Sledding

This is not what is looks like around our house right now.... this is all the snow from around Christmas. It has since completely melted..... We have a little hill in our backyard that the kids play on a lot but we thought we would go somewhere with a little more thrill for the bigger kids :) We just went to the kids school. It has some nice hills for thrills without being so big the kids (more so me)  whine about climbing back up it. Caleb absolutely loved it (he has some thrill seeker genes I think) but since we headed out just before nap time he didn't last long. He took refuge in the car with a movie and a juice box while the rest kept going.

Jackson was pretty excited that there was jump - jumps draw this boy like a magnet. Lucky boy to have a Dad that thinks said jump should be even bigger. I always tease Matt about being such a big brother :) Of course being the engineer he is he also outfitted the jump with a landing pad to soften the blow. It was a lot of fun. Made me miss the terraces we had for sledding when I was growing up.

Christmas letter 2012

 

Here is our Christmas card and letter for 2012 that I mailed out. If you didn't get one.... I'm sorry! Email me your address and I will put you on the list for next year..... as long as you promise to send me one in return.
I love getting Christmas cards!
We just went to the kids school and took pics with our tripod. I had planned on something grander but was pretty proud of myself for getting something out on time :) There's always next year. The kids enjoyed it for the most part - well, they enjoyed the goofing around between attempts anyway.  When we got home I tried to take a few more with a picture frame. The older ones thought that was pretty funny - Caleb on the other hand would have nothing to do with it. We tried to get him in one by holding him there..... that pic didn't turn out very well :)

Tree Cake decorating

One year Matt found this awesome tree cake at a local grocery store (I probably blogged about this in previous years) so we have added it into our Christmas traditions. It comes in a circle with 8 trees. So we each cut a tree slice to decorate. This year (it's out third year doing this cake I think) we decided that we would just go ahead and buy the cake pan to make our own since we plan on keeping it as a tradition. So the cake in these pics is homemade :) I didn't take a pic before we cut into it - oops. It turned out really well. The kids love to decorate and eat their trees.

Christmas Day 2012

Everyone was pretty excited about their presents :) They do a gift shop at school here called "Santa's Secret Shop" that the kids can buy Christmas presents at. So I give them some money to get presents for each person in the family. It's always pretty entertaining to see what they get and to see how excited they are for that person to open it. They do a really good job getting things they think the other person will like. Matt took Caleb to the $ store to get his family presents - that didn't go over so well :) We almost didn't do it since we didn't think he would even realize he was left out of that loop - guess we should have gone with that initial hesitation. He wanted EVERYTHING for himself :)

Hailey has been asking for play make up for months so we got the girls a little for Christmas. They were very excited and so proud of themselves. This is not a battle I feel prepared for. I have NO idea how to decide an appropriate age to wear what kind of make up in public...... guess we will tackle that as it comes.....
Once they played with presents for awhile it was back outside for more snow and sledding. We have really enjoyed the snow this year. It doesn't seem like we got all that much last year but maybe it's just that this snow came over a holiday when we all had a chance to play in it.

Christmas Eve

 

Here is the tree with all the presents (those are the Santa presents in the front). Every year I think I'm doing well by not getting too many presents..... then once it's all wrapped and in place I think - Wow, I need to buy less! Maggie even said it was more presents than she needed. She wanted Santa to leave her a present to give to someone that didn't have one. Kids are pretty awesome.
I didn't make all those cookies.... some of them were friendly neighborhood drop offs. Thanks to them for helping fill out the Santa plate :) Jackson thought we should have three cups of milk for a thirsty Santa (Matt, Jackson and I) but I said Santa could get cups and share if he wanted to. Jackson has been an elf helper since he asked about Santa in 1st grade!

Christmas Eve SNOW

It started snowing on Christmas Eve. I had been telling Hailey that it was Christmas Eve and she kept telling me it wasn't. However, when the snow started she goes "Wow, it really IS christmas Eve!"  The kids were very excited since this was the first real snow this year. By the time it was done we had about six inches. They have out sledding and playing in it multiple times since. They were all trying to snowboard. Most of them could do it quite well down the little hill in our backyard..... Caleb loves to sled. He gets mad if his sled goes too slow or we start him partway down the hill instead of at the top. He even figured out a way to carry the sled himself so he could go again and again and again.

Names

Hailey is still learning how to do her name well.... One day I wrote it down for her to copy and she did an awesome mirror rendition of what I wrote :) I hear that's pretty common for this age. It's so interesting to see their brains develop as they age.