A Fort Rapids Holiday!

We went to Fort Rapids over the summer for a Girl Scout activity and had a great time! I had purchased two vouchers months & months ago for us to use, too, and we decided to use them the day after Christmas. What a blast! This was an absolutely amazing afternoon for our family. The kids knew what to expect since we had been there before, and compared to our last visit there was no crowd at all. Kyrie was tall enough to do all the slides, and Degen was tall enough to do the slides on the big climber. Though there was a little bit of worry about getting water in his face to start, soon enough he was running all over the place and splashing down slides! We relaxed in the lazy river and raced down the water slides. All around this was super-awesome fun, and we can't wait to go back again! 

Merry Christmas 2013

We had a blessed and happy Christmas! One of the things I love best about this time of year is hearing from family & friends. I love decorating the fireplace with everyone's Christmas cards & photos! Once again, it seemed like we just put out our Santa-countdown and then he was on his way! The kids wrote their letters to Santa, lit the advent candles, had two units about Christmas for homeschool, baked our treats...ate our treats, saw Santa and went to a candlelight service on Christmas Eve and Santa came as he always does. The kids were up (too early) to see what surprises Santa had brought!

We had a very American Girl Christmas! Kyrie was surprised with a Cecile doll, and Degen got the Bitty Boy he wanted (he named him Leo). He also got a camera.

Christmas Day was also a day for Legos! Both kids got Legos and spent time building. They played with their new toys & games before breakfast and getting their stockings. 

Christmas is a day of leisure for our family! We stay in our pajamas all day, and I do my best to stay out of the kitchen... unless I am grabbing a cookie! This year, we bought fruit, vegetable and meat & cheese trays for our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day meals. We added crackers, cookies and candy for good measure! This worked out great for us! We all grabbed food as we wanted in between presents and playing and relaxing together! Thank you to all our family & friends who helped make this a very Merry Christmas! Our best wishes to everyone for a blessed and happy New Year!

Coolest shoes ever!

Bentley loves Christmas!

New clothes!

New clothes for dolls, too!

Ah, yes, my daughter feeding her baby doll from the icing tube! Ha!

Christmas Couture

Before we left for church on Christmas Eve, we stopped to take a few pictures in front of the Christmas tree! 

Love this pic of my babies!

Liberty Farm Christmas Party 2013

This was our first year attending the Liberty Farm Christmas party. This is where Kyrie takes her weekly riding lessons. There was a nice dinner with lots of desserts before everyone headed down to the ring to watch the bareback "reindeer games." Kyrie participated in the kids' division that included: Simon Says, Musical Stalls and Tag. Kyrie was out of Simon Says pretty quickly, but was third from the last out for Musical Stalls, which is just like musical chairs, but on horseback. She also did well playing Tag. I wasn't sure how she would like riding bareback (and she is still catching up after being out for 2 months with a broken arm), but she LOVED it! 

A picture of Musical Stalls

This is how Degen kept busy while Kyrie was riding!

Santa Visit 2013

Our annual Santa visit! Wow...what a line before Santa even arrived! Whew! But the kids got to color and talk with their friends while the moms waited...and waited in the line. Afterward, we headed for lunch and took the kids to some of their favorite stores to dream about what Santa might bring them! We had a great day!

A Crafty, Cookie Christmas

These are just a few of our Christmas crafts and cooking that we did. The kids picked out the sleds when we went to the craft store and had fun painting. We did a big afternoon of baking, which I already blogged about and added some more goodies in the following days. The cutest of our extra creations were these snowmen and penguin Oreos. This was super easy and lots of fun for the kids! 

The kids saw the candy cane danish when I was on Pinterest and asked me to make it. It was a pretty easy recipe using crescent rolls. We were impressed with how delicious it turned out and even more so that the leftovers were still delicious after a few days in the fridge. I might try this recipe again using spiced apples in lieu of the canned cherries.