Monday, December 30, 2013

Lens Envy Satisfied

We had our annual Poxleitner Christmas party prior to Christmas.  Some of favorite nieces and nephews - Joe and Jen and their kiddos - were the first family members to descend upon us.


We always enjoy them and their little ones.  As you can see, sweet Natalie is quite the ball of fun!


And Ellea can never get enough of the little Henry.  He is sometime skeptical of strangers, but she worked her magic with him.



And they gave me a wonderful Christmas gift..... Sweet Joe apparently found a 50 mm camera lens in a pawn shop that was just like the one I was lusting after.  It's lucky for me that he reads my blog.  And frequents pawn shops.  And is so generous!  Thanks Joe, and family!  I LOVE my new lens.


Thursday, December 26, 2013

Christmas 2013

Now that Christmas day is past, I am not feeling so overwhelmed, so I suppose I should resume my semi-regular blog posts.  Delightfully, the kids and I have all of this week and next off from school and work, and Glenn is taking some time off also, so I'm looking forward to some time to just be together.

Christmas morning didn't arrive as early as it sometimes does.  We kept the kids up late opening a couple gifts and playing games with Hal and Nancy and their daughter, Shari on Christmas eve after our shrimp, crab and lasagna dinner (yumm-o!).  The girls are usually up before 5 am on Christmas morn (which is especially odd for Nicole who inherited my non-morning ways).  They didn't get up until almost seven which I found to be delightful.


My favorite gift for the family were these Idaho Vandals sweatshirts that my dear friend, Candi, picked up for me in Moscow when there was a big "Buy One Get One Half Off" sale back in November.  We all love our Vandal gear, so they were a big hit.  (Thanks, Candi!!)  She even got one for me as a gift!  She's the best friend a girl could ask for!


And Ellea was tickled with her owl hat that Nicole gave her.  Same one they sampled in the store!

After opening most of our gifts, we hung out with Grandma at her house since she's still recovering from the compression fracture in her back.  We opened gifts, watched a movie and played Yahtzee!  It was  a great, relaxed day.  We are so blessed.  Wishing you all Christmas peace and the love of sweet baby Jesus now and as the new year approaches.

Friday, December 20, 2013

Two Teens

We had a child get another year older yesterday.  We officially have two teenagers.  I think that means we're old!

We had a bit of a wrinkle in our well-laid plans for dinner, cake and presents with family.  Poor Grandma found some ice a couple miles from our house and hit the ditch.  Hard.  She will be fine after a few weeks of laying low, but the compression fracture in her back and all the other bruises will be sore for a while. Needless to say, that slowed down the lasagna dinner.


And dear Ellea, good sport that she is, made her own cake.  Red Velvet.  It was yummy.  And it wasn't even chocolate.  Go figure!


I had to wrap all the presents after I got back from the hospital (mom stayed the night so she could have some stronger painkillers).  It was all a bit delayed, but no less special.  We were sad Grandma couldn't join us, but we're grateful, she wasn't hurt worse.  Her guardian angels were watching over her.  There was a light pole in the ditch she barely missed.


Happy Birthday, sweet girl.  I love you bunches!



Thursday, December 19, 2013

Christmas Tree 2013

I've done a terrible job keep my blog updated lately.  Just like most people, things are crazy right now.  We just finally went out to get our tree last weekend.  The poor thing got put up, but still isn't decorated yet!

Of course, Nicole uses every excuse to ride her horse.  The rest of us rode the snowmobile and that crazy snow track four-wheeler from work that Glenn still had at home, while she rode her horsie.  It was tricky to get this big tree home on the back of a four-wheeler.  Should've made the horse drag it, but might not have had any needles left to decorate!


Every year we get the tree home and marvel at how much wider it seems at the base than we think it is when we cut it down.  Looking at this picture, it's obvious this tree is pretty wide at the base, but out in the big wide woods, it seemed fine.

You'll also notice that our dog, Zoey, is hiding under the branches.  We could hear far-off gun shots while we were waiting for Glenn to down the tree, and Zoey hates gun shots.  She starts shivering and acting like a scaredy cat!  (She also freaks out if a balloon gets popped or the smoke detector starts beeping!)  We set up the tree to take our picture and she burrowed underneath the branches.  Must've looked like a safe place to hide from the big scary world!

Monday, December 16, 2013

Owls



Okay, so I realize the quality of this iPod photo is poor, but how cute are my funny girls in this picture?!! They found some adorable owl hats while we were out Christmas shopping a couple weeks ago and had to try them on together!  Love the beautiful young women these two are becoming!

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Snow Tracks

 Glenn brought a "toy" home from work last night and he and Morgan bundled up for a ride.


Morgan thought it was super cool, despite the 20 degree weather.


The rode up on the Cottonwood Butte.  Look at that backdrop!  Morgan was so excited to come home and tell me that he got to drive a little!  Watch out world!


Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Grandma's Tree


We haven't put up our own tree yet, but we went over to Grandma's house and helped her last weekend.


This is what Glenn did....  He has always been a little bah humbug when it comes to decorating the tree.  That's okay.  We'll let him read his book.


Monday, December 9, 2013

Snowman Party

Every year, Glenn's employer has a Christmas ornament contest for all the employees children.  Today was the due date, so we were busy yesterday putting together some cute ornaments.  Thank goodness for Pinterest!  Found some great ideas there for simple ornaments with stuff we had around the house!


Ellea made the ball ornament.  She thought it looked like a disco ball.  She saw it sitting there with the two snowmen and decided they would have a party!  (Instructions here. For the ornament, not the party.)

Morgan made the twig snowman (with some help from dad!).  And Nicole made the bottlecap snowman (with some help from dad - he only had to drink one beer as he was able to find two other bottlecaps!).

They all turned out super cute.  I'm so glad IFG has this activity every year so we're forced to be crafty!

Friday, December 6, 2013

Spoons

One of the favorite family games around the Poxleitner clan is a rowdy game of "Spoons."  I had never played this game until I joined the family, and frankly, I can't take the stress of it!  I know it sounds lame, but the adrenalin gets going and it's just too much pressure for me.  


I sat in for two rounds with these crazies.  It was fun, but I was okay being done with it.


Glenn took a video of this high stakes game.  Ellea is on the top left and Nicole is on the bottom right.  (If the video won't work, try going to here.)

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Exploding Pumpkins

We had a little target shooting on turkey day.  But not just any old target shooting... exploding pumpkin target shooting.  



I was most impressed my little miss Jen.  Her pumpkin exploded after just a couple shots.  She's quite the marksman.


Other boys took turns, of course.


Boys and their toys.  At least they're good at sharing!


And I heard all about this cool product that was put in this poor, unsuspecting pumpkin.  When you shoot it, it explodes!  So exciting!  And loud!  Boys.  They like blowing things up.

Monday, December 2, 2013

Happy Thanksgiving 2013

Thanksgiving was lovely again this year.  Twenty-plus members of the Poxleitner family, plus my mom (thanks for coming, mom!) had a great day together at sister Nancy's.  Lots of turkey and other goodies, of course.  Some game playing, visiting, and other random activities.  And a little wine.


This guy found a bottle he particularly liked.


But he may have over-indulged.  It happens.  Don't judge.