December 8th Great Grandma Donna's 90th Birthday Party

 The Armstrongs and Kendricks traveled to Western Illinois to Macomb

to visit Great Grandma Donna ahead of her 90th birthday party. The Krafts

flew in from Atlanta to join us. Little girl traveled really well again.

The motel had a pool and Mason was excited to go

swim in it with grandpa. Turned out it was pretty

cold so we only swam for about 30 minutes. Mason

was pretty self-sufficient in the water with his little

life vest and goggles.

 No trip is complete to Macomb without visiting Uncle Randy's mower

shop. Here Mason hides inside a stack of big mower tires.

 The Kraft cousins land in the mower shop, too. They loved getting on the big rider mowers,

playing with the tires, and chasing each other around the shop.

Caleb rolling a tire to Mason while Hudson "drives" a big zero-turn rig.

  Mason climbed up on a mower deck and demonstrated his ninja moves.

The boys even put on chainsaw helmets to add to the ninja look.

Uncle Randy and his cat "Mower" who runs the shop.

 The four cousins show off at great grandma's church.

 Birthday siblings - Grandma Carol and Uncle Randy celebrated their birthdays, too.



 Four generations with Madelyn, mommy, grandma, and great grandma. 

Kendrick family with great grandma.

 The whole gang that was there for the party. 

The children all got helium balloons for the birthday party.

The four boys played Mario-Cart on grandpa's Wii.

 They also played a kind of candy bingo with Uncle Andy.

Madelyn hung out with her new jungle gym. She was

pretty game for batting the hanging animals around.

Thanksgiving in Illinois 2013

 

Madelyn wore some new outfits like this purple one

on our trip to Champaign Illinois for Thanksgiving.

Aunt Judy and Uncle Bill's family at the farm.

 Grandma Carol and Grandpa Dave's family at the farm.

 Aunt Lynn and Uncle Al (their cat Moe was not available)

Aunt Donna and Uncle Mike's family on the farm.

Madelyn at two months and her cousins - Nathan, center, at 6 months with his arm around her;

and Natalie, right, at four months looking over to see what is going on.......

 We stayed overnight in a motel in Champaign and the four boys were together a lot. Here Mason shows the three from Atlanta a video on Grandma's phone.

 Here the pack has pizza with Grandma and Madelyn.

Grandpa finds it easy to get them to make faces in the mirror.

They had light sabers at the Cracker Barrel that the

ninjas played with while waiting for Thanksgiving lunch. 

Nick and Natalie actually got a turn to hold Madelyn a few times.

 Grandma Carol and Mason take a time out at the farm.

 Caleb absolutely loved little Madelyn. 

 Our "chin" boy at the Cracker Barrel with his parents.

 Aunt Colleen got a lot of baby time, too.

 Madelyn entertaining some of her fan club - Auntie Tammy and Cousin Hudson.

 Photo opportunity with Uncle Andy



Uncle Andy got "roasted" for his impending 40th

birthday next month. Here he gets a card and

black duct tape.



November 14th at Wastewater Farm, Making Snowflakes in the Woodshop, and Self-Portraits

 Grandpa took Mason and Grandma Carol to the Wastewater Farm

to ride a combine and see all the corn harvest activities. Here is a picture

Mason took from one of the combine's "buddy seats". The other

machine is unloading corn on the go into a 1000 bushel grain cart.

 A close-up of the other combine.

 Unloading on the go in Mason's combine.

 Mason with grandma and Ag Equipment Operator Ryan Bean.

 One of the two old John Deere Combines - almost 15 years old but in great condition.

 Mason helped grandpa with snowflakes this year.

 His job was to grab an unfinished snowflake from the stack,

 Put it in the sealer bath,

 and watch while grandpa fished it out and

 wiped it off for drying. After more sanding the snowflakes then get a couple coats of polyurethane.

 The boy took 146 pictures at Wastewater and another 35 of himself....

 Just the age to try out different expressions.

 Some more different than others.....

 He laughs at himself a lot.

 A good 50% of a 3-year-old's expressions involve the tongue.

Remember this is only a fraction of the ones sorted through....