and more SLEDDING!

Sled Train!

A few casualties at the bottom of the hill!

Kaeli Sledding

Sammy Sledding

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is here and gone. It's amazing all the preparation that goes into this special day, but before you know it it's over with. It's too bad Christmas can't last any longer. It's been fun to have the hubbs home from work, the kids home from school with no activities to run to. We've just been hanging out and enjoying each other's company.

Here's a picture of the kids in their Christmas clothes last Sunday:The kids left Santa some eggnog and moose balls for a snack. I love the little letter they wrote to him:
After opening presents we had a breakfast of crepes and hot cocoa...YUM, and then we had Christmas dinner later that evening. We like to eat :-) We usually have a mini-Thanksgiving meal:
We hope you all had a Merry Christmas! We appreciate the thoughtfulness of letters and gifts this time of year, so THANK YOU! Have a Happy New Year!

Shocking!

Aaron has been in Texas the last two weeks. He wasn't able to reserve a rental car before his flight there so when he arrived they were all out of cars...except for this stinky Mustang! I feel bad that he's stuck having to drive this junker all around Fort Worth. Poor guy.

Last night the kids were decorating the Christmas tree and I was going to take some pictures when I realized the flash was broken on my camera, and all the pictures were turning out to be dark shadowy nothings. I guess it's been dropped one too many times in the short amount of time that we've owned it. After the kids went to bed I decided to see if I could fix it. Our old camera used to stop working quite a bit and a few times after taking it apart and putting it back together again it worked! I love to take things apart, and I love even more to be able to brag about fixing something, so I was excited about opening this newer camera up. I unscrewed the impossible-to-see, itty-bitty screws with an itty-bitty screw driver and exposed the inner guts of the camera. I examined the flash a little more closely and wondered if I could pop the flash out to see if a bulb had broken. As I stuck my tiny screw driver behind the flash a bright light sparked and a surge of electricity sored through my body. I screamed and threw my camera (as if it wasn't broken enough before)! I was sure that my heart had been shocked out of rhythm...perhaps even skipped a beat or two. I sat down, still trembling (and feeling kinda funny inside) and called da hubbs to let him know I had just been electrocuted. Of course he laughed, and then tried to show some sympathy for me, but I could tell he was still fighting the urge to laugh some more. After hanging up, I went back to the camera and painstakingly screwed the impossible-to-see, itty-bitty screws back into the even-more-broken-than-before camera. My sadness was for my camera which was still broken and for my singed ego. By the way, does anyone know where you can take a broken camera to be fixed?

What? No tears? No hesitation?

Saturday morning brought much excitement to the Davis home! We were going to our ward breakfast party where it had been rumored that Santa would be the guest of honor! In previous years there was always the excitement, but it quickly dwindled the minute it became our kids' turn to sit on Santa's lap. There suddenly came some hesitation, some fear of that big guy in red! And babies? Forget about it! Just the thought of sitting on a stranger's lap brought tears. And if we still tried to prop them up with Santa for a quick snap shot the tears were combined with outstretched arms for mommy. It was pure torture. In fact, there were years where we opted to skip the Santa visit so the kids could continue to have a happy, not so threatening ideal of Santa. This year I decided to go for it any way...perhaps the kids were ready. Amazingly, there were no tears and not a single hesitation! The kids knew exactly what they wanted from Santa and they couldn't wait to tell him! And Sara? Because of the excitement of her siblings she decided that Santa must not be a bad guy. So she sat there wondering who exactly was this bearded man in red. And we had the first happy experience with Santa, with many more to follow I'm sure!

Here we are...all in RED and ready for some Ward Christmas Party FUN!

Rylie told us last week that she wanted a "sweet house" for Christmas. It took us awhile to figure out what she was referring to. She wanted her very own gingerbread house (more proof that she truly is my clone). So we made graham cracker houses (simply because true gingerbread houses aren't very simple). The kids had a blast decorating their houses...and sneaking samples, too!

Ready to move in? Home SWEET home!

Our little village of yummy houses...that we can't wait to EAT!

Gotta Love Dem Piggies!

Is it possible to take too many pictures of your kids? I obviously don't think so!

Thanksgiving

I know I am late posting about Thanksgiving, but I couldn't just pop into December without mentioning it! We went up to Dawn's (Aaron's sister) who lives about 1 hour north of us. Aaron's parents, sister, and grandma were there too. The food was great! We did a little shopping and even went to the Nutcracker...it was super neat!

The Apple Pie I make every year!

What? Christmas Stocking are hung...before Thanksgiving??? Let the Christmas Season begin!