Safe at Home Part 3

  We are pretty lucky that we have so much time at home to spend together. Not everyone thinks of it like that, but for us, it is hard not to. We have been very blessed with 3 great kids who have so much fun together and really get along pretty well. We really enjoy spending time together as a family and I have a few pictures to prove it! 

I'm so lucky to be able to do my remote teaching from home. I have a little classroom set up in our basement playroom again and it's been nice to be able to see these sweet little faces each day. This was our Polar Express day when they were holding up their tickets so I could punch them before we read our story.  I sure miss being at school, but at least I get to see them everyday. One of my little girls give me a compliment everyday. It's usually something like, "Mrs. Tucker, I like your hair," or "you so beautiful." Her mom said she had herself a big ole meltdown when she found out that we weren't going back to school until February 1st. I told the mom that I did too! 

Bryce has worked really hard on his shed and was showing his brother and sister. 

Blaine was trying on his new snowmobile gear and Bryce pulling Blaine and Ali through the barnyard. 

New Year's Eve

 We celebrated another new year's eve at the lake house. It was so nice to get away even if it was only 20 minutes away! The lake was partially frozen and there were geese everywhere! We played a lot of board games and had Alfano's deliver pizza to the house. Mamaw and papa even joined us for supper! We got up early on New Year's Day to load up before the ice storm came but we were too late. We got all loaded up but we could not get up the hill at the lake house. Our van is not the best in snow and ice. We called papa and he came to our rescue! 

This view never gets old! 

                                                     They were in "chill" mode watching Ice Age 

Getting ready to do our countdown at 9:00! I've kept the same bag of horns and hats for about 4 years now! We did throw away the 2020 glasses that we had though! 

We forgot a bag of food in the fridge so Shane and Bryce went back a few days later and it was so pretty that Shane took these pictures! 

Out and About

 We've only been to a few places in the last couple of months. The kids do such a great job wearing their masks and it's been nice to get out once awhile! 

We did some Christmas shopping at a store called Field and Stream in the Quad Cities. They had this really cool animal display and Ali just loved the bear. She had my phone again and took a few more pictures of some of the animals. 

Shane and I had a rare date night a few weeks ago and we drove to Davenport and went to a restaurant called Barrel House. Our table was right next to this sign and I told Shane to pose and this is what he did. What a goof! I just thought it was a super cool saying! "Here's to a long life and a merry one, a quick death and an easy one, a pretty girl and an honest one, a stiff drink and another one! 

We went to Elevate in Milan to celebrate Jayla's 10th birthday. The kids had so much fun and they are already planning their next trip! 

We made a trip to Bass Pro in Peoria to see if the their bowling alley was open, but it wasn't. We still had fun and even got to go out to eat at Texas Roadhouse in East Peoria. 

Christmas Cookies and Christmas Decorations

 We decorated cookies for Santa after we delivered fruit baskets around Oneida on Christmas Eve Eve.  Blaine and Ali were super into it this year! It was so cute to watch them decorate. They had specific ones that they chose for Santa. We also used every single cookie cutter we had! They used chocolate chips, marshmallows, and sprinkles to decorate each one. I only had purple and blue food coloring so we had to be creative this year!  

I wanted to share a few pictures of our house all decorated for Christmas! We finally took all of it down yesterday! Ali had my phone one night and actually took some pretty cool pictures around the house from her point of view. 

Here's a glimpse of our decorations this year. We also had a tree and a few decorations in the breezeway that I forgot to take a picture of. 

Our cute little real tree that we cut down this year. It's probably one of the smallest ones we have ever gotten, but we loved it! 

Ali always rearranged these sets and it was always so cute to see how she had them set up. 

This is our nativity tree. Every year since I was in college, Jenn and I have bought each other a nativity ornament. I just love this tradition and I love looking at this tree to remind us the real reason of the season. 

Our Christmas card display in our kitchen. I love seeing them all displayed! 

Here is our farm tree that is in our basement. We have a John Deere ornament for each year since Bryce was born. We also have other random farm ornaments that we add each year complete with the pig lights from mamaw and papa that we used on our camper when I was growing up.