New Year's Eve Shenanigans

Grandma Larkin's birthday is on New Years Eve. She always jokes that people celebrate when her birthday is over. She is turning 85 this year, so we decided to throw her a big surprise birthday and celebrate her all night. We heard their was snow close by Mom and Dad's so we took a little morning trip before the party. There wasn't a lot of snow, but we still had some fun.

That afternoon, Amy, Mom and I went and picked up some flowers and some party supplies. We decorated while Grandma was on the couch and she didn't realize until I shouted Happy Birthday and covered her with balloons. I told her that were were having a party for her, but she had no idea to what extent. All of Lesa's family got there and we snuck them into the living room and told Grandma we wanted to show her something. She was pretty surprised when she came around the corner.

It was so fun to have everyone together, and be able to catch up with everyone. Amy and Mike put together an awesome video honoring Grandma and her life. Apparently, Amy broke into her house to get some of the pictures. There were a lot that I had never seen before.

It's kind of become a tradition to prank Grandma with her gifts. She still receives gifts from "Bob". She buys something for herself sometime in the year and wraps them up and doesn't look at them again until she opens them for either Christmas or her birthday. The night before her birthday she had brought over her gift. After she went home, Trevor, Amy and I got her present and opened the side of it and pulled out a beautiful necklace. We got Stacey on board to help us with the prank too.  Mom let us use one of her necklaces to put in her present and then we took her real necklace and wrapped it up in beautiful wrapping and we put that it was from Lyles and Stacy.  It was so funny when Grandma opened her presents.  She was so quiet when she opened the necklace from Lyles and Stacy.  You could see the panic in her eyes as she thought they got her the exact same necklace.  She was so relieved when she opened the present from Bob and realized that we got her again.  Grandma has the best sense of humor!

It was so fun to celebrate Grandma. She's a special lady.

California Cold

This is how us silly Californians handle a little cold weather. I'll admit it, we are a bunch of wimps. Lincoln looks pretty cute all bundled up though.

Christmas 2014

Grandma and Grandpa Krepps came over for Christmas Eve. It was so fun to have them over. 

Christmas morning the boys were very anxious to get downstairs.

The boys draw names every year, and I love to see them so thoughtful with each other.

Lincoln made a gingerbread man at school and insisted that he give it to Rob for Christmas. So sweet!

Bryson has been obsessed with the new "Blaze and the Monster Machines" show, so he was so happy that Daddy got him some monster trucks.

After we opened gifts we went up to Mom and Dad's house and had dinner together. It was a great day together.

Tough Guy

A couple of days ago Rob made and awesome rope swing for the boys in one of the trees in the backyard. 

They have all loved playing with it. Yesterday afternoon, Porter was flinging it around with no one on it and it swung around and caught him in the nose. After spending last night at urgent care to get the outside of his nose glued, we spent our morning in the head and neck department to find out that he needed to get stitches on the inside too. (How do you even tear the inside of your nose?!) 

He opted to get stitches right then instead of going back tonight and being put under anesthesia. They didn't numb his nose enough and it was very painful for him. It was so hard to watch, but he is one tough kid and took it like a champ. Porter sure knows how to keep life exciting!!

This Kid

We went to Lincoln's Christmas performance this morning. I wish I had a cute video or picture of him singing the songs, but halfway through the program I still couldn't find him on the stage. I noticed the principal to the side of the stage motioning to someone and thought I better go see if it was Lincoln. Sure enough, I came around the side of the stage and saw this...

We all tried to get his attention to see what was wrong, but he wouldn't even look at us. When he got home from school I asked him what happened. He told me that the hat they gave him to wear was "a girl's hat" and didn't want anyone to see him wearing it. 

Twinners

Bryson loves to wear his Laker jersey and was so happy when Porter came down in a matching shirt. These two are such buddies, I love them both so much!

Cute Helpers

For family night, the boys helped Dad put up the Christmas lights. They make pretty cute helpers!

Sam

Sam has done some funny things before, but this one made the boys laugh the hardest. When you gotta go, ya gotta go!

Wish List

Tonight the boys wrote out their Christmas wish lists. All of the boys lists were pretty simple, except Ethan's...

The kid cracks me up.

Fall Fun

The leaves have been dropping off of our tree like crazy and our yard is covered in them. When I thought about it, and realized my kids have never played in fall leaves, I snuck outside and raked them all together and then went and got the boys. They were so excited. They took turns running and jumping in them,

and Lincoln loved just throwing them in the air.

It was such a fun afternoon.

And I even got a rare picture of them all looking and smiling at the camera.

My Smartie Pants

All my boys got on the honor roll for the first trimester. I'm so proud of them, they all worked hard for it.

This year Ethan has all his buddies in his class. I was pretty impressed that every one of them received highest honors. Such good boys.

Little Boys

Bryson has spent his morning outside playing with his dump truck. This is what little boys should be doing, and it makes my heart happy.

Trevor's Homecoming

The day finally came for Trevor to come home from his mission. We were all so excited! Aubree had a soccer game that afternoon, so the entire family went. I'm pretty sure she had the biggest cheering section ever!

Brother Ebmeyer offered to bus all of us down to the airport so we could all be together. We kept it a secret from Trevor.  Trevor's flight was delayed and wasn't getting in until after midnight, so it was a little tough on the kids, but no one wanted to miss out.

He had quite the welcoming committee waiting for him.

The kids were so cute and made a bunch of posters to welcome him home.

People started coming  from his plane and we waited, and waited and waited...


until finally he was the last to come down the escalator.







 I think the best part was watching his reaction to how much Spencer had changed while he was gone.

We left the airport we were waiting for the bus to pull up, Trevor saw the Ebmeyer bus and thought it was funny that it was there. We told him it was for us, and he was pretty surprised.


The drive home was so fun. We gave him the microphone, and he told us stories the whole way home.


By the time we got home it was after 2am. But we stayed up and Listened to more stories while we ate a ton of chocolate that Trevor brought home for us.

+

The next day Trevor showed us his pictures and videos from his mission,

and we got outside and played some family wiffle ball. 

It is so nice to have the entire family together again!