Christmastime is Here

Since Christmas was almost upon us we mixed up some gingerbread dough, rolled it out and created gingerbread men. It's been a Christmas tradition since before I can remember and every year people (mostly Sarah) get more and more creative with their cookie designs.

Here's a shot of Andrew intensely rolling out his dough.

Damarise did a great job decorating her cookies. I think this heart of hers was one of my favourite cookies.

Christmas Eve came with a little bit of whiteness. Andrew ran out to enjoy it.

We celebrated Christmas as a family on Christmas Eve. Sarah got me one of my favourite Dr. Seuss books for Christmas and it came with a stuffed Dr. Seuss character. I love it!

Ian and Andrew got matching muscle shirts.

Christmas Day came and all of Dad's side of the family came to Grandma's to celebrate. Sarah and I were excited (regardless of Sarah's face).

Anna and I got to pass out all the Christmas gifts to everyone. We were just a wee bit excited about our job.

Dad, Mom and Dad's younger sister, Aunt Janiece. :)

Grandma and two of her grandsons.

Monday morning we woke to a white covered ground. It was lovely!

My Aunt Cynthia tried to teach us how to knit. One of my "dreams" has been to knit when I'm an elderly lady. And as I began to learn how to knit that dream sort of diminished. Knitting is a lot harder than it looks. But, my old RA, Stacey, visited last night and showed me a different way to knit that is a lot easier, so maybe knitting will become my new hobby... who knows.

Dad's siblings and mom.

They're such a great bunch!

Dad has three sisters and there are three girls in our family, so we got a sister(Aunts) with sisters (Nieces) picture.

The two brothers with the two brothers.

There were a ton of cameras snapping pictures. It was like standing in front of paparazzi.

All the cousins with our amazing Grandma.

On Wednesday we got to go up to the farm. It was a drizzly, foggy day, but we had a good time together as a family despite the weather.

There we have it. An update of what has been happening over Christmas break. Hopefully this will not be the last. Because there is more fun to come.

Trip out West: Colorado (Day 3)

Our last day with the Shaffer family :(.

We started off the day hearing that Uncle Don, Aunt Penny and Anna were gunna come over and visit before they headed on their way to Lake Tahoe.

Anna got to ride the horses.

What a special treat! :)

Sarah was thrilled to be able to ride a horse.

Horses are her favourite animal and as you can tell by her face, she was loving being with them!

Ian had fun too.

After Uncle Don, Aunt Penny and Anna left the rest of us went on a walk to visit the cows.

Then this group decided to trek out through the forest... yah... the brave group.

While we girls walked back up to the house.

Sister picture :)

I just thought this bird house was cute :)

We decided that we were going to go into town to look around and go to the rodeo. But before we left Raley saw that one of the neighbor's horses was stuck in the barb wire fence. Ouch! Tara and Doug went over to rescue it :)

Then we headed into town to watch the rodeo. It was the first rodeo that I have ever seen :) It was an experience :)

Sam, Ian, Raley and Sarah watching the rodeo.

After the rodeo we went around the town. What a cute town! It has all these adorable signs and what not and we just had to take pictures.

I love the snowflake on this sign!

The Gondola and ski lifts.

Damarise taking pictures with quite the audience watching her.

And boy oh boy! What a beautiful picture!!!

It's nice of them to explain why we should stay off the grass :)

Looking at the sign that shows all of the ski slopes! WOW! There are a ton!

This sign is so cute! :)

An old clock.

Steamboat Springs.

Yep! They are a ski town. I've never seen a sign like this in any other town.

Sam was taking a picture of something with my camera :)

Another one of Damarise's artistic shots.

Window shopping... er... uh... glancing.

I looove the hangers on this sign.

Yum!

Mmmm, so many sweet treats!

Jelly Belly Jellybeans. Yum yum!

Oh! This was really cool! The street lights would tell you how much time you had left to cross the street.

19 seconds left! Better hurry!

Ride 'em Cowboy!

Will he become her Prince Charming?

They share a birthday! :)

Hahaha!

Ben and me.

Listening to Mark Twain.

I love these stars!

Coffee shop signs always seem to be super cute!

What a quaint town.

We then went to eat at a Mexican restaurant.

Haha, Sam...

Basketfaced Sam.

What a great dinner and a fun night!

Thank you Shaffers for the fun weekend with you guys!! And for letting us spend three nights with you guys! We had a wonderful time!