December 2017

I forgot to post this in November...Zane's baseball team has been doing things to raise money for their Cooperstown trip this summer.  The Sunday following Thanksgiving they went to the Chiefs game and sold beads in the parking lot.  They made some good money doing this!

Zane and Zach - twin towers!

Here are some photos of Thomas from the month!

Super excited for the first snow of the year.  We were jealous - they had snow and we didn't!  

Since Mason's birthday was on Thanksgiving Day, we waited until the weekend after to have his party with friends.  He invited 4 boys over to go to Dave and Buster's, spend the night, and go to the movie Wonder with our school the next morning.  I would say our first sleepover party was a success!

Playing football before going to eat

Lincoln, Blake, Braeden, Colt, and Mason

Cheers!

Mason was a little embarrassed by this!

Game time!

The poop emoji hat!  Everyone loved this prize that Colt got!

Opening gifts

Settling in

Lights out!

Wonder with the whole school

Zane has been taking some strength and conditioning classes over the winter to help get him ready for baseball this summer.  I can tell he's missing baseball and ready for it to start again!

Tough guys...

Bryce was student of the week for his class.  I got to read a couple of books to his class!  He acted like it was no big deal, but his teacher caught him on camera smiling the whole time I was there!

Another fundraiser Zane's team did was to host a basketball tournament.  Both Zane and Mason's teams played in the tournament.  Isn't this banner that they made cool???

Matt helping out with janitorial duties... 

All of the Defenders boys after Defenders vs. Defenders

Matt came to eat lunch with both Bryce and Mason one day.  Since I have lunch at the same time we ate together!

This was a science assembly and I had a bubble on my head!

The weekend before Christmas we traveled to Iowa to have Christmas with Matt's parents and siblings.  We haven't all been together since this summer so it was nice to see everyone again!  It seemed to go so fast - we could only spend one night because of sports - but was great to be there!

The Northland Defenders - Mason's sports organization - wants to have the boys learn about giving back so we are doing service projects when we can.  The first one we did was helping to feed homeless people in the area.  We took sacks of trail mix and pop and handed them out to homeless individuals.  

One of my favorite days of the year is ugly sweater day at school!  This year I had the idea to have Matt make me into a snow globe!  He wasn't impressed with his work - he really wanted to enclose me into a snow globe but I said NO to that!  We were disappointed because this year there was no voting - I was the 4 year reigning champion - and wanted to make it 5 - but oh well, it was fun anyway!

Reindeer games during our assembly

Bryce at his party

Mason at his party trying to make Braeden a snowman - they did not succeed!

We woke up on Christmas Eve to snow!  It was exciting to have a little white stuff for Christmas!  I heard a noise that sounded like a snowblower so I looked out and saw Santa blowing snow off of a driveway with a leaf blower! 

Mason wanted to get out there right away!  Check out the way he scooped - in straight lines!

Mason scooping - Bryce making snowballs!

We went to early church, at 10:30, then spent the rest of the day watching the Chiefs game and hanging out with the Fishers at our house.  We had brunch, played games and relaxed, then ended our night with hibachi!

To end our Christmas Eve, we finally got around to decorating gingerbread houses!

On Christmas Day, we enjoyed a relaxing time at home!  The boys opened gifts, Craig and Keeta came down, we had prime rib (YUM), and just had fun hanging out together.  It was nice not to have to rush anywhere!

We were home the week between Christmas and New Year's and didn't do a whole lot.  We did go to a couple of movies, I cleaned the house, we took down decorations, and just had a relaxing time!  The weekend following Christmas we headed to Des. Moines for the Bunch family Christmas.  It was a big year!  We had 100 people there!  It was nice to see so many cousins that I hadn't seen in a few years!!!  Saturday we had Christmas with my parents and then spent the evening with the entire Bunch family.

Mason's expression in this picture kills me!

An x-box!

All of the Bunch cousins but 5.  Two have passed away and only 3 couldn't make it!

We got home about 6:00 on New Year's Eve.  Our friends were having an adults-only party and Zane's baseball team was having a family party.  At that point I was just ready to be home, so I stayed home while Matt and Zane went to the A's party.  They had a fun time!

Happy New Year!