Merry Christmas!

We celebrated a fancy Christmas dinner with my mom and Amber's family one week before Christmas.  I liked doing this so no one was stuck cooking on Christmas!

 Vic had Christmas Eve off so we built a snow man and played in the snow.

 Our skate pond was covered in snow so we dug out a small strip to slide around on.

 The kids had fun making Vic pull them around on sleds... we could hardly wait to show them what they were getting the next day!

 We went to mom's house in late afternoon to make Christmas cookies.

 We had a nice lasagna dinner with Jason & Evan.

 Then we had our friends, the Drapers come over to act out the live nativity, games, and treats.

 We almost made it through the night when Tucker ran into the door and cut his forehead all the way through.  We really didn't want to spend the rest of Christmas Eve in the emergency room so we called a nurse and had her tell us the best way to clean it and close the gap.  We put lots of butterflies, band-aids, and tape to make sure it stayed!  Poor thing was in a lot of pain.

 Here they are Christmas morning.  I made them cute little Santa pancakes.  We ate breakfast and then my mom and Jason decided to brave the roads (they had a new foot of snow!) so they came late.

 Church was cancelled because of the snow so we took our sweet time opening presents all morning.  Tommy got mostly all dinosaurs and magnets.

 Tucker got mostly all Paw Patrol.  He was pretty tickled pink.

 Whitney got a good variety of all sorts of girly stuff, but mostly Shopkins.

 We spent the afternoon on our big present... a 4 wheeler!  Then the kids played with their new toys while Vic went and plowed snow at 3 of our properties.  I think it's safe to say he's loving his new toy!

December Happenings

December flew by as we tried to smash all sorts of festive activities in!

The kids were super excited at the first sight of snow.  They didn't care that there wasn't much.  They got dressed all by themselves and next thing I know I found them out in the yard like this.  Pretty smart 3 and 5 year old!

 We got all decorated for Christmas and I woke up at 5am to find this little stole away sleeping by the fire.  Normally, I'd wake the kids and make them go back to their rooms, but this scene just warmed my heart.  A three year old overly excited for the Christmas season.

 Vic loves going to every Christmas Expo possible so we went to 2 or 3.

 We had a great view of Christmas in the night time sky. They were way nicer than I thought they were going to be.

 We didn't find a family to adopt this year so we made a big donation to Toys 4 Tots instead.

 This year to keep the kids from peeking, I didn't fill the next day's countdown bag until the night before and hung a few extras on the tree every day.

 I was in charge of Whitney's class Christmas party so we had Vic take the kids on an adventure around the school and play "conductor says" while me and some other moms scrambled to make the classroom look like the North Pole.

 They got back and got treats while they watched the polar express.

 Then we broke into stations and played Christmas themed games.

 Whitney also had a really cute Christmas play for all the parents and grandparents.  Whitney was pretty proud to have had parents, grandparents, & and uncle.

 She had a long part and she memorized it pretty quickly.  She even acted out her line. She was pretty darn cute!

 It snowed and snowed all December and January!  I really loved it the first month.  We haven't had a winter like this in 10-15 years!

 Vic's sister Cindy and her family came for a fun visit.

 The park in our neighborhood made a really fun ice skating pond this year so that was really fun to play on. 

 Making tunnels in this crazy deep snow!

 The kids loved painting at the Grape Van Gough.  They are all getting so talented!

 Friends over for crafting time. Whitney wants to craft nonstop during the holidays!

 We have a cute park in town that you can pay to drive through and see lights.

 We had told Whitney she was on the naughty list this year because she kept getting in trouble over and over and seemed to have no remorse.  She was getting really worried and luckily we ran into Santa Clause a few days before Christmas and he told her he'd bring her a present if she did the dishes so on Christmas Eve she was in a full panic about making sure she was helpful enough!

 Vic gets to look at this cute Christmas display out his window at work downtown so he wanted the kids to come down and see it.

Tommy's 7th Birthday!

Tommy turned 7!  He's our super smart boy that is struggling to grow from toddler to big kid.  He still loves toys, but he gave them all to Tucker to show how grown up he is.  I hate that he did it this early!  He still likes dinosaurs and legos so we shoved them on him anyway and he was happy to get them!

Since his birthday is right before Christmas he doesn't get a party, but a family weekend.  This year we booked a hotel here in town with a beautiful view of Christmas lights and the river.

 Here we are on the balcony of our room.  The snow was lightly falling and it was a perfect night!

 We walked around the shops near the hotel.  It was dreamy.

 Here is Tommy's room the morning of his birthday.

 Birthday muffin!

 He had to follow the streamers around the house to find all of his presents.  He thought that was pretty fun.

 One of his new lego creations.

 Birthday Boy's presents

 He got this snow hat and wore it all through dinner at Sizzler with Grandma, Grandpa, & Uncle Jason.