01-2015 JAN

2015 Family portraits Best family photo shoot EVAH! ;) 27 images

Sam's 10th Sam's 10th birthday 30 images · 5 videos

1 A nice family walk in the neighborhood to welome in 2015 ;)	2	3 The crazy parade!	4
5 Ben is saying "Fetch, Mommy!"	6 Dave trying to pretend he doesn't know us.	7 Their favorite time of all. Family photo shoot. I use the same log every year. It's getting slipperier (is that a word?).	8 But that lets me slide in at the last minute.
9	10 Hiking home.	11 This elf was trying to scare us!	12 Here's a new photo shoot location perhaps? We just needed to try it out.
13 Bad boys!	14	15 Ben is dancing and singing loudly.	16 Now Sam is, too.
17 The chickens can line up and take a picture nicely - what's the big deal?	18 I might have tried a little experiment to see who would come and carry this off. It ENTIRELY disappeared without any crumbs left. The perpetrator must have walked on its hind limbs and carried it. Bears? Sasquatch? We saw a masked bandit the next day when the motion sensor light went off. He came back for more!	19 I made a little forest bouquet out of stuff that would stay green even when dry. Martha Stewart strikes!	20 Looks better without my mug distracting you, right?
21 At a birthday party for AJ who turned 10. It was roller skating! Thank you, Vicky!	22 Getting scratchies :)	23 At German Stammtisch with Nathan, our tutor. He is so wonderful with the kids! We went for a walk in the woods looking for animals and plants and puddles - all new vocabulary words.	24 Ben at basketball practice trying his new shoes out!
25 Uncle Dan, he loves those new basketball shoes! Thank you!	26 Snuggled in watching football!	27 Learning how to send email with Gramma! He LOVES to send it now!	28 At Ben's first basketball game!
29 Proud big brother wearing his ice hockey jersey, looking on at the game. Sam has a game right after this. But first I have to go to Wal-Mart and buy a birthday present and take Ben to a party. I had everything precisely timed.	30 The timing didn't quite work out as well as I'd hoped. Ben didn't want to change clothes in the truck so he did his stiff-as-a-board routine, taking up some time.	31 Ben worked really hard and played most of the game. His team won! Ben is the youngest and not the strongest player, so the coach wisely gave him a lot of game time to get the jitters out. Ben has a great work ethic and keeps his chin up even if he misses a play.	32 Warming up for ice hockey!
33 Pancakes for breakfast!	34 With lots of amazing berries and syrups!	35 I set up an older computer which had a hard drive failure - got it repaired by the Geek Squad and set it up for the kids. WOW am I glad I did! The Fresh Paint app for Windows 8 is FANTASTIC!	36 Decorating his bird in watercolor.
37 Learning how to blend and erase.	38 Sam is learning Java so he can mod Minecraft and make his own armor, ores, biomes, etc. He just finished a 12-part course and published his own mod which he then imported into Minecraft!	39 Sam at work. I'm going to try to get his computer programming software onto the big computer as well. He needs a bigger screen.	40 Showing me around the new world!
41 That's Sam with his "Ultimate Sword" that he designed himself, pixel by pixel!	42 You're so cute! I love you little Minecraft Sam!	43 With a ghast in the background.	44 He's running!
45 Go Sam!	46 An ore wall, showing all his new custom ores, including copper, sapphire, geodes, aquamarine and malachite. Great way to combine love of geology and gaming!	47 Achievements, too.	48 Here's the code...
49 This is out on a walk at Fort Ward.	50 Trying to get a hug!	51 Walking with these boys is ridiculous! They are so loud and so nuts! Dave finally took them by the scruff :)	52 One scruff and one pants - laughing all the way!
53 3.4 mile walk for Mom and Richard, who haven't had a chance to walk much while they've been up here visiting.	54 Some nice quiet time at night with Daddy!	55	56 Playing Shut The Box! with Daddy.
57 Working with Randy using new guitar from Nana and PopPop!	58 This is too funny...doing some auction errands. This is a donation from Rolling Bay Cafe (THANK YOU!).	59 Baked potatoes are SO good!	60
61 You can even eat the insides then fold them up like a burrito. Did you know that?	62 Ben has the flu, poor guy, but still has his sense of humor! He said "Control, SIT!" when he went to sit on the exam table (as in CTRL + Shift on a computer keyboard). He learned lots of keyboard controls with Gramma when he got his own email account. And Gramma caught the flu, too :(	63 Starting to feel a little better after Tamiflu. Eating a crunchwrap slider at Taco Bell - that was his sick boy dinner wish :)	64 Apparently these are much coveted auction items - this is at the school where Ben played a basketball game.
65 6 days after catching the flu, playing in the game. He's a trooper!	66	67	68 He still ran hard even though he must have been tired!
69 Getting his hands on the ball more often and making some plays.	70	71	72 Good defense ;)
73 Not sure if this is legal, but he butt-bumped a guy who was pressing in too close.	74 There he goes again!	75	76 He just said later - "I had itches on my cheeks."
77 Getting a compliment from the coach for looking up and tracking where the other players are.	78 Looking at Mommy during the compliment - he is so cute! He will look over to me during helpful criticism (coaching) and compliments to see my reaction :) You can see big brother here as well - Sam carefully watches the game and calls every foul.	79 At lunch/dinner afterwards - watching ice hockey!	80 Burning the flu tissues!
81 A celebration after the Seahawks earned their second SuperBowl! We cut up our tree and had a bonfire, and cooked SPAM :)	82 First we did some caber tossing :)	83 Pine needles make some good fire cracker-like noises!	84
85 Showing Ben how to do the "clean" press? Or is it the "snatch"? I don't know!	86 I did it!	87 Cute boy feeling much better. Just a runny nose. And Gramma is on the mend, too, thankfully!	88 Snap, crackle, pop!
89 I had a nice time with the boys.	90 SPAM by flashlight :)	91 Yum! We didn't even have one vegetable, unless you count the ketchup. I'm ready to eat salad for breakfast today! And I can't even begin to describe how THIRSTY I was!	92 The end of a lesson with Janet, continuing to work on canter position. I think I might have deleted the vids from earlier in the week with some spooks and bucks. Oh well! Thanks for the videos, mom!
93 Ben is a crazy skater! Look how he zooms around all these people!	94 More terror on the ice!	95 Sushi boys! I let them both pick out sushi platters before ice hockey and look what they got! Wow. The next time I encouraged a little more restraint!	96 Hockey shoot-out after school :)
97	98 Ben enjoying picking out a drink with his "tip jar" money!	99 Sam got a new stick for his birthday! ON his birthday - he had a game :)	100 Joel helping get sticks taped up and waxed for extra stickiness. Thank you, Joel!
101 It's chicken family portrait time!	102	103 Just enjoying seeing clean, mite-free legs!	104 Chickens all have clean feet, too, because I totally cleaned out their gross pen and put down wood chips.
105 Happy birds!	106	107	108
109	110	111 Lessons with Randy	112 Go, Ben!
113	114 Esther coming over to play!	115 Explaining a basketball play.	116 Hi Kai!