"Leave" us alone.

They are for hire

Rock Chalk Lawrence

What a beautiful day to be in Lawrence.  Went to go see our good friends, Danny, Melissa, and Titan Phillips.  We also enjoyed seeing some other good friends and visiting Rock Hill Church

Battle of the Books champs!!

Congratulations to team Sam, or Seth, or Eli, or Zander on a job well done!  They took home the crown today at Battle of the Books.  Three rounds to get to the top at school.  Mom should get an award too for all the books read with Sam.  Battle of the Books is competition where students answer questions from books they have read.  There were 65 books on the list.  They have to say the name of the book and the author.  They are going to be on TV next week against some other schools.  We'll let you know more later on the day and time.

Merry Christmas!!

Sam's 5th grade music program, "Elfis"

Ben is always coming up with projects.  He wanted to make a nutcracker.  I had no idea what it would look like.  At least it works.

A visit from Santa at Yorktown Estates (grandma and grandpa Shaffer)

Cousins

Happy 46th mom and 8th Ben

Trip to Pittsburg

Our good friends, the Hudson's, were in Pittsburg this weekend visiting family, so we drove over on Friday to spend some time with them.  We stopped off at Big Brutas, an excavator used in the 60's and early 70's. Here we are standing in the bucket.

Ben and Emma

The weather was beautiful, so we hit several parks

At the mining memorial

It's Starting Early

Winter is starting early with a few inches of snow already!!

A Fun Day at Pump It Up

Ben Inc

Ben Inc is at it again! Making play doh. I bought three to take to work to give children something to do while they are waiting for their parents to do some "boring" banking. He even made some laminated place mats to keep tables clean. I pitched the idea to some other co-workers and he already has 2 orders! $1.00 a piece for the play doh and .50 for the place mats. With mom and dad flipping the bill for cost of goods sold, his gross profit margin and net profit are both 100%, a feat unattainable by any business!

Some Boy Scout fun

Today was a huge Cub Scout gathering out by Kechi.  There were hundreds of scouts there.  The wind was blustery cold, and I was extremely happy that Sam and Ben's group were inside versus outside.  We went to different stations working on the engineering badge.  They did some measuring, drawing, learned about engineering, bridges, and catapults.  Here, Sam and Ben are making bridges out of spaghetti and marshmallows.  Yes, we ate some of our bridge.

Sam is for hire