Run Run Rudolph!

Some Christmas stuff we did 2014 style.

Annual decorating of the Festivus tree.

My sister made us these.  The stakes broke off in the wind last year, so this year we replaced the stakes for ones with super powers and I think our outdoor decorations happen to be better than all other people's decorations in the world.

Just right.

They asked Santa for a pet skunk.

My brothers came for Christmas.  We are having the "game playing for random prizes" Walker Christmas tradition.

There are so many boys, these are only half of all the grand-boys.

It snowed Christmas Eve.  We had a white Christmas to make you jealous.

Christmas morning.  Notice Sam who does not care if clothes are on backwards, inside-out or both.

Noelle is painting Alicia's fingernails bright green.  The nail polish was a random prize she won at the Walker "game playing for random prizes" day.

We had 22 people at our house for Christmas dinner.  That's a lot of food that my brother, Nasson, and his wife, Sabina, made for us all :)

Turkey Heads

Noelle's class had a family Thanksgiving Feast and performed some songs and poems.

In other news, we listened to the book Pippi Longstocking and finally got around to watching the movie from 1988 (really, it looked and felt like 1975) and now the dang song from it is stuck in my head--"Pippi Longstocking is coming in to your town..."

Noelle and Kyleigh.

Her class.  See that boy on the far far right in blue?  That's Phat.  Every day Noelle tells me the funny things that Phat does.  I call it "The Many Adventures of Phat".  He's a bit of trouble actually, always goofing around and distracting Noelle from her work.  He gave her 8 quarters and a smiley face ring one day.  He's a bit of trouble.

Snow Day

The kids got two days off school Monday and Tuesday for Veteran's Day.  Then, just as I was about to lose my mind, they went back to school Wednesday.  Thursday it started dumping snow and I was pretty much convinced they would send them home early.  They didn't.  But there was no way anyone was going to school Friday.  There was a good 8-12 inches on the ground.  So, what do you do on a snow day?  Sled.

Chad works half days most Fridays, so we waited for him to join us.

Noelle left her snow pants at school.  We were very lucky to borrow these from a neighbor.  She was not thrilled with the color and offered to wear 3 sizes too small pants we had.

It's difficult to tell, but it was still dumping snow while we were sledding.  Ruby is catching snowflakes on her tongue.

Race.

Snow angels.

This is from Thursday.  The older kids just left for school and Ruby wanted to go outside and play.  She suited her own self up and had a blast writing in the snow.

I Solemnly Swear I Am Up To No Good

We had two sets of family pictures taken this year.  The first set was in the late spring and the last was recently this fall--I'm guessing it should be obvious which is which (hint: we are wearing sweaters in the fall photo shoot ;).  Why did we take two sets of pictures?  Because you can literally see the fatigue on my person.  Bleh.  I made a solemn vow to my family not to put them through such torment for at least another year . . . at least.  So, do enjoy the Woolner Family in all their splendor.  Do not judge the spring photos of my blechy person.

Can't you just see it?

The sixth member of our family is reflected in the background.

It should be noted here that Chad was sick for our second round of pictures.  If someone has to be immortalized in photos and look blechy, it just better not be me.  Sorry, Babe.  I think you look hot.