Dave's 8th Birthday!

Look at this sweet boy!






This year he didn't want a cake, so we made cookies instead :)

With the birthday sign that was up for about 4 months! :)

Family picture with the birthday boy.

Working on the lego set he got from Gamma.













Dave had a pretty low-key birthday this year. My mom and grandpa had been up visiting for the weekend, so he got to celebrate with them early. We had Josh's parents over and one of the kids' friends for his actual "party".

As for what Dave's been up to, he's still super into video games...doubt that will change anytime soon! He's getting ready to start his first year of basketball at the YMCA and he's super duper pumped about that. Anything basketball related is of great interest to him currently. We got him a little electronic hoop for his room for Christmas and he's been playing it nonstop. Here's a video of him dunking!

I can't think of anything else new about Dave or his personality right now. He still loves to read, enjoys wrestling with Josh, having nerf gun wars with Ike and his friend, and being a smarmy 8-year-old. Ha! He really does enjoy that though! It will be interesting to see what he's like as a teenager that's for sure.

Dave is such a joy to our family, can't wait to see how he changes in this next year!!

Christmas Tree Saga

We went on our annual Christmas tree cutting down adventure the day after Thanksgiving again this year. Unfortunately, our normal spot was closed this year, so we went to a new place to snag our tree. That was our first mistake... :) 

Grandma and Dave ready to hunt down a tree.
















Riding in the back with Dave on the way to the farm.

We found our tree! Getting ready to cut it down.

Grandpa had to hold it on to the van so we could drive it up to pay for it.

Look at that beauty!

Grandpa Dave and my mom came to visit so we got a picture of him with the kids.












So fast forward about two weeks. We went to Evansville to visit family and came back to half the ornaments on the ground and a blanket of needles! Ahhhhh! We have never had trouble with our trees before (and we watered properly and all that stuff). Turns out we picked a Norway Spruce, which unbeknownst to us only usually last about a week or two. Fantastic right?

Part of the tree.














Taking it out of the house was a real treat...almost all of the needles fell off in the process, so by the time we got it outside it looked like this.

Yikes.









Thankfully we are getting a full refund on the tree, I just didn't have it in me to get another real tree this year, so I am so grateful for my friend Theresa letting me borrow an extra tree they had! Christmas decorating was saved :)

We will be back to buying a real tree again next year, but this time I'm going to do some more research on species of trees!!

November Happenings

Lots of fun stuff going on last month (including Dave's birthday, but that's another post!).  Here's a snippet of our activities.




Dave's reticulated python diorama.















Close up of the finished project.





















Alec and Dave went to the Wonder party at the library. We are getting close to finally finishing the book!

Ike's been working hard on his letters and numbers lately!

Ike and Dave reading Captain Underpants.

At Ike's Thanksgiving feast at Preschool.

We went to see the courthouse light up.

Eating some pizza downtown with Augie before the lighting.

Waiting oh so patiently for the lights to come on.

Ike and Bennett having a nerf gun war.

Elli came over to visit and since she had sunglasses the boys had to put their sunglasses on too.

Halloween 2017

Halloween this year was pretty uneventful, which was really great! We did a lap around campus with all the staff kids and cottages and families who live on campus handed out candy. Perfection.

Ike went as black panther and he got his fancy costume for his birthday. He loves dressing up still so money well spent! Dave wanted to be Deathstroke (yet another obscure costume) so we had to come up with a homemade version for him! A sweatsuit, orange duct tape, and a dollar ninja mask that I spray painted and he was all set.







They look so cute without their masks.



















And now they just look menacing.

The whole squad ready to trick or treat.














Ike and Kyson, so cute!

With Lewis and Sam.
















Showing off their candy haul! They got so much candy...we just finished the last of it.







I say it all the time, but I'm so thankful for the awesome community we have here at White's. Such a great place to raise our family!!

Evansville Trip for Gil and Allie's Wedding

Over fall break, we spent a long weekend in Evansville which ended with the celebration of Gil and Allie's wedding! We love spending time with family and this trip was great because we had way more time than normal and were able to do some fun activities too!







Great-grandpa stopping by with Donut Bank of course!













Dave has been really into playing football lately, so he made sure to bring his ball with us.

The kid definitely has a good arm!















The local ice rink has open skating for $5 on a couple weekday mornings, so we decided to try it out. Whew, that was rough! I don't think I've skated for 15 years! Once I remembered how to skate again it went a lot better...halfway through the first lap I was sure we were going to have to quit.  We ended up getting pretty decent by the end!








Josh said he'd only been ice skating once before. I believed it! :)


















I was trying to get a picture with the ice and our skates. Almost.

Ike is in constant motion! Half the pictures I take of him anymore are blurry.












 After ice skating we went over to my grandpa's to check out all his toys. It was a beautiful day outside and the kids always love running around his yard. Dave brought his football so we played catch, did some lawn more rides, and I even drove the four wheeler around!

Ike doing some more mowing with my dad. He's spoiled rotten!

Cute picture with Grandma Kyra. Ike's such a stinker!

The kids had some rainy day fun at Walther's with Uncle Tony and Josh. Laser Tag, mini golf, arcades...what else could be better?

Wedding time!















Dave was a ring bearer in the wedding, so we just dressed both kids up in the fancy attire. The cute bow ties are courtesy of my aunt Claudia. She makes all kinds of awesome stuff, you should totally check out her etsy site! The wedding was beautiful and really cold! We bundled up and they had hand warmers so it was all good. Dave will not stop talking about how good the food was...best mashed potatoes and gravy he's ever had apparently. He definitely loves some taters!

We sure clean up nice!

Before the rehearsal dinner.

Ike and Uncle Tony were twinning.

Grandpa Dave Sievers' 80th Birthday!

Josh's grandpa Dave celebrated his 80th birthday in October and the family came together to throw him a surprise party! We met up at his sister's assisted living home (which was really nice!) and proceeded to get everything ready before he came downstairs.

The kids enjoyed playing on the stage as we set up.















We were waiting patiently for the elevators to open so we could start singing Happy Birthday!

He was super surprised!

Brooklyn sure loves Grandma Mary!

The kids sneaking away to play with their electronics.

His sisters are a hoot!

Cousins picture.

Added the spouses in!

Brooklyn was tired of having her picture taken so Grandma D was making her annoyed look along with her!

Look at this cute couple!

Mom and daughters.

Veronica enjoyed photobombing this picture.



















It was a wonderful day to celebrate a great man!  So glad everybody was able to come together to make his day special, and it was great to see lots of people we don't see very often and awesome to meet lots of Josh's family that I hadn't met yet!