So ugly he's cute

Mr. Crabby-pants is our oldest, biggest, bravest crab and definitely has the most personality.

Ever seen a hermit crab eat? Its really very cute and dainty.

Church Festival 2016

The kids participated in our church's Christmas Festival again tonight. Laura in the Youth Choir (she graduated from Angel Choir!) and Adam as a drummer. Laura had a sleepover birthday party the night before until 15 minutes before she was supposed to be at the church to warm up. And this was Adam's first performance on a drum and really his first time to have to play an entire song with someone else, with a director, and all the way through. I was so stressed about how this was going to go, but the kids had no problems. Worrying is useless!

 Laura in the middle of the white robes, Adam to the far left.

And an hour after the festival, Laura was an altar server at Mass. Usually after a sleepover, she is falling apart by 1:00pm, gets nauseated, has migraines, but today she held it together all evening! Its 7pm now and I can see her fading fast, but nothing to worry about at this point. 

Great job kids!!!

Awesome-ness

Laura is very excited to start being an Altar Server. Her first Mass was last week with a veteran to give her some help and it went great! She's flying solo this week.

Glacier Hills installed a mini-library so the kids can read each others' work. Zoom in to see whose story was filed first.

Don't leave your phone unattended.

Back to Basketball

This kid can hustle! I don't know where he gets his moves?

Minnesotan Ninja Warriors (Junior)

We have some awesome training gyms nearby that have American Ninja Warrior - type obstacles, both adult and kids sizes. We took Adam and a couple friends (and Laura) for his birthday to an open gym. So much fun!

After a few tries, Laura was the first one up the blue warped wall.

A few more tries, and Adam was up too!

Hi up there, Birthday Boy!

Then Laura started seeing how high she could make it on the real sized Warped Wall (14.5'), the same size as the ones on TV. 

We saw one amazing middle-schooler make it up this wall with no problem, so it is realistic that she could do it someday. :)

Our kids have great static-electricity-hair

The crew on an oversized warped wall.

Adam was so sweet about his sister joining the guys. I don't think it ever crossed his mind that she wouldn't.

And home for more cake!

Yay! It worked!

Come on winter, we are ready for you!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We went to Madison to spend Thanksgiving with Kim and my parents. Kim recently had her 2nd shoulder surgery of the year. To preserve her sanity and not slow her recovery, we stayed at a hotel and had turkey dinner at Essen-Haus.

And we toured the capital!

See the starfish in the marble near Adam's shoe?

The tour was fun, even the kids thought so.

And more celebrating Adam!

Yay for ice cream cake!

Lunch at Ella's Deli before we headed home.

Happy 8th Birthday Adam!

Happy 90th Grandma! and a Getaway with Kim

Kim and I flew to Oklahoma this October to meet a bunch of family and celebrate our Grandma's 90th birthday. It was really great to hang out with just Kim for a long weekend, see family I haven't seen in forever, and celebrate my fantastic Grandma.

Braun's on the way out of Wichita

Yum!

Mom needed someone to cook a gluten free pizza in the church's industrial oven. I used all my substitute lunch lady training to get the job done.

Heading home

Love ya Sis!

A tour of Foodville

Cleaning out the pantry

The kids made a "city", complete with king's tower, hospital, school bus and jail. Also an intruder and giant.

I think we're doing something right because Laura just said "oh no, the people need food and no where to work to get money! We need somewhere for them to work!"

Girls in Engineering Day