Winter

As usual, time is running away from me.  We had excellent Holidays.  We were loved and spoiled and enjoyed our time together.  This is our Christmas Eve dinner. Rather than spend all day cooking Christmas day, we do a big dinner on Christmas Eve and then something smaller Christmas day.  It works for us.  This year we had yummy steaks, sweet potatoes and rolls.  YUM!

This pic is from before Christmas (because I'm that on top of things).  Brooklyn had a Family History project at school.  She had to make a family tree in any form she would like.  It was a pretty great project.  Her classmates are really creative.  Brooklyn started out with a candy store idea, but then Dad suggested gingerbread men.  She loved that even more so we went with it.  Unfortunately, there are way too many of us to have all the pieces be gingerbread men.  So, the "main" people are, and the smaller ones are pieces of candy.  It worked for us.  Nothing like proving you're from a big Mormon family to the entire 4th grade! That's what happens when you're parents each have 6 siblings!

This was before Christmas, too, I believe.  We were needing sugar cookies.  They were tasty.  After frosting all these, I made Jon do the Gingerbread houses pretty much on his own.. Poor guy. 

We are very blessed to have each other, and since it's winter, he's in full-beard mode. 

We made a special cookie for Santa, and since he left us a note, we know he thoroughly enjoyed it. :).

All ready to see the loot.  No one sneaked downstairs this year.  We all made it down together.  Merry Christmas to us!!

I was in charge of Picture taking, see.  Poor Jon. 

Right after Christmas, we had some much welcomed visitors!  What a great way to keep the celebrations going!  It was a quick trip, but we enjoyed every minute of it!  Thanks for coming! Please come back soon!! :)

Today, we're on our 3rd snow day since our 2 week Christmas Break.  Needless to say, that's a lot of time off from school during the coldest part of the year. Julianne is totally not complaining.  She'd much rather have them around.  Today hasn't been so bad.  The kids are actually getting along and I was able to get some errands done.  We're prepping for a big birthday this weekend, and then next weekend I'm taking a solo vacation to see my Dad.  I'm already saying my prayers for smooth travel, though.  All the forecasts I've seen are predicting snow on my travel day in Denver and SLC.  Neither of those forecasts bode well for my prompt arrival...  We shall see.  I'll just have to hope for the best.  We are so blessed and we hope your Holidays were just as happy!