The Walkers

Christmas Eve We attempted to teach the Walker grandkids the nativity story by having them act it out.  Ben was uncooperative and the costumes need some work (my fault), but the kids were pretty cute nonetheless.  Ben cheered up when he got to play with this super friendly golden retriever puppy that my in-laws were babysitting/hiding (he was to be a Christmas surprise for some friends).  What is it about this breed that is so stinkin' cute!?    Kaiya decorated some cookies for Santa by emptying two jars of sprinkles. Christmas Day   Since we video taped the whole procession, we neglected to take too many pictures Christmas morning.  But here are a couple shots of the magic.  Among other things, Santa gave Kaiya a puppy... as real a puppy as she'll ever get, anyway :)   Santa also brought Ben his own little car which he's been driving around the basement for three days (alongside Kaiya on her new birt...

Kaiya wanted a Barbie birthday this year, and I spent way too long making this box for all the little guests to pose in for pictures.  It was broken within five minutes. This is the only picture I have and the box is already in shambles. Oh well.  My camera was out of whack so I only have a couple pictures worth sharing...  Here's the birthday girl on her new big girl bike.... Luckily, I managed to get a photo of the pretty cake.  It turned out perfectly and I still feel super guilty about pawning off this huge task on my big sister.  Thanks Laurel!!

Our little Cowardly Lion and Dorothy rocked the trick-or-treating this year.  and... the hood remained off the rest of the night  And for some reason, I'm including this random picture of three kids "helping" me make bread :)

Ben is obsessed with Disney's Cars and Thomas the Tank Engine, so after looking at some ideas online (and not wanting to compete with this ), I decided on a Cars themed birthday party this year.  It turned out pretty cute and was surprisingly easy to put together.  I am a little proud of the invitation. Alicia and Blaine couldn't make it to the party, so they came to visit earlier in the day to deliver Ben's gift.  He is pretty excited to have his own Thomas, but not nearly as excited as Jake was while giving it to him. It was like he was initiating him into his club. The whole scene was seriously adorable.  Ben was moving around so fast during the party that most of my pictures are blurry or just plain awkward.  But the food table held still :)  Here's one of several shots of Ben getting plenty of "help" opening gifts from his cousins. Brad and I gave him a train table for his room (we were kind of sick of tripping over the tr...

I have neglected this blog for far too long.  Sorry 'bout that. The last couple months have been busy. Good busy. School began in August for Kaiya and me.  My job is the same crazy, exhausting, loud, sometimes embarrassing song and dance it always was.  I love teaching.  I don't love grading and parents and the occasional inappropriate haiku read aloud in Creative Writing, but I love teaching. Little Miss Kaiya is going to preschool two days a week and loving it. And I love picking her up and hearing about who played with whom and the entire plot line of the story book "Miss Amy" read that day.  She is so excited to be learning her letters and it's cute to see how proud she is when she recognizes them.  She's obsessed with rhymes and always asks me which words rhyme with which.  We may have a little poet in the making :)  She also brings home the cutest little projects; it's hard to determine which Elmer's glue/sparkles/constr...

How much did you love seeing this screen as a child, huh??  Much better than "You have died of Dysentery."  Anyway.... Be prepared for a slew of pictures from my kids and my most recent tour of the Pacific Northwest. For starters, I'm so glad I went to the reunion.  They divided it into two events: an adults-only dinner and a family picnic the next day.  Both were blasts.  Here are the Papermaker girls all grown up. Love them.  My kids mostly just played in dirt at the park on the family day... I love this picture of Ben. Mostly because it looks like the picture of my big brother, Scott, getting caught eating the gingerbread house at about the same age.   (Megan - I could have sworn that picture was on your blog somewhere but I couldn't find it... can you send it to me so we can compare?)  We always joke about how Ben looks like Amy Walker and Scott Lee had a baby.  Don't think about it too hard, though... that's just weird....