Chriatmas Eve and Christmas Day

We started Christmas Eve off to a healthy, hearty breakfast. Mom woke up at the crack of 8:30 AM to start cooking deep fried pancakes (Never tried them? We made it up that morning) in the new frier, we bought. We followed up with donuts.

Our assembly line for rolling the pancake/dounuts in powders. Tekla's side is powder sugar, Saoirse's side is brown sugar/cinnamon.

Church service was not until 8:00 PM, so we did not get home until after 9:30 PM to open presents. Someone did not make it. He did not even wake up during all of the yelling when people got excited about what someone received as a gift.

Christmas Day

Someone finally was able to open his presents.....after breakfast of course. No way you are going to get him to delay that for anything. He was very excited about every present he opened.

Now that everyone had their presents unwrapped, we followed up with our second annual Christmas at the beach. One of the key reasons for going this year was to try out Daddy's new kite that he received for Christmas.

And of course what trip to the beach would complete without sand angles.....they are so going to clean the car out when get back!

After quite time, we inflated the new ball that we received. It took "a while".

...and spent some time enjoying some play time.

Trunk or Treat

In the parking lot of church we had a Trunk-or-Treat where the kids went from car to car. The kids picked out thier outfits and we did a little face painting...just a little. Cai started out in the traditional Year-and-a-half Tigger costume, but it was too hot for here, so we settled of the "Littlest Pirate" instead. Just before we went we had to make a stop for Jael's new glasses. (Don't they look great)

Pictures from September

Few photos from September. (I'm thinking I need a smaller camera so I can keep it in the diaper bag. I keep forgetting to take it with us.)


Cai deciding to do some seat work himself.




Art





Watching a movie (guess who didn't nap at nap time)







Playing with ice cubes an cars! He LOVES his cars!





Saoirse's dinner. This week she chose hot dogs and baked sliced sweet potatoes. It was Yummy!

Sanabel

Backing up to the end of Auguest...An end of summer trip to Sanibele Island for a boat ride, shell collecting and a bit of beach play.




The boat ride includes a stop at a small island to do some "netting". Then they dropped the net in some deeper water and put the contents in a tub for everyone to see. The girls were thrilled to see several different types of fish including a small puffer that blew up for us. We even got to see a couple dolphins swimming in the wakes of the boats going by.



The next day we went to the beach to hunt for shells and play!

Deering

Saturday was a free day at Deering Estate so we went an had a look around...

Summer Adventure, The final streach...almost

The next part of the trip included meeting friends at Dinosaur National Monument to camp. The really neat visitor center was closed so the park wasn't as big of a hit with anyone in the crowd, but seeing our friends was.







Then we stopped at their house on the way back to Grandmas' and Papa's. And who can drive through Denver without stopping at Casa Bonita...





After dropping Daddy off at the airport, Mommy and the kiddos spent a couple leisurely weeks with Grandparents before heading out on the 3 day drive home (with Grandma who thankfully came along to help on the ride).

Summer Adventures Continued...again

Yes there is more to this month long adventure, and yes it has taken me more than a month to get it all posted...I had a few other things going. Sorry. :)

After morning after the wedding, we had a wonderful breakfast with the new In-laws and then we decided it was time to head on (so certain littles could get a bit of a car nap). We made it to the Tetons Art museum at Colter Bay.

Here we found some Grandparents that seemed to be following us...or something. Lucky for us, those grandparents were happy to help the girls get started on their Jr Ranger badges.




After a walk through the museum and a short film we grabbed a lunch to eat in the car and Headed the rest of the way north to Yellowstone.










We had intended to camp for the night but Daddy's back had been strained. We looked into lodging and decided an air mattress would be sufficient. We found one in West Yellowstone, then went back to set up camp before dark. The rain let up just enough we decided to go for a geyser walk before bed.



Just before heading back to camp, Mommy found her new dream family car...don't you think it would work for us?



The next 3 days we spent covering as much of the National Park as we could. We saw snow, bison, elk, moose, black bear, grizzly bear, waterfalls, rivers, the lake, hot springs, geysers, the general store Grandma worked in when she was younger, and lots of places Mommy remembers visiting years ago. It rained the first two days, then cleared up just in time for us to head south again. Daddy took lots of pictures, but we'll just share a few.