Tis the season

Mom and B were out delivering Christmas Cookies tonight and look what happened!

Since B was unbuckled in the front seat (for faster delivery purposes), she ignored all the beeps from her back-up camera and took out poor Mr. and Mrs. Collin's mailbox.

Bad driving Mom!

Merry Christmas Collins Family. Enjoy your new mailbox :)

Dear Santa

So B asked for slave labor and a Xerox machine this year.

At least we're past the live penguin phase...

Overgriff Family Christmas

What really stinks about being insanely busy is the times when you don't get to see your besties all that long. Tonight, Mom had to hurry up and set up for tomorrow's wrestling tournament, then fly on over to El Jaripeo for our annual Overgriff Family Christmas.

It was certainly less than ideal.

But no matter. We would have a great time with them anywhere!

We decided to add in a little Beanboozled test to see who had been naughty and who had been nice this year.

Coley - Nice

Uh.... I may have gotten booger flavor. Naughty!

KK was nice.

As was our Julie.

Kent was NOT nice! Dirty Diaper level naughty!

and of course our favorite stinker got caught with grass clippings.

It only took one round for most of us to accept our judgement.

What a fun night. Thank you Overtons!

Post Road English Garden - Year 7

Since Jax was along for the ride, we decided to introduce him to a longstanding Vandygriff holiday tradition - Post Road English Garden.

You know how it works. 6 little sheds decked out to the max in different holidays themes. We did the scavenger hunt, posed for pictures and picked up our treats.

Then we made something strange called a "swag." There was no way we wanted anything to do with them. We took full advantage of the opportunity to earn Mom points.

Hot chocolate with the big guy.

I mean...  Swag.

More enthusiasm for the swag.

MUCH more enthusiasm for fire and S'mores

We two BFFs would be happy doing pretty much anything together. Even making swags...

Then we sat with the same Santa I've seen every year since I was 3. The guy never ages! This year he brought along the Missus.

The highlight of the visit was when he thought B asked him for a Fake ID. He whipped his head up and asked Mom "Did he say a Fake ID?!" That was equal parts hilarious and disastrous because even once we sorted out that he actually asked for "Virtual Reality" the seed had been planted in my little bro's head.

"Hey! What's a Fake ID?!"

Thanks for making a fun day even better bud!

Jax

So Jax's parents went out of town and we got to keep him! For 2 nights and one of them was a SCHOOL night!

It's like Christmas came early!

He didn't want to go to wrestling practice, so B entertained him.

It's nearly impossible not to get along with Jax.

Thanks for stepping in bro. and Thanks for the awesome surprise Mama Hinkle and Mama Vandy!

Field Trip!

Today was Field Trip Day. We got to go to The Children's Museum!

Mrs. Custis tried to put Keeton in my group, but I said "Oh no... my mom would NOT like that!" So he got moved to Emmit's group. That left just me in my group with Mom and Tania both as chaperones :)

They took pity on Emmit's poor Dad. Emmit and I spent our time exploring like we were supposed to, so one adult stayed with us. The other two spent the ENTIRE DAY just trying not to lose Keeton.

The circus exhibit was my fave.

Look! A rare Keeton sighting!

I would make a great clown if I liked people and wasn't always grumpy.

I had NO idea how most things worked.

But when you're the lucky kid with two chaperones to himself, you get the full museum experience.

Some kids think museums are low impact, low fun activities. Not me!

Not Papa Abernathy either! He dug right in!

Who are these yahoos and where are my responsible chaperones?!

After much smack talk, one of the highlights of the trip was our EPIC snowball fight. The grownups swear they won, but we feel that claim is unsubstantiated.

There is nothing better than a day away from classes with my best buddies.

Thanks Mom and TL! What a fun day!

B Finds His Passion

B has long wanted to become a farmer. B has a one track mind. So, Mom decided to humor him by taking him to the 4H open house at the fairgrounds today. She was pretty sure he'd see how lame it all was and decide to ditch out.

Emmit met us there and together they visited booths on cows, rabbits, sewing, canning, planting, building, sheep, horses and goats. Here they are with a little chicken.

and the pony

Unfortunately, you can see by the smile on his face, that Mom's plan was a huge failure. So, they trudged on over to the sign up table where a lil old farm lady asked B "So... you're interested in signing up for 4H sweetheart?"

In typical B fashion, he avoided eye contact and gave an ever so slight nod.

Not to be deterred, the sweet little old lady asked: "What are you interested in darling?"

B: "Goats."

Sweet Little Innocent Lady: "Oh! Goats are neat! What would you like to learn about them?"

B: "Fighting. I wanna do Goat Fighting."

If we could capture the look on that sweet little old farm lady's horrified face, I don't know that we could put it here as this is a family blog. Let's just say she was shocked!

But who are we to deny the kid his passion? Mom soon found a clever t-shirt and we are all anxiously awaiting the debut of Goat Fighting at the Indiana State Fair this summer :)