A Little Bit of Everything

Christmas 2014

Phew, almost done with 2014. This holiday season heralded the entrance of Levi, who was an immediate hit. He had a very large fan base. It was also our last Christmas with Kammy, who would be leaving in January for South America. That means... time for some family pictures! But I get ahead of myself. That's not until the next post. For now, Christmas. I'll let the pictures tell the story.

Thanksgiving 2014

Moving right along to Thanksgiving! This year, the gathering at Grandma and Grandpa L's was a slightly different crowd than normal. The MO branch of the family headed to TX instead of IL so that they could celebrate a 50th wedding anniversary on the other side of the family. However, our crowd did not shrink in number. We were joined by a large OK contingent, as a number of Kalynn's family came over with Kyle and Kalynn. I do believe a good time was had by all.

Food preparation

Preparation supervision

Grandma with her kids :)

The feast and attendees

Dessert feast - with one attendee ready to go!

The clean-up crew

The Grandma/Grandpa glasses... an annual Thanksgiving favorite

Where's your serious face, Kalynn?

Ah, there it is.

Another annual Thanksgiving favorite... naptime. Leo isn't quite ready for his nap yet.

Being a good guard dog is hard work! Time for a break.

Rugging

And scrapbooking

Happy 4-months-late Thanksgiving to all!!

Hot Dog Juice, Anyone?

Spent an evening watching this little miss. We play many games, such as Super Ellie, Ball, Hide and Seek (in which you are usually told where to hide), and restaurant. My favorite offering at Ellie's Family Restaurant was a glass of hot dog juice. Who can say no to such a delicacy?

May I take your order?

One glass of hot dog juice, coming up!

Birthday Shenanigans

Maybe you recall the streamer-tent that was constructed over my cubicle at work last year when I turned 30? Well, it was such a hit that we decided to make it a tradition. Of course, you can't do exactly the same thing, so for Noah's 30th birthday in October we gift-wrapped his whole cube.. and many of the contents.

Austin and Brian work on creating balloon animals

The finished product - which frankly, looked pretty much the same regardless of what animal was being fashioned

Laura and Rachel are pleased with the results

As they should be! What a fabulous-looking cube!

And really, no part of the bay was left out.

Noah tears into his gift

Just what he always needed! Think he got much work done that day?? He has all of the supplies now at least, if only he can get to them...

Happy 30th, Noah!

Fall 2014

Fall happened. I was studying.

Farewell to Summer

After convention, there were a few more nice days before summer ended. One was spent at the forest preserve with Kammy. In a surprising twist, she found a cool, twisty old tree that she rather enjoyed.

Another gorgeous weekend was spent at an exam-prep seminar (boo) where I was... the only attendee. Yep, it was good old Colin (I've had him for several seminars in the past) and myself. He isn't big on eye contact, which feels kind of funny in a larger group setting but feels quite funny in a one-on-one setting. Anyway, it worked, so it was worth it. And over lunch hour, I could wander around downtown, enjoy the fantastic weather, and pretend I wasn't spending one of the last good weekends of late summer cooped up in a classroom.

My lunch spot:

Conventions 2014

Okay, I am now officially about 3.7 gazillion years behind on my blog. Let's remedy that this afternoon.

The summer wrapped up with conventions, which were wonderful as always. Kyle and Kalynn were able to join us for most of Seneca. This is when we learned that Kamela would be heading to Ecuador for 6 months in 2015 - or at least, that was the plan at the time.

My most fantastical siblings