A Very Merry Christmas

                                   Merry Christmas Everyone!

Here are photos taken from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  On Christmas Eve we had appetizers for dinner and played some board games.  We also video chatted with the rest of the Schaefer's in St. Louis.  On Christmas Day, the kids actually slept until 7:00 and then it was Wii all day.  We stayed in our P.J.'s most of the day and played Wii sports, Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution.  It was a great family day! 

Lucy, Olivia and Jack in front of the stockings.  They were really excited for Christmas Day to finally be here.

Olivia playing her violin for the Schaefers in St. Louis via video chat.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas via video chat, you gotta love modern technology.  :) 

Playing SORRY

Olivia and Lucy writing their letters to Santa

Christmas morning photos

This is how Jack looked most of Christmas Day

Lucy's Kindergarten Christmas Performance - 2008

I thought I would add some more photos.  The photos of the kids were taken the night of Lucy's performance and the one of Jeff and I was taken before Jeff's company Christmas party. 

Lucy loves wearing her Christmas dress and "clapping shoes"

Here is a video clip from Lucy's school Christmas program.  Our little Lucy, who is usually so shy really surprised us at the performance.  This is just one of the songs she sang, it shows her singing talent and great animation.   :)

Hint...before playing the video, scroll down and pause the playlist so the music doesn't interfere.  Enjoy!

Christmas Tree Day!

Last Saturday we went on our annual trip to Pike National Forest to get our Christmas tree.

This was our 8th year of Christmas tree-cutting.  It has become a great tradition and is honestly my favorite day of the year, I always look forward to it.  We enjoy spending the day with friends and looking for just the right tree. This year the Ingrams, O'Briens and the Gregory's joined us.  After, we had found our trees we had some yummy muffins, donuts, hot chocolate and spiced cider. The weather was great,  so warm in fact, we had to take our coats off.   I love this family tradition and hope we can continue it for years to come. 

Family photo

Looking for the perfect Christmas tree

Olivia, Emma and Sami

Group photo of the kids

The Ingrams

The O'Brien's

The Gregory's

Spice

Thanksgiving

We went to Boulder to spend Thanksgiving with Diane, Rick, Chris and Matthew.  We had a traditional dinner with all the extras.  Jeff and Rick had fun shopping all the Black Friday ads and planning their shopping excursions.  :)  We are lucky to have Jeff's sister and her family close by, so we can spend the holidays with them. 

Ewasko family photo

Jack and Lucy using cousin Chris as a human jungle gym.

Aunt Diane and Olivia

  

Lucy always has fun with Uncle Rick, she was making "big eyes" with him and laughing.  She adores Shu Shu (Uncle) Ricky.

Chris and Jack..."cheese"

The following weekend we got about 8 inches of snow.  These photos were taken early Saturday morning when we just had a few inches.   The kids played in the snow most of the day and Jeff helped them build a fort in the front yard.  

Jack was ready to go snowboarding.

Working hard building the fort

Road Trip to Utah

We took a road trip to Utah to see our friends, the Hendershots.  It was a quick trip, we left on Friday morning the 15th and came back on Sunday the 17th. We had a great time catching up with the Hendershot family and meeting their new addition, baby Claire. We went to Provo to see the BYU campus and Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake, City. We are planning another trip to see them in the summer.  Hans and Melissa, thank you so much for having us stay in your beautiful new home and taking us sight-seeing.  We miss you guys!   

Here we are walking across the BYU campus, with 4 adults and 7 kids, we took up the whole sidewalk.  

The kids loved playing by this fountain.  They were so cute together.

Sweet baby Claire, she is adorable and such a good baby.

This is a photo of the Y on the mountain.  Hans told us the story of how the university was planning on having BYU on the mountain, but after the lengthy time and high cost of placing the Y, they decided not to add the B and U.  Now, the symbol for BYU is just Y.  

Group photo on the rooftop of the conference center, overlooking the temple and downtown.

We went to Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake, City.  The temple is absolutely breath-taking, very majestic.  We ate a yummy dinner at the restaurant on the top floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial building.   We had an amazing view of the temple and the sunset over the city.

The boys had fun playing the Wii.  All of us played Dance Dance Revolution.

Watching little Mitchell dance was hilarious, watching Jeff dance.......Priceless! :)

The kids had a great time doing art projects and hanging out watching movies together.

McKenna and Olivia

Holiday 08 Photos

Here are some updated family photos we had taken this morning at Belleview Farm.  We are hoping to use one for our holiday card.  We bribed the kids with ice cream to keep them smiling.   I think we got some good photos that captured the kids personalities.  I love our little family!