Sunday, January 25, 2015

Honky Tonk Happy New Year!

We had such a fun New Years Eve this year! Rick & Mandy hosted a Honky Tonk Murder Mystery Party! We have done these with this group before and they are always so fun! We all really get into our characters and have a blast acting out the mystery! Mandy went all out with the country decorations to add to the fun! 




The scene of the crime! 

Love these two girls so much! 

Carney Folk and Crystalline Daniels

A little photo booth fun! 


Carney, Twyla, and Rowdy! 

Mandy was the sheriff, I was a bar maid, Kim was a townie, and Mariah was the preacher's wife
Can you tell we had the best time?! 

Rick was a country singer, Ernie was the tele-evangelist Reverend, Mark was a carnival worker, and D.J. was a biker

We fed the kids first, then put on a movie for them upstairs while we ate. 
We had mac 'n cheese, ribs, chicken nuggets from Chic-fil-a, salad, and other country fixin's. It was delicious! After dinner we put the kids to bed and started the Murder Mystery. 

My script and my delicious brownie sundae for dessert! 

Mandy got things going, we all did our little intros, read our parts, showed our clues, and made our accusations! 

Rick even did a little singing along the way...

I was pregnant with Bubba's baby- he was the murder victim and the owner of the bar that I worked in. But, alas, I was not the murderer! 
It was the PREACHER! Ernie did it! 

After the mystery was solved we rang in the New Year with a little Flip Cup! 
Guys against the girls. We lost! Then we counted down at midnight, celebrated the New Year, and went to bed! We spent the night and hung out around the Leensvaarts house for awhile the next day. We got McDonalds and Starbucks for breakfast and the kids played with all of Jack's new Christmas and birthday toys. We love doing life with these people! So fun! Thanks for hosting Leensvaarts and thanks for such a fun night Krauths and VanEps'! We love you and look forward to spending a happy and healthy 2015 with you!!!

Friday, January 23, 2015

Winter Break STUFF

This post is full of a bunch of random Winter Break STUFF! 

We started off our break celebrating Landon's 4th Birthday with the fam at Chuck-e-Cheese! 
The boys all had the best time! 

They played a lot of games. 

And earned a lot of tickets. 
And DID NOT want to leave the Fun House! They went through over and over and over again! Thanks Syers' fam for having us! We love you Lando! 

Eckabee up to his nightly antics before Christmas! 

Mark got me this blanket scarf for Christmas. Do you have one? If you don't…you need one. Heavenly! This particular one is from Aldo. Love that store. 

Nolan went to a birthday party for his school friend Riley. It was at the Parker Rec Center. Her mom posted these pics on Facebook and I snagged them. 
He had the best time playing parachute, 
Duck, Duck Goose, Freeze Tag, and Soccer with a HUGE ball. When I came back to pick him up he had so much to say. I think he was happy to be back with friends and to have a little time away from his family! 

Our Christmas Cards...
Growing up, my Mom used to always tape the Christmas cards to a door so that we could look at them throughout the month. In our old house I used to hang them from the stair railings that faced into our kitchen, but in our new house, for some reason, I never displayed them. I always just stuck them in a  basket in the living room, and didn't really enjoy them. So this year I decided to take after Momela and hang them up. So I bought some festive washi tape and put a couple new ones up each day as they came in the mail. I love them! And even though the rest of our decorations are down, these are still up. I can't bear to take them down. I love all these people so much! They make me happy as I pass by! 

Playdough fun! 

Kinex building...
can you tell Mark was thrilled about Heath's Christmas present from Auntie & Flobby! Ha! It was for ages 8 and up. Your time will come Urbiks, you just wait! 

But boy do the boys love the finished product! It's a Super Mario Brother's Ghost house. We had to clear off the trains from the train table to find a home for it for the time being. Just praying it stays built because it practically took an engineering degree to put together. Ha! 

We spent a lot of time just playing around the house. Notice Heath is in his pajamas playing basketball. We had LOTS of p.j. days. It was awesome! 
This is a display of most of the boys little action figures that they got for Christmas. I love how imaginative they are. We had to keep them up on the counter top just to keep them organized and easily accessible. Some are so little they wanted to be sure that they would not get lost! 
Brooks playing with his new Jake Duplos. He was so busy that he didn't even realize his booty was hanging out. 

Nolan got a 700 something piece Ninja Turtle Lego Set from Auntie & Flobby. It had four big bags of  Legos. So he did a bag a day until he finally finished bag 3 and bag 4 on his birthday. 
Day 1

Day 2
Go back to his birthday post to see the finished product. 

My big dudes snuggled up watching the Broncos! 

Make up free days, coffee filled days…heavenly! 

Perler Beads...
This was a fun, quiet, focused, family activity. Hard to do with Brooksie around. But the boys really enjoyed it! 
Their finished products...
Brooks chose the colors for my heart. Nolan made the circle and Heath made the star. Thanks Grandma & Grandpa for our fun craft. 

Living room hockey…which has since been re-located to the basement. No explanation necessary. 

And just in case you hadn't seen enough Lego building…here's some more. Auntie Laura & Uncle T. got Nolan this Batman, Joker, and the Flash set for his birthday. As soon as he finished the TMNT set, he got to work on this one. 

He built it in about 2 sittings. 
And did it all by himself. Usually I sit with him here and there and help him with tricky parts or help guide the building of the more complex sets. Because with these large builds, if you make one mistake it throws off every other step. But now he just sits down and gets to work. Love to see him grow in independence. 

He's happy because he still has one more set to build, a Spiderman set from the Sloothaaks. In his mind, it's too bad he has a silly thing called SCHOOL that gets in the way of all his Lego time! Ha! 

We pretty much had two straight weeks at home with our family! It was so nice having Mark off and home and not traveling. It had been a long time since we've had that much time together and we felt so lucky to have it! 

It was nice to head back to school and have routine again. But we are already, secretly, looking forward to Spring Break. Is it too early for a count down? Grandma, Auntie, Flobby, and the Sloothaaks will all be heading our way and we CAN NOT WAIT! 

But in the mean time we must learn and work. That's life!