The decision is... which one makes me laugh the hardest?

I have been sitting here at the computer trying to decide which, of our new family pictures, I want to have made into THE family picture this year.

Honestly I haven't been too crazy about any of them...but there are some entertaining ones as Abram succeeds in distracting us:

Ones where I am just sure that my family must be celestial they have such a glow about them...

...until I notice that some of us look like we drank a quart of pickle juice or are looking M-i-g-h-t-y suspicious!!

In the end, I think this picture below may be best. I was going to up-load one more, but i guess my blog is out of storage space.  So...until Caden figures that one out for me, this is it. (although I would have welcomed some opinions!!) Getting a good family picture always seems like such a trick!

so complimentary

Nolan's been working hard to endear himself to his grandparents lately. This Thanksgiving while we were getting ready to take some pictures:

Marilyn suddenly said, "Nolan, look!" And she and Jim kissed each other.  I was wondering what that was all about and she said that on Monday night when we had a family FHE Nolan had come to her and asked, "Grandma, does grandpa kiss you on the lips still?" Marilyn answered with an enthusiastic, "Yes he does!!"  Not long after, she heard Nolan tell another cousin that "grandpa still kisses grandma on the lips even when they're old!!!"

Last night Jim was wrestling with Abram and Nolan and Suzette said, "Be careful with grandpa - he's an old man!" Abram said, "No he's not!" To which Nolan replied, "Yes he is! What does he look like?!"

I remember him also making some comments like that to my dad last time that he visited...

Our baby is three!

a little uncomfortable

Amidst all of the decorating for Christmas yesterday, we celebrated Abram's birthday.  He is such a fun, entertaining little fellow, and we are glad that he is part of our family!  We let him open up his presents first thing and he was as happy as a clam all day playing with them and was so good about letting Nolan play with everything as well!  We got some pictures taken lately, and I love this sequence of Abram (beginning with the one above)- it shows his personality so well!! He tries to be funny and has such a happy disposition most all of the time.

goofy

laughing at himself

ending with his trade-mark huge smile!!

When he got up from his nap yesterday, he requested a hamburger, and since it was his birthday and all, Shawn took him out to get one!!  When he had finished up, Shawn said, "Well, are you ready to go?"  Abram said, "Let's just visit for a few minutes." Shawn said, "Do you want to visit in the car?" No. He wanted to visit IN the restaurant, so Shawn sat and "visited" with him until he was ready to go!

We are crazy about this little guy- he keeps us laughing at what he does and says, and he is so grateful and loving! I love how thankful he is for everything - he's always the first to say thank you and notices the little things that people do for him. It's not uncommon for him to come up to one of us, and out of the blue say something like, "thank you for helping me find my other shoe yesterday".

Last night Grandma and grandpa and Aunt Linda and Aunt Kristi and her kids came over to have some batman birthday cake, made for Abram by Caden because Abram REALLY likes batman right now:)

We had this bat costume from when Cade was little, and Abe told everyone he was batman in it this Halloween

15

We celebrated Kami's birthday yesterday- I can hardly believe that we have a 15 year old now!! We are so glad that she's part of our family.  She is such a good, fun, talented and kind person - an example to all of us!

Her age was brought home to us when a boy from a different school found out that they had the same birthday and texted her to ask if they could be each others first date next year.  Only 365 days to wait for that one hahaha!!

We've got moose

Night before last, Jack began barking ferociously and it was pretty evident that there was a creature close around that was worrying him.  Shawn looked out the window, and said that there was a moose.  Almost as soon as he said that, he gave a yell as the moose charged Jack! Jack is kept tied up during the night, and he jerked to the side so hard and so fast that his chain broke.  Shawn grabbed Caden's bb gun and shot the moose a few times to send it on its way.

The next morning there Mr. Moose was, standing and eating contentedly on the other side of our pond.  We have moose around A LOT but this was the largest one that we have ever seen.  Not a very large rack, but a HUGE frame.  After church he turned up again - I got a picture of everyone gawking at him:)

We were hoping that Abby, who has never seen a moose before, could get a good look at him, but he wasn't moving.  Then we had the idea to send Jack over to flush him out more into the open. Pretty soon our show became pretty EXCITING -

love this pic of Maddie -it wasn't put on - I think we all did some shrieking whenever the moose charged

 The moose wasn't putting up with any nonsense and was charging Jack whenever he got up close to him. When the moose chased Jack over into our front yard we decided to tie Jack up again and get in the house!!

western themed lunch

Sometimes I have to pack different things for different kids for their lunches.  (Caden and Isabelle can't stomach a banana, for instance, but Kami and Madeline love them.  Right now Caden is only eating sugar once a week for a scout merit badge that he's doing.)

When the lunches are different, I have to label the bags.  Isabelle helped out this morning with a big star on her bag, a huge heart on Madeline's and nothing much extra on Kami's (except for her middle name).  For some reason Caden got the fanciest bag with a hat, boot and horse. I'm sure he will be so proud to sport this lunch bag at lunch time! Heehee

living in a snow globe

Thursday morning we woke up to 11 inches of snow! Although it was awfully early, it was very beautiful and we couldn't help getting excited about it.

Caden shoveling a path to the bus -a picture i took on my phone to show Shawn, who was gone, what our snowfall looked like! (yes, it's still working on getting light outside when the older kids get on the bus after 8:00!)

Abram was rearing to go outside and play in it, and since he had no siblings that he could tag along with, I got to go play in the snow for a couple of hours.  Before we went out I got him all excited about building a snowman, so when we got out and discovered that it wasn't good packing snow there was no turning back.  We had to build a snowman with a spray bottle in hand!

Abe didn't like riding- here he is pulling me in the sled-good arm work-out for me:)

Suddenly fall decor didn't look like it fit anymore

After the snow melted quite a bit it became great packing snow, and the kids spent a couple of nights working until after dark building a snow fort.

This fort got up over Caden's head and looked like a castle with turrets by the time they were done

They day after they completed it, everything warmed up and the snow melted. I think we are back to fall just in time for Halloween.