Daddy time

In the past few weeks Joe has been able to take Kylah to a lady Razorback basketball game and Joey to a men's Razorback basketball game. 

First it was Kylah's turn. She got to be out on the court during starting lineups. So cute!

They had lots of fun snacks at the game and then daddy took Kylah to Claire's to pick out some jewelry. She loves to shop and loves it when daddy buys her gifts! :)

Joey is loving basketball these days. He loves playing it; he loves watching it live; he loves watching it on TV. Joe loves it that Joey loves it. :) They had fun at their Razorback game. 

Go JBU!

Thanks, Uncle Josh for the new cheerleading outfits (and the jersey for Joey!) The girls love doing cheers. Kylah even made her own pom poms out of paper! :)

Mandair

The Adairs FINALLY got home from their trip to Australia the day after New Years. We were more than ready to have our best friends back! :)

We surprised them and met them at the airport. Our kids were hiding behind the glass so they wouldn't be spotted too soon.

Joey did most of the hiding...the girls weren't as concerned with crouching down...

It was fun to see their surprised faces. Connor pulled out all of his Australian money right away to show Joey.

I love this "I missed you!" hug!

Norah drew special pictures for Matthew.

When we knew the Adairs were going to be gone over Christmas, we thought we were not going to get to do our annual Mandair Christmas. But, we decided we could do it the weekend they got back and still do it! The kids were very excited.

Audrey made this fun sign. And I left all our Christmas decorations up. 

A group shot (except Andrew. He wasn't really in the picture-taking mood.) :)

The kids exchanged gifts. The Adairs brought presents from Australia, so that was so fun!

 

I love seeing their excited faces. 



We are so glad to have them back!

 

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We are back in full school mode now. It has been going really well. Kylah has been doing great on being excited about going to school in the morning (she had a little bit of a rough time for the first few months of this school year.) The kids already have this Friday and next Monday off, so yay for a four day weekend (for them....)!!

New Years Eve

 We spent New Years Eve with our friends the Foxes. The kids had a great time playing, running around, and making loud noises with the whistles and horns Leigh got them. :)

We decided not to let the kids stay up until midnight, because it had been a long day for them. So once they were down, we played a fun game of Settlers with Leigh and Brad and Leigh's sister and husband. 

 

We somehow managed to miss the ball dropping (it's hard to find the right channel because we aren't the same time as NY!!) But I rang in the New Year with a kiss from my handsome husband.

I'm excited to see what 2015 holds!

ice skating

Our town has a fun outdoor ice skating rink that they put up in the winter (in the summer it is a fun splash pad!)

We went skating two years ago, and I've really been wanting to go this winter.

Of course, it was FREEZING cold, but what do we expect in winter?!

The kids were so excited to go (I had actually gotten them bundled up earlier in the day to take them while Joe as at work, but we found out the rink wasn't open until evening, so they had to wait ALL day until we could go.)

But I was glad Joe was there with us!

Joey was off skating by himself right away. I'm pretty sure he fell down plenty of times, but he got right back up and off he went! (Don't picture a graceful ice skater here; picture an awkward walk/step on the ice...)

Kylah liked to hold on to one of our hands, but by the end she was gliding much better!

There he is falling...

 

They had these great "walkers" that you could use to skate with. Norah had her very own little one. And she didn't want any of us near her. Even if she fell down, she wanted to be helped up and then wanted to skate by herself (with her walker). She loved it.

By the end, she wound venture a few yards away from her walker and then head back to it. She was so excited.

After skating we headed over to some friends' house for pizza and hot chocolate.

What a fun night!

Anniversary time

Joe and I celebrated our 12th anniversary on December 28th.

It is hard to believe it's been 12 years since we were married! 

We enjoyed a nice night out to dinner. Some good friends of ours kept our kids for us so we had a quiet house to ourselves and got to sleep in the next morning! Wonderful!

Manthe Christmas 2014!

I know; I know...it's about time I posted about Christmas. In my defense, it takes forever on our home computer, so I like to wait until lunch at my office! :)

This is a long post, so sit back and enjoy! :)

We had a great Christmas in Kansas with Joe's family.

Christmas decorations are always so fun at Nana's house.

The first night, Katie had the idea to do a Grinch night. It was so fun. First, we made Grinch punch

The kids loved it!

Then we made Grinch fruit kabobs.

Jennifer made Roast Beast sandwiches and Who Hash for supper.

Then, it was time to sit down while Aunt Kris read How the Grinch Stole Christmas, followed by us all watching the original cartoon of How the  Grinch Stole Christmas. 

What a fun night!

By the way, we all loved sweet little Silas!

We headed to Jody and Jennifer's church on Christmas Eve. I love seeing all the Christmas outfits!

Got to have the goofy picture! :)

Joey is almost as tall as Aunt Brianna!

We loved spending some extra time with James and Brianna who stayed at the house with us! And we saw Jake & Katie and their kids and Jason& Heidi and their kids a bunch too, which was great!!

(But we definitely missed Josh, Val and family, and Jeff and Courtney!



Naomi and Norah are still looking just like little twin cousins. I love it. And they love being with each other. They were both so serious singing Christmas carols out of the hymn book!

Sweet cousins.

(we missed Hannah and Sarah that night!)

And then it was back to Nana's house and time for bed. They loved putting on their new jammies that Nana got for them. 

Christmas morning dawned bright. And early. Actually, we put a clock in the kids' room and told them they could come get us at 6:30 am and no earlier. Of course, they were in our room at 6:30 on the dot! (It reminded me of when my brothers used to set the alarm Christmas morning!)

Joey is still has the best reactions when opening gifts!

They each got some fun things. I loved watching them open gifts from each other and how excited both the giver and gifted were.

Such good thank you hugs. 

Norah loved this "American Girl Doll (actually the knock-off at Target, but she'll never know...)" that she got from Nana and Grandpa, complete with matching outfits.

Nana got some fun things.

And so did I!

Joe handed out all the gifts, but got some good stuff himself.

Later on Christmas day, all the rest of the Manthe family came over. Grandpa read the Christmas story.

I have a few pictures of everyone opening their presents, but here was the aftermath...

Many games were played. Memory was a favorite of the littles.

And Play-do.

And the adults (and Joey!) loved playing Settlers of Catan. 

Even Grandpa played Memory with the kids (we couldn't get him to play Settlers with us though...)

Grandpa took all of the big kids (and us!) to the gym to race remote control cars. So fun!

And of course we played basketball too.

One of the days we met at the church and let the kids play on the inflatables after the daddies played basketball. I wish I could have gotten some pictures of it, but we had two of our kids have injuries, and Joe and I were trying to keep their blood off the floor! (Kylah got kicked in the nose and had a major bloody nose, and Norah opened the door on her foot and got a good gash.)

But, then Grandpa took everyone to Power Play the last night we were there, so everyone was good by then!

These two little cuties, Sarah and Leah, are adorable!

The big kids love the ropes course now. (well, Kylah and Hannah have a love/hate relationship with the ropes course...)

Joey loves it.

And then there's sweet Silas again.

Norah and Naomi had a blast together again.

I love these smiles!

What a group!