Reese's 16th birthday happened to fall on a day Renée was dealing with viral pneumonia, and the same cold was hitting me hard, so it was a bit tough, but I think we managed to make it a big day!
RD and I decorated the night before, and put out his Lucky Charms for breakfast; one box for him, and another for the rest of the family.
RD picked him up early from school to get lunch at ChickFilA, and they played FIFA with Cameron when he got home. He is very excited to be slightly taller than me now. His hair adds an extra inch, but I've had to concede the height advantage to him.

  For dinner he requested chicken cordon bleu, store rolls, corn, and some fruit (which I added cause I wanted some). During dinner we went around and talked about qualities we like in Reese and some of our favorite memories of him. I totally should have written down what everyone said, but I didn't. Some of the favorites were playing or talking soccer with him, watching him play fearless soccer in Sitka against much older kids, his tenderness with babies, including others, and coaxing a sad kid off a top bunk and hugging.
He tried to let Renée open his gifts, but she wasn't really fast enough. I love his smile, and there's nothing like soccer stuff (or Renée) to bring it out. 
Reese prefers ice cream over cake, so he got his own container of mint cookies, and he let me make the strawberry ice cream by promising him there'd be no bits.
He decided to make it all the more memorable by staying up all night watching Psych episodes. RD and I watched a couple with him, but we're too old and responsible for others to do crazy stuff like that. They were going to go to NickelMania the next day to celebrate, but Reese ended up deciding to stay home to sleep. I don't think he has any regrets though.
We sure love this guy. He's funny, courageous, calm.I love his hugs, his encouragement, and how he wants to know how I am everyday, after I get his report on school.

Awhile ago Renée made a break for the stairs (somehow the gate sometimes gets left open, but the kids all say it wasn't them), and RD was near it and shut the gate as she crawled toward him, saying "sorry pal" and walking away from her. She sat up and wailed like she'd been injured (as she does now when she gets denied things), and then I grabbed her. The kids had watched it all, and started teasing RD about his action being callous. It's now an oft-quoted phrase. The kids won't let him forget it, much like watching Brave, letting kids read/watch Harry Potter movies too soon, having birthday parties before the age 8, and getting socks/underwear for christmas (granted, the latter was pretty bad).

Renée turned 10 months old, and I knew I wanted to try taking some pics of her, but was not looking forward to the experience. She is so active, I didn't have much hope. RD, against his own desires, helped me try to place and distract her. I put her in a smaller room with little to play with, but she was still all over the place, and always in motion. She is standing on her own for several seconds now, and has taken a
step a few times. I think she's going to be walking by 1! And she has strong opinions about headbands not being appropriate accessories.

This Christmas Eve we planned to go caroling with some friends at a geriatric rehabilitation center, with their piano skills, RD's ukulele skills, and all our singing effort. ;) Renée unexpectedly had a late nap, so by the time she got up, ate, and I got her dressed up, (about 20 minutes after they started performing), I got a text from RD they were done. The group of 10 performed for 4-7 residents, one of which started choking during Joy to the World, and they kept singing, wondering what to do, as one of the staff slapped him repeatedly on the back. Memorable at least!
Christmas morning the girls gave great dramatic reactions to their gifts this year, which is a lot of fun. Grace was so exuberant that I only got blurry pictures.


But they gave each other great hugs, and were grateful and kind. Grace got into the giving spirit, and bought all her siblings a gift, as well as RD and I. She was super thoughtful as well, getting us some of our favorites. She had remembered a previous conversation we had as a family when RD and I were talking about having nesquik's strawberry milk powder, and she got me a bottle of strawberry milk syrup. Her gift of a family size bag of potato chips to Cameron was his second favorite gift, right after a star wars xbox game. She did good!
This year Reese had given us few suggestions, but we scored a hit with a laser-tag game (my idea, just sayin), escaping the infamous socks and underwear legacy, for this year at least. I gave RD a few more laser sets, so everyone in the family could play.



