December (actually late Novermber) started off with the Girls Day out annual gingerbread house. We were very happy to have Fie come into town for Gingerbread day. Great to catch up with her.
Christie's House
Karen's ski lodge (this one had a blueprint and lots of awesome features).
Lisa's Tiawanna Row House - Lisa always tries something new and crazy.
Fie's cottage with the driveway and water feature.
Trina's Chaunaka House
Judy's traditional gingerbread house - The winner by the way for the second year in a row.
And finally my house - I had an igloo and artichetual design roof.
It was also walnut picking season. So the kids and I met Grandpa a the cabin to pick up a bucket of walnuts. Everyone is showing off their prized walnuts.
My Mom and sisters and I also had our annual day after Thanksgiving shopping adventure which actually started the night of Thanksgiving. We went strong until 3 AM then called it a success. Here is a picture of Mom and Tina in the back seat squisched behind all our purchases.
Kyrah in her Christmas dress with a Christmas "bouquet" wearing her Thanksgiving hat - a modge podge of holiday celebrating.
We also got two new additions to the family. Hector (the blond) and Persayis. Brother and sister cock-a-poos. Dennis was on a dog kick for about 6 months and we got these two as a package deal. Hind sight is always 20/20 and we now realize we should have stuck with just one. You would think having twins we would know better then to try to train 2 dogs at once, but clearly we have not learned our lesson.
The kids of course love them as puppies. Now that they are basically full grown and almost a year old it is hit or miss on liking them.
We made a trip to watch cousin Anna at her basketball game. She had a very good season in middle school girls basketball (7th grade).
December was also time for the Ste. Gen Christmas parade. Kids got lots of candy and loved watching the parade. Look at those sweet girls holding hands.
We tried to get a photo with Mr. and Ms. Clause but Broden threw a fit after standing in line for 45 minutes so only the girls got in the photo.
The day warmed up and I was able to snap a quick picture of them together which turned out to be our X-mas card photo.
Mid December we took the kids to Our Lady of the Snow light display in Illinois. They of course loved the pony and camel rides, but really were not into the light display - didn't like sitting in the van driving through it and it was raining so animals a hit - lights not so much.
St. Nick's Day! Lots of stockings with goodies inside.
Random night out to Dairy Queen for some ice cream.
Daycare X-Mas party where the kids had to paint their noses red like Roudolph.
Pre party photo in their Christmas finerary.
Kyrah had no problem sitting on Santa's lap.
Broden and Raya would only go to his bag and get the treats out but would not go any closer
All the daycare kids singing Santa a song.
Missing Broc, but hard to get everyone together at the same time all dressed up.
Christmas morning fun!!! Santa came Santa came!!
And a random picture of Grandma.
