Christmas Break

Christmas Break was wonderful - so nice to be all together again.  Gingerbread houses wouldn't be the same without Natali.  Sadly, I didn't get pics of everyone's houses this year. The first pic is of Kate's.  She made a model of her ballet studio complete with the bathroom. Mack made a soccer stadium with plenty of candy storage under the bleachers.  My favorite was Natali's Emerald City complete with Yellow Brick Road.

Christmas wouldn't be complete without decor and a star on the tree.

As a part of Christmas break Mack had his well child check up and had to get shots.  He had a pretty awful response.  His arm was red and swollen.  He had a fever and just laid around for a day or two and once all that passed he still didn't want to move his arm or have it touched for several days.  No fun.

But it was pretty fun when I used vinegar instead of almond to flavor the Christmas Wreaths- at least we had a good laugh and enough ingredients to make a second batch.

For one day of Light the World we made scones and mini banana bread for the Gables employees to say thanks for serving during this crazy time.  The kids made a nice poster and wrote some notes.  We even sang Christmas carols there later in the month when we went caroling.

I may have backed into the garage door...and it didn't get replaced until the end of March.  Greg was such a great sport to let me park in his garage spot for 3 months.  This picture was taken after a ton of effort from me (but mostly), Greg, Sean Walker, and Brother McKeeth.  It was quite a feat to get the door up enough to get the van out and then like this.  The nest day a garage guy came by and got it all put back together by himself in less than 30 minutes!

Christmas Eve morning Greg and I got up early and painted the toy room.  No more nasty brown.  

Somehow I don't have any pics of Christmas morning, but Lily made this awesome rainbow from her new air clay.  We went to Val's one afternoon to ice skate, but the kids had so much fun playing that we never got to the rink.  However, we did get this awesome artsy photo with Natali's phone.

We headed up to McCall for the second half of the break and found an amazing weather phenomenon.  The lake was frozen but there was no snow on top.  I had never seen that thick of ice with no snow on top -there were even people ice skating.  We had to check it out. 

 

On the ice there were such cool patterns.  This looks like a hole but it is totally frozen over.  

 

The snow crystals on the ice were so awesome.

We got to ski three times.  Once with cousins, once just us and once with Dad.  The snow and the skiing were great.  Lots of good times, skittles, and new adventures eatting lunch in the car.

 

 

 

 

Lily got this flippable squishamello stuffie for Christmas and she can usually be found wearing it like a hat.  It kept us laughing.  The condo was in the middle of a remodel, so Val and I did a lot of cleaning while there, but we still had a blast.  We love that place and I love skiing with these kiddos.