'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!