New Year’s Eve 2013

 

Even though I’m not a particularly crafty person, we decided to attempt another balloon drop this year. It all came together so quickly and beautifully last year – much to my surprise – that I found myself feeling skeptical that it could go as well as it did last year.

Believe it or not, it all DID go just as well as it did last year … with one small, funny glitch.  While we were shopping for supplies in the party aisles, I spotted a big display of glow sticks. They had the traditional sticks that you could fashion into a necklace, but they also had an assortment of swords, wands and silly glasses. So we grabbed a handful of those, too. To make the Big Moment even more exciting, l wanted to save the glow sticks until just before our balloon drop, so I waited until 5 minutes ‘til to hand them out.

And clearly, they were a big hit. In fact, they were such a big hit that everyone was so excited and busy assembling them that when I looked over at our computer countdown clock, it was just ticking past 1 to 0!  We missed our “midnight”! (9:00 EST time, 12:00 UTC time).

Everyone was quiet for a couple of seconds.  Then we started talking about when we should drop them instead and decided to go ahead and just do it then, at 12:04, or whatever time it was.

And we found that a balloon drop is just as exciting and fun at 12:04 as it is at 12:00!  :-) (Mental note: next year get out the glow sticks about half hour before the Big Moment.  :-D)

What else? Oh yes, in honor of the occasion, Courtney counted from 1 to 2,014. By herself. In the piano room.

and Erica demonstrated her amazing flexibility:

 

We feasted on Mini Burgers (hey, those were good!), Pigs in a Blanket, and French fries (yes, we deep fried them). I made the 1-Pan Fudge Cake again to go with homemade vanilla ice cream and all the toppings.

And after all that frivolity and celebrating and feasting, we ended the evening by watching the last 3 episodes of … BBC’s Bleak House!  Ha!  And it was bleak and wonderful and had a happy ending!

Christmas 2013

I’ve spent the last couple of hours or so combing through all the pictures we took in December. I sorted them, did a little editing and am waiting for them to finish uploading to an online photo album. 237 pictures!  Here’s a screen shot of the collection so far:

In looking at this snapshot of a bunch of snapshots, many thoughts come to mind. First: there are a lot of us. Second: we truly enjoy each others’ company. Yes, these are not new revelations, but it is good to be reminded of the great blessing of family.

Here’s a another screen shot of photos, mostly of the Worley household on Christmas morning. When I look at these thumbnails, I think: abundance. In spite of occasional tight financial times, overall, we have been blessed with the ability to give good gifts to our kids. Incidentally, especially from a kid’s perspective, “good gifts” come in many forms. I think I’ve written before about our friends, the Yokes. About how, when they were first married with four small children, things were stretched so thinly that for their first Christmas in a new home, all they could manage to buy was balloons. They bought as many as they could and spent Christmas Eve blowing them all up. On Christmas morning, the kids woke up to a houseful of balloons that they played with all day. Even as adults, the four kids looked back on this Christmas as their favorite.

This set of pictures was taken at Dull’s Tree Farm. Tradition is such important part of celebrating special events. We have been going to this tree farm since before we had kids. It is a truly beautiful place that just seems to get better each year.

In Indiana, snow in December is not a given, but we sure do love it! About a week before Christmas, we got about 5 inches in a 24-hour period and the younger kids made the most of it!

It’s amazing to me to think that all of this (and more) happened in one month! And of course, it wasn’t all snowflakes and Hershey’s Kisses all month. Mixed in with this was loss and grief, illness (colds that hit days before Christmas and left me with laryngitis on Christmas day), schoolwork, housework, deadlines and longer-than-normal to-do lists. And yet, “unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given” and in Him we “live and move and have our being.” Joy to the world! Merry Christmas!

 

Christmas 2013 online album (all 237 photos!)

Independence Day, 2013

Independence Day dawned overcast and cool this year. And I was happy. For some reason, my outside pictures often turn out better on cloudy days. So, this year, there are lots and lots of pictures!

Heading Out

Everybody was so excited to go down to Grandma and Grandpa’s. Here’s little Trent, who was “Born in the U.S.A.” :-D He actually wore that thing for quite a long time that day. I was surprised! He’s getting older. <<sniff, sniff>>

Grant is getting older, too, and is able to contain his excitement on big days like the Fourth.

 

Since the girls are getting older, they’re able to help plan for big days like this. Courtney really wanted to do some red, white and blue fingernail painting, so there were lots of patriot fingernails “on hand” ;-)

The nail designs got more fancy as the day went on.

The Fourth of July Carnival

At Mom and Dad’s, the kids took the carnival idea from last year and expanded on it.

There were booths for making “Independence Day books”, “Independence Day wands,” a beauty salon booth and of course a nail salon. Unfortunately, there were so many kids manning the booths, that there weren’t a lot of customers to visit the booths, so there was a lot of sitting and waiting.

and waiting …

and waiting …

and waiting.

