Thursday, January 19, 2017

Being Active

January calls for New Year's resolutions, and most of the time that involves being more active.  I believe the Payne family has got that part down as I'm looking at all of our pics from the year so far!  Well, at least the kids have gotten that part down... ;)

A trip to Goodwill got us a new big wheel!  Steal of a deal!  Of course, I had Luke test it out in the store. 

Trying it out at home and loving it! 

 I have been trying for a year now to get Luke to ride a bike without training wheels.  He would never do it even though I knew he could.  Well, at the park the other day, he picks up Tyce's bike and just takes off!  Yay, Luke!!!

Playing at the park
Tyce 

Bruce 

The boys have been obsessed with building things for their tree house at Nana and Papa's.  One wet morning, they were out building...



For Martin Luther King, Jr. Day we went up to the field to play a little soccer.  It was lots of fun.

And more basketball games...
 Tyce and Coach Payne
Funny side note: Apparently Brock is the assistant coach.  He had no idea!  He's coached more games than the head coach has!




Beautiful Brek the Bballer 



Luke riding a bike!

Friday, January 6, 2017

The rest of the month

It was super nice one day so we went crawdad fishing up at the high school.  While we were there it began to rain!!!
Brek and Tyce riding their scooters in the rain 

Cool Luke watching TV with Bruce 

Brock brought home a few crates one day, so the boys got creative with them...
King Tyce 

King Luke 


For New Years Eve we went over to some friends' house to celebrate...
The kids all dancing and singing in the kitchen 

Technically this last part is from January 1st, but it was supposed to happen MUCH earlier!!!
Tyce and his gingerbread house 

Bruce 

Luke and his gingerbread house

Brek and her gingerbread house

Camping in December

Brock had taken Luke's fishing pole on our trip to Childress so  he was very disappointed when we came home from there without having gone fishing.  Daddy promised him that he would take him fishing when we got home.  So we heard about it every day before Christmas and every day after! :)  Brock reserved a campsite at Granger Lake and we took off on the 28th of December to go camping.  How funny, right?  It was about 75 degrees when we left.

We were out of the subdivision when we realized that we had forgotten our hot dog sticks and condiments. So we turned around and grabbed those.  We took off again and were about 4 miles down the road when Brock got the feeling that the garage door was open.  I told him that I was 85% sure it was closed.  Not good enough of a percentage so we turned around again!  Almost home when it dawned on Brock that he had forgotten the fishing poles!!!  Turns out the garage door was closed, but it's a good thing we turned back!

Third time's a charm!  Bruce was already wore out from our back and forth. 

Brek, Tyce, and Luke fishing and exploring 

 Bruce not holding still for the picture

Daddy always thinks of the fun things!  Glow sticks!

As we were unloading our stuff, we realized that we had left behind one of our sleeping bags.  We only had 4 to start with, but no big deal because it was plenty warm and Brock said he could sleep without one.  So that means it was me and Bruce in one, Brek and Tyce in one, and Luke had one for himself.

That night, we kept hearing raccoons getting into our stuff.  Brock checked it out and they had gotten our crawdads from our fishing bucket!  He laid back down and we heard them again!  Brock yelled at them, but they kept coming.  We could hear the lid of the ice chest opening and shutting (there were chairs on top of it so they couldn't quite get it open)!  So Brock went and put the ice chest in the car.  Still heard them for a while, but they finally left.

In the middle of all of the raccoon hullabaloo, Brock asked me, "Did you bring the skillet?"  "No, I thought you did!"  Ha!  We were having eggs and sausage for breakfast.  Great.  At this point the wind was blowing and it was getting cold!  Next thing I know, I wake up and Brock is in the sleeping bag with Bruce and me!  Haha!!!  LONGEST NIGHT EVER!!!  

I figured with everything we had been through that we would just pack up and leave in the morning and grab breakfast somewhere on the way home.  (BTW, it was COLD that morning!)  But Brock had this super cool idea to use our root beer cans to cook the eggs.  Yeah, my husband is a survivor!  It worked great!

 Brek helping Daddy with the sausage

 You have to look closely, but there are 4 people in this picture.  Don't let the camouflage fool you!

Breakfast cooking!

Grumpy Bruce 

Happy Bruce 

Brek with the serious pose 

Brock even did one fried egg!  He's amazing! :)

After all that, we ended up leaving after breakfast because it was too windy to fish.  It was a memorable trip, but still lots of fun!

P.S. Funny thing I forgot to mention.  We were going to eat crescent dogs for dinner, but I couldn't find the crescent rolls.  We all ate our hot dogs plain.  Then one of the kids was getting a drink from the ice chest and pulls out a can of crescent rolls!  What a ditz.  We were able to try a couple with the rolls wrapped around.  It was a trip of forgetting things I guess!

Christmas

Christmas Eve we made cookies for Santa!  They were super delicious and the kids had a blast!
Bruce 

Brek 

Tyce 

Luke 

Setting out the cookies and letters for Santa and the apples for the reindeer 

Christmas morning the kids were up at 5:30!!!  I came out and told them that they had to wait until at least 7:00.  Regardless, we were all up at 6:40 to open presents!
Tyce and Bruce trying out Bruce's new car set. 

Brek with her rubber band bracelet stuff 

Luke with his present from Santa

Even though the boys did not get what they asked in their letters from Santa, they were super happy and I didn't hear a word about their wish lists!  It was a wonderful morning! 

 Lounging around in new camp chairs!


Brock testing out his Christmas present from me (dehydrator)
Plenty of deer jerky! 

Christmas breakfast with my beautiful family! 

Luke got balloons from Tyce.  Wait a sec, I said that wrong.  Tyce got balloons from Luke :) 

All ready for church
It was really special being able to go to church on Christmas to really focus on the true meaning.  Our closing hymn was "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" where we had our organist and also a pianist playing.  It was so powerful!  It was as if the angels were singing with us.   

This picture does not do it justice, but this is my new necklace from Brock!  I love it!!! 

All of our deer meat from Brock's hunting over the Christmas break!  I think we're set! 

Santa Presents
Tyce with his scooter 

Luke with his scooter 

Brek with her Rainbow Loom and bands 

Bruce with his car set 

And my beautiful chest Brock made for me!  I am so impressed!  I love it!  He's pretty amazing.