Christmas 2009!

I think I love Christmas more and more every year. The kids get so into it. It is truly the most wonderful time of the year. As the Slatters usually do...we "went on a whim" to SLC to celebrate Christmas. I was pouting in our nasty rental house so not in the Christmas spirit so we packed up the car, wrote our letter to Santa to tell him to bring our things to Grandma and Papa's house. We were planning on heading down to SLC after Christmas, but thought why not head down and celebrate with our cousins. We packed the car to the brim and then some. We barley fit. Actually we did not fit. The dog was on kids laps and suitcases took over our floor space. But we put in the movie Elf and drove!

Christmas morning is always such a great memory. We take the kids photos on the staircase before we run into the living room to see what Santa has left. This year we actually slept in the longest ever. I don't think that Clara got up until around 7:45. It was great. She had to go tip toe around and wake everyone up. As we laid in bed snuggling with her Christmas morning she started to ask a few questions. She started with. "Is Santa still here?" She was a little nervous that he may be lurking around upstairs. When I let her know that Santa was gone and that he had left lots of toys for her she said. "Does he have a really big bag?" I said yes, I think it is a really big bag. He goes to all the kids houses and leaves the toys. She then said "WOW, that sure is a big job!"
Dylan has been asking for a new cel phone for about a year. He feels like he has been using an old morris code machine to text his friends with. He wanted a full key board. He was so excited when he saw it Christmas morning!
Camilla asked for an ipod & a razor electric moter scooter. She did not get either of those items. Instead Santa left her a flip video camera, which we have NOT seen out of her hands since. She has made more movies, plays & captured more cousins and grandparents on video camera than I think Stephen Spielberg has.
All Isaac wanted was the transformer...something something something! Well he got it!
Zach our fashion guru wanted clothes, clothes, clothes and shoes! Looks like he scored
Clara got a beautiful Barbie dream house (that Santa did not put together because it would not be able to fit in the car) She got American girl clothes and lots of barbies....even gymnastic barbie.
When ever we are in town we spend Christmas Eve with the Slatters and Christmas Day with the Buehners. It works perfectly for us!

This year Isaac was the master of ceremonies at the Christmas Eve Program.
Camilla and her cousins played Silent night on the violin, and Isaac sang a solo "Its Christmas In The Air" Santa came and we finished the night with the kids acting out the nativity.


All the grand kids got new jammies from Santa!
We ate more the week in SLC than I felt like we had in a month. It was so fun to go from party to party! We were exhausted but had such a great time with all our family!


Christmas Day we drove up to Park City to see the Buehner's with Nana. Kristie and Ben we nice to host us! Uncle Ben could entertain the kids for days. Everyone had such a great time. We missed 2 families who were in Costa Rica this year, but several times Skyping them throughout the day did help! It was hard to see their suntanned faces and swim suits while we were FREEZING!
Clara and Camilla had a blast making baby Coco laugh while the big kids and Dads went on a big snowshoe hike at the Ranch. I loved cooking with Kristie and watching the little girls play.
Dinner was great. We played games, xbox, ping pong and watched movies. It was the perfect day!

The kids went to church with the Earl cousins. We never get to go to church with cousins, so it was a real treat.

We got an amazing new camera this year. I had so much fun taking pictures. Wow how different it is to have a nice big camera with all these great features. I tried to get a photo of Great Grandma Phylis but she did not want to get her picture taken...I snuck this one!

My Mom's extended family has had a family Christmas Party every year since I was little. It is such a great way for all the cousins to see each other!
Me and my cute cousins Kathryn and Pam!
A few more cousins Laura, Brookie, Suzanna, Allison and Sam and Liz in the back!
Kristie & I at the Creer Party
Nana and baby Coco making fish faces!

Another great thing about coming into town is "trying" to get together with my High School friends. I was able to see some of the girls. Jenni, Jenn, Macy, Leslie and Shauna (sorry Rebecca we took this after you left!)

We spent the day sledding and snowmobiling at the Ranch. It was a fun day. The dog ran himself so hard chasing everyone an jumping in the snow. It was great fun.
The kids love to feed the horses. It is fun to see the horses in the winter with their longer fuller hair.
Clara loves Mr. D

We love our families so much. Jason and I are so grateful that we come from such "good stalk". It is magical to see our kids spend this amazing time with cousins, aunts and uncles and Grandparents. It is so important to us. We moved to Boise to be closer to family and it is really paying off! MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Lighting of the Tree

Camilla's Honor Choir was the entertainment for the annual lighting of the Boise State Christmas Tree at the Capitol. We drove downtown (in record time) found a parking space, listened to the entertainment, shook the hand of the governor had cookies, cider and even came home with a pile of free books that the governors wife was handing out.

It was a completely different experience than what we have been used to in DC. It was so nice to enjoy this great experience at a local level. I think that the kids loved it!

Sun Valley-Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful time in Sun Valley for Thanksgiving! It was so much fun being together with family! Thanks Slatter's for a great weekend!

The kids had a competitive game of bowling at the famous Sun Valley Lodge!





The bowling ally was very old school. Papa and Jace were the official score keepers

This was one of our few Thanksgivings that we have not hosted. Jason and I have cooked many Thanksgiving dinners. It was great to sit back and let someone else to the cooking! I think we had 35 for dinner!




We took the kids sledding too. It was freezing, but they had a great time!

We tried to take some family photos but most of the kids were not very cooperative.





Here we are trying to get a Family picture....
again and again.......
and again.......
Grandma & Papa with all the grand kids.....
We took a sleigh ride with the little ones....they loved the horse drawn sleigh ride.




Santa came downtown. We brought the little girls to sit on Santa's lap.


Our favorite activity was going ice skating. All the kids had fun skating. I remembered all my old tricks too.







What would a fun day skating be without a Slatter dare? Zach earned himself $20.00 bucks for skating around the rink without his shirt on!

We can't wait to go to SunValley again. It is such a great place to shop and play. We had a great weekend together as a family!