The Family in a Nut Shell

As I was saying, cleaning out two years worth of family photos. Alynna's Nut Shell is scrapbooked and posted. Now it's on to the family photos.

You'll see we took a lot of selfies. Here we "ran into" the Mezas in San Antonio, Texas.

A sweet friend from church used to come over and teach art to the kids. She taught them how to mix colors, use palette knives, and to relish in the process of creating.

The love of Star Wars continues to grow and mature. Nathan has now watched all of the Star Wars movies. We had not allowed him to watch the third movie for a while and while he did finally end up watching it he found it very sad and there were some tears shed.

We lived in mess quite often. Here the children attempt to flower arrange.

Kaeley had a birthday party with girlfriends.

The girls grew into a more mature sense of fashion. Although, I must say, the hats were usually worn until other children were seen and then the hats always "disappeared".

We visited Yogurland... um... a lot.

Nathan is sitting with an older woman who was sitting by herself. It's not uncommon for him to be attracted to the elderly or to those sitting by themselves.

Another selfie.

I think the two were arguing over which bug was the "the best bug" in the world.

Every year we dress up for "Dress Like a Cow Day" and eat a free Chick-fil-A meal... or two. Every year I get all dressed up in the parking lot and walk in hoping I didn't get the date wrong.

Selfies!

My cousin Kristian visits twice a year perhaps and follows us all wherever we're going, whether it's to a church potluck or to the American Girl store. No, ladies, he's not single.

 

We've had our share of sickos. Here I think the flu hit us.

Monopoly was mentioned in Alynna's Nut Shell.

We were occasionally caught relaxing.

We went on many field trips.

We changed many career choices. Here Kaeley interviewed a restaurant owner, because for quite a while she wanted to own a restaurant. Since then she's considering being a voice actor, an actress, a farm owner, and now she wants to become a millionaire (big surprise) by owning Kid City.

The kids discovered the graphic novel area of the library.

The house was torn apart countless times, things were thrown away by a mother losing her mind in constant mess, the house was cleaned up, and later it was torn apart again. I have come to accept that it's a part of the cycle of life.

Alynna continues to be a total monkey. No broken bones yet.

Kaeley and Nathan both invented their own Lego games.

We saw one movie as a family. One. To get us all in the theater and maybe buy a snack or two practically requires a loan.

We all plugged away at school. Slow and steady.

Brad has become quite the efficient parent.

I was on the phone for quite a while one day, I don't remember who I was talking to, and I came out to Play Dough world. The kids had spent the entire time building very detailed Play Dough scenes.

We visited the flower fields with friends.

And after four years of waiting my parents finally moved back and made life even more enjoyable and rich.