Merry Christmas

Snow at our house 2 days before Christmas



Christmas Day we went sledding up by the Sandia Ski area, about 40 minutes away. The temp on our car reading said 10 degrees and it was windy so it was even colder than that. Everyone had fun. Derek amazed me by going down a huge hill by himself and wanting to do it over and over again. Darci had fun walking in the snow until she fell face first in some soft powder.

This video is the drive up...


Here's some sledding before my camera battery died. I didn't get much of the big hill, but we'll go back in a few weeks and take more.













Christmas was a lot of fun this year. The kids got a lot of fun things and were happy with everything they got. And its always a good feeling when we talk to them about the true meaning of Christmas and about Jesus and they GET it and they tell the story of Jesus themselves.

I found Derek a "cheap" bakugan for $3 and he's been carrying it around with him everywhere. The necklace I'm wearing is my Christmas present from Derek that he made at school.


Paige got her princess bike. Darci just walked around the room everywhere talking to herself and having a good time.


We didn't wake them up early on Christmas day, and they all slept in until 8am. Kevin and Derek got their dinosaurs from Santa.


Darci loved getting into everyone else's presents, especially the wrapping paper.


We let them all sleep out in the TV room on Christmas Eve. None of them had naps, so they went to bed pretty easy, which was a good thing because we still had some wrapping to do.

Princess Room

This is the start of Paige's new princess room. It's not quite this dark pink in person. The ceiling is hot pink, but the walls are a light pink. I've got to go out and get some vinyl to finish up with the wall decorations, and a few wall shelves for other things that I have, but this is what she has so far.

We made marshmallow snowmen tonight.. I was planning on making these for a while and had some chocolate chips set aside for it, but Tad had thrown them away, so we made do with what I had in the pantry.

We went to the river of lights here at Abq's botanical gardens. It was insanely crowded and very cold!

Darci is just too sweet most of the time, but has learned to scream when she doesn't get her way or when you take something out of her hands.

Everyone says she looks like a cabbage patch doll... even when I'm out shopping with her I'll hear people whisper... "she looks like a cabbage patch doll"...

Darci Walking and other things

Darci walks everywhere now.. Here's some more video of her over the past few weeks.



Here are the kids sledding... Kevin did go down, but Tad didn't get a video of him...

More Christmas crafts...

Every year we make an ornament for each of us. Here are some of the ones we came up with.

We made some snowflakes

I spent $7 making my own wreath because I didn't want to pay for one already made...

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Updates

Hiking in the Petroglyph national park here in Abq....






Playing at the local airport... this nice man gave the kids a tour of his airplane. He had just flown down from Durango to pick up his grand-daughter... happened to be a retired air force general who used to work at Williams Airforce Base in Mesa and knew one of Tad's old bosses.


Making Christmas crafts...


Painting our house...


Paige being silly....


What good looking kids... One of Tad's many Sundays at Church by himself.... got them dressed, and even fixed their hair.


We saw Santa for the first time at my work's Breakfast with Santa last week. Everyone got to sit and tell him what they wanted. Darci got scared after a minute of staring at Santa.




Darci in her Christmas dress



More snow at the Temple


Playing in the snow










After my surgery... the incision is a little bigger than I thought it would be. I was at the hospital all day and when we got home at 5, I went to bed and slept until the next day. Thank you to my mom for coming to help with the kids so Tad could be at the hospital with me. All of the tests have come back negative so it looks like they got all the melanoma and that is good news. Now, I'll just have a few dermatologist appts throughout the year.