Not everyone was bored. The nail salon stayed busy.

As did the beauty salon.

But the most popular attraction was the face painting. The wait time was quite lengthy. And with good reason; the results were pretty amazing.

 

Here’s Claire, well on her way to becoming a cute bunny.

There was also a very cute clown.

One of the most requested designs was an animal of some sort. There were several puppies, which we managed to line up at one point for a photo.  Good doggies.

Here are some close-ups of Isabella’s face paint (courtesy of Glenn), which was pretty amazing:

 

Later, caving to intense peer pressure, Claire wiped off the bunny face and decided to become a puppy, too.

Kate painted this beautiful black stallion on Sarah, which looked so much like Walter Farley’s Black Stallion.

 

Noah, in true boyish fashion, requested a snake.

Second in popularity to the animals were requests for patriotic symbols: flags and fireworks.

  

  

and even a patriotic butterfly

(I couldn’t pick just one picture of Brooke here; she’s way off the cute-meter.)

When it was Grant’s turn, he asked Kate to draw a mustache “like this” and, with his fingers, traced curly swirls on his cheeks. I’m not sure where he saw a mustache like that, but seeing the final product was the highlight of the day for me.

 

Oh, wait, I almost forgot about Magnum P.I. (a.k.a. Dad). Definitely in contention for highlight-of-the-day moment for me. The background is this: a few days earlier, the kids caught some of an episode of Magnum P.I. Several of them thought Magnum P.I. looked like Grandpa! Back in the ‘80s, when the show was popular, Dad had a mustache similar to the actor, Tom Selleck. So, Dad asked Kate to paint a mustache on him, as a nod to his separated-at-birth twin, Magnum P.I. Hilarious!

Desserts

(or “One of These Things is Not Like the Others”)

I would be remiss if I did not mention the desserts. Desserts are very near and dear to this family, and any excuse to get together is a good reason to make lots of tasty desserts. Holidays usually bring out the Very Special desserts. This year was no exception. Jennifer made some very cute, individually-wrapped homemade ice cream sandwiches. Heather outdid herself in this department, as usual, and made some adorable, and equally delicious strawberry cupcakes.

We made Texas Sheet Cake, homemade vanilla ice cream, white chocolate dipped strawberries and the traditional Flag Cookies.

Kelly made a delicious 9 x 13 Ice Cream Cake, strawberry pretzel salad, a big container of Oreo Muddy Buddies (picture courtesy of Kelly’s Pinterest board), which were devoured before the day was over, in spite of their being very rich.

And last but not least, this interesting creation:

Hee-hee-hee. Makes me giggle just to look at it. :-) The story behind this is that one of the kids was in charge of making the flag cookies (Kelly and I usually each make one batch), but the dough was too crumbly to roll out, so they improvised and, thanks to some too-runny icing, came out with this modern-art version of our American flag.  :-)  Do you see it? I’m sure Picasso would be proud.  :-)  I got a kick out of teasing Kelly about this dessert, which sat on the dessert table untouched for most of the day. Eventually, someone cut some squares out of it and I’m told it was quite tasty. No worries, Kelly, your reputation as the Martha Stewart of the Midwest remains untarnished. Your blog is testimony to that!  :-)

A Few Shots of The Littles (and of the Big People having as much fun as The Littles)

What would a summer holiday be without braided pigtails? Can’t have enough of those!

Trent, hamming it up, as usual. I seriously have no idea where he gets these moves. Look at Avery cracking up in the background!

 

And then there are the big kids, having as much fun as the littles.

After pushing several of the little guys on the swings for awhile, Chuck finally joined in on the fun … and Trent sprinted over to help push. 

Some of the teenagers thought the swings looked pretty fun, too, especially when you’re all linked up together. :-)

Seeing this picture reminds me of another Fourth of July, several years ago, when I took a picture of the same four kids. What a difference a few years makes! They’re not all in the same order (except Avery, of course), but it’s pretty easy to tell who’s who.

After he saw Kelly passing out scoops of Ice Cream Cake to the kids, Dad decided to see if he could pull one over on Kelly and get his own scoop. Amazingly, she never caught on!  ;-)

And here are our own Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, cutting a serious rug to Brooke and Sophia’s rousing rendition of “Heart and Soul” on the piano. Too fun!

 

We finished up the day with sparklers and fireworks at the Orrs’.

The interesting blues in this picture were created from a couple of the kids swinging around their blue glow sticks.

     

Thanks to Courtney for taking the pictures of the fireworks (purchased by Glenn, set off by Luke) as I was sitting inside the Orr home for much of the show with two little boys holding their hands over their ears.  :-D

Happy Fourth of July!