Winter Wonderland

Our snow storm arrived on Wednesday night and continued until late Saturday, which worked great for us since we had nowhere we had to be until church on Sunday. I think we got hit with about 16 inches.
Mike and I shoveled on and off again all day on Christmas Eve, Mike decided we were taking a break from shoveling until after Christmas day......which ended up not being the best idea, it took Mike at least 2 hours on Saturday to clear the driveway.

This is Hannah's first year that she actually enjoyed playing in the snow.

Emily is behind a big snow pile.

Maddy helping her dad shovel, so we could all leave to go shopping!

The kids loved the Winter Wonderland that awaited them. I just wish that same Winter Wonderland didn't stick around until April.

Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas, the girls overslept and didn't wake up till 7:30, so Mike and I got a little extra sleeping time. We had a relaxing day filled with playing, napping, movies, new game on the Wii, and our Christmas dinner. The hit items were....

Mike is saving all his money for something technical?

Shantel's Sony reader!!

Ashley's two beloved purses that she thought for sure she wasn't getting.

Madisyn's digital camera.

Emily's next generation doll.

Hannah's leapster.

Mason's bumbee.

Santa was very good to us this year, as were our families. Thank you, all!

Early Christmas Visitors

Laci and Craig came out for a visit and while they were here we did lots of shopping, baking, and movies. Since they were leaving on Tuesday we had our Christmas dinner on Saturday night followed by a gift exchange, the kids also got to open up their presents from Uncle Craig and Aunt Laci. We had a wonderful visit with them and it made our first Christmas all alone a little less lonely!

Thank You, Laci and Craig!!

Twas the night before Christmas....

The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of sugarplums danced in their heads.......

Living away from all of our family we've had to come up with our own traditions.... so on Christmas Eve we always have shrimp scampi, this year I got some sparkling apple juice to go along with it. Then we make cookies for Santa, watch a Christmas movie, read Luke Chapter 2 and then read "The night before Christmas". Though its so very hard not to have Christmas in Utah....its fun to make our own traditions.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight.

Blessing

On Sunday Mike gave Mason a beautiful blessing, which had me crying the whole way through and left me feeling so thankful for this baby boy. I am so thankful to have this little man in our lives and I am so excited to see who he'll become.

Sleigh Ride

On Saturday Maddy had her Christmas dance recital it was fun to see what she has been learning so far this year, Maddy was also really excited to perform because she had a large crowd to watch her, her Aunt Laci and Uncle Craig were here from Utah, plus her cousin Sydney and Aunt Jen from Saint Cloud.

This year Madisyn is taken Hip Hop with 4 of her friends. Maddy has a lot of rhythm and it was really fun to see her dance a new dance style.

Happy Birthday Mike

We spent the day at MOA and then went to Cici's for pizza. I got a cake for Mike with one of his favorite super hero on it. We hope you had a good day!!

The spirit of giving

Every December the local Fire Department comes down the streets in our neighborhood collecting food for the Homeless Shelter, with Santa on top of the fire truck and the fire fighters in front of the truck walking. This year the girls heard the sirens and went running outside, little did they know it would take the fire fighters another 15 minutes to get to our house, with our temps in the negatives with the windchill they were just a little on the frozen side when they came in.

You gotta love Hannah's purple punch mustache.

In exchange for the food the girls got candy canes, they thought it was well worth the 15 minute wait to be able to give food and to see Santa.

Santa Who?

Over the last few days my girls have had a good reminder of The True Meaning of Christmas. On Saturday we all had a chance to go to the Anoka Stake Center where they were hosting a nativity display, with hundreds of creches on display from all over the world. It was AMAZING all of us were blown away. As we walked around you could feel the sweet spirit that was in the room.



On Monday, Madisyn prepared a sweet family home evening on The True Meaning of Christmas, she explained what each Christmas symbol represented.

It's so hard especially as a child not to get too got up in the hustle and bustle of Christmas, it was nice to reflect upon the The True Meaning of Christmas.
My children are all so different in personality, but have one very strong thing in common, their love of The Savior of the World and for that I am very thankful.

Making Do.

On Thanksgiving day and the day after, Ashtyn, Maddy, Sydney and Emily spent the days raking up the leaves in our yard. Ashtyn spearheaded the project by saying to Maddy, "lets surprise your mom by raking up all the leaves!" They had to get a little creative and make do with the tools we had in the garage because we only had one rake.They pulled out the snow shovel, a shovel and wagons, but in the end did a pretty good job. We rewarded them by taking the to "The Christmas Carol" in 3d.