January Snow

 We have the cutest kids...

Winter is not the favored season around our house, but the kids really do look forward to the snow. They don't like the cold, or not being able to play outside all day, but they love the snow. 

Zeke built this sweet snowman with our neighbors.

Nora and I went winter walking and picture taking. Look at that blue sky above the snow-capped mountains - so much better than the foggy smoggy mist of the city that I usually walk in. 

Probably their most favorite snow activity is to walk in it. Making footprints, scattering snow, crunching around, and pretending to ice skate on the sidewalk happens pretty much every time we walk out the door!

My favorite snow activity is to watch it snow. From the safety of my own house, with nowhere to go and a bowl of soup to eat. :)

Christmas Scenes

Inside the stable at the ward party.

Seeing Santa at the ward party. This Santa was someone from the ward who knew all of the kids and could call them by name. That was awesome.

This was the first year Nora wanted to sit on Santa's lap. She told me she was going to ask for a candy cane and a bell. So her Christmas wish was granted!

The advent calendar truck has become a treasured tradition in just a few short years. We love putting ornaments on our little tree each day in December.

Zeke's class did a cute Christmas program about Christmas around the world. Zeke had a speaking part and rocked it! 

Cute winter Sunday clothes.

Christmas Gifts

It was a beautiful Christmas this year. We did a lot of giving, and I'm sure that made Christmas even better. This was the first year we did gifts for primary teachers and neighbors in addition to school teachers. We had so much fun with and it will definitely be continued in the years to come. 

For the school and primary teachers, we did chocolate bell Christmas trees. It was a group effort, with everyone contributing to our brainstorming and trial runs with multiple types of Christmas candy. They turned out better than I planned and I am thrilled that they were so cute!

The kids give books to each other every year. They were so excited to pick out and wrap their surprises. One fun new thing this year is Nora can write, and she filled out her own gift tag on Zeke's present.

Of course for mom and dad the best part of Christmas morning is watching the happy smiles and hearing (Nora's) squeals of delight.

Zeke declared that this was his best Christmas ever. And it was wonderful, a day of giving and receiving and being with our family. 

Thanksgiving Food and Family

On Thanksgiving we made rolls (and got covered with flour)

took random pictures

taste tested the olives

and played dress up with cousins (Zeke was the dragon).

It was a wonderful day of family and food and gratitude.