'Tis the season!

I hope each one had a lovely Christmas!  Here are some random photos from our holiday and earlier this month.

Dane's Christmas concert at school 3 weeks ago.  (Red sweater vest, front row, 5th from the right.)

The city of Alexandria is always so beautiful along its old downtown at Christmas.

Homemade garland.

More homemade garland.

Matching her baby, dress, tights and hat!

The closest we came to a white Christmas was this frost earlier in the week.

Teddy warmed up in the kitchen one evening last week.

Dane feeds the reindeer with the mix his teacher sent home.  Pretty cute!

My parents and Ben & Jen came for a couple of days.  On Christmas eve, we hitched up and went for a hayride over to visit Mike's parents.  I love how Dane is upside down!

Along the way, we stopped to play on the ice.

Dane likes to practice his rodeo skills on the sleds!

Daddy and Nora get a tow.

Just one of many gifts, Nora loves her pink and purple guitar!

Kids in their Christmas PJ's checking their stockings this morning.  Notice Nora's nightgown matches her baby's!  The kids opened their new jammies yesterday around noon and finally took them off almost 24 hours later!

It was such a beautiful day (no snow, 40+ degrees) that I went out for an afternoon run.

Dane and Daddy even played croquet in the beautiful Christmas Day weather!

Dane's art

I have decided to upload scans of some of Dane's work from time to time.  I love to watch how his drawing and writing are progressing.  The second picture is a snowmobile- I love his creative spelling.  This way I don't have to keep all the papers which are so hard to organize, but I can still keep these precious memories.

Winter is (almost) here.



Little bedhead Nora loves her hot chocolate!



Our neighbors at Andes Tower Hills have been making snow on a couple of their runs, so we hit the slopes for a few hours Saturday.

Daddy and Nora riding the lift together.

Dane is so fast that we don't get as many pictures or videos of him.  We're too busy just trying to keep up!

Nora is finally getting the hang of things a bit more.  Now I can take her down the hill on my snowboard.  She hasn't quite figured out the stopping, as you'll note at the end!

Here she found the easiest way to stop after coming down the hill with Daddy!

Now Dane studies the trail map over breakfast and tells us about the runs he's going to take next time!

Thankful

We had a very nice Thanksgiving weekend, but I took very few pictures.  My brother and his lovely new bride and their new "baby" (picture below) came for Thanksgiving Day but went home Friday to prepare for their first Thanksgiving feast at their home on Saturday with her family.  We also had Mike's parents, aunt and uncle with us for Thanksgiving dinner. 

Here are a few random recent photos along with just a few related to our actual Thanksgiving.  Regardless, I am so thankful for innumerable blessings.



Two dollies.



Dane in Uncle Benny's glasses. Reminds me of Ralphie from "The Christmas Story."

Nora and our neighbor girl wanted to be twins one day.



This is a little rocking chair I bought about 7 or 8 years ago because it matched the chair I had as a little girl and blogged about here.  I really wanted to make it match Nora's room, so I recovered it last week.  However, I was able to do it in such a way that I can easily revert back to its original covering for nostalgia's sake.



The finished product.

Nora loves it!

Dane went pheasant hunting (without any luck) with Daddy and Teddy last Saturday just as it started to snow.

Pretty frosty morning one week ago.

Just a bit of snow on the ground earlier this week.  It all melted away by the afternoon of Thanksgiving Day.

Making snow angels.

My Thanksgiving cactus that I nearly killed this summer bloomed right on schedule.

Ben and Jen brought their sweet little Tupelo to visit for Thanksgiving.  He's so lucky they adopted him after living his first few months of life as a "street kitten."

Our Thanksgiving table in the sun.  We later added drinking glasses, lots of food, and some of our favorite people!

Pretty old barn bathed in a Thanksgiving sunset.

Beautiful colors to be thankful for on Thanksgiving.

Dane dressed up 50's style to celebrate the 50th day of kindergarten.

Nora playing doctor with her baby doll.  Interesting choice for an exam table!

Another year luckier

I celebrated the 4th anniversary of my 29th birthday at the beginnng of November.  As usual, Mike spoiled me perfectly.  The last weekend of October, he surprised me by taking me and the kids to a nearby resort for the night.  The kids loved the indoor waterpark.  I enjoyed not feeling guilty about laundry/dishes and the other necessities of keeping a home. I also must admit that I loved the spa treatment I was treated to as well!

As if that wasn't enough, he also got me a beautiful new kitchen faucet.  I am very happy that I was finally able to get rid of the plain faucet and the nonfunctioning water spigot next to it.

 Ahhhhh... much better!

 The kids are now more eager to help wash dishes with the new sprayer!

My brother and his beautiful bride got me this fun T for my birthday.  Perfect!

 The rest of these pictures are unrelated to my birthday, but need to be shared!

My sweet morning kitchen helper making pancakes.

Celebrating Benji's 3rd birthday last weekend.

Nora wrote her name all by herself last week.

Evening jungle gym with Daddy.

Little mini ornamental corn ears from my garden.

Delicious pumpkin soup!

A piece of our 47 acres. Looks like a lot of mowing to me!