And I got  a set of the Harry Potter series, which I can share with all the kids. We already have two sets of the series, but they are the boys' books, so we needed a family set. yep. cause we are great at sharing and caring.

We gave Aubree a breyer unicorn, and as soon as she had it unwrapped and unboxed, she said "I need to go play horses", disappearing upstairs with her horses, and now unicorn, for awhile. "Glittery Ghost" has now joined the herd.
Renée's first christmas was fun; she slept in until the other kids had opened their gifts, then actually helped open one of her boxed gifts. Her favorite part was the plastic packaging, and any tape/stickers she could find among the unwrappings. Reese was mildly put out she didn't appreciate his sweet elephant toy gift as much as he thought she would.

The rest of the day was spent cleaning up stuff, taking away stuff Renée was trying to eat off the ground, helping kids get to play with their gifts (the playmobil zoo for Aubree was kind of a pain), talking to family, and getting dinner ready, and the kids reading and napping under Grandma's fabulous quilts.
 Even with all the cleaning, the mess never really ended.

Since we had missed the traditional Thanksgiving meal, we decided to do a similar version for Christmas, and it was great.
The rest of the week we hung out, played games, watched movies, RD and some kids went sledding (Reese said he didn't go cause RD and Cameron woke them up to go by running around the upstairs yelling), drinking cocoa, eating cookies, reading, and relaxing. It was a great break.

a.k.a. snow.
The girls were pretty excited when we got a bit of snow, going out (in her t-shirt!) to make as much snow-creature as they could.
Then we got a bunch more the next day, and they went out to play as soon as they could. THey built a couple snowmen Padfoot knocked over, Aubree made snow angels, and Cameron and Grace threw snowballs and snowclods at each other. They love to swing and slide down in the snow as well.


Renée loved watching them play in the snow, and wasn't sure about the snowballs they threw at the window right in front of her.

The amazing part of the day was they played all together outside for about an hour and a half, they never argued or fought, then came in and happily had hot cocoa together! A first-good-snow miracle!

 We got red hats for caroling last year, and the kids are already wearing them often throughout the house. It's pretty fun to come across a cheerful red hat randomly worn. Usually Grace or Aubree.
Of course, they also put them on the dog and Renée, and they both quickly pull them off.

Since we were going to be on our own for Thanksgiving, I didn't really want to go to all the work and expense of a traditional thanksgiving dinner when it seems like the kids don't even like most of the food I make. I brought up the idea of making rolls and pies (our favorites anyway), and getting sushi and pizza to eat; sushi for RD and I, pizza for the kids. Everyone said yes!, and I thought everyone was excited about it.
I made rolls the day before Thanksgiving, and the kids all complained cause I had made them whole wheat, but I didn't have time to make another batch that day. We had a great day together wednesday, RD went fishing, hanging out together, going over to some friends' house for dinner, the boys all went to play laser-tag with the other young men at church, and then RD and I took the boys to see 'crimes of grindelwald' late at night.
Thanksgiving day we had the parade on, played some games, and I finished up the pies. I made a chocolate cream and lime pie, but I had accidentally grabbed a larger graham crust for the lime, and worried the filling wouldn't be enough, so I doubled it. When I went to bake it, it took forever to cook/set, and the crust ended up soaking up the filling and cooking into a weird mushy lime glob.
So rolls and one pie were out. 
Soon we went to the store to get our sushi and pizza.
All of a sudden there was a lot of complaining! Kids stomped around as we cooked the pizza and set the table. We sat down all together and went around saying things we were grateful for, said the prayer, and almost as soon as we were eating (without rolls) the kids started to say they missed the Beans, missed having a turkey, or mashed potatoes, or rolls, and that it didn't feel like thanksgiving , just another day.
I maybe exclaimed at the irony of complaining at THANKSGIVING dinner! and how we should be GRATEFUL for what we do have! Which would really inspire an attitude shift, right? ;)
The sushi was really yummy though, and the chocolate cream pie turned out great, so it ended ok.
So now I know that food = memories, and the traditional fixings are worth the effort to create a familiar, much-loved ambiance, and to invite someone over to share it with!