The Ol Nut Party

Remember when I said I was thankful for this crew - I really am!

It has been a stressful week at the pharmacy this week and we've stuck it out together,

I appreciate each one of these faces and what they bring to our team.

Last week, we had a bit o fun

at our Nut Party.

We went to eat at our go to place, Mi Pueblo and then came back to our house

to have some dessert AND have the nut party. It became quite a joke as it was written

on a board in the back that we later realized patients could read when they asked about the "Nut Party".

The nut party was simply packing nuts as thank yous for our delivery customers, haha!  

We had a big amount of laughs, always do with this group. 

And we completed our project - things like this go so smooth when you all work together anyway.

I'd take this crew to some sort of competition for teamwork, is there one of those (tee hee)

Fun times

Creating Cousins

My niece Morgan and her Husband had a big announcement over Thanksgiving...

And of course we are extremely excited because that means

these 2 sisters are both adding to our family.

We are praying for God's protection and plan as we expect

babies in January and June this year (and a wedding in October)

Love!

What a year of blessings for our family, prayers for these

two as they add a new baby to their lives!!

Thanksgiving to Treasure!

We celebrated Thanksgiving right this year!

  We stayed in Indian and enjoyed family all week!

Wednesday we had our annual Worksgiving and I tasted

cranberry brie bites for the first time.  I even made coffee

to go along with them, delicious.  It was much milder than I had expected.

So thankful for my work peeps.  I look forward to my days with them.

Relaxing Thanksgiving  Morning - a picture to treasure!  

And Thanksgiving day I went to visit my family while they prepared for lunch with the Walkers but had to cut out early to attend the Stolls Thanksgiving this year.

We had a big bunch this year but only a portion of the family - 

loved that the littles enjoyed eating together.

Carson Daniel, my first time holding him - I was sick the first time we visited his family.

His mama, a nurse, was working the holiday and I got to rock him TWICE, loved it!

Desserts galore, so delicious.

Grandma Jean made punch (she's so good at thinking of that) - it was delicious!

What would later be termed Round 1 - we had so much fun when most

stayed around all day I looked up at it was 530, I could not imagine the time had passed so fast.

Several tried out clay pigeon shooting.  

Sam loved it, getting help from Uncle Darrin.

DH had an old gun of Grandpa Stoll's (20 gauge, maybe) and a lot of the grandsons

took turns shooting it. Good memories.

Sam and Parker, love it.

And we rolled right into Round 2, leftover grazing, ha!

 Great-grands teens relaxing

And social media shares from some of the fam!

Robotics - Judges Award!

We competed in our first regional robotics competition a couple of Saturdays ago.

Our team is full of new 5th grade kids and 2 newbie mentor so we had no idea

what to expect. We prepared the best we knew how and then encouraged

the kids to do their very best.

They had 3 areas to present to judges and their robot competition.

Their first presentation was robot design, then their project which centered around solving lack of air (o2) in space, and then their team core values.

It was excellent for them to present to the judges and do it all on their own.

A judge stopped us mid day and was very impressed with the kids and how they presented!

Nerves were out of the way after the first presentation - thumbs up

practice table

They got 3 rounds and their best round score counted.

Learning from the judge

We decided if this group stays together we should call them

"Ladies and Joe" - they have been a fun group.

And at the end of the competition everyone was very happy with our first experience.

And little did we know, the judges were also very impressed! As they began the awards

they called the Little Lion Robotics team for Judges Award!

Celebrating on the way home with a big milkshake

And then we got the call that our scores qualified us for state competition this Saturday - 

wow what an honor - proud of this group and all they have learned!

Surprise Snow Day

We had a surprise snow day already this year.

It wasn't much snow, mainly a layer of ice -it made the gray of winter look very pretty for a bit!

We were all home together for the day so I made biscuits and gravy.

I'm not the best at it,but it is good enough for our crew!

We had some pretty good indications the day before that we were getting severe weather

so our school had prepared for it to be an ELearning day, it worked out very good at our home.

I appreciate that our school is equipped to make this work and not have to make up days.

They certainly did not spend very many hours doing work, so I don't see it replacing school all together!

By 11 the main roads had cleared and we headed to Home Depot to replace a faulty faucet.

I appreciate this handy guy and his many talents. And we completed this

home repair and were still calmly speaking at the end!!! Hooray for grace!

This guy made his famous chocolate chip cookies.

And Joe worked on his robotics programming sheet

And we did some last minute bonus spell bowl studying because Spell Bowl was moved back

for a night due to the snow!

Ended the day playing a vintage game we found at the farmhouse

called Waterworks.  I don't remember ever playing it, but many I've talked to remembered it!

Joe won but I was going to finish on my next turn, boo!!!

Joe started a sewing project, bless him.  Love that he tries over and over

what Grandma has taught him!

New Faucet - Not Leaking so we have hot water again!!