Pre Christmas Activities

We had a full plate of activities leading up to Christmas.  I got to attend Olivia's school Christmas party.  It was a lot of fun.  She made an ornament, played games and got a cupcake!

Steve, my Mom and I attended Chris' church Christmas show.  Olivia sang and Chris accompanied a quartet on the piano.

Tommy and Jena came home just in time to decorate sugar cookies.

Steve and I went to Branson for our annual Silver Dollar City Christmas lights show.

We took 6 of the grandkids to the zoo for the lights.  The carousel was free so they rode it several times!

A week later they all came over for our annual sleepover.  We eat pizza, look at lights and make candy & cookies.

Right before Christmas Tommy & Jena came to town and we all spent the day together.  The girls had a choir concert.  Then we went to church at Mike's church.  Dinner at Favazza's and then the Brewery lights.

Main St after eating pizza.

Zoo 2016

It's hard to take photos when you have 7 kiddos and only 2 adults watching them and the zoo is packed! So I'm happy that a few of the pictures came out ok!

A Day At The Zoo

Last week I went to the zoo with Sunny, Amber & all the grandkids.  We got there early enough that we could see the Stingrays for free.

See this little red head?  She was part of our group.  What a cute head of hair!

Have you ever felt like scratching but since you were in public didn't? This guy had no qualms about it!

Here there and everywhere!

Steve and I took the girls to Powder Valley last Thursday.  We went on a short hike.  It's our ritual!  Whenever a new grandkid is born we take the older kids on a hike.  

We found this deer just laying next to the creek enjoying the nice weather.

The rest of the pictures didn't turn out.  Steve took quite a few but I forgot to change the setting from manual to automatic for him and they were all blown out.

 

When we went to the zoo a few days ago the kids wanted their picture with the gorilla.

The real ones were pretty active and we spent a lot of time watching them.

Catherine practiced holding a ball on her nose like the sea lions!

Brought to you by....

A few days ago I took the oldest 3 grandkids to the Zoo.  The weather was nice and I thought we could give Amber and Gus a little quiet time.  Catherine loves to take pictures.  I hope she makes a lot of money at it since she is going to be taking care of me and Steve! (see previous post)  The following photos are courtesy of her.   If you're wondering where pictures of Mary are, she chose not to be a model on this particular day.

Boo at the Zoo

We went to Boo at the Zoo on Friday night. It was really enjoyable. The decorations were cute and there was lots to keep the kids entertained. Our first stop was to take pictures. Michael decided he didn't want to be a monster. He wanted to be a mummy!


The giant pumpkins were really cute, especially once it got dark.

You can't tell but this tree has purple lights on it. This is Mary's very favorite tree in the whole world.

The girls made necklaces. Michael was very interested in what was going on.


Michael did not like his lion hat on.



The gerbils were a big hit with the kids. I was only able to take one picture before I had to grab Michael. He was trying to climb in with them!


I would definitely take them again next year.