety of cheeses and crackers.  We were sort of limited this year.

Christmas Eve coziness.

Christmas morning.. waiting to go in to the family room.. In new Christmas PJs.  Leah woke up at 1:30 am thinking that it was Christmas morning and started waking everyone up.  Luckily Ross caught her early and she went back to sleep okay.  

Christmas Day we went to Ross' parents house in Lincoln.  We got to talk to my brother Will on his mission. Yay!  And then we opened presents.  The kids all got Grandpa a Quadcopter for Christmas.  And they definitely had more fun with it than he did. :)  

Jovee and her cute cousin Tyler.

The grandkids love to play and run around together.

 This is the typical view of the piano.  Games upon games upon games.  

The Terry's like their games.  Luckily I do too.

 Playing catch with grandma.

Thanksgiving 2014

This was my first time ever hosting Thanksgiving dinner!  It was a lot of fun.  We had my parents, my brother and his wife and son, and our friends from Brazil, the Becks and their cousin (who was fresh off of the airplane from Brazil that day!), and another friend from the ward.  It was quite the full house.  (Pictures of the whole group to come).

Ross tried a technique called 'spatchcocking' the Turkey, where you break the backbone and basically flatten the whole thing.  It's supposed to speed the cooking time way up.  Which it did!  It was really really delicious, and very moist and flavorful.    

After dinner we held our first annual Honey Family Gobbler of Fire.  My brother and his wife set up the whole thing.  We played a bunch of minute to win it type games, including a paper airplane contest, a dart gun accuracy contest, and then moving cotton balls with vaseline on your nose.  It was pretty hilarious to watch everyone move cotton balls with their nose.  We appreciate our guests being good sports about playing. 

Ross was the overall winner.  And here he is with the 'Gobbler' itself.  

After Thanksgiving Day my family did our annual graham cracker house decorating. Sam named it the Honey Fam Graham Jam.  Hehe.  Anyway.  That was a lot of fun as always.  And I love seeing what everyone comes up with every year.

 

 

 

I'm always impressed with what Sam creates.  Here he did Rodin's Thinker.

Grandpa with the two littlest grandkids. It was fun to watch Jovee and Henry interacting.  It was mostly Jovee running away from Henry, but she still talks about 'Hen-ee' all the time.  So cute.  

November 2014

Jovee loves to put all of Ethan's bracelets on wear them for a while.  

So I pulled out my camera while she was doing that.

She also uses the broken chair like a jungle gym a lot.

 She is a goofball.

 Ross reading bedtime stories.  Ethan got a new light for reading. 

And his new light led to telling stories and getting out the shadow puppets.

I have wanted to check out the glass maze at the Nelson Atkin's Museum for a while, and I really wanted to take advantage of the last nice beautiful day.  That maze is seriously intense.  We let the kids go in first (mistake, I clearly didn't read the sign saying to accompany children), and it wasn't long before we had two crying children.  I think they both ran into the glass at least 3 times.  It was really funny, and a little bit sad, but mostly funny.