Whew!

Today was a VERY busy day.  Double A, The Bean, The VH, Flower, Pippi, Tink, and Laughter were all here for Holidays!  Holidays is the tradition we started when DJ was 4 (she's 19 now), and try to do at least once a year, where we celebrate a bunch of holidays in one day because I'm usually not home for most of them.  So today we did:

Easter.  Each kid gets to dye 6 eggs, then we send them off on an errand and I hide the eggs (obviously it's too cold for the bunny to come do it).

 

Thanksgiving.  We eat Thanksgiving dinner, but very pared down.

We celebrate birthdays.  Each person gets a cupcake.  We've started doing only 1 candle for each, because between 7 kids and 4 adults, it would have been something like 304 candles.  11 are easier to light and blow out...

 

4th of July.  We got outside and do sparklers and smoke bombs.  There isn't always snow like this year, so this time we got to toss the smoke bombs in the snow and watch the results. 

Halloween.  We do face paint and the kids trick-or-treat around the house.

St. Patrick's Day.  We do a treasure hunt with clues to follow to find the Leprechaun's lost gold (gold wrapped chocolate).

Are you exhausted reading about it?  Because it's exhausting doing it!

 

We then all wore our matching owl pjs to the movie.  Because I am a dorky aunt who makes her nieces do stuff like that.

 

The movie was Moana, and it was a lot of fun.

Finally, today is Shoetopia's 4th blogiversary!  I think this shoe is hilarious and adorable.

Everyone is supposed to be spending the night, but sadly Pippi had a horrible headache all day and decided she wanted to go home after the movie, and Tink decided to go with her.  The VH has family stuff tomorrow so she couldn't say over.  I still have 4 kiddos sleeping over, though.

Speaking of kiddos, all of my nieces are amazing, but can I take a minute to brag on Double A and The Bean?  They still love to do Holidays, but they are also great with helping with the younger kids.  They're great with kids in general, and love hanging out with their cousins.  They are patient and kind and loving, and it makes my heart happy to watch them.  But now my happy heart and I are going to bed.

Deer

There is a group of deer that wanders in and around the parents' yard:

This is from the front porch.  Yes, the neighbors have a caboose.

This is the back porch.

And this is the backyard.  Aren't they sweet?  I don't have to live here, so I love seeing them and watching them.  Mom and Dad do have to live here, so they are less enamored with the deer pooping in the yard and eating everything.

Obviously tonight's shoes shall be deer themed:

 

Why does this shoe have a hood ornament?

These are actually pretty sweet, but I would have to have a very specific occasion for which to wear them.

 

Awwww.  I love these.  Still can't think of where I would wear them, though.

But wherever it is, the PB could also go.

Yay, deer AND Christmas!  Or not, but they kind of look Christmas-y to me.

What is even happening here?  These make the hood ornament shoe look sane.  I...like the color...?

Much better.  I couldn't leave you with the insanity above.

Today was awesome.  The auntie, seester, Double A, Bean, Flower, and Laughter came over for a crafternoon.  The seester and I crocheted, Double A painted rocks, and everyone else kind of rotated around through various crafts.  It was a lot of fun.  The auntie and seester went home before it got dark, but Double A and the Bean just left and Laughter and Flower are having a sleepover.  Not a bad way to spend the 5th Day of Christmas, if I do say so myself.

Christmas Programs, Round 2

Yesterday at 1:00 was Laughter's Christmas program, her first ever since she's just in Kindergarten, and she was SOOOOO excited.  She was hilarious before the program, jumping up and down and waving like crazy.  Her program was the Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grades, and all of them wore their pajamas, so they were pretty adorable.  After the program, Mom, Dad and I got back in the car and came back home so I could head to Pippi's and Tink's program at 5:30.  Their school program was Monday and I wasn't able to go, but at least I got to go to their church program.  Pippi was the narrator and Tink was Joseph and they both did awesome jobs.  All my nieces are awesome; I'm such a proud auntie.  I got an even better treat in that Tink and Pippi came over for a play date today so I got to spend some more time with them, which I always love.  They were (as always) cracking me up with their goofy antics.  Pippi asked if I would play hide and seek with them, and I had to laugh at myself because as soon as I got into my hiding place I totally had to pee.  It never fails, the same thing happened when I was a kid.  It makes hiding difficult when all I can think of is my bladder.

Anyhoodle, tonight's shoes are nativity themed in honor of all of this week's Christmas programs:

This is so pretty.  Why do the shoe people want me stepping on the baby Jesus, the Holy Family, and the Wise Men?  So rude. 

I think this one is really sweet, but what is hovering behind the Holy Family?  Are those supposed to be angels?  Because they look like bull's heads or possibly devil heads.  Shoe fail.

 

Also pretty.  Also, see comments above on the first pair.

I had to rotate the picture so you could see the image on the shoe better, but then the overall shoe looks funky.  I like the cartoon, though, and it makes for a cute, quirky shoe.

I think this effort at nativity shoes went much better than the last time I went looking, but I'm still not convinced that nativity shoes are necessary, or even appropriate.

Snow!

Ahhh...It finally snowed here.  Not a lot, maybe 5 inches, but it's sticking and it was snowing this morning in big, beautiful, lazy flakes:

So tonight's shoes are inspired by the snow, and picked out by Flower:

We both thought this was hilarious.  It's a wedding shoe.  A winter wedding I get.  These shoes?  Not so much.

Now these I would wear for a winter wedding.

We also thought this was hilarious.  A red tennie with snowflakes is one thing, but one with a yeti on the back is awesome!

