Merry Christmas

It's been a wonderful couple of days!  Christmas Eve Grandma and Papa H came down to our house for dinner and gift exchange.

 After that we drove around a couple neighborhoods to look at Christmas lights and checked out where Santa was.  Then off to bed.  This morning the kids woke up earlier than expected and came down to find...

 skates!  The kids love them, they have been in and out of these things about 50 times so far today!  Grandma and Papa G and Uncle Justin came down shortly after the kids started trying to skate.

 Carson knew what to do with the presents.  Papa G tried to tell Carson this present was his, Carson disagreed!

 As always Great Grandma sent money for each of the kids.  She is amazing, she sends cards for every birthday along with cards, jelly and jerky for Christmas.  Wish she lived closer!

 While big brother and sister tried out a new game Carson got to go outside and try skating!

 He did that for a while and then outsmarted me by going into the pea gravel where he could walk!

 It's going to be fun teaching them to skate, though the 3 to 2 ratio could make it difficult!

We had plans to take the kids to the snow tomorrow and try out their new snow gear.  Too bad snowfall has been SUPER bad this year so there isn't really snow to go to!  Oh well, we'll enjoy Daddy's vacation in other ways.

Thanks for the gifts everyone and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Santa!

Gotta love our town!  Santa came by on a firetruck and there were people giving kiddos candy canes!

 Here they are with Santa this year!  

Let it Snow!

Today was the second time we've had snow.  The first time there was barely any, just some on the roads.  Today we woke up and it almost covered the grass.  They cancelled school since there are some hills the buses have to take so the kids had a chance to play in it.  We all went outside and had a snowball fight and made a snowman together.  Daddy was even able to play for a while before leaving for work.  

These two are random but so cute I needed to take note.  

Carson has decided that he enjoys playing with the nativity set.  It's a cheap one that I got a while back so I didn't mind.  There are a few pieces broken now but at least he enjoyed himself!

Carson fell asleep like this watching a movie with Dillon the other day.  He's wearing big brother's socks too!

Carriage Ride

Today we went to go see Santa... unfortunately the wait was ridiculous so we'll try again next weekend getting there MUCH earlier.  We did get to go on a carriage ride though! Our carriage was pulled by a horse named Gables.  It was a fun, short little trip up the length of the parking lot and back but the kids still had a blast!

 "Horse!"

A Rough Week

This last week has been tough.  First Grandma and Grandpa G's dog (Blu) died.  Apparently he had slowly stopped eating and wanted to be alone so they were expecting it.  It hit Kayda hardest.  Dillon doesn't quite get it and Carson is only 2 so of course he doesn't understand.  He was a great dog.  He was pretty independent, he would rather be outside roaming around the yard than inside with people.  Even for the time period that he lived at our old house he mostly preferred to be outside.  He LOVED the kids though.  When they were little he would herd them around the yard, there were a few times he would accidentally knock a toddler down but he was normally super gentle with them.  The kids would go out to give him a bone and he would very tenderly take it from their hands being extra careful not to nip them in anyway.  It was sad to lose him.

Last night we got hit again.  Mingo, the family parrot died.  Grandma and Grandpa G got Mingo when I was 11.  He was supposed to live for about 70 years, the plan was that he would go on to live with Kayda when she was older.  It was a shock.  About a year ago he had to be medicated pretty heavily, it included several nights stay at the animal hospital.  He got better, we got our house, he moved in with us.  We didn't notice any real signs of him being sick.  Two days ago he was acting normal.  Then yesterday evening I went in to get him for french toast.  He was at the bottom of his cage being pretty non-responsive.  I picked him up and noticed his water bottle was empty.  He had 2/3 of a bottle on Saturday, it usually takes a long time to empty.  I was worried he was dehydrated so we grabbed a syringe and some water and I started slowly giving him water.  Daddy read that you should give them gatorade so I gently gave him to Kayda and went to grab some.  When I came back I realized something didn't seem right.  I took him from Kayda and realized he had stopped breathing.  He died snuggled in the arms of the person who loved him most.  The kids spent the next hour holding him and saying goodbye while we got everything ready to bury him.  He is resting now in our front garden, we'll plant something special by his grave in the spring.  We are glad that the last few weeks he has been getting a lot of extra attention.  Kayda was taking him out every morning, he was eating with us and taking lots of showers.  So at least his last couple weeks were happy ones for him.  He was getting better and better with the kids, even letting Carson hold him on occasion.   He will be sorely missed.  

Thanksgiving!

We followed our new tradition of having Thanksgiving just our little family this year.  It was, once again, fairly relaxing!  The kids helped with EVERYTHING.  When I say everything I mean that Kayda even helped me stuff and lace the turkey! 

 Kayda and I were trying to match our hair.... Unfortunately curl leaves my hair in a matter of minutes.  Hers still looked beautiful though!

 Making whipped cream for the fruit salad!

 Check out that turkey!  The meat was falling off the bone!  The last two years we had issues with under cooking it even though we followed the times so this year I planned for an extra hour... I ended up having to turn down the oven while we made mashed potatoes and such! LOVE THESE KIDS!

 We don't get many occasions to use the china so of course it had to come out!

After dinner we had fun with the camera and attempted some pictures.   We had varying levels of success.  

 This picture is just for me.  I went to kiss Carson on the cheek and he turned and kissed me right as the camera flashed!