Evening With Emily

My Saturday night a few weeks ago was spent with my sister Emily, restaurant hopping, snickering, and watching Dick Van Dyke shows. Since Mom and Dad were going to be gone to Energy's christmas party, I asked Emily if she wanted to come over and watch the movie Frozen with me. I never did get a response, but she texted mom instead and told her that she would be picking me up to eat out, then come back and watch Frozen. You can imagine how exited I was! Unfortunately I was greatly in need of a shower, and she was coming in half an hour! Now, I take about 45 minute showers.  So when it only took fifteen minutes, that was doing really well! Thankfully I was ready to go when she arrived a little early.
    We were planing to eat at Olive Garden, but after we elbowed our way through the door, the waiter told us that we would have to wait fifty minutes.  FIFTY MINUTES?? No thanks!
   Still envisioning the buttery breadsticks and salad in our minds, we went over to Applebees… and came right back out when we saw how long the lines were. We ended up at Perkins, where we were served omelets, hash browns, and as a side I had got pancakes and Emily got a large muffin. :D  after finishing our feast Emily and I waddled back outside, following our stomachs back to the car. We stopped by Walmart on the way back home and bought two rather large ice cream cups for our movie.
     When we had got back home all tucked in our squishy chairs with our ice cream in hand, I stuck our movie in just to find that it wouldn't work! :( So we decided to  watch Dick Van Dyke shows until mom and dad came home about forty five minutes later. I must say it was grand to be able to hang out with my older sister for an evening! :oD

January All Summed Up (almost! :)

The New Years Eve Dance!! 

Swing Dancing with Lydia

The Bunny Hop! 

New years church day

eating before  we swam and/or sledded! 

Esther, myself, Lydia 

warming up 

"Hang on Essie!! " 

Nathan's Big Birthday Bash 

The birthday boy inhaling his cupcake

All seven kids in the kitchen eating carrots.
(I wish I could remember what Josh and Daniel were talking about!) 

me and my very serious brothers! ;)

Geocaching with Ruth and Josiah

Josiah holding up the list of everyone who found it before us! 

adding our name to the list 

Josiah looking. 

AH HA!! 

I found it!! 

The Christmas Season

putting up the tree...

with Uncle Ben and Kolatches! 

 the christmas program

getting my ornament from Jerry 

christmas eve 

;)

Gabe and his new treasures 

christmas day  

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving… spent at my Uncle Dean's home  

Where the "kids" ate 

A handful of the cousins

Pingpong! Thanksgiving tradition 

Family Gathering

Kromminga Family Gathering November 15, 2014

The Grandkids all ready to eat! 

A happy Jack in the midst of the many shoes! 

Gabe, Landon, Caroline, Nathan, Jack

Family picture!

The original seven brothers and sisters 

Story time with Brant! :) 

Silly Nathan! 

Operation Christmas Child

About three weeks ago our church had our shoebox packing party! It was for Operation Christmas Child, an organization that puts together shoeboxes to send to needy children all over the world, ages two to fourteen. 

     We set tables up to organize the toys, hygiene items, and school supplies for each age group and both genders. 

 After each person went through the tables filling their shoebox,  they had to get through Lydia and I who inspected the boxes making sure they had the basics; like soap, toothbrush, pencils, candy, etc.  Abe and Esther then put the labels and rubber bands on the them.  It eventually got so hectic that we were literally up to our ears in boxes, tape, and labels!  Actually, no... not labels and tape, just the boxes, since we ran out of labels and tape almost immediately!  It got so chaotic that we all ended up inspecting and putting labels on, plus we had a couple other people help us out! 

All ready to inspect!

This is the place where they made their cards or letters to put in the boxes. 

When our evening was through, we ended up with 100 boxes!! Yay!!! :) That will be100 very happy kids who will receive them. 

Halloween Dance

For the first time in my life I counted down the days until it was Halloween! There was a dance that night that we could dress up for if we wanted. Yay!! I had fun caking on the makeup, and putting on big jewelry for my costume.  If you can't tell, I'm a gypsy. Lydia is a German girl ( her grandma actually made her outfit! ) and Esther is a girl from the Civil War era.

all ready to go!

   

The Waldos 

Costumes 

four friends dressed as the four seasons 
A black cat

 Hobbit girl

 Laura Ingles 

Elsa from Frozen

Super Man

A lumber jack

A vampire

Cowgirl (Emily)

Waldo and Wendy (Ruth and Josiah)

Gypsy (Your truly!)

Cilvar War girl (Esther) 

German girl (Lydia)