Hanging Out with Mom

Five out of seven ventured out for an informal photo shoot followed by lunch.


Perhaps Jeff was more willing because he hasn't been subjected to so many photos. Or maybe it was the thought of lunch....

You can't even tell from the front that Jasmine had neck surgery and had a slew of stitches in the back.

Not quite lined up right.

Jeff

Kayla

Jasmine

Kaleb

Jessica

I was turning into Pizza Hut for the buffet and happened to comment that if for some reason they didn't have the buffet, we could always go across the street to the Chinese buffet. Everyone immediately voiced that they'd rather go there. Me too. I don't really do Pizza Hut, but I thought Jeff would prefer it so that's why I'd chosen it. And the twins will eat anything. So we quickly, while annoying a whole lane of cars, we went from the left turn lane to the right turn lane and to the Chinese buffet.

What a face. He was really into the food. He ate 3 1/2 plates of food before I stopped him! I told him to point to what he wanted and that was pretty much everything without broccoli. He even ate baked mushroom!

Kayla was more picky, but she tried lots of things.

The boy loves his food.

I stick with a few favorites every time. I try a new thing or two but my stomach prefers food it knows. Trust me on that.

Of course you eat ice cream with chop sticks.

Just hanging out

We have just been hanging out the past week. We played games, Wii and shot air soft guns.
All the Wii pictures tend to look the same so I'll just post the more animated shots.


Jasmine can jump but can't do certain arm movements due to the neck surgery. It actually didn't effect the neck other than three large incisions on the back. They start inflating the balloons under the skin on Jan. 11. That may limit her more.

Ty ducks under an obstacle.

We waited until after Christmas to buy our English Christmas crackers so they were half price. We started this tradition while living in England of course. Now if we could just find the toy filled cadbury Easter eggs....

Everyone modeled their cracker crowns. If you didn't see the family pictures with the crowns, go back a post.

Jasmine

Jeff

Adam

Kayla

Tyler

Kaleb shows the crayons that were in his cracker.

Jessica

We have played lots of Yahtzee. Triple Yahtzee actually.

Jeff has been studying for his ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) on Friday.

Toy Story kerplunk

Don't spill the beans. It's interesting to see the combination of kids that choose to play together.

Blues Clues memory

Jessica has worked a lot of hours this vacation but it will help with her textbooks for next semester.

caroms

I found the old board in my mom's closet but no sticks so Jasmine is using a mini pool cue from our game table.

This vacation hasn't been without it's problems unfortunately. My cell phone went missing and mysteriously reappeared on my desk. (Like I hadn't already searched there countless times and even taken everything off my desk and dusted). There is no confession and no repentance. just outright insistence by the child who took it that he didn't take it.



But overall vacation has gone well. Most of the children have cooperated and done well getting done what needed done in order to play and have interacted well with siblings.

Today those who want to are going out to shoot some pictures and then go to the Pizza Hut buffet. I think all but two plan to go. One has undone work and one isn't feeling the best.

Going into the New Year with

this crazy crew.

ALL of these pictures are different. We were messing with my new camera. We (sort of) figured out how to set the timer for ten pictures in a row. That gave people lots of opportunities to express their own personalities.

So which picture is really us?

We started out with some bare feet, white socks etc in the pictures until I sent everyone to put on black socks.

Some "charming" expressions in this one.

Last of the bare feet pictures.

Now everyone is in black, Diego or Tinkerbell socks.

Gotta love Tyler

These are only a few of the 24 pictures we shot while sitting on the couch wearing the crowns from our Christmas crackers (which we got half price after Christmas for New Year's Eve)

New Year's Eve and day pictures to follow....