Festive Fun

I have a few random pictures I have been meaning to post. I realize it has been quite a while since I have posted pictures - just takes too long. :)

Here are Eden and Aunt Joyce taking a nap on Thanksgiving. I snapped one picture and the flash jolted Eden awake. This is the second picture I took and I love her one eye looking at me. Sleeping beauties........

Heidi hanging out. She is still just army crawling but is extremely efficient in getting from point A to point B. It is fun to watch but makes me a bit sad at the same time. She seems to be changing a bit too quickly for this momma.

My oldest sister and her two daughters came for a little visit. Judah and Shane made these beautiful gingerbread houses with their cousins. They were very lovely! The girls and the houses! We actually just threw away what remained yesterday because they were the gift that kept on giving. Giving pieces of icing and remnants of crumbs all day long! They thoroughly enjoyed making them and consuming them. Please don't tell them but I snuck a few pieces of candy here and there!

Shane and Caitlyn working hard on their decorating

Judah and Ashleigh's finished product.

Shane and Caitlyn's finished product.

A little sweetness in the mix here. Heidi has this little love affair with her dad that is just precious! Her face lights up when he walks in the room.

Our tree almost completely decorated!

The first little bit of snow we got last week the boys decided to go out and play. Really???? Where are the snow pants, coats and hats? At least they have boots and gloves.

One of the advent "thingy" activities was to paint ornaments for the tree. Tristan and Eden haven't painted very often so they were thrilled!! I was a little less zealous over the cleanup.

Today we had a snow day and Judah was home from school. The activity for today was to make bird feeders by covering pine cones with peanut butter and then rolling them in bird seed. Again...a little messy but lots of fun.

Last evening we had a party to go to. They were calling for snow and freezing rain but we decided to go and just keep checking outside to make sure we didn't run into trouble. I should have trusted my gut but felt a little silly since it didn't seem all that bad - just a bit of snow. As the evening wore on and the precipitation starting I had this gnawing in the pit of my stomach. Not like me at all. Driving in snow doesn't freak me out usually. But we had stopped to pick up Mark's truck on our way to the party since his salt spreader was being installed yesterday. This meant we would both be driving home.

We skipped out a little early and figured out real quickly that the roads were not going to be very fun to navigate - especially without four wheel drive. Fortunately, Heidi fell asleep all most immediately upon getting into the van so she wasn't screaming. The roads were horrible!!! We almost didn't make it home. At one point the van refused to budge up a hill, I slid to the side of the road and we switched vehicles. Mark worked for about 10 minutes and finally made it up the hill and very cautiously drove down the other side. Needless to say, our babysitter spent the night since we saw vehicles stranded along the road. And we almost had to ditch ours and just take the truck.

Moral of the story - trust your gut!! I was so annoyed with myself for not leaving when the gnawing became almost nauseating. Oh well.....