Also wedding shoes.  They said they were blue, but we both thought they looked green.  Maybe it's the light?  What color do they look to you?

I love these.  I would like a pair, please.  And I really hope this is a pair and not a single shoe from 2 different pairs.

I also love these.  Didn't Flower did a good job of choosing shoes?

Speaking of Flower, I'm at the seester's for a few days, so I get to hang out with this set of nieces.  We've had a lovely day. We went shopping for their Christmas dresses (which are adorable) and caught up on the Advent Calendar, and did a lot of giggling.  Not a bad way to spend a snowy Saturday.

Friendship

Tonight I am grateful for time with nieces who aren't actually nieces (but please don't tell them that).  Pippi and Tink spent the night last night and had a sleepover with Flower and Laughter.  And me and The Bean, too, for that matter.  Pippi and Tink were a little annoyed at having to wait so long to hang out but between being sick, Thanksgiving, etc. yesterday was the first time that worked.  Plus, why not throw in a sleepover with 4 giggling, wild girls after a day of 50th anniversary celebrations?  Actually, I'll tell you why:  I'm old and now I'm tired. 😜 Anyway, one of the things the girls did while they were here was to make friendship bracelets, so that is what inspired tonight's shoes:

I like idea of both these pairs in theory, but they're just a little too busy for me in practice.  Still fun, though.

I like this one a lot.  I'd like it better with a different back, I think, but I still like it.

How cool is this?  Except I would never have the patience to make one, let alone 2.  I got about 2 inches of one bracelet done in something like an hour and a half and gave up.  I have to figure out how I made them in college, because I was either infinitely more patient (not likely) or I didn't do them the "correct" way (much more likely).

 

All the girls love fleep flops, so clearly they need to make each other friendship footwear!

I love all of my babies who are no longer babies.  I'm also not going to complain about sleeping alone tonight!

Oh, one more thing, in case you didn't see my post on Facebook today.  Laughter and Tink made up their own recipe last night.  They took jelly beans, wrapped them in Laffy Taffy, and rolled the whole thing in sprinkles.  Then they froze them.  My teeth hurt just typing that sentence! They were super proud of themselves, though, the little goofs.

Laughter is Six!

Once upon a time there was a woman with a blog.  She typed and she blah blahed until she reached 1,000 posts.  And then she never posted again.  The end.

At least that's what it's felt like to me.  Maybe not to you as you may neither care nor pay that much attention, but I keep thinking I need to post and then get too busy or too tired or too whatever and don't do it.

But today is Laughter's 6th birthday, which seems the perfect reason for post 1,001! So here 6 pairs of shoes named after her:

I wish this didn't have the giant button on it, but it's cute otherwise.

This is sort of an odd shape but I bet it's cute on.

Love the color, hate the heel.

Um.  No.  Laughter deserves better than this ugly shoe.

Oooh, sparkly t-straps.  Much better!

This is so close, but not quite there for me.

Unlike Miss Laughter, who is practically perfect in every way:  She's funny, smart, sassy, adventurous, outgoing, and awesome.  And no, I'm not biased.  I can't believe you would say such a thing. 

Flower(s) and Laughter

Today was another busy day.  I got up early and drove to Missoula where I went to church at the congregation where I had my first call.  It was nice.  And weird.  Maybe not my wisest choice when I'm so confused about my call?  But nice to see people.  Then I had breakfast with a friend who is like my cousin but not actually related.  Then I got lost trying to find Flower's and Laughter's soccer games.  Actually, I wasn't lost, I went to the right place, got confused, got honked at, tried GPS, THEN got lost.  GPS was so not helpful today.  I "had" to stop and get a latte to get me back on track.  Finally found the right place and then couldn't find Flower and Laughter.  By the time I found the fam I only got to watch about 20 minute's of Laughter's game (Flower wasn't feeling well so didn't play), but at least I got to see some of it.  I've spent the rest of the afternoon at the Seester's house, which has been awesome.  Laughter showed me all of the tricks she can do on the swing set.  That kid is a little monkey.  So is Flower, for that matter, but she only showed me a couple because she's still feeling kind of bleahky.

Today is May Day!  Which means flowers AND I got to spend time with Flower!

Aren't they all so bright and fun?

Today is also World Laughter Day, and I got to spend it with Laughter!  But since I just did a laughter post a couple of weeks ago, I just went with flower shoes for tonight.

Memory Lane: 2013. 2014. 2015.

Family!

Today was awesome.  We had a family dinner to celebrate my (late) and Double A's (early) birthdays.  The rain from yesterday continued today which meant that Flower's and Laughter's soccer games got canceled, which meant that their whole family got to come to dinner when we didn't think they would be able to.  There were 12 of us:  me, Mom, Dad, the Brother, the Seester, the Brother-in-Law, Double A, the Bean, Flower, Laughter, the Auntie, and the Uncle (who I haven't seen in a couple of years, so that was extra-special-awesome!).  We were only missing DJ and the hubby, which is very very sad.  There was German chocolate cake, which is never ever sad.  Sigh...it was lovely, and I wish it could happen more often.  Here are some shoes from the day:

The Auntie's thrift store boots.  They're crazy, and cool, and totally work for her.

Dad and the Uncle were both wearing Keene's today.  One of these days I should round us all up and take a Keene family picture. 

The Seester's adorable brown sandals, with a slight, unintentional photo-bomb from the Brother-in-Law.

So it was a pretty fabulous day.  So fabulous, in fact, that even going to the mostly terrible and very long Batman Vs. Superman couldn't ruin the overall fabulosity.

Memory Lane: 2013. 2014. 2015.