Lilly is enjoying goldfish from her stocking.  Notice the bags under her eyes.

 

So tired.  Too many late nights.

 

More to come.  I am going to enjoy my Christmas.

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Eve

This has been a very busy Christmas Season for us.  So many parties to go to, football games (go Cougs!), friends, activities, food, food and more food.  Bet you can guess what my new year resolution is going to be.

It is so much fun starting our own family traditions.  Most of the traditions come from what Derek and I  did as children but we seem to always have our own little twist to them. 

This Christmas Eve we went to the Pittock Mansion to see all the Christmas decorations.  I get to dream for a few minutes about living in an old mansion.  The kids had fun looking for the reindeer in every room.  Not sure if Derek liked it as much as we did but he is a good sport.  They had live music there that Bridger loved.  They had a fun mixture of piano, guitar, harp, and singing.  We had to patiently wait while he watched.

We then had our WONDERFUL Christmas Eve dinner (and new tradition) of pizza. 

We decided that Santa Claus gets enough cookies so we feed the reindeer.  Bridger loves this.  This year he decided that each reindeer needs his own bag of food.  I tried to convince him that the reindeer know how to share but he was sure the would want their own.  (sounds a bit like out daily conversation about sharing with friends).  We spent some time last week making each reindeer their own bag.  Although I was originally against it, I have to admit that the bags he made were so sweet.  I will cherish those for many years.

We start our Christmas Eve "program" by reading about the birth of Christ.  We let the kids play with their nativity set while we read.  Bridger loves to pull out the pieces as we talk about them.  This year he had his hands full -he tried to listen and pull out the pieces but he also had to fight to keep the pieces away from Lilly.  She's fast though and he had a hard time keeping up.

Then we read the book  Twas a Night before Christmas. 

We then do a version of the Doman's Hide the Thimble game.  Basically an I Spy game but we use baby Jesus.  Derek is very serious about this game.  He has very strict rules about how it is to be played.  Luckily for him,  Bridger is old enough this year that it was an enjoyable game.

We get to open two gifts.  The traditional Christmas PJ's and a gift from the cousins. 

Bridger was introduced to GI Joe.  You can tell by his expression that he will like GI Joe.  His comment was, "Cool.  It has a gun!!!!"

Lilly was equally excited about her gift.  A book about dogs-her two favorite things.  She immediately sat down and started reading....

and reading....

and reading...

and reading.

We finished off our night with a traditional evening with the Bennion's.  The are one of the most amazing families we have ever known.  With 13 kids running around, our kids have a great time.

We've Decked the Halls and Trimmed the Tree

I'm glad I married someone who loves to travel as much as I do.  It wasn't too long ago that we went to San Diego and already we felt like we wanted to go somewhere.  So we headed to Eagle Crest Resort near Bend, Oregon.  We were there in February of this year and really liked it.  Not too far of a drive and there is a lot of kid friendly activities.

We spent the week swimming, going on hay rides, biking, playing tennis,  raquetball, pool and ping pong.  We also saw Santa

 Played video games

Climbed trees,

Chased geese

went on walks

and watched movies.

We also went to the strangest "museum" we have ever seen.  A boy immigrated from Denmark  in 1935.  He started building things out of rocks.  What started as a pastime/hobby turned into acres of bridges, castles, houses, etc.  People started driving by to look and now people actually pay money to see it.  They have a museum on the property.  It was not as grand as we had expected but amazing that he spent so much time building all these things.

Lilly spent most of her time chasing the animals.  There were cats, dogs, horses, chickens and peacocks running all over the place.  Lilly absolutely LOVES dogs.