Christmas in Minnesota

The power plant has not has a very good winter so far this winter.  It seems like something is always going wrong and therefore the plant has been in outage......a lot!  Don't worry it's not going to be a disaster or anything, but it is a major pain in the but for us.  Well, the plant was in outage over Christmas so the kids and I went to Utah on the 20th.  We had a great time and more about that later, but first we celebrated Christmas as a family on the 17th.  Santa Claus made a special early delivery for us while the kids were at school.

Abbie got an indoor garden.

Myles got a strider bike

Opening presents

Seeing what Santa brought for us.  

More presents...

Ashton got a bow. 

Abbie and Ashton got kindles from Santa!

There were no pictures of me, opening my presents which were a new camera and accessories for it!  I was super excited about getting it.  

After opening everything and playing for a while we went out to dinner.  Although a little unconventional, we had a great holiday.  It was probably my favorite part of Christmas.

November/December Update

My poor neglected blog.....

So much happened in the last two months, and I didn't keep up with any of it here.  So I am going to try and hit most of it.

November
Ashton had a music concert at school.  It was all patriotic music and it was really good.  He was actually looking forward to the concert.  He did a great job, everyone did.

Here we are playing around before the concert started.

Ashton getting ready to sing.

We were so far away that we didn't get many pictures but it was awesome.

Abbie lost another tooth.  Two actually.  She pulled them both out by herself.  

She got gold dollars from the tooth fairy.

The day after Thanksgiving Jake took Lexie, Ashton and Abbie to a parade downtown.  We were all going to go, but Myles ended being sick (again:/).  He had two ear infections in November and he actually threw up while we were at dinner(fun times) before we were going to go to the parade so I stayed home with him.  

We had a super cold November with no snow and a warmish December so this was one of the first times the kids got to play in the snow.  

December

The kids have always loved to build gingerbread houses or trains or whatever so I got one early this year and they had a good time putting it together.  

Myles had to be totally involved in the decorating, imagine that he is two!

Good job!

Jake had his National Guard Christmas party.  His last official one since he will be retired.  I guess he can always go to them if he wants but this was the last one.  We got to get all dressed up and have a yummy dinner at the casino.  It was a fun night, especially since we don't get to that kind of thing very often.  

We had a wonderful and very different Christmas celebration, but that will get it's own post!

Myles Birthday Party

We waited until the Sunday after his birthday to celebrate Myles' special day.  We got him a Daniel Tiger cake because that is his absolute favorite thing to watch.  

The bakery did a fantastic job and Myles absolutely loved it!  

Here he is opening his presents...

He had a great time opening them (Christmas is going to be so much fun!) 

Here he is playing with a few of the things he got.  Thanks both sets of grandma and grandpa, he loved your gifts!  

Sunday Drive

Clear back at the beginning of November we took a fun Sunday afternoon drive around the lake.   We had a great time.  We stopped at a rest area and I took a bunch of pictures.  The light was perfect even if it was a little cool.  Next year I want to take some pictures when the leaves are still on the trees.  It will be so pretty.

We had a fun time.  And I saw 5 eagles which is a lot for me and my bad eyes, usually the kids spot them and I can never see them.  This time I was the one spotting them.  Our world is an amazing place full of so much beauty.