Kerr Christmas

For the first time in the history of our marriage, we only made one trip to Chillicothe for Christmas.  Hooray! On New Year's Eve Eve we celebrated Kerr Christmas at David and Brenda's house.  Then the girls had a sleepover with their cousins at Granny's house and spent NYE with them.

Our best duck lips.

The newest great-grandchild: Walter!

Four generations of Kerrs.

They are both piano players now.

The girls Christmas craft for the grandmas and great-grandmas: ribbon Christmas trees.

New Year's Eve

We drove straight home after Kerr Christmas on Saturday and Walter was already waiting at our house.  He was driving back to Colorado after spending Christmas in Missouri.  We have been many places on New Year's Eve...but I don't ever remember staying at our own house.  It was a low-key NYE.  We spent the night playing games with Walter while the girls watched videos.  Hannah wanted to stay up until midnight, but her usual bedtime is 8:00.  So we compromised on 10:00.

Our inability to take a good selfie shows just how old we are.  Cheers to 2017!

Christmas #2

We drove back from Wichita Thursday to have a playdate with friends and sleep in our beds.  Then Friday morning we were back in Chillicothe for Christmas #2.  The girls spent Friday night at Granny and Papa's house with their cousins.  Saturday (New Year's Eve) we went to David and Brenda's house for Kerr Christmas.

Hannah giving Granny her present

Velma with her kids: John, Judy, Tom (Papa), and David

Velma with her grandkids (and spouses)

Velma and her great-grandkids: Ainslyn (9), Clara (2), Hannah (7), Olive (5), and Gwendolyn (4)

The whole Kerr gang!  Well, the ones who were at Christmas anyway. :)

Spring Break

As usual, spring break went way too fast.  We didn't really do anything special, just a lot of little fun things.  It gave us a taste of summer and doing whatever we wanted whenever we wanted.  It was very hard for a certain first grader to go back to school this week.  The real world is tough after playing all day every day.

We started with a playdate at Antioch Park with Kate and Henry.  We took a picnic lunch and it was a perfect day.  They actually played more in the pond and woods than they did on the playground equipment!

Then our neighbor had a bouncy house in her backyard for her 8th birthday.  AND it was a super hero party.  The girls were in heaven!

We made a trip to Chillicothe to see grandparents and great-grandparents and even some great aunts, cousins, and second cousins.  It was our first time back since Christmas so it was good to see everyone again.  Then we left the girls with my parents for a night and Steve and I went to Weston.  I can't remember the last time we had a little get-away.  We did a little shopping around town, ate dinner, and ended up at O'Malley's listening to a man sing limericks.  He reminded me of an older Walter.

This used to be the largest ball of twine in the world or something.  I'm not sure.  But I got a picture with it.

We stayed at Benner House.  Ah, memories.  We stayed there before for New Year's Eve 2012.  It was the last known sighting of Steve's wolf shirt.  Howwwwwwl.

What were the girls doing while we were in Weston?  Stomping in the mud.  Playing with worms.  Climbing hay bales.  They are country girls at heart.

And of course St. Pat's is always over spring break.  I made our traditional green eggs for breakfast.

I wanted to go to the parade since it was a nice day, but the girls were disappointed when they realized we weren't going to BE in the parade, just watch it.  They decided to watch it on TV because "it is like a front row seat" and then put on their own parade in the driveway.  Note: the dandelions are gold coins.

The last three days of spring break were all birthday fun for Hannah.  Post coming soon...

New Year's Eve and Magic House

We went to St. Louis for New Year's Eve.  First we went to the Holcombe's party.  They moved to St. Louis in the fall so we got to see their new house, new baby, and celebrate Joffroi's 30th birthday.  It was a fun time, but I don't have any pictures to show for it.  It was also the first year that both girls stayed up to midnight!   I wanted to get a picture of the landmark occasion, but as you can imagine girls that stay up four hours past their bedtime aren't in the mood to take pictures.  So all I have are a few pictures of us at the McGuires on January 1.  We had a lovely time playing games in our pjs all day.  This picture sums it up: Olive and Gwyneth are playing with dress up magnets.  Hannah and Colin are playing Exploding Kittens (Hannah and Steve's new favorite card game).  And Kevin is building legos.

We got to see their new kitchen!  It almost inspired me to do work on my house.  Almost.

We also went to the Magic House in St. Louis.  Steve and I both have memories of going their when we were kids.  The first time at the Magic House Olive was just a baby, so we wanted to go back now that she can remember it.

These are the serious faces of the president and vice president.

It's hard to see, but she is making a big bubble.

This is an even bigger bubble.

Somebody was more interested in their phone than playing in the sand.

Then he found something to do.  Lego cars.

Our plan was to leave when they got hungry for lunch so they would want to leave.  Excellent exit strategy, except they still didn't want to leave.  They built creations out of craft sticks, cups, and straws for a solid 30 minutes while my stomach was eating itself.  We were finally able to drag them out at 2:00!