Merry Christmas!

We celebrated Christmas at my parents on the 21st.  The boys stayed overnight at their house on the 20th while Aaron and I had a ski date for his birthday.  Needless to say it was VERY difficult for them to not open the presents for another 24hrs!  Brody especially had a hard time, poor kiddo!
 

 

Star Wars (or angry bird star wars) was a big item for Brody this year:
 

Meanwhile, Jacob was really excited about Minecraft or Detroit Lions themed gifts:
 

 

 

Austin was excited about sharks!
 

The lighting in my living room is horrible for photos...
 

Brody and Austin both climbed into our bed sometime in the night (without asking about santa) and so I slept horrible, but everyone else managed to sleep great!  Brody was the first up at about 8:30, Austin 8:45 and Jacob around 9am.  That was a LONG half hour for Brody!
 

Austin and Bobber warming up by the fire!
 

Santa came!
 

 

 

Austin was SO excited about this Cheetah
 

 

 

 

 

Santa left one last present in Jacob's room under his little tree:
 

 

The boys were so excited this year, it was awesome!  We had a great morning of opening presents and putting them together.  Afternoon was a lazy day with getting food together and playing with the gifts.  Grandpa and Grandma braved the roads and joined us for a beef stroganoff dinner in the late afternoon.  It was a perfect holiday.

Santa, Festival of Trains, Gingerbread Houses, Christmas Cookies!

On Tuesday, December 17th we went to the Festival of Trains and saw Santa!  There were hardly any other people there so the boys got plenty of time to chat with santa.  Austin was super excited!
 

Brody was a little nervous!
 

He plays with his shirt when he is nervous ;)
 

Jacob played it cool:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We made our own Gingerbread houses, Jacob's is on the left and the smaller one in front is from his school.  Brody's is in the middle and Austin's is on the left.  (Aaron and I helped the little boys, Jacob did his all on his own).
 

Nom, Nom, Nom!  Christmas Cookies!  My kitchen was renamed the Den of Diabetes for the Holidays.
 

 

 

 

 

Winter Wonderland part II

Playing in the snow over break... Here is Roxy.  No stick is safe around her.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our snowy house on Christmas day:
 

Winter Wonderland

A negative to having a metal roof - the snow falls off in huge sheets.  When this pic was taken, we didn't even have much snow but it sure feels like a lot when you clean up a huge sheet that just fell off the roof into the driveway! 
 

 

 

You can see how it slides off in sheets in this pic below.  One avalanche even took out Brody!  He thought it was hilarious!
 

Aaron and I got a ski date in on the 20th for his birthday (he turned 41 on the 19th).  Conditions were amazing and not crowded at all!  The Grand Traverse Road Commission just reported that Traverse City (which can be very different from our area - I imagine they got a bit less total than us so far) has received 86" of snow.  Last year it was 16" by this time.  70" difference from last year - quite a change! 
 

 

Here is a pic of our picnic table taken on Christmas day.
 

Grandpa on Christmas day:
 

The pics below were taken about a week before Christmas on our first snow day of the school year:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These pics were taken over Christmas break - it's DEEP!  Super hard to walk in and major white wash when we go sledding!
 

 

Our sledding hill!
 

Austin in his santa snow beard