White Christmas!!

This is what we woke up to Christmas Eve!

This is what we got to drive through Christmas Eve... not much fun. We had the Tahoe LOADED down with gifts, our clothes and Maggie. It got worse than this as we drove towards Albany. There were several cars already stranded on the side of the road.

This is Jason's worried look. He was very confident when we were leaving Abilene that we would have no problems, but as we kept going, his confidence went down. We barely made it to Albany and it took us an hour. That big hill right outside of Albany had about 6 cars stuck on it; they couldn't make it up. When we got to Albany I was not wanting to go on b/c I did NOT want to be stranded. (can you imagine Jason, me 6 months pregnant, a 3 1/2 year old, an almost 2 year old and a dog stuck in a packed Tahoe for hours or overnight?) Jason thought that the roads would get better so we kept going. They did get better around Breckenridge, but started to get worse as we drove into Graham. We made it!

After 2 1/2 hours in the car (it's supposed to be a 1 1/2 hour drive) the kids were ready to play in the snow. Gracie loved it, but Caden was not real excited about getting his hands cold and wet.

The snow was not sticking at all, but Jason was determined to make a snowman. He finally got a rake and piled the snow up to make the body. He found a little wet snow to make the head. I had bought this little snowman kit complete with hat, carrot nose, scarf, buttons, eyes, mouth and pipe. It's all made of wood except the scarf and hat.

Gracie and her present from Santa!

Caden and his present from Santa!

Here's Caden opening a gift at Mimi's. We made it to Haskell the next day in pretty good time. The roads were mostly clear by noon.

Gracie with the blanket Aunt Christy made her.

Uncle Herman taking pictures of us building a snowman. He, my grandpa Al, and cousin Isaac came up from the valley Christmas day.

Gracie loves the snow.

Caden liked it most of the time :)

Christy and Isaac "sculpting" our snowman.

Christy, Jason, Caden, Lon, Isaac, Wendy and Gracie with Frosty.

Eating Breakfast at Mimi's.

Jason, Gracie, Grandpa Al, me and Caden.

I'm glad mom thought to get this picture. I'm going to have to remember to be better about getting everyone's picture next year; I missed quite a few this time around.

Merry Christmas!!

Lights, Camera.... Cheese!

I wanted to share a few more of our Christmas card photo shoot! Mandi did a great job and the kids did a good job smiling and generally being happy! Thank you God for happy smiling kids!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Oh Gracie

I made a mistake. Yesterday, when Mandi told me that her little girl, Averi, had a "Gracie moment" when she colored the front door with her crayons, I responded: " Ya know, I feel like I'm due her doing something like that. She hasen't done something like that in a long time."

Idiot.

I had no idea what was going to happen later that day. I was getting dressed (I always take a shower while they are sleeping in the afternoon so that I don't have an audience) when Gracie comes in saying she needs to pee. She goes and then promply says "I go back to sleep now. " That tipped me off right there! That girl NEVER wants to take a nap, and I knew something was up! I followed her to her room where she was sitting on the floor playing with green play-doh. That's right, while she was supposedly asleep, she had actually climed up in her closet and got down the play-doh off the top shelf. By the time I went and saw what she was doing, she had blue and green play-doh SMEARED into the carpet in two places!!!!! I was so mad! What am I going to do with that girl?!

I called Jason and told him what happened. He said he would take care of it. So I got all the play-doh out of the carpet that I could and left the rest to him. Here is what I found.

This smear is about the size of my open hand.

This one is the size of my palm.

She used the suit cases to turn on the closet light and climb up to get the play-doh.

Caden tried to "help" me get the play-doh out of the carpet, but he mainly just wanted to play with it!

Jason did end up getting the carpet clean. I'm not sure exactly how he did it, but I know it involved a spoon, water and the vaccum. So, if this ever happens to you, give him a call. He is becoming an expert on how to get stuff out of the carpet!

The Angel Choir

Gracie's Angel Choir sang in church tonight along with all the childrens choirs. They all did such a great job and looked sooo cute doing it!

Here's Gracie walking in.

She really got into the singing!

She's standing next to her best friend Luke (on the right). He didn't want to sing very much :)

I made some short videos with my camera b/c I knew Jason was getting the whole thing with the video camera. So I didn't get a whole song, but I did get some cute moments of the Angel Choir singing! Gracie is in the front twirling around. I'm so proud of her - she did great! Hope you enjoy!

Christmas PJs and Ginger Bread Men!!

A BIG thank you to Mimi for the Christmas PJs!! The kids were soooooo excited about getting to wear them tonight! And they look SO cute in them!!

Gracie helped me make these ginger bread men. I measure the ingredients and she "dumps" them into the bowl. She also likes to stir, but that makes more messes :) . She put all the red hots on these cookies, too.

Mmmmmmm.... I love ginger bread men! Thanks to Jillian for the great recipe! I think we're going to start a new tradition of ginger bread man making!! She looks ready for Santa doesn't she?

O Christmas Tree!

We got our Christmas tree up and decorated the other night! This was Caden's first time to "help" decorate and I think he really liked it. Gracie is an old pro with this being her second year to "help". Jason started us off well with a fire and then we put some Christmas music on and got to work! I think we'll start a little earlier next year so Caden won't get grumpy :) But, overall, it was a great night!

They LOVE their daddy!!

This is a fun way to see if all the lights are working!


Daddy started the lights.

Caden was right there to help.

Time to put on some oranments!

He needed a little help :) But he tried!

Gracie found the light up antlers!

Here ya go daddy! He was really good at keeping us supplied with ornaments.

We're still smiling :)

Sherrie gave us a bunch of ornaments Jason had growing up, and the kids love them!

Sweet girl!

Funny boy!

One more.


And here is the finished tree! Can you see all the ornaments on the bottom front? That was Gracie's spot for her ornaments.


Extra lights are fun to play with!!

And the next morning, there was snow on the ground!

That makes it seem like Christmas even more!!