My brother told me over Christmas that my blog is worthless, so I decided I had better try to get a December entry in so I don't get yelled at again. Why am I doing it on Christmas Eve, you ask? We were in Nebraska, but the bad weather prompted us to head back a day earlier, which meant spending Christmas Eve at home for the first time ever. It also meant a pretty boring day of waiting until Christmas Day (including an unorthodox spaghetti Christmas Eve dinner).

Anyway, here is a small portion of what has happened over the month of December:


Nichole found a great new book called "Elf on the Shelf." It talks about an elf that has come to make sure the kids are being good and then reports back to Santa. He then moves to a new spot each day when the kids wake up. Talk about great! It got to the point where they would do something wrong and then immediately look up to "Sam" and wonder what he was thinking with those cold, glassy eyes and mischievous smile. They are sad to see him go home for good tonight, and we are wondering if we could have a valentine, Easter, 4th of July, Halloween, and Thanksgiving elf!



We thought that the winter storm that hit us in mid-December would be the only time to hit the slopes this month, but more snow is falling right now (although it is much less than they originally said).



Nichole spent one weekend making Christmas cookies with the kids. Hopefully Santa doesn't realize that his cookies have lick marks on the frosting!



Thanks to Janet Edwards, the kids from church got to make ginger bread houses, which they both were very proud of, and even more excited to eat!



Mackenzie and Jace saw Santa more times than I could count, including this one over and Mama and Papa's house. They also saw one that said I would need a shotgun to fend off the boys from Mackenzie, but that's a whole other story.

Needless to say, our month has been busy and we are now enjoying the holiday season more than ever. Watching the kids at this age is more fun than even we imagined. I hope you all are having a great Christmas and are traveling safely to and from your destinations.

Fall/Halloween

It's been a long time since I've updated the blog, so I will put a combination of pictures on here. We have had a busy fall, much busier than it should be with neither of us coaching!


Mackenzie and Jace on Halloween as Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Mom talked him into the costume. I have a feeling this is one Jace is going to be regretting when he's a teenager!


This has become a Weller family tradition: lay out all of the candy to see how long of a track you can make. Because Halloween landed on a Saturday and we didn't have to get the kids to bed, this was BY FAR the longest trail we've had!


Although I hate raking leaves, the kids had a blast jumping in them!


They both wanted to be "buried" in the leaves. I guess raking those leaves wasn't that bad after all!

Chapman Rebuilding Update

For anyone who is interested, here is the latest update on the rebuilding process in Chapman.

Mackenzie's First Non-Training Wheels Bike Ride

Mackenzie's first bike ride without training wheels went better than expected, right up until she slammed into the side of the only car besides ours in the parking lot (not shown in this video, by the way). Good thing she had a caring brother to help her out along the way.

More Family Photos

Family Photos

Here's a few of the many family photos taken by Cory Keller from Abilene. He did a great job and was pretty cheap as well. I would highly recommend him. I was surprised that there were as many good ones as there were. It seemed like the kids weren't cooperating very well!

Ozarks Vacation

Nichole and I got a vacation away from the kids thanks to our parents, so we went with some friends down to a beach "cottage" courtesy of Mike and Connie Cook (thanks guys!). It was definitely no cottage. There were three levels, four bedrooms (each with their own bathroom), our own dock, and a view of the lake that was breath-taking. The only bad thing about it was the 82 step climb at the end of each day!

The days were spent on the boat or playing golf, and the nights were spent eating out and having fun. It was a great time right up until the long drive home, but we were happy to see the kids again (although they had been spoiled greatly and weren't necessarily glad to see us!).


The view of our house from the back looking out from the lake



The view from the top level of the house looking out onto the lake (we could have sat there all day)



You have never truly experienced the lake until you put on a life jacket upside down and "bob" in the water!



The group at the Horny Toad bar our last night on the lake. Thanks for the good times guys!

Nebraska Visit

Our annual summer trip to Nebraska was a lot of fun, especially for the kids! From swimming in uncle Todd and aunt Eudora's pool to doing the same in uncle Steve and aunt Tara's, they were pretty worn out by the end of the trip! I only lasted one day. The Weller boys and their requests for "throws" did a job on my body!

Chapman Tornado-1 Year Anniversary

Here's how our town looks one year after the tornado. A lot has been done, but there's a lot still left to do. Sorry for the poor quality on the video. Google Video no longer allows you to upload videos. I'm not really sure why that is, but I had to settle for blogspot's video upload.

Mackenzie's T-Ball Debut

As you can see, she really got into her first hit, so it looks like she's going to be a "natural." The only bad thing was the Parks and Rec guys were pretty upset about the lights.

The new summer blockbuster superhero movie:

"Naked Batman With Woman's Sandals" (sorry that you can't see his mask, but this is the only PG picture of the bunch).

Pillow Fight!

Sometimes as a parent you know what you're doing is wrong, but it's just too good to pass up. It's kind of like the time when I rode in a dryer in college. Nothing good was going to come out of it, but I was having too much fun to care.

Such was also the case with this idea.

Because all of us are high school heroes in some way, shape or form, we attended our first ever adult prom thanks to some friends who set it up. There was even a prom king and queen (which was actually won by two guys...don't ask).

Out of respect to everyone else there, we won't post their photos without written consent. However, we don't care if we look stupid.



Me putting on Nichole's "corsage." Mackenzie is taking the pictures. Isn't that ironic! I think we should show these to Mackenie on her prom night. She would be so proud!


Nichole's dress was purchased from a $20 and under prom dress store in Grand Island. My jacket was my grandpa Weller's, and the bow tie was Nichole's grandpa's. Everything else (including the white women's dress pants) was a Goodwill special.


I went with the spiked hair look. Notice the backdrop in the background. Nice touch by the hosts!

Chapman Tornado Update-Day 275

Here's the latest video on the Chapman rebuilding process after the June 11 tornado. It's about six minutes long. By the way, I do plan on putting all of these videos together on one DVD when the schools are finished.

Be Tough!

First Rule On Parenting:

Don't teach your kids any new words of wisdom unless you plan on abiding by those words yourself. Case in point: this video.

Mackenzie & Jace's Concert

Not a lot of posts recently, mainly because we've had a busy (and largely unsuccessful) basketball season after Christmas. Some makeup games from before break meant we played six games in 11 days...and lost all of them. Uggh. Our JV team didn't fair much better, but at least we got a win on Friday.

We decided to brighten our spirits by having Mackenzie and Jace put on a concert for us. It included a change of wardrobe, some crazy songs, and even Jace with pom-pons (sigh). Don't try to recognize any of the songs, because they didn't know them either.

KSU Basketball

We usually try to make it to at least one KSU basketball game, and usually the only time I have to do it is during Christmas Break. Last Tuesday we went to their game against Wagner. The game was a blowout, but thanks to some great seats we got to see the action up close, and we heard from about 10 people that Mackenzie and Jace got on TV. You might not be able to tell from these pictures, but it was a lot of fun. Since the football team is home once again for the holidays it is good to see the basketball team picking up the slack.


This is as close to the court as we're going to get! Great seats!



This was taken right after Willie had passed Mackenzie by for a T-shirt after she had been yelling for one. How could he do such a thing? :)



And this was taken after Jace had had enough basketball. Can you tell he was upset?



Karmen and Jeremy Girard and their two boys went with us to the game. Thanks for the tickets, guys!