This year for Christmas we convinced Grandma that a homemade thing was the same awesomeness as a store bought gift.  We made stepping stones for her garden.  Jess looked up the directions, Ron bought the supplies, and Strider punched in the letters.  Keen and Mox provided the footprints and gem placement and Carmen got to wash concrete off kid feet.

They turned out well…hopefully.

We will do this annually so our family can see how giant our kids’ feet are and remind them to buy us shoes.  We think next year we might have to get a bigger pie plate for Mighty Moxie Monster Feet.

Note both Keen’s dirty little foot and that she curled her toes upon impact.  No where anywhere on pinterest did they warn me of this. 

Keen unsure of what’s about to happen.  Moxie, having survived, looks on with joy in her eyes.

As a compromise for not putting the gems in the toes she put them on the feet.

 Moxie process
Making sure Gramps does it right.

Gem and letter placement is serious business. 

We got to see the Buller family during our visit to Wichita.  Holy cow those kids are cute.  We got to hang out, eat lunch, hang out, and go to the park.  It was a great day.  Peter and Ben were super patient with Moxie and Moxie loved them so much.  Keen thought they were the coolest.

We exchanged gifts.  Keen ate the paper.

Everyone helped out. Except Peter: he watched.

The one time Keen smiled in a car seat.

Ben at the park.

At least one of them is having fun.

Silly swingers.

The families!

How it really went.

We went home to Wichita for Christmas this year (other associated posts to follow) and one of our major activities was attending a WSU men’s basketball game.  Keen and Mox participated in the citywide tradition of wearing yellow and black.  They rocked it.

Also: Keen made it through less than a half but wore her protective head gear like a champ.  Moxie got to have cotton candy and lemonade and made it through the whole game (almost).

How Moxie was supposed to wear her outfit.

How she wore it most of the night (not kidding).

We got their early and got to see warm ups, stretches, and other exciting things.

Popcorn.

Shocker family! (Plus a photo bomb by River)

See? I told you.

Keen sported a face tattoo.  So did Strider and Jess.

A lot of wiggling but here’s Keen in her hear protection and Strider with his face tattoo.

We took the annual trip to the pumpkin patch/fall festival.  Moxie got to pick any pumpkin she wanted and she picked a weird bumpy goose neck one and then a white pumpkin.  Mom picked the traditional one.  Moxie’s favorite thing?  A weird ear of corn she fell in love with–she’s been prying individual kernels off for days.  

We carved pumpkins.  Well, first we picked them out (I’ll post about that later) THEN we colored on them and THEN we carved them.  It was pretty stinking fun.

No Pants.  All Business.

This is what the second kid does: crawl around the outside.

Unafraid of the knife

Despite her best efforts she can’t saw her fingers

Moxie takes this biz seriously.

During a cold, rainy day off of school our kiddos took a trip to Chucky Cheese’s!  During the trip Moxie said, “Ms. Debrah, I love you, this is the best day.” She spent a fair amount of tickets on weird little photo cards that have weird stuff on them AND a picture of her sweet little face.  Keen LOVED the rides.  I have no idea how people felt about the pizza.  Honestly, who loves CCs pizza?
Remember the WEIRD round the clock thing?  Yep that’s still there.

Pizza: the BEST way to finish fun with rides.

Chucky is her co-pilot

She drives standing.

Serious riders.

Less serious riders

Tailgating.

Still standing.

How long until she realizes she’s not actually playing the game?