Christmas in Colorado

We spent a few days at my Mom and Dad's house in Colorado over Christmas!

Decorating cookies

Ice skating!

Christmas Even dinner after church!

Ready to open presents!!

Playing Christmas tunes together!  They use facetime to do lessons every week, but love getting to play together.

Tom & Angelene

Getting Ready for Christmas!

We made gingerbread houses in early December!  They turned out great!! The girls were very creative and able to do most of the decorating all by themselves this year.  :)

All of the 3rd graders performed The Nutcracker.  Maya and the other girls in her class were "flower dancers".

Jacob had his Christmas program as well.  He smiled the entire time and had so much fun performing for the parents.

We opened some of our presents at home before we headed to Colorado for Christmas so we wouldn't have to haul them down there and to spread the fun out a bit!

Hudson got a new brush and loved having Gabi brush him.  :)

I got a roomba robot vacuum!  I LOVE it!  The kids are enamored with it and of course Jacob is scared of it. haha!

November & December

Here are some fun pics from November & December.  I love this time of the year with family & friends.  :)

The girls' project while the rest of us were watching the CSU vs. Wyoming football game at a friends' house.

Lots of fun hikes this fall/early winter around the ranch!

Jacob & Grammy Joyce built a snowman

Jacob and his "porcupine hair!"

We love Hudson & Rocky!

snuggle time with the kitty

The girls went to see the Nutcracker in Casper!  The loved it!

We spent some time in Ft. Collins in early December while Joe was at his company meetings.  We went to see The Tuba Christmas...they were really good!  92 tubas in all playing all Christmas music.

We also went to a Colorado Eagles hockey game while we were there.  It was a great time as well!

Joe & I went to his company's Christmas party.  They held it a the new CSU stadium.  boo.  Of course the Wyoming office had to perform some shenanigans.  This was the idea that was least likely to get us arrested!  haha

We spelled out WYO across the ram head in the center of the field.  :)

Christmas Tree Hunt

When we returned from South Dakota after Thanksgiving, we headed up to the Big Horns to find the perfect family Christmas tree.  We did lots of walking, but thankfully it was a beautiful day with little snow.  We were able to get some good pics of the kids as well.  :)

Found it!  Cut it down!!

4th graders received a free Christmas tree permit this year from the National Forest Service.  Gabi tied it on!

Thanksgiving

We stayed home on Thanksgiving Day and had dinner with the ranch family.  Here is the kids table:

Jacob is sitting at the end with the empty plate!  Both Joe & I forgot to fill his plate.  Poor third child! ;)

Some pics from the ornament exchange after dinner!

On Friday, we packed up and headed to a cabin in Deadwood.  We spent lots of time playing games and the kids did lots of swimming.

Gabi & Gio playing cribbage with Papa Dave

Jacob liked the peek through door in one of the bedrooms.

Fern was able to join us on Saturday!

Cousins!  :)

Halloween

Starting off the Monster March with some KL&A kiddos

Jacob was Pistol Pete for Halloween!

Adding more KL&A buddies and other friends as we continued on the Monster March downtown.  :)  Gabi was a Dia de los Muertos skeleton and Maya was a deer (her best friend was the deer hunter standing next to her!)

Gabi busted the pinata open!  Candy!!

Don & Phyllis with lots of their great grandkids!